Cell Phones and Inattention Blindness

So you find when people are talking on a cell phone that they sometimes fail to see things that are right in front of them. I've seen situations where people are so blind to information out there that they don't see trains that are approaching.

I mean, so there's a number of cases I've seen where people, have been hit by trains, where everybody else could see the train, but the person who's talking on cell phone, just didn't notice it.

It leads to something which we call Inattentional Blindness. Even if you're looking, if your mind isn't processing what you're looking at, you don't see it and you can be as blind to -- so blind in fact that, you don't see a train that's on coming. That's a pretty big thing not to see, but a cell phone conversation can really disrupt the driver's perception and delay their reactions, and in many cases have some very catastrophic consequences.


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