Monitor on Psychology: Volume 32, No. 4 April 2001: by Siri Carpenter. Research on a phenomenon known as "inattentional blindness "suggests that unless we pay close attention, we can miss even the most conspicuous events.

What is inattentional blindness? The term “inattentional blindness” entered the psychology lexicon in 1998 when psychologists Arien Mack, PhD, of the New School for Social Research, and the late Irvin Rock, PhD, of the University of California, Berkeley, published the book, “Inattentional Blindness,” describing a series of experiments on the phenomenon. In Mack and Rock's standard procedure, they presented a small cross briefly on a computer screen for each of several experimental trials and asked participants to judge which arm of the cross was longer. After several trials, an unexpected object, such as a brightly colored rectangle, appeared on the screen along with the cross.

An Overview and Some Applications of Inattentional Blindness Research by Todd A. Ward: A research paper for PSY 440

A trick to illustrate Inattentional blindness: Kirsten's Magic Card Trick demonstrating Inattentional Blindness