On the first day of Christmas – people can tell what you want to know when you shake wrapped Christmas gifts. We can know if it’s about the number of items inside, or the shape of those items.
Introduction
On Christmas Day, it’s time to open gifts and end the suspense about what you’ll get this year, but some of us might guess what is under the wrapping paper – perhaps by shaking the boxes for hints about their contents. According to a research paper published in November in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, if someone sees a wrapped gift being shaken, they can infer from those movements what you are trying to find out.
Research Work
According to Firestone and others, there are several scientific studies dedicated to exploring 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 behavior of others. These are all examples of practical actions that have a specific goal, whether it is retrieving an object or moving from one place to another. Other types of actions may be communicative, such as waving, pointing, or adopting an aggressive (or friendly) posture.
First 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 object inside the box (either a sphere or a cube). All players scored perfectly in both rounds – a result expected given the simplicity of the task. Videos of those rounds were posted online, and 100 study participants (observers) were asked to watch two videos of the same player and identify which video was from the first round “guessing the number” and which video was from the second round “guessing the shape.” Almost all observers guessed correctly.
Other Experiments
Firestone and others conducted three more experiments to bolster their results. In each experiment, most players made different shaking movements depending on whether the round involved numbers or shapes, and most observers (500 in total) successfully guessed what the players were trying to learn by observing those shaking movements. “When you think about all the mental calculations someone has to make to understand what another person is trying to learn, it’s a very complex process,” Firestone said. “But our results show it’s something people do easily.”
Source: arstechnica.com
Leave a Reply