Free Psychology Books: A History of Modern Psychology (2011) by Schultz & Schultz

A History of Modern Psychology (2011) by Schultz & Schultz

Suppose you were walking across the campus and you were approached by a person dressed like a clown. He is wearing bright purple and yellow clothing with oversize sleeves decorated with polka dots, red shoes, wild eye make-up, a white wig, a large red nose, and floppy blue shoes—and he is riding a unicycle. We don’t know about your campus, but we rarely see clowns around ours. If we did, we probably would notice them, wouldn’t you? How could you not notice something as obvious and odd as a clown? That was what Ira Hyman, a psychologist at Western Washington University, wanted to find out. He asked a student to dress up like a clown and ride around the main campus square where hundreds of people were walking to and from classes (Hyman, Boss, Wise, McKenzie & Caggiano, 2009; Parker-Pope, 2009). 

When students reached the edge of the quadrangle, trained observers asked 151 of them if they had seen anything unusual, such as a clown. Only half of the students who were walking by themselves said they noticed the clown.More than 70 percent of those walking with another person saw the clown. Only 25 percent of those who were talking on their cell phones were aware of the clown. In other words, 3 of every 4 students talking on their phones were oblivious to the appearance of a clown on a unicycle right in front of them. They had been so distracted by their conversations or their texting that they could not recollect the bizarre sight. Now you might be thinking that this would be a disappointment to a clown who is trying to attract attention, butmore importantly, what does it have to do with the history of psychology? Consider what the results of this experiment tell us about ourselves. They suggest that we may find it difficult, if not impossible, to pay attention to more than one stimulus at a time. In other words, it is really hard to focus on more than one thing. Does this make you question the value of multitasking, something you most likely do routinely? You probably consider it normal to listen to music while you write a paper, or send a text message while you eat, but are you truly concentrating on either of these activities? Scientists in many fields are investigating the usefulness and effectiveness of multitasking, just as the researchers did in the gorilla study, but their conclusions are not new. Similar results were demonstrated more than 150 years ago, in 1861, by a German psychologist.

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