Human Perceptual Limitations - Part One

Go to the following webpage which displays a video hosted by the Visual Cognition Lab of the University of Illinois.

On the video screen you’ll see there are two teams of basketball players, one team wearing white shirts and the other wearing black shirts.

Your job is to see if you can count the number of times the white team passes the ball amongst themselves.

So, go there now and press play on the video, then try to count the number of passes made by the white team. Let's see how good you are...

http://viscog.beckman.illinois.edu/flashmovie/15.php

Now scroll down to check your answer…

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Welcome back!

Now let’s test your perception. The real test was nothing to do with the number of passes. Sorry about that. But did you see the gorilla walking through the middle of the basketball players? If so, well done! Most people miss it. (If you did see it and doubt the difficulty of this task, try it on your family and friends)

If you’re thinking, ‘what gorilla’, watch the video again, but this time don’t focus your attention on any one team. Just enjoy the show and watch out for the gorilla.

http://viscog.beckman.illinois.edu/flashmovie/15.php

This is a great example of what’s called sustained inattentional blindness – our inability to perceive the environment when our attention is focused elsewhere.

So, what are you missing in your market analysis, when your attention is highly focused on one area of the charts? And more importantly, what are you missing when your perceptual ability is even further degraded through fatigue, boredom, fear of loss, doubt about your strategy, doubt about yourself… and I could go on here for another page or two if I wanted.

You ARE subject to perceptual limitations.

And this unfortunately, combined with many other human performance limitations which are a subject for further articles, means that your analysis must always be considered potentially flawed.

So be proactive in minimising any distraction; prepare yourself physically and mentally for every trading session in order to be operating as close as possible to your peak performance levels; and ALWAYS ensure that trade risk is kept within acceptable levels.