The Invisible Gorilla summary

If someone was being beaten up on the street, you would notice, right?

Well, though we’re likely to notice anything unusual, when we’re focusing carefully on something else, the rather unnerving thing is that we can miss just about anything.

Many of us have confidently recalled a vivid childhood memory, only to be told by a family member that our recollection is not what really happened. So why do we think we remember things so accurately?

In a study by the authors, 47 percent of people believed that memories don’t change, and 69 percent reported that memories are like videos that capture reality accurately, remain unchanged over time, and can be reexamined at will.

You probably think you’re smart, perhaps even smarter than the average person. This is just one way that confidence can be illusory.

It’s true that we tend to overestimate our own abilities, making us confident when we sometimes have no real reason to be.

Do you know how your toilet works? Chances are, you don’t. Often even simple, everyday things are beyond our general comprehension.

Take a bike, for example. Most of us would claim to know how a bike works, but is this really true? British psychologist Rebecca Lawson conducted an experiment where participants had to first rate their knowledge of bikes, and then draw one.

We often hear the phrase “one thing leads to another,” but does it really ring true? It doesn’t, but we often believe it does because narratives and consequences are so ingrained in human society.

One common belief that exemplifies this is that many people think that listening to sexually explicit song lyrics causes teens to engage in risky sexual behavior. No scientific research supports this claim.

If you weren’t glued to Facebook all the time, you could become a successful artist or be as clever as Albert Einstein, right? Well, perhaps not.

As a matter of fact, we like to think our brains hold far more potential than they actually do. We willingly perpetuate the belief that we only use ten percent of our brain’s capacity, for instance. But is this really the case?