{"id":970,"date":"2013-02-14T16:36:44","date_gmt":"2013-02-14T21:36:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/fieldnotes\/?p=970"},"modified":"2016-09-13T11:01:45","modified_gmt":"2016-09-13T15:01:45","slug":"training-ourselves-to-see-the-invisible-gorilla","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/fieldnotes\/2013\/02\/training-ourselves-to-see-the-invisible-gorilla\/","title":{"rendered":"Training ourselves to see the invisible gorilla"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Trafton<\/a>

Trafton Drew & Jeremy Wolfe<\/p><\/div>\n

Earlier this week, NPR ran a story about some interesting research into the concept of inattential blindness that I think is incredibly instructive for arts leaders.\u00a0The study went like this: an image of a man in a gorilla suit was superimposed upon a series of slides that radiologists typically use to look for cancer (see the image to the left<\/em>). A group of radiologists were then asked to review the slides for cancerous nodules. The result? 83% did not see the gorilla.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cWhen you ask someone to perform a challenging task, without realizing it, their attention narrows and blocks out other things. So, often, they literally can’t see even a huge, hairy gorilla that appears directly in front of them.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Simply put: the study found that we only find what we are trained to look for. While this result might be obvious, it might not necessarily be innocuous. Running a cultural organization is certainly a complex and challenging task. I can\u2019t help but think that we are overlooking some gorillas in our midst. In our field we often use the past issues or successes as a frame for discussing our future. This framing can significantly color what kinds of opportunities we look for. Being vigilant about listening to new ideas that broaden our view can go a long way to combatting this.\u00a0What are we as a field trained to look for? Is that enough?<\/p>\n

Read the article (Why Even Radiologists Can Miss A Gorilla Hiding In Plain Sight<\/a>)\u00a0and let us know what you think.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Earlier this week, NPR ran a story about some interesting research into the concept of inattential blindness that I think is incredibly instructive for arts leaders.\u00a0The study went like this: an image of a man in a gorilla suit was superimposed upon a series of slides that radiologists typically use to look for cancer (see […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":972,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[136],"tags":[149,148,150],"coauthors":[620],"class_list":{"0":"post-970","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-reading-list","8":"tag-attention-research","9":"tag-npr","10":"tag-outlook","11":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/fieldnotes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/970","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/fieldnotes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/fieldnotes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/fieldnotes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/fieldnotes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=970"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/fieldnotes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/970\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3570,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/fieldnotes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/970\/revisions\/3570"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/fieldnotes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/972"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/fieldnotes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=970"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/fieldnotes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=970"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/fieldnotes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=970"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/fieldnotes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=970"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}