12. Why do you think so many participants failed to see the “gorilla” in the experiment done by the psychologists Christopher Chabris and Daniel Simons? Do you think you would have seen it? How do you respond to the conclusions drawn by Alison Gopnik about the medical “gorilla” experiment?

People did not see the gorilla because they did not expect to see it. They were instead focused on counting the balls and thus couldn’t take notice of anything apart from the bounces. This is better explained by DiYanni who explicitly shows that perception and expectations are concepts intermarried to affect focus (DiYanni 12). A person only sees what he or she has expected to see leaving out other details that may pop up. Just like this people, I don’t think I could have seen the gorilla since I did not expect to see it there. Alison Gopnik concludes that inattentional blindness is the reason behind not seeing other things in our lives. This is true since a few number of people can see something they had least expected while the majority only focus on their expectations.

15. How do you respond to the “kissing” scenario? What do you think the woman should have done? Why? Was there a way for the couple to have avoided the possibility of misunderstanding?

The kissing is evident to have been interpreted differently by the couple. Each of them understands this act differently based on cultural differences. According to DiYanni, perception is affected by filters such as culture (p14). The difference in their thinking makes them both enter in a shock when a simple act as kissing makes them confused and with lots of questions in their mind. The woman is not wrong to have acted the way she did since she understood the kissing act according to her culture. She knew this meant something profound and irreversible. However, she could have moved away and explained to the boy what kissing meant to her. Had they conversed, the issue of misunderstanding could not have occurred.

16. Describe a time when one aspect of your cultural background and experience influenced, or perhaps even caused you to see, experience, and/or understand something very different from someone else. What did you perceive? What did the other person perceive? Why? How did the difference in perception affect your discussion and/or your relationship?

In my culture, a handshake is regarded as a formal way of greeting a person. However, there is this time my friends and I had gone to a meeting, and I stretched my hand to greet one of the guest speakers. To my surprise, he did not shake my hand. It was then that I realized he was from the Middle East and their culture do not embrace handshake due to hygienic matters. Though I felt embarrassed, I learned that we all have a different culture that needs to be respected and valued. In this case, I became aware of greeting people through words provided my facial expression showed a small then it is a sign of respect.

Work Cited

DiYanni, R. “The Pearson Guide to Critical and Creative Thinking.” (2015).

12. Why do you think so many participants failed to see the “gorilla” in the experiment done by the psychologists Christopher Chabris and Daniel Simons? Do you think you would have seen it? How do you respond to the conclusions drawn by Alison Gopnik about the medical “gorilla” experiment?

I think that those who failed to see the gorilla exhibited “intentional bias” as suggested by the article. When focusing on a particular stimulus, we are more likely to ignore other factors that could deter us from focus. The participants were probably focusing all of their attention on counting the throws instead of being aware that something else could happen other than the ball throwing.

I had actually had seen this experiment before when taking Social Psychology. The teacher gave the same instructions of counting the number of throws between the two groups of people dressed in black and white. I had noticed the gorilla when it appeared but I lost focus on counting the throws. There were a few students in the class that didn’t see the gorilla, and realized that there was a gorilla after when the teacher replayed the tape.

Gopnik’s concludes that we are all prone to “inattentional blindness” and that we don’t know much about our perceptions. I definitely agree with this statement to an extent, but I do see that some people are capable of being more aware of their surroundings than others. In Gopnik’s experiment, a majority of people (86%) missed a “gorilla” but there are also 14% of people that did notice and realize that there was something different about what they were looking at.

16. Describe a time when one aspect of your cultural background and experience influenced, or perhaps even caused you to see, experience, and/or understand something very differently from someone else. What did you perceive? What did the other person perceive? Why? How did the difference in perception affect your discussion and/or your relationship?

This past summer I went to watch the new Incredibles 2 movie, and Pixar released a short film before the movie titled Bao. The story was about how a Chinese women makes a dumpling and it comes to life. The bao eventually grows up and goes through its teenage years and shows an increase desire of independence from the mother. Eventually, the bao wants to leave the home and move in with his girlfriend, and as a sign of protest the mother eats the bao to stop it from leaving. The mother then lies in bed in sadness as her real son walks in, and it is revealed that this was a narrative in the mother’s experience with empty nest syndrome, and speaks to

I was born and raised in Hong Kong in fairly traditional Chinese family. When I watched the film I saw many details that I could relate to and found the film extremely touching. Many of my friends from home also found the film and felt the same way. However, there were other people in the audience that didn’t understand the underlying meaning and thought that the short film didn’t make any sense. There were also many debates on social media where some people were confused about the film and some even found it comical. The polarizing opinions perhaps had to do with the western norm of children growing up and moving out after college, where children in Asian cultures were taught to always come home and support their parents as a sign of respect and love for them.

17. To what extent do you think we are influenced and affected by our cultural backgrounds and experiences, including the influence of our parents? To what extent is it possible, and perhaps necessary for us to think and act in ways counter to our cultural background?

I think that the way we are raised is extremely influential in our perception of the world, and our cultural backgrounds and experiences shapes the way we think and interact with people around us. Since birth, we are biologically inclined to act and think in ways our parents do, and as we grow older we also start to look to other factors in our environment and experiences that will continue to shape our perception. In cases where we interact with people and environments that contrast our upbringing is when we try and assimilate these new ideas in to our existing schemas. It is human instinct to adapt to our environment and adjust our behavior to want to feel a belonging to society. I personally think that there are always fundamental morals and beliefs that will always stay with you, but smaller lifestyle changes adjust according to more recent and meaningful experiences.

18. Which of the following advertisement slogans do you think would appeal to Americans and which to Koreans and why?
19. Seven out of ten people are using this product.
20. The Internet isn’t for everybody. But then you are not everybody.

I would think that due to the cultural bias of interpretation of asian and western cultures, the slogan “Seven out of ten people are using this product” would appeal to Koreans because it implies that users who purchase the product will be more assimilated into society and their environment, which is a more Asian style of philosophy. On the other hand, the slogan “the internet isn’t for everybody. But then you are not everybody.” promotes an image that the user will be more special and individualize their audience in a sense. This is a more western way of thinking and would appeal to Americans more.