Video Description:
Zola, nine-years old, is one of eight Western lowland gorillas currently living at the Calgary Zoo as part of the Association of Zoos and Aquariums Gorilla Species Survival Plan. He loves to play in water and keepers regularly give him the opportunity to do so as part of the enrichment activities they plan and vary on a daily basis.
How much of your money can an 800 pound gorilla spend?
As much as it wants to.
A dumbfounding study roughly a decade ago that many now find hard to believe revealed that if people are asked to focus on a video of other people passing basketballs, about half of watchers missed a person in a gorilla suit walking in and out of the scene thumping its chest.
Now research delving further into this effect shows that people who know that such a surprising event is likely to occur are no better at noticing other unforeseen events – and may even be worse at noticing them – than others who aren’t expecting the unexpected.
The so-called “invisible gorilla” test had volunteers watching a video where two groups of people – some dressed in white, some in black – are passing basketballs around. The volunteers were asked to count the passes among players dressed in white while ignoring the passes of those in black.
A man wakes up one morning to find a gorilla on his roof.
So he looks in the yellow pages and sure enough, there’s an ad for “Gorilla Removers.” he calls the number, and the gorilla remover says he’ll be over in 30 minutes.
The gorilla remover arrives and gets out of his van. He’s got a ladder, a baseball bat, a shotgun and a mean huge dog.
“What are you going to do”, the homeowner asks?
I’m going to put this ladder up against the roof, and then I’m going to go up there and knock the gorilla off the roof with this baseball bat. When the gorilla falls off, the dog is trained to grab the gorilla’s testicles and squeeze. The gorilla will then be subdued enough for me to put him in the cage in the back of the van.”
He hands the shotgun to the homeowner. “What’s the shotgun for?” asks the homeowner.
If the gorilla knocks ME off the roof, shoot the dog.”