missing child experiment

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The Missing Child Experiment

The Missing Child Experiment

The missing child experiment demonstrated the perception problems we all have, as well as our refusal to admit them. As a matter of fact, this experiment has been repeated hundreds of times, in different places, with similar results.

Researchers have also conducted similar experiments to expand on the original findings and better understand the mechanisms of human perception.

The lost child experiment demonstrates two failings of human intelligence. Firstly, attentional bias . This means that humans only perceive what they consider to be relevant, whether it is or not. The second is the bias blind spot . This refers to the tendency for us to believe we’re less biased than we actually are.

“ Experience teaches that, in visual perception, there’s a discrepancy between physical fact and psychic effect.”   -Josef Albers-

The missing child experiment

The missing child experiment was extremely simple. The researchers put up a set of posters in a park, all very close to each other. The posters showed a photo of a child and an announcement that the child was missing. Several people stopped to read the poster.

Then, the child in the photo went to play near each of the people who’d stopped to look at the poster . On each occasion, the child stayed close by for several minutes, before leaving. However, in every instance, the people didn’t recognize the child as the one in the poster.

Minutes after this happened, an interviewer appeared and asked the people if they’d be able to recognize the child in the photo. They all answered yes.

The researchers recorded the whole situation with hidden cameras. In fact, there are many videos available on YouTube where you can see the experiment in action.

A similar experiment

Researchers conducted a similar experiment in 2016, in Washington Square Park in Manhattan, New York. On this occasion, a six-year-old boy, a girl of the same age, a dog, and a cat were all “abandoned” in this busy park. The idea was to see if anyone rescued them. The researchers monitored everything with hidden cameras.

The first to be rescued was the six-year-old girl. She was found just three minutes after the experiment started. A woman approached her and asked if she was lost, and the girl replied that she was. When interviewed, the woman said, “Maybe it was my mom radar”.

Within four minutes, a woman rescued the dog. Ten minutes later, a woman rescued the cat. However, despite the experiment lasting 45 minutes in total, nobody rescued the boy. He was close to both the dog and the cat, but nobody paid attention to him.

In another similar experiment, people were found to be kind and helpful to children who were lost and asking for help when they were well-dressed and, in most cases, white. Children of another race, or dressed poorly, were systematically ignored by passersby.

What does the experiment tell us?

The most obvious conclusion we can draw from the missing child experiment is that our perception doesn’t work as well as we think it does . Indeed, we’re not as attentive or mindful of our environment as we imagine. Basically, we tend to focus only on what interests us and don’t pay attention to other stimuli.

Furthermore, it seems we’re burdened with inbuilt prejudices . In the Manhattan experiment, people assumed the more fragile beings, in the form of a girl and two small animals, needed help. However, they ignored the boy. Could this be due to sexist prejudice? Although he was only six years old, did his male status prevent him from obtaining protection and sympathy?

Similarly, the children who seemed to be poor or of races other than white didn’t seem to be considered as deserving of the kind of protection offered to the others . This is blatant discrimination. For this reason, experiments like these should certainly make us stop and think.

The post The Missing Child Experiment appeared first on Exploring your mind .

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If You Saw a Lost Child, What Would You Do?

If you saw a child standing all alone and crying, would you stop to help?

April 24, 2008— -- Imagine you're on a busy sidewalk rushing to work, running an errand or simply out for a stroll, when suddenly you notice a little boy standing all alone. Is he really lost? Do you stop to find out?

To find out what people would do in this situation, ABC News hired four young actors, two boys and two girls, all 7 years old and dressed in everyday clothes. The children took turns standing on the corner of a well traveled street in a city near New York with various hidden cameras planted nearby.

Each child was equipped with a device in his or her ear so that ABC News producers could communicate with them from a surveillance van nearby. ABC News also hired two plainclothes policemen to keep close watch nearby and to ensure safety. The parents of the child actors also watched from a surveillance room at a nearby restaurant.

Initially, we asked the children to stand in one place and look scared and frightened. Halle, the first actor to participate, walked out to the street corner and acted like a lost child, looking around for help with no guardian in site. A woman stopped almost immediately because, she said, she sees this sort of thing all the time.

But this woman turned out to be the exception. Most people walked right on by. In fact, during our two-day experiment, almost 2,000 people walked by and only 47 stopped to help the "lost children."

It's easy to assume that it only happens to other families or just in the movies: We think that losing a child, even if just for a moment, can't or won't happen to us.

But it does happen. Thousands of kids get lost every day, more than 90 percent of all families will experience it at least once, although the vast majority of lost children are recovered within minutes.

The experiment continued with actor Alexis, who stood on the street corner acting lost and frightened. Several minutes pass, and many adults walked by, but no one stopped to help or even ask if she was OK.

"It is just not acceptable to walk past a child like that and do nothing," said Ernie Allen, president of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children and one of the people who helped design this experiment. "A young child on the sidewalk of any American city by themselves is vulnerable, they are at risk."

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Missing Child Experiment

Posted on Tue May 06, 2008

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Missing Child Experiment

• Post author By Shirley Buxton
• Post date May 3, 2008
• 1 Comment on Missing Child Experiment

Of interest to me is how involved we each are in the lives of those around us; how we hear, how we see those with whom we have some level of contact. To emphasize the plight of missing children, an intriguing experiment was conducted in Orlando, Fla. by Local 6 in which at the entrance to a mall was posted a picture of a small girl and the notice that she was missing. The poster bore the image of an 8-year old paid actress who was situated on a bench inside the mall, as her father watched from a nearby cafe and as other security agents surveyed carefully.

From the dozens of people who passed the child, only two made an attempt to help her. Some seemed to recognize the child to be the same one pictured as missing, yet did nothing, others walked right past her and did not at all notice her. You may want to take a look at the video available on the link and listen to the responses of those who were later interviewed.

Many lessons here, and commentary on our society.

**Sometimes we are fearful to become involved with a child, perhaps thinking our efforts could be misinterpreted.

**On many occasions we are absorbed with our own mission and just do not see signs of a problem within our reach.

**The “This can’t be happening to me,” syndrome in which it seems incomprehensible that we see a sign of a missing child and a few minutes later we actually see the little girl a few feet away from us.

**Sometimes we think we have observed something unusual, go our way, then return to inquire.

**Occasionally, we take responsibility for the problem, and handle it as should be done.

Interesting…

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• Tags concern for fellow man , missing children , missing children experiment , Orlando Fla.

By Shirley Buxton

Still full of life and ready to be on the move, Shirley at 86 years old feels blessed to have lots of energy and to be full of optimism. She was married to Jerry for 63 years, and grieves yet at his death in August of 2019. They have 4 children, 13 grandchildren and 11 great-grandchildren...all beautiful and highly intelligent--of course. :)

One reply on “Missing Child Experiment”

This made me think of how we sometimes treat lost souls. Thought provoking.

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