The Invisible Gorilla

And Other Ways Our Intuitions Deceive Us

By: Christopher Chabris, Daniel Simons

Narrated by: Dan Woren

Length: 9 hrs and 20 mins

Publisher's summary

Reading this book will make you less sure of yourself - and that's a good thing. In The Invisible Gorilla, Christopher Chabris and Daniel Simons, creators of one of psychology's most famous experiments, use remarkable stories and counterintuitive scientific findings to demonstrate 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.

Chabris and Simons combine the work of other researchers with their own findings on attention, perception, memory, and reasoning to reveal how faulty intuitions often get us into trouble. In the process, they 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 minds 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 myriad ways that our intuitions can deceive us, but its much more than a catalog of human failings. Chabris and Simons explain why we succumb to these everyday illusions and what we can do to inoculate ourselves against their effects. Ultimately, the book provides a kind of x-ray vision into our own minds, making it possible to pierce the veil of illusions that clouds our thoughts and to think clearly for perhaps the first time.

©2010 Christopher Chabris and Daniel Simons (P)2010 Random House

Critic reviews

"From courtrooms to bedrooms to boardrooms, this fascinating book shows how psychological illusions bedevil every aspect of our public and private lives. An owner's manual for the human mind!" (Daniel Gilbert, Professor of Psychology, Harvard University, and New York Times best-selling author of Stumbling Upon Happiness)

Great Overview over Hygiene of Perception

The authors of this book are master teachers. The clarity of their presentation is excellent. Like school, though, this comes at times at the cost of being a little bit longish. This is especially so, since, if you are interested in this subject at all or merely in touch with popular knowledge, you will know most of the 'surprising' studies already. I did find, though, that in many cases, they would offer that extra bit of interesting information, debunk or logic to a finding that made it more complete. (In written form this would be even more useful, as one would be able to look these things up later on.)
The book is scientifically rigorous and doesn't fear naming 'transgressions' against good thinking by Malcolm Gladwell and others. Still, the authors manage to not come across as entirely negative geeks and offer some useful conclusions. Nonetheless, this work is not inspirational in any classic sense of the word.
Consider it an overview or a high quality review of perceptive follies and you will be very satisfied. The quality of the reading is excellent.
Originality: 7
Clarity: 10
Reading: 9.9
Usefulness: 8.5

Enjoyed

I enjoyed this book. The narration is perfect, and the content is very interesting. I feel like it gave me a different perspective on many of the ways that dumb/simple people act while following whatever stupid trend is out there. It has also made me reflect on some of my own feelings towards patterns throughout my life. It turned me onto the 'Fooled by Randomness' book also.

insightfull and and a damn interesting read

enjoyed it more then once and will reference it in the future i liked this book

Interesting Info but...

The first have of this book was pretty interesteding but the second half became pretty boring. The author seemed to be fixated on certain ideas which was strange because it was like he was critizing others for doing the same thing he was doing....he thinks his info is all fact. This book was well narrated but was somewhat of a dissapointment. Some of it was helpful as well. If it didnt' become so boring I would have rated it higher.

epiphany after epiphany

the book was amazing it really opened my eyes to a lot of generalizations are conclusive that I draw that were incorrect and causing problems not only in my personal life but also in my business. Shared the book with few friends and they all loved it. Great job worth the read or listen

Will Make you Rethink EVERYTHING

This book has done something few books have done for me before - as soon as I had finished a chapter, I thought, "This was the best, most thought-provoking chapter in the book." Then as soon as I had finished the NEXT chapter, I thought the same thing.

The extent of the authors' research, clear and compelling explanations and real-world examples of the experiences they call "The Illusion of Memory", "The Illusion of Knowledge" and "The Illusion of Cause" has really made me stop and deliberately apply their criteria to many aspects of my life - my memories of events, news stories, urban legends, "expert studies" and the things people say to me, among others. If you're interested in being a student of the truth and having culturally imposed and evolution-based blinders stripped from your eyes, I can't imagine a better point of reference than this.

5+

I wish i could find a wy to give more than 5 stars. One of the best books i have downloaded. The narration is outstanding, perfect for teh book, well paced.
Now for the content. i have read several sort of "popular psych" books, including Malcolm Gladwell's several books. Here is the idfference...this one is based on evidence and is written by scientists. Its all based on experiments by themselves and others which really question our understanding of how our minds process information. I found the structure excellent..if give you a framework to place all their conclusions. While I think some of the later chapters, especially the one on "self improvement" a little weaker then the first chapeters, that's partly because the first chapters are so rivetting.
I will really use this information as I teach. It's applicable to almost any field. It is incredibly inciteful. And a bonus is they rag on Gladwell several times, which, I agree with. Works like his are observations from which they extrapolate immutable laws about the way the world works. This book tries to rely on solid experimental evident. The difference is striking. In addition, as experts in the field, i find the authors' insights fresh, novel, clearly things that have been thought about and puzzled over for many years.
A remarkable read.

Interesting but not very practical

This is a very interesting audiobook that explains four key misconceptions in human psychology: for example, the myth of attention, demonstrated by the gorilla experiment.

It is well written and narrated. It is engaging and interesting. But it gets a bit boring to spend so much time of=n four key ideas. Especially because of the limited practical value of these. The author fails to connect the science with practical value.

A good example of an author who has done this is Dan Ariely with Predictably Irrational, and Daniel Pink. Their books are very useful for anyone in marketing or sales. This book is good food for your intellectual curiosity, but not much else.

Interesting and useful

This is a book of considerable interest and quite fun to listen to. It contains many useful pieces of information and provides a new perspective on how we function. I found it well worth while. I didn't give it 5 stars but would gladly give it 4 and half. This book might be read or listened to together with Margaret Heffernan's 'Willful Blindness'. I recommend both.

Narration is too monotone, book is great

I'm relatively new to audio books and while I recognize the need to find a clear and neutral sounding voice, to a certain extent it detracts from the whole experience because when you read, you don't read in a monotonous tone and so listening to such a voice just saps any enthusiasm that you have.