Unaware Observers: The Impact of Inattentional Blindness on Walkers, Drivers, and Eyewitnesses

Inattentional blindness is a failure to become aware of an object or event that should be completely obvious due to focused attention. Inattentional blindness has important ramifications for the legal system. First, inattentional blindness may contribute to accidents. People often engage in divided attention tasks and perform tasks that require tracking multiple sets of information. In these situations, people may cause accidents because they become selectively focused and fail to notice objects, signals, and events. Second, inattentional blindness may result in eyewitnesses failing to notice a crime. One crucial feature of inattentional blindness is that people are surprised that they or someone else can fail to notice things that seem obvious. People expect to notice unusual events, warning signals, and crimes. For this reason, expert testimony may aid jurors and courts attempting to understand the role of attention in many legal cases.