Analysis of Illusions and Human Thinking in 'The Invisible Gorilla'

This essay provides a comprehensive review of 'The Invisible Gorilla' by Christopher Chabris and Daniel Simons, focusing on the illusions that shape human thinking and perception. The essay analyzes the authors' arguments, exploring concepts like the illusions of attention, memory, and confidence. It examines the book's purpose, rhetorical strategies, and use of examples to persuade the audience. The reviewer highlights the authors' use of experiments, emotional appeals, and logical reasoning to convince readers of the fallibility of human intuition. The essay also critiques the authors' claims, discussing the potential for misinterpretations and biases. Overall, the review offers insights into the book's key themes, persuasive techniques, and its impact on understanding human mental abilities.

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The Invisible Gorilla
The Invisible Gorilla offers an insight into how illusion controls how people think, view
situations, or consider happenings around them. Sometimes what one may think may not be
accurate due to the illusion of attention or illusion of memory. Ideally, the authors present
illusions of potential, cause, knowledge, memory, attention, and confidence that largely influence
how to act or behave in some situations. This is a book that shows an overwhelming journey into
the fallibility of human thinking. The authors-Simons and Chabris persuasively warn that
intuition has a high probability of failing them. Naturally, a person would think that they are
paying attention to something, but in reality, they are not. People hold some beliefs about their
minds, something that is commendable; however, such beliefs are sometimes dangerous because
they mislead individuals into something wrong. Through this book, an individual would
understand how their mind works and how they perceive or assume things. The Invisible Gorilla
has interesting and disclosing experiments that bring into sharp focus the assumption individuals
have about their mental abilities.
From the reading of The Invisible Gorilla, one would conclude that Christopher Chabris
and Daniel Simons wrote the book purposively to allow the audience to reflect on their mental
abilities. This book is trying to convince the audience that their minds do not work the way they
should think. In most cases, people assume that their minds work in a certain way. However, this
book challenges such an assumption. It goes to explain that, indeed, the minds of people

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sometimes do not operate or think the way individuals assume their minds operate. Chabris and
Simons explain how minds work through what they describe as the illusion of memory. People
rarely believe that there could be an illusion of memory. This illusion occurs when people what
an individual remembers is different from what others think. A memory’s central role is to store
events or happenings. However, Chabris and Simons want people to believe that sometimes what
they remember may not a replica of reality. What a memory may store could be a re-creation of
reality. In essence, memories that followed by emotions are likely to influence how people would
think about something that happened in the past. Some events happened in the past, and when
they are remembered, people tend to hold strong emotions, which could lead them to tell or to
remember such events differently from others. Essentially, this book is explaining to the
audience that, look in some instances, their memories can mislead them into creating their
realities. Therefore, a majority of people may assume that they know how their minds think
when they do not know. Thus, The Invisible Gorilla is speaking to an audience that they should
not always believe that what their mind tells them is the truth. The minds of people have illusions
that can deceive them into thinking or remembering things differently. Principally, this book
serves the purpose of informing people that their mental abilities are likely to mislead them.
The authors wrote this book to explain to their audience how the illusion works. From this book,
a reader can note six illusions that influence their mental abilities. The illusion of attention
misleads someone to think that they are paying attention when they are not. The illusion of
attention is demonstrated by an experiment Chabris and Simons did. In the experiment, the
subjects were tasked to count the number of times the basketball passes. The subjects
concentrated on counting the passes of the basketball but did not note that the researcher was in a
gorilla suit. The participants in this research project focused on basketball but could not

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recognize even the researcher. Perhaps this is very clear, even in the title of the book. If
something is invisible, it means that one cannot see it. Now, in this case, half of the subjects
participating in the research focused on only counting the ball, but forget to identify even the
researcher himself. Chapter one of this book is titled, “I think I would have seen that.” This
chapter still captures how people pay attention to. If a person paid adequate attention to their
surrounding, they would not sort of regret why they did not see something. This chapter raises
the issue of doubt. A person is unlikely to say that they think if they are sure. If a person is
confident of something they rarely doubt, but will boldly state it. In actual fact, this book
underscores how illusion controls how people perceive situations or happens around them. The
author also offers an example of cops chasing some “black men who had left a scene of shooting
at a hamburger restaurant in the Grove Hall of Boston” (Chabris and Daniel, p.1). While the men
drove away, a wrong signal reached the cops that one of them was the victim of this shooting. As
a result, cops were mobilized to make a chase to arrest the four black men, and while trying to
give a chase, cops bit one of their own after failing to distinguish him from the suspects who
were black. The police that was beaten was black, and the cops mistook him for being the
suspect. This raises a fundamental issue on how the mind can sometimes perceive things or
create illusions that can lead people into doing something dangerous. Hence, illusions lead
people into perceiving things in a way that may be dangerous in some instances.
Chabris and Simons use a vivid example to support their argument that illusions, to some
substantial extent, control how they think. They want to audience to believe that indeed what
they are saying is undeniable. These authors first want the audience to consider them credible. In
the introduction, the authors inform readers that they will read the experiment; they have spent a
significant amount of time to develop. The use of the experiment, in this case, underscores the

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appeal to authority. The authors are using experiments so that their audience can view them as
experts or as people that can produce knowledge that others can consume. Throughout this book,
the authors are persistently creating emotional experiences. This is meant to achieve appeal to
pity. For instance, the authors give an example of a black cop who was mistaken to be a suspect.
This cop was beaten thoroughly and left fighting for his life. This, in essence, makes the
audience sympathize with this cop. Also, the authors are logical in their explanation of every
example they given to justify an illusion. By logical, the authors are likely to convince people to
believe what they are reading. Generally, this book is persuasive and fascinating in nature
because of how it uses logic. Here, the authors are trying to win an argument that minds deceive
people sometimes. The authors are also trying to convince people that they perceive things
differently because of the illusion. For the audience to buy into their argument there has been
consistent effort to evoke emotions, use logic, and assert authority.
The authors logically present their ideas and back their claims with examples. In The
Invisible Gorilla, authors are seeking to win an argument and convince the audience to think or
believe that whatever they are telling them is correct. Experiments like Kenny Conley’s Invisible
Gorilla and other examples like a hard landing, the nuclear submarine, and the fishing boat,
justify how the author was logically putting his argument. An argument should be objective for it
to convince or persuade people. When a reader goes through these examples, they are likely to
consider the authors in this book reasonable and logical. For instance, the case of “the nuclear
submarine and the fishing boat” seeks to underscore how people pay attention and perceive
situations. While narrating the story of the US submarine that also most hit the Japanese fishing
boat, the authors bring up another typical example. They gave an example of a person getting out
of the parking lot and suddenly engaged the brakes to not hit the car they had not seen (Chabris

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and Daniel, p.13). This example is logical and practical. It shows how people usually cause
accidents because of the illusion of attention. At first, a person feels that they are attentive, but
later that they had not seen something. This usually happens to most people, and by using this
example, the author can convince readers to believe how their minds sometimes deceive them in
some scenarios.
Every idea presented by the authors in this book is essential because they still lead people
to question their mental abilities. The opinions raised here are likely to make an audience think
deeply or engage in introspection. Introspection is where an individual examines their mind.
Therefore, ideas such as the illusion of attention, confidence, potential, or memory all help the
audience to visualize how their mind operates. These ideas make an audience to reflect on how
they have responded to some situations or events; they have encountered some time in their life.
Also, through these illusions, an audience can think deeply and be convinced that, indeed, their
minds deceive them sometimes.
Nevertheless, not all the ideas or information presented by Chabris and Simon are true.
Now, consider the example of Officer Cox, who was beaten thoroughly by his colleagues who
mistook him to be a suspect they were chasing. Cops or police officers wear a uniform and have
identity numbers, which efficiently help other cops to identify their colleagues. Therefore, to try
to justify this as an aspect of illusion is unreasonable. Notably, the authors describe officer Cox
as black, and the fact that other cops beat him based on him black is not an issue of illusion. This
is racism as opposed to an illusion Chabris and Simons are trying to justify.
All in all, The Invisible Gorilla puts forward an argument that the mind is likely to
mislead people into thinking or acting dangerously. The mind can perceive something in a wrong
way, and before someone give a second thought, they would have acted dangerously. Sometimes

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if people are not sensitive enough, they will be unable to know their surroundings, and this can
lead to misjudgment. In a personal view, this book highlights how irrational people could
become sometimes. A rational person is not likely to allow illusions to control their minds but
would look at things or situations objectively. All in all, The Invisible Gorilla has interesting and
disclosing experiments that bring into sharp focus the assumption individuals have about their
mental abilities.

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Work Cited
Chabris, Christopher F., and Daniel J. Simons. The invisible gorilla: And other ways our
intuitions deceive us. Harmony, 2010. Retrieved from:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0307459667?tag=randohouseinc7986-20