The role of expectation in change blindness

Human may believe that they notice every important change in their environment. However, the phenomenon of change blindness – a failure to notice salient changes to our visual world – tells a different story. The present research investigated the role of expectation in change blindness by using a modified version of the flicker paradigm. The sample consisted of 120 university students (60 females and 60 males) aged between 18-26. The study used two stimuli, ball and clock, which had an original and a changed version. The changes in the images were either in the expected direction with the minute hand of the clock moving clockwise and the ball sliding down or in the unexpected direction. Response times for the detection of change were collected. It was hypothesized that response time (RT) for expected changes would be lower than RT for unexpected changes. The overall results of the experiment with the two stimuli combined showed that participants were able to detect expected changes faster than unexpected ones, supporting our hypothesis. When the two stimuli were investigated separately, participants were able to detect expected changes faster than unexpected changes for the ball, while the difference between the two conditions was non-significant for the clock. The findings are discussed within the framework of expectation-based theories.