Visual Perception Videos

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I noticed this colour changing card trick today that I feel would be useful for sessions demonstrating concepts related to visual perception.

There was another one floating around Youtube a few years ago (has been since removed) and I was surprised to learn that a lot of people hadn’t seen it. Follow the instructions carefully and then watch the video.

    1) The video lasts only about 20 seconds.
    2) It is CRITICAL that you focus completely for the twenty seconds to get an accurate result.
    3) The objective is to COUNT HOW MANY TIMES THE BALL IS PASSED BETWEEN THE PLAYERS IN WHITE SHIRTS.
    4) This can be tricky since the players in black are only there to distract you.
    6) Do NOT count the number of times the ball is passed between the players in black.
    7) In other words, IGNORE the people in black shirts.
    8) Do NOT read any comments on this post UNTIL you watch the video and post an answer. (Reading posts first may bias your results.)
    9) Do NOT attempt to cheat by pausing frame by frame. Let the video play ALL the way through.

Now, watch the video on this page (it is the contained in the applet below the text).

To learn the answer, view this video.

23 thoughts on “Visual Perception Videos”

  2. I counted 14 times too. Mind you, I also failed to see all of the other colour changes in the card trick video.

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  8. Ok i still do not know how many–13? I will confess that i did not see “it” but i do recall feeling some distress at there suddenly seeming to be too much of the black and something not being right, but I wanted to be correct in my counting so i disregarded it–though it was a nagging feeling. LOL

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  10. 14 I think but I saw the gorilla the first time. Does teaching in a secondary school lab situation change anything?

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  12. I say 16 passes – there is one quick pass that is barely visible near the end. And the gorilla was there every time I watched the video doing his King Kong impression.
    Very intriguing how the mind perceives things though :)

  15. I saw 14 in the first video but 15 in the next one (the second video appeared to go a split second longer and include an extra pass. I also noticed the gorilla and commented to myself about how odd that was while I kept an eye on the ball being passed by the white shirts. One might say I did pretty well but…

    The card video threw me off. I didn’t notice a single one of the 4 colour changes.

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  19. So what? There are countless non-uniform or unususl things you could glean from that video. Someone has scrawled letters on the wall, only one black shirter has black pants, 4 of the six people have white shoes, 2 of six have black shoes… I think what is most interesting about this is how easily people are “fascinated by the mysteries of the human brain” Ooooo, ahhhhh. If the object going into it is to count the number of passes who the f cares what else happens? Now, if you say count the passes and also, keep track of how many unusual or non-uniform things happen as well and people still miss it, that might be noteworthy. Otherwise, stop wasting time and get back to work.

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