Training best cure for 'blindness'.(Letters)(Letter to the Editor)

I found the article by Tom Griffiths and Cathleen Moore on "perceptual blindness" intriguing. Is it possible that a human behavioral anomaly substantively obstructs the efforts of lifeguards from providing expected levels of safety?

A fascinating study referenced in the article can be found at http://www.wjh.harvard.edu/~cfc/Simons1999.pdf. In this study, subjects were given instruction to watch a game of basketball and count the number of times players passed the ball. Apparently, about half of the test subjects concentrated on the counting task to the exclusion of just about anything else, including someone in a gorilla suit prancing around. Griffiths and Moore compare the unnoticed gorilla to a body at the bottom of a pool being overlooked by lifeguards.

I disagree with this interpretation. The study subjects weren't instructed to observe or remember everything that happened in their field of view. They were told to focus on a very limited and specific task and many completely ignored other things that happened. With proper training, a lifeguard's situation is very different.

A lifeguard should be trained to continually visually sweep the area, taking in all safety-related issues in the lifeguard's designated area of responsibility, as well as overlapping into other areas, while prioritizing ...