The Invisible Gorilla

Summary: Reading this book will make you less sure of yourself-and that's a good thing. In The Invisible Gorilla, we use a wide assortment of stories and counterintuitive scientific findings to reveal an important truth: Our minds don't work the way we think they do. We think we see ourselves and the world as they really are, but we're actually missing a whole lot. 

We combine the work of other researchers with our own findings on attention, perception, memory, and reasoning to reveal how faulty intuitions often get us into trouble. In the process, we explain:

• Why a company would spend billions to launch a product that its own analysts know will fail
• How a police officer could run right past a brutal assault without seeing it
• Why award-winning movies are full of editing mistakes
• What criminals have in common with chess masters
• Why measles and other childhood diseases are making a comeback
• Why money managers could learn a lot from weather forecasters

Again and again, we think we experience and understand the world as it is, but our thoughts are beset by everyday illusions. We write traffic laws and build criminal cases on the assumption that people will notice when something unusual happens right in front of them. We're sure we know where we were on 9/11, falsely believing that vivid memories are seared into our mind with perfect fidelity. And as a society, we spend billions on devices to train our brains because we're continually tempted by the lure of quick fixes and effortless self-improvement. 

The Invisible Gorilla reveals the numerous ways that our intuitions can deceive us, but it's more than a catalog of human failings. In the book, we also explain why people succumb to these everyday illusions and what we can do to inoculate ourselves against their effects. In short, we try to give you a sort of "x-ray vision" into your own minds, with the ultimate goal of helping you notice the invisible gorillas in your own life.

Angie's comments: This is a quick, easy, and entertaining read that will change how you view humans, especially yourself. Christopher Chabris and Daniel Simons use fascinating examples to show how our intuition can be wrong. There were many times I thought “I would do better” or “That can’t be right.” Fortunately, Chabris and Simons also include examples of how their intuitions failed them, making it easier to accept my own failures.

After reading this book, I realized that there are many things I don’t notice and things I think I know but really don’t know. I (and other humans) do not always notice what our eyes see; base decisions on the say-so of a highly confident person, even though confidence isn’t as important as the facts; and don’t remember the past accurately. Where was I and what  was I doing when I heard about 9/11? If you ask, I can tell you, but is it really right? Not likely. Remember the family gathering you last went to? If you talk with people who were there, it might appear that everyone was at a different gathering!

The Invisible Gorilla is best for readers interested in psychology or people who want to become more aware of their own human errors. The book is written for people who don’t have a background in psychology, so it doesn't use jargon and the authors explain their examples thoroughly.

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