The Invisible Gorilla - Christopher Chabris, Daniel J. Simons

If a gorilla walked out into the middle of a basketball pitch, you'd notice it. Wouldn't you? If a serious violent crime took place just next to you, you'd remember it, right? The Invisible Gorilla is a fascinating look at the unbelievable, yet routine tricks that your brain plays on you. In an award-winning and groundbreaking study, psychologists Christopher Chabris and Daniel Simons asked volunteers to watch a 60-second film of a group of students playing basketball and told them to count the number of passes made. About halfway through, a woman dressed head to toe in a gorilla outfit slowly moved to centre screen, beat her chest at the camera, and casually strolled away. Unbelievably, almost half of the volunteers missed the gorilla. As this astonishing and utterly unique new book demonstrates, exactly the same kind of mental illusion that causes people to miss the gorilla can also explain why many other things, including why: / honest eyewitness testimony can convict innocent defendants / expert money managers suddenly lose billions / Homer Simpson has much to teach you about clear thinking Insightful, witty, and fascinating, The Invisible Gorilla closely examines the false impressions that most profoundly influence our lives and gives practical advice on how we can minimize their negative impact.
I do enjoy reading social psychology books, and know a little on this topic before i picked this up. However I did learn a fair bit from this book and it was insightful to the topics it portrayed. It backed each point up with case studies and insights, which helped you grasp each concept they showed.

It was written in an accessible manner (some of these types of books can be a bit hit and miss) but i got into the writing style and could fully understand what they were trying to say. Like any social psychology book you have to take the information lightly and understand their is always another perspective or another side to the story and nothing is true fact. However the information portrayed made sense, and was very logical.

If you are interesting in social psychology and ways of thinking. This is a good book of its genre, easy to pick up and get into. You can't read huge chucks of it at a time as it is a little information overload but it didn't take me long to get through and to understand.