Kind: captions
Language: en
[Applause]
research has shown that if you're
repeatedly exposed to the phrase the
body temperature of a chicken that's
right the body temperature of a chicken
even if no useful information is given
about the body temperature of a chicken
you are more likely to judge as true
this statement the body temperature of a
chicken is 34° C it's not by the way
it's actually closer to 41 but this
finding highlights an important aspect
of our psychology that plays a huge role
in how we see the world that things
we're exposed to repeatedly feel more
true now the way this seems to work is
through a mechanism called cognitive
ease cognitive ease is a measure of how
hard your brain is working from Easy
like when you're scrolling through
Facebook to hard like if you're trying
to multiply 14 * 37 in your head things
that are true generally elicit cognitive
ease like fire is hot Earth revolves
around the Sun dogs have four legs and
so on not only do these things feel true
they also feel familiar effortless and
they feel good
all of these are outcomes of cognitive
ease now the trouble arises because
cognitive ease can be artificially
created in other ways one way is just by
repeating the stimulus in a classic
experiment at two Michigan universities
experimenters took out ads in the school
newspapers each ad consisted only of one
of these nonsense words cardiga cisic
bani
Noma they were printed with different
frequencies one word appeared in the
paper only once While others appeared 2
5 10 or 25 times the word frequencies
were reversed at the other University at
the end of the experiment researchers
sent out questionnaires asking people to
rate the meaning of each of these
nonsense words on a scale from it means
something good to it means something bad
and the findings were clear the more
frequently the word had appeared in the
newspaper the more people felt it meant
something good so with enough repetition
even a nonsense word comes to feel
familiar it triggers cognitive ease and
overall feelings of goodness experiments
have shown that this also works when
showing English speakers Chinese
characters or even random shapes and the
finding is even more General than that
songs are judged more favorably after
you've listened to them a bunch of times
than on the first listening and
participants looking at yearbook photos
judge the people in the photos as more
likable after seeing that photo more
times which that brings up the question
what are the Kardashians famous for
depending on who you ask you may find
that they're famous for nothing or just
famous for being famous but really they
are famous for exactly the same reason
anyone is famous and that's because
you've heard their names and seen their
faces over and over again now they are
familiar you have experienced with them
in the past and therefore they are
processed with cognitive ease which also
feels good this is at the core of the
advertising industry the idea that
repeated often enough even Brown
carbonated sugar water seems really
appealing but maybe it shouldn't be
surprising that repeated stimuli are
perceived more favorably after all our
brains have evolved to identify threat
threats and anything novel is a
Potential Threat but if after repeated
exposure nothing bad happens it becomes
familiar and comfortable and therefore a
sign of safety rather than a threat and
this General phenomenon extends Beyond
humans chicks who were played a tone
when they were in the egg later made
fewer distress calls when the same tone
was played to them as chicks but
repetition is not the only way to create
cognitive ease images with higher
contrast are perceived by the brain with
more cognitive ease making them feel
good which explains most of the
Instagram filters in another study
people who were shown images where the
outline was projected quickly and
imperceptibly before the image they
started to smile and they relaxed their
brows as measured by electrodes on these
muscles videos with bad audio quality
and low contrast create cognitive strain
as you try to figure out what's going on
possibly searching for threats you may
not have noticed just now but your brows
probably furrowed and your mouth started
to frown which is why we prefer high
contrast video with crisp audio and the
same applies to text so which of these
statements do you think is
true well actually it's a trick question
he was born in 1879 but Studies have
shown that people will often choose the
more legible answer nice contrasty bold
text is easier and quicker to read it's
handled with more cognitive ease and is
therefore judged to be more true lawyers
with easily pronounced last names are
over represented higher up the chain in
law firms even controlling for Rarity
and ethnicity of the names and even
companies that have pronounceable
abbreviations on the stock market
outperform those with unpronouncable
tags which you'll be happy to know if
you have stock in those companies and
being happy in fact that makes you more
likely to experience cognitive ease as
well this in turn makes you more
intuitive try this what connects these
three things Cottage Swiss
cake all English speakers recognize a
unique solution cheese
how about Sky bulb
High the answer is light now not all
sets of three words share a connection
of course but what's amazing is
experiments have shown people can
determine whether they do or not in only
a few seconds long before they figure
out what the actual Association is this
is due to the sensation of cognitive
ease somewhere deep in the brain these
associations cause a flicker of
recognition which feels Pleasant it's
the same reason why people say to go
with your gut on multiple choice tests
if you're not exactly sure of the answer
now is this true or false all roses are
flowers some flowers fade quickly
therefore some roses fade quickly yeah I
would say that follows one would think
it would be true yeah but I got a
feeling it's not the actual answer is
false roses aren't necessarily the some
flowers that fade quickly a test using a
similar set of three questions found
that that 90% of people made at least
one mistake when the questions were
printed clearly but when the test was
printed like this the error rate dropped
to 35% making the test harder to read
actually increased the accuracy of
results this is because the illegible
text creates cognitive strain forcing
your brain to work harder and that helps
avoid the pitfall of jumping to the
intuitive but wrong answer cognitive
ease is useful for being creative and
intuitive but it also makes you more
gullible so for the written part of your
driving test going with your gut is
probably a good strategy but in areas
like physics where the answers are
counterintuitive and there are many
common misconceptions it's important to
be more skeptical this vigilance takes
effort and it's also associated with
being unhappy have you ever noticed that
some of the best scientists and
analytical minds are grumpy and
suspicious of everything I mean I think
this could be more than just poor social
skills it may be essential for them to
do their job and this is a paradox of
learning and critical thinking cognitive
is Pleasant it is effortless familiar
and it really does make you more
creative and intuitive but it can also
trick you it may make things seem true
that aren't and you may feel like you're
learning when you're not on the other
hand being skeptical and analytical
takes more mental work it's more
confusing and it doesn't feel as good
but it's the best way to separate fact
from fiction now you might think that
the point of this video is to say that
we all need to think critically more
often but that's not it as an analytical
thinker myself I find it takes me like
half an hour just to select a toothbrush
there are definitely times when
cognitive ease is the appropriate mental
state I mean we evolved it for a reason
so we can react intuitively in familiar
everyday situations why think harder
than you have to so the key is to
identify those times when more thought
is required but with sharing and
repeating ideas easier than ever before
I think we need to be more Vigilant to
distinguish between those things that
are really true and those we've simply
heard many times before
the more something is repeated the more
it starts to feel
true this episode was supported by this
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check those out the link is in the
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