Originally Posted by
RAT 5
... I'm beginning to think the gorilla comparison is not apples & apples.
You're not alone in starting to ask about that, RAT 5. Quickly to say, there is little if any denying that what I have learned here is known as "attentional tunneling" quite likely played a large role. And being an outsider to the flight deck, I also have begun to think, . . . yes, but aren't aviators so highly trained, so polished and attuned to crisp and precise adherence to procedures, that they are expected to overcome what would otherwise afflict people in usual occupations and professions? I suppose, that could be and should be, ripped to shreds, as a point of view.
But even so, it would seem that a more relevant set of data would be some studies in simulators with well-trained senior aviators given scenarios in which attentional tunneling is, from some reasonable standpoint, expected to occur. Gorillas and basketballs, data from (I think, correct me if this is mistaken) some long time before smartphones and electronic displays in the cockpit and a strong accommodation by literally almost everyone to "screen time" and its effects on eyesight (the physical process), vision (the perceptual processing) and cognition. This is not meant to discount or denigrate the posts about the video with the gorilla, but what if we change just one little fact about it? The gorilla now looks like it is one from the 800 pound cage. But in any event, if some Transportation Research Institute pro in Ann Arbor with a budget for human factors research were to become interested, the proper scenarios could be put together in plenty of time to generate a valid data set prior to the NTSB process reaching the end of its inquiry cycles.