#TURNAROUND, actor John Stamos wrote on Instagram after visiting the house that launched his career.
The Full House fans who had come to stare at the eponymous abode were missing out on perhaps a once-in-a-lifetime moment by ignoring the tanned, famously handsome man (formerly known as Uncle Jesse) standing behind them.
For a casual (yet nerdy) observer, this might seem like an example of selective attention, best illustrated by the Internet-favorite invisible gorilla video, where viewers are asked to count the number of times the players wearing white pass the basketball.
If you’re a human being with eyes, you counted 15 passes. But if you’re a former Psychology 101 student (a class in which this video is often shown) then you also know to look for the gorilla walking through the frame. Most people will not notice the gorilla on first viewing, but once they are told it’s there, it’s almost inconceivable to think you once missed it.
The theory is that when your mind is concentrated on one thing, you’re unlikely to notice other, unrelated things—even if they’re worth noticing. One might say that John Stamos, the former Uncle Jesse, is certainly not unrelated to seeing the Full House home. But 10 years after the invisible gorilla test, the original researchers further demonstrated how little attention we have to spare. Their updated “monkey business” video shows that if people are already looking for the gorilla, they’re even less likely (than those who don’t expect the gorilla) to notice huge changes like a background curtain changing color or a player leaving the game.
The John Stamos not-sighting is just another example of how inherently difficult and contradictory it is to expect the unexpected. In the meantime, let’s hope that Jesse and the Rippers will make a return to Steiner Street for the ultimate Instagrammable experience.
