Pink Elephants Gorillas

"Science" hard(ly) at work:

Drivers beware! New research published today in Applied Cognitive Psychology finds that even having just one stiff drink can make you 'blind drunk.'

The study showed that subjects who were mildly intoxicated (at half the legal intoxication limit in the US) were heavily compromised in their ability to notice an unexpected visual object when they were focused on another simple task.

The experiment involved giving subjects 10 minutes to consume beverages which, unbeknownst to them either contained alcohol or did not. The subjects then watched 25 seconds of a video clip showing two teams of three people playing with a ball and were instructed to count the ball passes. Part way through the video clip, an individual dressed in a gorilla suit appeared on the screen, walked directly through the players, beat its chest and then walked away. Subjects who were mildly intoxicated were twice as likely to miss seeing the gorilla, even though it had screen time of over a third of the video.

So beware, drivers! If you're counting rapid volleys of some random object while driving home from the bar, and a guy in a gorilla suit suddenly jumps out in front of your car, you might not see him.

Seriously.

Happens all the time.