I tend to frame the issue in a lightly different way. I think of it in terms of "scripts".
In most human interaction, the people involved are not looking at all the available information, applying their relevant personal values, then formulating an appropriate course of action from scratch on the basis of that info and those values. Rather, we have a large selection of plug-and-play "scripts" which cover the general outline of how to handle the current situation and we intuitively select one of those scripts based on a handful of cues that we perceive in whatever we are dealing with.
These scripts aren't as rigid as the ones a telemarketer might have written down for them to follow and most people aren't even consciously aware that they are following a script. They just get the cues which tell them what general direction to go, what sort of things to expect, and some appropriate "if this, then that" actions to take if the expected events occur.
This isn't a criticism. Our brains use these sorts of heuristics all the time to enable us to move through daily life at speed without having to stop and ponder every word and action. (It goes beyond social interaction as well. Shortcuts like this also underly things like basic visual perception.)
As useful as these scripts can be, they also can cause problems.
Swindlers, salesmen and manipulative abusers make use of other people's scripts by doing and saying things to trigger a standard social script for their marks, then switching things up in the middle, going outside the parameters of the expected interaction, then pressuring the other person into the direction they want while the victim is confused by not having an appropriate response ready at hand.
It also contributes to a lot of online (and in-person) nastiness in political (and other) discussion. People get overly simplified scripts which allow them to drop the person they are disagreeing with into a stereotyped pigeonhole and then spout pre-determined counters to what they imagine the other person is saying based on the role they have assigned to them in their internal script.
Getting back to the original topic at hand - most people, when they go to hear an author deliver a public speech, have a set number of standard scripts easily available in their heads. Maybe it's "sit back and enjoy an entertaining story." Maybe it's "wait for Q&A so I can ask something about his next book." Maybe it's "scroll through my phone until the talk is over, then go up to ask if he can sign a copy of his book for my nephew who is a really big fan." One script which is not going to be prepared for the vast majority of people is "hey, someone just jumped up there and is trying to murder the author, what do I do now?" It's just not something that matches the experiences or expectations of the vast majority of people in that context. In the absence of an appropriate prepared mental script, it's pretty common for a person to freeze or to look around to the people around them for cues as to what to do next. If those people are also going through the same process, it can take a little while for somebody to do something. I haven't read any descriptions of exactly how long it took for someone to move to intervene and stop the attacker, but it wouldn't have to be more than a few seconds for the would-be assassin to inflict serious damage. (It's also worth noting that the moderator of the event, a 73 year old man, was injured in the process of helping defend Rushdie and subdue his assailant. I don't think it's fair to accuse him of having a "bystander mentality.")
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