Saturday, January 3, 2009

Surreal Saturday: The Invisible Rope (YouTube)

Interesting exercise in psychology...

Posted by Kristan J. Wheaton at 1:33 PM

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4 comments:

Pat said...

If you could get accurate measurements, this could be a real time test of analytic confidence. It would be interesting to learn whether the ones who blithely passed through the invisible rope had sorted out the issue very quickly or were totally oblivious to their surroundings. Seemed to me that many of those who paused briefly then chose to pass through were either confused or scared. I wonder how many of the subjects actually reasoned their way through the exercise and proceeded with any degree of confidence in their decision?

January 4, 2009 at 10:44 AM
markcblair said...

I wonder what the Gestaltist would say of this. I bet the effect of the invisible rope would change (increase and decrease) according to the pattern on the floor or visual background (i.e. horizontal, vertical striping etc). I bet one could increase this effect if one were to facilitate the mental construction of such an image. I also wonder how many to are just be considerate. I think if I ever saw these guys out and about, I would walk through, trip, and fall just to be considerate of their efforts.

January 4, 2009 at 1:06 PM
Unknown said...

I think it's interesting to see the people in the mall. The younger the individual appears, the more fun they seem to have with it.

I think it would be interesting to test it at different busy times during the year. Around Easter and during the summer for example to see if the attitudes change.

January 10, 2009 at 5:11 PM
Anonymous said...

WE used to do this on the street when I was a kid. If a car just drove through we'd pretend to be pulled by the car. Sometimes the guy would get out and yell "get that out of the road!"

January 14, 2009 at 11:41 AM

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