School of Psychology, The University of Sydney, Sydney, Australia.
School of Psychological Sciences, The University of Newcastle, Newcastle, Australia.
PLoS One. 2024 Jan 5;19(1):e0296489. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0296489. eCollection 2024.
Inattentional blindness refers to when people fail to notice obvious and unexpected events when their attention is elsewhere. Existing research suggests that inattentional blindness is a poorly understood concept that violates the beliefs that are commonly held by the public about vision and attention. Given that legal cases may involve individuals who may have experienced inattentional blindness, it is important to understand the beliefs legal populations and members of the community have about inattentional blindness, and their general familiarity and experience with the concept. Australian police officers (n = 94) and lawyers (n = 98), along with psychology students (n = 99) and community members (n = 100) completed a survey where they: a) stated whether an individual would have noticed an event in six legal vignettes, b) rated whether factors would make an individual more, less, or just as likely to notice an unexpected event, c) reported their familiarity with and personal experiences of inattentional blindness, and d) indicated whether they believed individuals could make themselves more likely to notice unexpected events. Respondents in all populations frequently responded "yes" to detecting the unexpected event in most legal vignettes. They also held misconceptions about some factors (expertise and threat) that would influence the noticing of unexpected events. Additionally, personal experiences with inattentional blindness were commonly reported. Finally, respondents provided strategies for what individuals can do to make themselves more likely to notice of unexpected events, despite a lack of evidence to support them. Overall, these findings provide direction for where education and training could be targeted to address misconceptions about inattentional blindness held by legal populations, which may lead to improved decision-making in legal settings.
疏忽性盲视是指当人们的注意力不在某个地方时，他们会忽略明显且意料之外的事件。现有研究表明，疏忽性盲视是一个人们理解甚少的概念，它违反了公众普遍持有的关于视觉和注意力的信念。鉴于法律案件可能涉及可能经历过疏忽性盲视的个人，了解法律人群体和社区成员对疏忽性盲视的信念，以及他们对该概念的一般熟悉程度和经验，是很重要的。澳大利亚警察（n = 94）和律师（n = 98），以及心理学学生（n = 99）和社区成员（n = 100）完成了一项调查，他们：a）在六个法律案例中陈述一个人是否会注意到一个事件，b）评估哪些因素会使人更有可能、不太可能或同样注意到一个意外事件，c）报告他们对疏忽性盲视的熟悉程度和个人经验，以及 d）表明他们是否认为个人可以使自己更有可能注意到意外事件。所有人群的受访者在大多数法律案例中都经常回答“是”，可以检测到意外事件。他们还对一些会影响意外事件注意的因素（专业知识和威胁）存在误解。此外，人们经常报告自己有疏忽性盲视的经历。最后，受访者提供了一些策略，说明个人可以做些什么来提高自己注意到意外事件的可能性，尽管缺乏证据支持这些策略。总的来说，这些发现为针对法律人群体对疏忽性盲视的误解进行教育和培训指明了方向，这可能会导致法律环境中的决策得到改善。
