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What Clown On a Unicycle?
R3d M3rcury writes "The New York Times has an article about walking and using a cellphone. 'The era of the mobile gadget is making mobility that much more perilous, particularly on crowded streets and in downtown areas where multiple multitaskers veer and swerve and walk to the beat of their own devices.' But the interesting part was an experiment run by Western Washington University this past fall. There was a student who knew how to ride a unicycle and a professor who had a clown suit. They dressed a student up as a clown and had him ride his unicycle around a popular campus square. Then they asked people, 'Did you see the Unicycling Clown?' 71% of the people walking in pairs said that they had. 51% of the people walking alone said that they had. But only 25% of the people talking on a cellphone said that they saw the unicycling clown. On the other hand, when asked 'Did you see anything unusual?' only about one person in three mentioned a unicycling clown. So maybe unicycling clowns aren't enough of a distraction at Western Washington University..."
Reminded me of this observational skills test (by Transport For London to remind drivers to look out for the many cyclists on city streets): http://www.dothetest.co.uk/basketball.html
FTA:
“I was trying to think about what kind of distraction we could put out there, and I talked to this student who had a unicycle,” said Ira E. Hyman Jr., a professor in the university’s psychology department. “He said, ‘What’s more, I own a clown suit.’ You don’t have a student who unicycles in a clown suit every day, so you have to take advantage of these things.”
The student owned the clown suit.
I'd rather you rationally disagree than irrationally agree.
Wazzu is Washington State University, which is on the Eastern border of the state (and yes, has been known to be quite the party school). This article references the University of Western Washington, which probably means Western Washington University.
The original classic test afaik;
http://viscog.beckman.illinois.edu/flashmovie/15.php
"Kill 'em all and let Root sort 'em out"
She walked under the rear tires. It was already finishing its turn, by the time the REAR tires are in the intersection. There is no jury in the world that would say she had the right of way there. Except perhaps in California.
This is a rerun of the classic Gorillas in our Midst experiment - look here for an abstract and more info from here and here
A similar study was done several years ago using guys dressed up in gorilla suits, throwing beachballs to oneanother. Only about 50% of people noticed at all.
Which is why motorcyclists have to see for other people.
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I work for a major university police department. This year we have had 3 people vs bus accidents. The problem - three people on phones/listening to headphones have walked into crosswalks and not looked both ways. The three seperate incidents people weren't hit by the buses - they walked into the side of buses already in the intersection. That's all the evidence I have...
Wazu is known for being quite the party campus...
Wazoo (or Wazzu, or WSU) is Washington State University, in Pullman, Washington, in the east of the state. Besides beer-drinking, it was also known for being a suspect in the notorious Wazoo/Wazzu Virus that plagued the world in the 1990s.
Western Washington University is, surprisingly, to the west of the state. I know they were doing some fantastic work with rotary engines in ancient days, but I don't know what the clowns are doing now.
Their they're doing there hair.
Wazu is known for being quite the party campus...
This is not about WSU, it's is about "Western", in Bellingham, WA not WSU Pulman, WA.
And BTW R3d M3rcury, it's called "Western Washington University" not "University of Western Washington".
I did go there after all...
To anyone that hasn't seen this video before, count the number of times the basketballs are passed from one person to another.
Wazu is Washington State University (WSU), which is in Eastern Washington. This story is about Western Washington University (WWU) which for some bizarre reason was written as University of Western Washington in the summary even though it was written correctly in the article. Maybe they confused it with the University of Washington (UW). We also have Eastern Washington University (EWU) and Central Washington University (CWU).
Odd things do happen on the WWU campus, but not often enough that a clown on a unicycle would be considered normal or unremarkable.