# 50. Self-delusion - the manipulation of self ## 50.5. Methodology/Refinements/Sub-species ### 50.5.9. Inattention blindness This is sometimes called "Change blindness". It is a delusion which refers to the idea that we see and take in everything that is happening around us, processing it all like a camera. In fact, most people are aware of only a tiny fraction of what is happening around them, and even less of this information is actually ever processed. This applies just as much to things which are happening in plain sight, as to events or objects not directly visible. A normal person's attention cannot be focused on everything, therefore everyone experiences inattention blindness. Inattention blindness has an effect on people's perception. This is because they are unaware of the unnoticed stimuli. This inattention effect can also be employed by an external manipulator or used by the subject themselves to reinforce a perception they find more comfortable than reality. There have been multiple experiments performed to demonstrate that this phenomenon is universally prevalent. The "invisible gorilla" experiment conducted in the 1990s showed that 50% of a group of people watching a basketball video, failed to notice a woman, dressed in a full gorilla suit carrying an umbrella, walk through the game several times. The focus of the volunteers was on watching the basketball, so the gorilla woman just didn't register. The important thing about this phenomenon is that we cannot always trust what we see. In fact, we can never completely trust what we see. We can relate what we saw with some accuracy, but we cannot of course, report on or interpret what we did not see. This should lead us all to adopt a healthy suspicion of our own sensory perceptions. In other words, we should learn to assume that we probably have not actually seen the entire picture of what happened or what was said or done. By keeping an open mind on our own sensory perceptions, it may be possible to uncover more important facts about a particular event. Having said that, most people take what they "see" and "hear" at face value and will argue that what they think they have seen and heard, is the absolute and complete truth of a scene. The old adage should really be applied: "Believe nothing you hear and only half of what you see."