On the first day of Christmas – people can figure out what you want to know when you shake the wrapped Christmas gifts. We can find out whether it’s about the number of items inside, or the shape of those items.
Introduction
On Christmas Day, it is time to open presents and end the suspense about what you will receive this year, but some of us might guess what’s under the wrapping – perhaps by shaking the boxes for clues about their contents. According to a research paper published in November in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, if someone sees another person shaking a wrapped gift, they will be able to tell from those movements what you were trying to find out.
Basic Operations for Information Acquisition
According to Firestone and others, there are many scientific studies dedicated to examining how people represent and interpret basic actions such as walking, reaching, lifting, eating, chasing, or following. It is a vital ability that helps us predict the behaviors of others. All these are examples of purposeful actions with specific goals, whether it’s retrieving an object or moving from one place to another. Other types of actions may be communicative directives, such as waving, pointing, or adopting an aggressive (or friendly) posture.
Cognitive Operations for Information Acquisition
The JHU study focused on what are called “cognitive” actions, where a person seeks to obtain information: dipping a foot into a pool to gauge its warmth, for instance, testing a door to see if it is closed, or shaking a wrapped box to gain insights about what might be inside – like a child trying to guess whether the wrapped Christmas gift contains LEGO pieces or a teddy bear. “Cognitive actions are prevalent in our lives, and recognizing them as well,” the researchers wrote, noting the capacity to understand that a visitor wandering aimlessly on campus needs directions, or that someone rummaging in shallow water is likely searching for keys or similar small items.
The Box Shaking Experiment
In the first experiment, 16 players were asked to shake mysterious boxes. In the first round, they tried to guess the number of items inside the box (in this case, whether there were five or 15 American nickels). In the second round, they tried to guess the shape of a geometric body inside the box (either a ball or a cube). All players scored perfectly in both rounds – a predictable result given the simplicity of the task. Videos of those rounds were posted online, and 100 study participants (observers) were asked to watch videos of the same player and identify which video was from the first round of “guessing the number” and which video was from the second round of “guessing the shape.” Nearly all observers guessed correctly.
Conclusions of the Study
This provided interesting evidence that observers could indeed infer the goal of the shake (what the players were trying to ascertain) just by interpreting their movements. However, the researchers wondered how much the success of the observers depended on the players’ success in guessing the number or shape of the items. Therefore, they modified the box shaking game to produce more errors from the players. This time, the players recorded on video were asked to determine whether the box contained 9, 12, or 16 nickels, and secondly, whether the box held a ball, a cylinder, or a cube. Only four out of 18 players guessed correctly. Yet the success rate of the 100 new observers watching the videos remained unchanged.
Conclusions
The Study
Firestone and others conducted three additional experiments to improve their results. With each repetition, most players made different shaking movements depending on whether the round involved numbers or shapes, and most observers (500 in total) successfully inferred what the players were trying to learn by watching those shaking movements. “When you think about all the mental calculations someone has to do to understand what another person is trying to learn, it’s a very complicated process,” said Firestone. “But our results show it’s something people do easily.”
DOI: PNAS, 2023. 10.1073/pnas.2303162120 (About DOIs).
About the Author
Jennifer Ouellette is a senior writer at Ars Technica with a special focus on the intersection of science and culture, covering everything from physics and related interdisciplinary topics to her favorite films and television shows. Jennifer lives in Baltimore with her husband, physicist Sean M. Carroll, and their two cats, Ariel and Caliban.
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