Common features:
absence of complex scientific terms;
purpose.
Differing features:
size;
abundance of examples in the book;
the extent to which the topic is narrowed;
specification;
genre;
angle;
the book introduces a new topic, while other texts elaborate on already existing ones.
One of the major differences among the four given texts is the extent of their specification. The book (Chabris, C.& Simons, 2010) presents a high level of specification, the topic is analyzed very profoundly, the book contains detailed description of the concept and the manner in which the experiment was carried out, as well background information concerning the nature of the researched problem; the journal article (Drew, Vo & Wolfe, 2013) also contains quite detailed information, but is much more concise, while blog post (Novella, 2010) and website (Cloud, 2010) contain only brief overview. The main reason of this difference is the objective which is set by the authors of the texts: while all the texts share the same purpose – to describe the psychological phenomenon, their objectives are different: the book aims to explain the topic in its entirety and to a quite profound extent, while other texts’ goal is to simply familiarize readers with the topic.
Another feature that is different among the texts is angle at which the topic is presented. The book contains the original ideas of its authors and it can be said that it introduces a new topic, while other texts elaborate on this topic and present it at a different angle. The blog post and the journal article focus on the psychological side of the issue, while website describes the topic in its relation to the book and its authors. This difference is caused by the nature of the texts and their target audience.
References
Chabris, C. F., & Simons, D. J. (2010). The invisible gorilla: and other ways our intuitions deceive us. New York: Crown.
Cloud, J. (2010, July 12). Human Perception and the Invisible Gorilla. Retrieved from http://content.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,2003097,00.html
Drew, T., Vo, M. L., & Wolfe, J. M. (2013). The Invisible Gorilla Strikes Again: Sustained Inattentional Blindness in Expert Observers. Psychological Science, 24(9), 1848-1853. doi:10.1177/0956797613479386
Novella, S. (2012, October 2). More inattentional blindness. Retrieved January 23, 2017 from http://theness.com/neurologicablog/index.php/more-inattentional-blindness/
