MONDRIAAN AURA COLLEGE

BACHELOR OF SCIENCE IN PSYCHOLOGY

Subic Bay Freeport Zone, Philippines

Change Blindness

An Experimental Psychology written output submitted to the

Faculty of Psychology

Doles, Ara Mae D.

Fragata, Jaline
Mangalonzo, Jan Ric Lester A.
Nool, Ma. Cozette D.
Ombao, Patrick Gabriel C.
Sevilla, Pearl Christine M.
Stroh, Judiel Y.
Ugbinada, Hasser Dave P.
Vanta, Charles Victor M.
Villanueva, Annalyn G.
Villarde, Darlene C.
Viterbo, Aljen Ellaine T.

Mondriaan Aura College, SBFZ

In Partial Fulfilment for the Requirement

For the Subject Experimental Psychology

February, 13, 2019

“AURA Psychology: The Heartbeat of Society.”

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 MONDRIAAN AURA COLLEGE
BACHELOR OF SCIENCE IN PSYCHOLOGY
Subic Bay Freeport Zone, Philippines
Abstract
The students of Mondriaan Aura College, psychology department in experimental

psychology have conducted an experiment inside the school premises. The experiment

was first conducted by McConkie in 1970. The experiment measures the people’s ability

to detect changes and to reflect fundamental limitations of human attention. In the

change blindness experiment, the participants were simply asked to sit and watch a

short clip of a group of guys with black and white shirt. the participants was asked to

count how many ball passes the white team can make and if they saw the moonwalking

bear pass by while the two groups were passing the ball. In this extent of difficulty is

what we call the change blindness. A common explanation for the change blindness is a

phenomenon that occurs when a change in visual stimuli is introduced and the observer

does not notice it. For example, observers often fail to notice major differences when

they are too focused at something. Change blindness has become a highly researched

topic and some argued that it may have practical implications in areas such as eye

witness testimony and distractions while driving.

“AURA Psychology: The Heartbeat of Society.”

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 MONDRIAAN AURA COLLEGE
BACHELOR OF SCIENCE IN PSYCHOLOGY
Subic Bay Freeport Zone, Philippines
Acknowledgement

With boundless love and appreciation the experimenters would like to thank first

our dear Lord for the knowledge, protection and guidance all throughout the experiment.

The experimenters would also like to extend their heartfelt gratitude and

appreciation to the people who helped them bring this experiment into reality.

To their Experimental Psychology Professor, Miss Jacqueline, for guiding and

supervising the experiment. For her unending patience and understanding, the

experimenters are grateful.

To all the participants who give their time and cooperated fully, the experimenters

are thankful because if it’s not by them, they would not be able to finish the experiment.

The experimenters would also like to show their gratitude to their family and

friends who never ceased to help and support them in terms of financial, prayers and

love.

“AURA Psychology: The Heartbeat of Society.”

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 MONDRIAAN AURA COLLEGE
BACHELOR OF SCIENCE IN PSYCHOLOGY
Subic Bay Freeport Zone, Philippines

Table of Contents
Title Page………………………………………………………………………………………1
Abstract………………………………………………………………………………………...2
Acknowledgement…………………………………………………………………………….3
Table of Contents……………………………………………………………………………..4
Chapter 1: Introduction……………………………………………………………………….5
Paradigm of the Study………………………………………………………………...6
Statement of the Problem…………………………………………………………….6
Hypothesis……………………………………………………………………………...6
Significance of the Study……………………………………………………………...7
Chapter 2: Design and Methodology………………………………………………………..7
Population and Locale of the Study…………………………………………………7
Data Gathering Tool…………………………………………………………………..7
Data Gathering Procedure……………………………………………………………8
Summary of the Debriefing…………………………………………………………...9
Treatment of Data……………………………………………………………………..9
Chapter 3: Presentation, Analysis and Interpretation……………………………………...9
Chapter 4: Conclusion and Recommendation……………………………………………..10
Conclusion……………………………………………………………………………..10
Observation…………………………………………………………………………....10
Recommendation…………………………………………………………….………..11
References…………………………………………………………………………………......13
Appendices……………………………………………………………………………………..14

“AURA Psychology: The Heartbeat of Society.”

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 MONDRIAAN AURA COLLEGE
BACHELOR OF SCIENCE IN PSYCHOLOGY
Subic Bay Freeport Zone, Philippines
Introduction

This study aims to explain the phenomenon of change blindness, inability to detect

remarkable changes. Change blindness is a term used by psychologists to describe the

tendency people have to miss changes in their immediate visual environment. If

something in your field of view changed dramatically right before your eyes, you would

notice it immediately right? You may think that you see or you are aware of all the

changes that happen in your environment. The reality is that there is too much

information for your brain to fully process and be aware of every single things that

happen around you. For Levin, Mommen, Drivdahl and Simons(2000). People fail to

detect surprisingly large changes to scenes and according to rensink(2005) researchers

has shown that visual perception does not capture as much as the world as we think.

For example, a man was driving a car, he is so focused on the road that he didn’t notice

the stoplight turn red. Or a change in a movie scene or movie set that normally you

don’t notice. (such as hair style change, surrounding change, appliances change).

According to rensink(2005) change blindness is the striking failure to see large changes

that normally would be noticed easily. Over the past decade this phenomenon has

greatly contributed to our understanding of attention, perception, and even

consciousness. The extent of change blindness in visual perception suggests limits on

our capacity to encode, retain, and compare visual information from one glance to the

next: our awareness of our visual surroundings is far sparser than most people

intuitively believe.

“AURA Psychology: The Heartbeat of Society.”

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 MONDRIAAN AURA COLLEGE
BACHELOR OF SCIENCE IN PSYCHOLOGY
Subic Bay Freeport Zone, Philippines
Research on change blindness developed from investigation in other phenomena such

as eye movements and working memory. Although individuals have a very good

memory as to whether or not they have seen an image, they are generally poor at

recalling the smaller details in that image. When we are visually stimulated with a

complex picture, it is more likely that individuals retain only a gist of an image and not

the image in its entirety.

Furthermore, according to the study of Memmert (2009), a novel attentional misdirection

approach (deliberate diversion of attention away from a visually salient stimulus) to

investigate overt and covert attention mechanisms in connection with in attentional

blindness (not being able to perceive something that is plainly visible because one’s

attention has not been focused on it). This misdirection paradigm is valuable in studying

the temporal relationship between eye movements and visual awareness. Although, as

put forth in this comment, the link between attentional misdirection and in attentional

blindness needs to be developed further.

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 MONDRIAAN AURA COLLEGE
BACHELOR OF SCIENCE IN PSYCHOLOGY
Subic Bay Freeport Zone, Philippines
Paradigm of the Study

Independent Variables Dependent Variables

1. Change Blindness Video 1. Participants Responses:

Clip played in laptop
Number of passes and

Observation to the dancing

bear

Extraneous Variables
1. Quality of the Video (sounds)
2. Environment of the experiment
(ceiling fan, instructor, observer,
documenter and Clicker.

Statement of the Problem

1. Is there a significant difference in count of the ball passes between men and women?

2. What are the percentages of the participants who saw the moonwalking bear and of

those who didn't saw it?

Hypothesis

1. There is a significant difference in the percentage of the count of the ball passes

between men and women?

2. There is a significant difference in the percentage of the observation of the

dancing bear between men and women?

“AURA Psychology: The Heartbeat of Society.”

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 MONDRIAAN AURA COLLEGE
BACHELOR OF SCIENCE IN PSYCHOLOGY
Subic Bay Freeport Zone, Philippines
Significance of the Study

The study shows the experiment of the in attentional blindness (failure to notice a fully-

visible, but unexpected object because attention was engaged on another task, event

on object). The experiment creates a better understanding towards a person’s

perception. We see that the more we focus on a certain object, the more we use our

perceptual capacity by providing focus on our task, we are putting much perceptual load

that is flooding information in our perceptual capacity that produced in attentional

blindness and how often it affects our daily lives. This study could also be evolve by

future researchers and experimenters in their research concerning the effects of in

attentional blindness

Design and Methodology

Population and Locale of the Study

The experimenters invited students from senior high school and different college

departments of Mondriaan Aura College to participate in the experiment. There is also

one senior high participant from St. Joseph College who participated in the said

experiment. It was conducted at the alpha 103 room of MAC on February 1, 2019. The

total number of students who participated in the experiment were 46 but the experiment

only used the result from 40 valid participants. It is considered valid if they haven’t

watched the video clip before. The remaining 6 participants were considered invalid

because 4 of them said that they also became participants from the last year

experiment. The other 2 invalid participants said that they have seen the video clip

before.

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 MONDRIAAN AURA COLLEGE
BACHELOR OF SCIENCE IN PSYCHOLOGY
Subic Bay Freeport Zone, Philippines
Data Gathering Tool

The experimenters used a laptop and speaker in order to show to each

participant the video regarding the experiment. In the video clip, there are two teams of

basketball player (the white team and the black team) with the voice over asking you to

count the number of passes the white team made. The voice over then asked how

many does the white team made and if you saw the moon walking bear then replays the

video clip. The experimenters also used yellow paper to write down the answer of each

participant made. The experimenter also used cellphone camera in taking pictures of

the experiment.

Data Gathering Procedure

1. The participants were asked to stay in the waiting area while waiting for their turn

to do the experiment. The callers entertain them by talking while watching movie

in the laptop.

2. In the experiment room the participants were asked to sit and be comfortable as

much as they can to focus on the video that they will watch.

3. Before playing the video, each participants was instructed to count the number of

ball passes that the white team will made.

4. The participants were asked to watch a short video clip in the laptop.

5. Shortly after pausing the video, they were asked how many passes from the

white team they’ve counted. They were also asked if they notice something while

the watching the video, like a dancing bear.

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 MONDRIAAN AURA COLLEGE
BACHELOR OF SCIENCE IN PSYCHOLOGY
Subic Bay Freeport Zone, Philippines
6. The video is then counted for the participants to watch and notice a dancing bear

in the middle of the video.

7. The answers of the participants were recorded by the documenter in a yellow

paper.

8. Lastly, the participants were instructed to proceed the feedback area.

Summary of the Debriefing

The 46 participants were debriefed before and after the experiment by the

“callers” (the experimenter responsible for inviting participants) and by the “de- briefers”

(the experimenters responsible in asking question about how the participant experience

the experiment).

Before the experiment, the “callers” asked each of the participant three

questions. First, if they have class or free time. Second, they asked if they are willing or

if they want to participate in the experiment. Lastly, if is it okay for them to be

photographed.

After the experiment, the participant were instructed to proceed in the feedback

area. Wherein they were debriefed by the de-briefers to accumulate their thoughts and

experience regarding the experiment. This questionings will allow the experimenters

know that the participants will be considered as valid or invalid. The questions are as

follows:

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 MONDRIAAN AURA COLLEGE
BACHELOR OF SCIENCE IN PSYCHOLOGY
Subic Bay Freeport Zone, Philippines

1. Is this your first time to watch the video? If no, where did you watch it?

Almost all of the participants answered that it was their first time watching the

video and some of them answered that they already watched the video from their friend,

church service and some were participants from the last year’s experiment.

2. Did you count the number of passes of the white team correctly? If no, how

many passes did you count?

There are 29 out of 40 valid participants who got the number of passes correctly

and there are 11 out of 40 valid participants who got it wrong.

3. Did you notice the moon walking bear? What do you think the reason why you

notice or did not notice the moon walking bear?

Majority of the participants did not notice the moon walking bear and almost all of

them have the same reason why they didn’t and it is because they are just focusing on

counting the number of passes the white team made. The participants who noticed the

moon walking bear said that while counting the passes they got distracted by the bear.

4. How was your experience in the experiment?

The participants have different answers. Some said they were surprised because

they did not expect that there is a moon walking bear in the video. Some are amazed,

confused and some even said that it was “laugh trip”. Some feel regretful because they

didn’t get the correct answer.

5. Any suggestions?

Most of the participants don’t have any suggestion regarding the experiment

proper because they said that the experimenters outside are very accommodating and

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 MONDRIAAN AURA COLLEGE
BACHELOR OF SCIENCE IN PSYCHOLOGY
Subic Bay Freeport Zone, Philippines
friendly. If there is one suggestion it is that the experimenters inside the experiment

room should at least be approachable when the participants are entering to feel less

nervous and feel comfortable.

Treatment of the Data

Presentation, Analysis, and Interpretation of Data

Conclusion and Recommendations

Conclusion

Observations

Prior to beginning of our conducted experiment. The experimenters prepared

themselves, specially they wear proper attire or uniform, and also name tags. The

experimenters improvise all the equipment’s that we used for our experiment. And also

the experimenters outside, they provide movies, games, and food (token) for

entertainment, so as that the participants not to be feel weary.

During the experiment, the Instructor was excellent and it has a little nervous. But

eventually, he explained the instructions properly and very well to the participant. While

the participant is listening attentively and carefully. Then the awareness test has begun,

the first instruction was so very simple and easy to understand for the participant. Then

after the instructor explain the instructions the participant start focused at the video.

After the video was paused, the instructor was asked the participant. "Did you see a

“AURA Psychology: The Heartbeat of Society.”

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 MONDRIAAN AURA COLLEGE
BACHELOR OF SCIENCE IN PSYCHOLOGY
Subic Bay Freeport Zone, Philippines
moon walking bear?” Mostly the other participants was feeling confused. After the

awareness test, the Instructor shared and give them the definition and objectives for the

experiment that what we did, he explains the example that the change blindness is a

failure to detect that an object has moved or disappeared and the opposite of the

change detection.

Recommendations

The experimenters have some suggestions and recommendations for the next

experimenters who will conduct the same experiment. These are the recommendations:

1. The experimenters would put a sign board outside the experiment room that

shows that the experiment is on-going, so that the other people will know that

there’s an experiment conducted.

2. The experimenters would be alert when a participant inside finishes the

experiment they should immediately call the next participant to enter the room for

to not waste time.

3. The experimenter will going to turn off the ceiling fan because it create a shadow

on the laptop that can affect the quality of the video.

4. The experimenters would be more cheerful in smiling and in greeting every

participant that will enter the room so that the participant would not be afraid and

will feel comfortable.

“AURA Psychology: The Heartbeat of Society.”

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 MONDRIAAN AURA COLLEGE
BACHELOR OF SCIENCE IN PSYCHOLOGY
Subic Bay Freeport Zone, Philippines
5. Experimenters would recommend for the debriefed and caller to be stricter in

instructing the participant to be silent while waiting.

6. The experimenters would lead the participant where she/he would going to sit.

7. The experimenters would have effective "pakulo" or strategy in inviting

participants so that participants would be interested in joining the experiment.

References

Appendices

Tools Used in the Experiment

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 MONDRIAAN AURA COLLEGE
BACHELOR OF SCIENCE IN PSYCHOLOGY
Subic Bay Freeport Zone, Philippines

Participant Count of ball passes Observation of Invalid/Valid

moon walking bear
1 13 No Valid
2 13 No Valid
3 13 No Valid
4 13 No Valid
5 13 No Valid
6 24 Yes Invalid
7 16 No Valid
8 13 No Valid
9 13 No Invalid
10 13 No Valid
11 13 No Valid
12 10 No Valid
13 13 Yes Valid
14 11 No Invalid
15 15 No Valid
16 14 No Valid
17 13 No Valid
18 13 No Valid
19 13 No Valid
20 12 No Valid
21 13 No Valid
22 13 No Valid
23 13 No Valid
24 13 No Invalid

25 8 No Valid
26 8 No Valid
27 12 Yes Invalid
28 13 No Valid

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 MONDRIAAN AURA COLLEGE
BACHELOR OF SCIENCE IN PSYCHOLOGY
Subic Bay Freeport Zone, Philippines
29 15 No Valid
30 15 No Valid
31 13 No Valid

32 12 No Invalid
33 13 No Valid
34 13 No Valid
35 12 No Valid
36 13 No Valid
37 13 No Valid
38 13 No Valid
39 13 No Valid
40 13 No Valid
41 13 No Valid
42 13 No Valid
43 13 No Valid
44 13 No Valid
45 13 No Valid
46 13 No Valid

Total: 46
Valid: 40
Invalid: 6

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 MONDRIAAN AURA COLLEGE
BACHELOR OF SCIENCE IN PSYCHOLOGY
Subic Bay Freeport Zone, Philippines

Treatment 1 (X)
11.87
7.49
8.74
9.52
8.93
6.75
8.82
7.63
18.02
6.00
9.96
11.54
7.77
8.00
6.22
6.80
8.78
12.50
10.23
7.90
9.09

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 MONDRIAAN AURA COLLEGE
BACHELOR OF SCIENCE IN PSYCHOLOGY
Subic Bay Freeport Zone, Philippines
6.05
6.12
8.49

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