The Awareness Test: The Seen and Unseen Bears and Gorillas in Marketing

The old awareness test used as a commercial for Transport for London’s Cycle safety campaign. If you haven’t seen the video already, watch it first, then click the jump:

This video highlights an interesting fact about the human brain: it’s not a perfect recorder. Your brain doesn’t take in all the information happening for playback later. Your eyes may be perfectly capable of seeing and ears perfectly capable of hearing, but the brain is what interprets these signals. You selectively see and hear what your brain thinks is important.

This is an important thing to consider in marketing.

BTW, the original study and video (which is more impressive I think, and features a gorilla beating his chest, not a bear moonwalking) was published on a DVD called Surprising Studies of Visual Awareness.