Attention and Perception Research conducted on attention and perception can be used to help cell phone providers such as AT&T, Verizon wireless, Sprint, and T-Mobile in their campaign against texting. SMS and driving. Although many people who text and drive believe that texting does not alter their driving abilities, psychological research into attention and perception, as well as the growing number of traffic fatalities due to texting, prove otherwise. Mobile operators can inform the public that, because attention is a limited resource, texting while driving limits the amount of attention one has available to devote to the task of driving. They should inform the public that their ability to text and drive successfully may be affected by more than their ability to drive, and that errors in attention and perception may also play a role. Inattentional blindness is a psychological phenomenon that many people who text and drive do not consider. According to Ashcraft and Radvansky (2013) inattentional blindness is the inability to see an object even if you are staring directly at it, due to your attention being elsewhere. People who text and drive often mistakenly believe that if they keep looking at the road while texting, it decreases the likelihood of being involved in a car accident, but research shows that inattentional blindness is more likely to occur if part of our attention is diverted to a secondary task. Studies conducted on inattentional blindness, such as the invisible gorilla test, show that although the individual may stare directly at the road, if part of his attention is focused on the message he is trying to send... .. middle of paper . ..... result of SMS while driving. By engaging individuals in this type of counterfactual reasoning, they may learn about other possible outcomes other than safe arrival that may occur as a result of texting and driving, one of these alternative outcomes being that they do not arrive at their destination safe and sound. Based on this information we can conclude that if cell phone providers can increase the general public's belief that a fatal accident while texting or driving is more likely to occur than their availability heuristic would have you believe and allow people to consider the possible fatal outcomes that can occur as a result of sending text messages and by guiding through the use of counterfactual thinking, cell phone providers can increase the likelihood that people will listen to their campaign message and decide not to text and drive.