Gorilla on the loose

What happens when a woman in a gorilla suit walks across a basketball court? You'll be surprised with the answers that emerge from Christopher Chabris and Daniel Simons' book that seeks to de-mystify several myths of the mind

What happens when a woman in a gorilla suit walks across a basketball court? You'll be surprised with the answers that emerge from Christopher Chabris and Daniel Simons' book that seeks to de-mystify several myths of the mind

Darwin would have been smiling if he were alive. It's not often that a gorilla becomes the centre of a book on human psychology. Christopher F. Chabris and Daniel J. Simons' book, The Invisible Gorilla, is a follow-up of their 2004 Ig Nobel Prize winning effort in Psychology for Gorillas in Our Midst.

It won worldwide acclaim for a groundbreaking and world-famous experiment where they asked volunteers to watch a 60-second film of students playing basketball and told them to count the number of passes made. About halfway through, a woman dressed head to toe in a gorilla outfit strolled to the centre screen, beat her chest at the camera, and casually walked away. Unbelievably, half of the volunteers missed the gorilla!

This is an interesting and unique book that helps demonstrate the kind of mental illusion that causes people to miss a gorilla on a basketball pitch can also explain many other things, including why expert money managers suddenly lose billions or honest eyewitness testimonies can convict innocent defendants and so on.

It looks at how everyday illusions can trick us into thinking that we seeu00a0-- and know more than we really do, and that we can predict the future when we can't. Shocking, delightful and engaging, the book delivers an insightful tour into the many ways our brains mislead us, everyday. From chess players to criminals, weather forecasters and fund managers, the cognitive scientists draw in identifiable examples to help make us smarter by reminding us how little we know. Fans of The Simpsons will be pleased to know that the writers give Homer Simpson a thumbs-up for his clear thinking.

The Invisible Gorilla And Other Ways Our Intuition Deceives Us, Christopher F. Chabris & Daniel J. Simons, HarperCollins India, Rs 399. Available at leading bookstores

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