Toupee or not toupee? The role of instructional set, centrality, and relevance in change blindness

Abstract

The influence of instructional set, centrality, and relevance on change blindness was examined. In a one-shot paradigm, participants reported alterations of items across pairs of driving scenes under two different instructional conditions. Alterations involved either relocations or disappearances of the same items and included driving-relevant and driving-irrelevant alterations to items of central and marginal interest. Three main findings emerged: Centrality was not a function of driving relevance/meaningfulness, disappearances of central interest items were identified significantly more often than positional changes to them, and instructions highlighting the importance of the task to driving attenuated change blindness. The possible role of a simple listing strategy in mediating successful identification of alterations is discussed. Together, the findings demonstrate that cognitive factors play an important role in change blindness.

Can expertise modulate representational momentum?

“…Pearson and Schaefer (2005) showed that participants' involvement in a change-blindness task on photographs of road scenes modified their performance. Participants in the so-called cognitive-engagement condition were told that the results of the study might be of diagnostic value in identifying people in need of remedial driver training.…”

Anger superiority effect for change detection and change blindness

“…Also, a wider scope of attention and cultural tendencies to a more holistic processing can alleviate change blindness in the periphery of the visual field (Masuda & Nisbett, 2006;Zelinsky, 2001). Interestingly, so too does intelligence (Zhu et al, 2010), proofreading experience (Asano, Kanaya, & Yokosawa, 2008), attention to detail as in Asperger syndrome (Fletcher-Watson et al, 2012;Smith & Milne, 2009) and an appropriately formulated set of instructions emphasizing task centrality (Pearson & Schaefer, 2005). These studies suggest that the bottom-up effects could be enhanced by a certain attentional mindset or acquired individual abilities, and change detection performance improved accordingly.…”

Change Blindness and Eyewitness Testimony

“…Eyewitness researchers should take note of the relevance of change blindness research and theory to cases of mistaken identification, and change blindness researchers could use the finding of eyewitness researchers that cognition and simple vigilance both play a role in inducing change blindness (cf. Pearson & Schaefer, 2005).…”