NOTICING OF UNEXPECTED EVENTS BY ADULTS WITH AND WITHOUT MENTAL-RETARDATION

Adults without mental retardation commonly fail to notice nominally ob vious aspects of naturalistic scenes (Becklen & Cervone, 1983). We rep licated and extended this effect to adults with mild mental retardatio n. Adults with and without retardation viewed a 60-second videotape of an amateur basketball game. They were instructed to press a button wh enever the ball was passed. At one point, a woman carrying an open umb rella walked bodily through the ongoing action. Becklen and Cervone fo und that only 35% of adults without retardation noticed this unexpecte d event and that noticing was not predicted by task performance prior to the woman's appearance. In the present study noticing rates for sub jects without retardation were similar to those reported by Becklen an a Cervone and noticing by subjects with mental retardation was at leas t as high. Task performance for subjects with mental retardation was s ignificantly lower than that of subjects without retardation, but noti cing was not predicted by task performance (prior to the unexpected ev ent) for either group. Results were interpreted in the context of an e cological approach to attention.