Sure, but this study does not convince me that the drivers lacked situational awareness. They may have been paying attention to the pertinent details like whet

Sure, but this study does not convince me that the drivers lacked situational awareness. They may have been paying attention to the pertinent details like whether the car was going to ingress their lane, overtake speed, etc. rather than the car's decorations. Drivers may have even seen the bear but simply not committed it to memory since they were focused on driving. In contrast, it was the drivers that were familiar with the car that most often remembered the bear, perhaps this was because they were paying less attention to defensive driving since they felt more comfortable and had attention to spare allowing them to remember passing car decor.