background preloader

* Randomness as Meaning

* Randomness as Meaning
Introduction This article describes how, in our search for order and purpose in life, people sometimes assign meaning to events that are objectively random and devoid of meaning. Consider these two images — one dot pattern is random, the other isn't: One of the two images above shows a random pattern of dots, the other has been manipulated to resemble a random pattern but isn't really random. In perception studies, most people choose Sample A because Sample B shows tight clusters of dots that don't really seem random. The meaning of this experiment is that, when people see tight clusters of dots (or of events), they conclude it isn't a chance grouping but has special significance. The following sections show examples where, for psychological reasons, people assign meaning to meaningless groupings, significance to insignificant coincidences, even invest in outright frauds based on mistaken perceptions of reality. The Gambler's Fallacy Friday the 13th The Birthday Problem Amazing Rock

15 styles of Distorted Thinking 15 styles of Distorted Thinking Filtering: You take the negative details and magnify them while filtering out all positive aspects of a situation. Polarized Thinking: Things are black or white, good or bad. You have to be perfect or you're a failure. Checklist for Hidden Anger Procrastination in the completion of imposed tasks. Eye Movement and Lying - How to detect lies Interesting Info -> Lying Index -> Eye Direction & Visual Accessing Cues Eye Movement and Direction & How it Can Reveal Truth or Lies This is a continuation of our previous article Detecting Lies. Many comments by our visitors asked about how eye direction can indicate the presence of a lie. Can the direction a person's eyes reveal whether or not they are making a truthful statement? Short answer: sort of. In these shows a detective will deduce if a person is being untruthful simply because they looked to the left or right while making a statement. In reality, it would be foolish to make such a snap judgment without further investigation... but the technique does have some merit. So, here it is... read, ponder and test it on your friends and family to see how reliable it is for yourself. Visual Accessing Cues - "Lying Eyes" When asked a question a "normally organized" right-handed person looks (from your viewpoint, looking at them): The Gist of it... How this information is used to detect lies:

10 Ways Our Minds Warp Time How time perception is warped by life-threatening situations, eye movements, tiredness, hypnosis, age, the emotions and more… The mind does funny things to our experience of time. Just ask French cave expert Michel Siffre. In 1962 Siffre went to live in a cave that was completely isolated from mechanical clocks and natural light. When he tried to measure out two minutes by counting up to 120 at one-second intervals, it took him 5 minutes. But you don’t have to hide out in a cave for a couple of months to warp time, it happens to us all the time. 1. People often report that time seems to slow down in life-threatening situations, like skydiving. But are we really processing more information in these seconds when time seems to stretch? To test this, Stetson et al. (2007) had people staring at a special chronometer while free-falling 50 metres into a net. 2. We’ve all experienced the fact that time seems to fly when we’re having fun. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. Time is relative

18 Ways to Improve Your Body Language There is no specific advice on how to use your body language. What you do might be interpreted in several ways, depending on the setting and who you are talking to. You’ll probably want to use your body language differently when talking to your boss compared to when you talk to a girl/guy you’re interested in. These are some common interpretations of body language and often more effective ways to communicate with your body. First, to change your body language you must be aware of your body language. You might want to practice in front of a mirror. Another tip is to close your eyes and visualize how you would stand and sit to feel confident, open and relaxed or whatever you want to communicate. You might also want observe friends, role models, movie stars or other people you think has good body language. Some of these tips might seem like you are faking something. In the beginning easy it’s to exaggerate your body language. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18.

Stuff no one told you: Simple truths of life At some point in 2010, Alex Noriega, illustrator from Barcelana, was going through a crisis due to some isues at work. He decided to start a blog as a way of trying to find what he was doing wrong. He wanted to put on paper all that he had learned in life as simple as possible and try to see if what was happening around him made any sense. Still, his work is great and we are happy to present it to you! Why Smart People Are Stupid | The New Yorker Editors’ Note: The introductory paragraphs of this post appeared in similar form in an October, 2011, column by Jonah Lehrer for the Wall Street Journal. We regret the duplication of material. Here’s a simple arithmetic question: A bat and ball cost a dollar and ten cents. The vast majority of people respond quickly and confidently, insisting the ball costs ten cents. For more than five decades, Daniel Kahneman, a Nobel Laureate and professor of psychology at Princeton, has been asking questions like this and analyzing our answers. When people face an uncertain situation, they don’t carefully evaluate the information or look up relevant statistics. Although Kahneman is now widely recognized as one of the most influential psychologists of the twentieth century, his work was dismissed for years. The philosopher, it turns out, got it backward. West and his colleagues began by giving four hundred and eighty-two undergraduates a questionnaire featuring a variety of classic bias problems.

Cognitive Distortions And Socializing Many of the problems and conflicts people face are sustained in part by distorted, maladaptive thinking: Someone who's shy often sees other people as more critical and judgmental than they really are. A person struggling with anxiety may see the world as exaggeratedly dangerous, and underestimate their ability to cope. I could easily give hundreds more examples. This article will describe these main cognitive distortions. As you read the descriptions below you'll likely notice that several of the distortions blur into each other or produce similar outcomes. All-or-Nothing Thinking / Black and White Thinking Seeing things in simplistic, absolute terms. "Not every last person in my class loves me, so that means I'm a complete reject."" Black and White thinking also tends to trip people up when they're setting goals or monitoring their progress: "I don't think I'll be able to become the world's most charismatic person, so there's no point in trying to improve my social skills."" Filtering

How to Detect Lies - body language, reactions, speech patterns Interesting Info -> Lying Index -> How to Detect Lies Become a Human Lie Detector (Part 1) Warning: sometimes ignorance is bliss. After gaining this knowledge, you may be hurt when it is obvious that someone is lying to you. The following deception detection techniques are used by police, forensic psychologists, security experts and other investigators. Introduction to Detecting Lies: This knowledge is also useful for managers, employers, and for anyone to use in everyday situations where telling the truth from a lie can help prevent you from being a victim of fraud/scams and other deceptions. This is just a basic run down of physical (body language) gestures and verbal cues that may indicate someone is being untruthful. If you got here from somewhere else, be sure to check out our Lie Detection index page for more info including new research in the field of forensic psychology. Signs of Deception: Body Language of Lies: • A person who is lying to you will avoid making eye contact. Bored?

Cold reading Basic procedure[edit] Before starting the actual reading, the reader will typically try to elicit cooperation from the subject, saying something such as, "I often see images that are a bit unclear and which may sometimes mean more to you than to me; if you help, we can together uncover new things about you." One of the most crucial elements of a convincing cold reading is a subject eager to make connections or reinterpret vague statements in any way that will help the reader appear to make specific predictions or intuitions. While the reader will do most of the talking, it is the subject who provides the meaning. After determining that the subject is cooperative, the reader will make a number of probing statements or questions, typically using variations of the methods noted below. Subtle cues such as changes in facial expression or body language can indicate whether a particular line of questioning is effective or not. Other techniques[edit] Shotgunning[edit] Warm reading[edit]

Touch of Death The Touch of Death (or Death-Point Striking) refers to any martial arts technique reputed to kill using seemingly less than lethal force targeted at specific areas of the body. The concept known as Vibrating Palm originates with the Chinese martial arts Neijing ("internal") energy techniques that deal with the Qi energy and the type of force (jin) used. It is depicted as "a technique that is part psychic and part vibratory, this energy is then focused into a wave".[2] Claims of practicability[edit] Advertisement for Count Dante's 1968 World's Deadliest Fighting Secrets. There have been a number of martial artists claiming to practice the technique in reality, beginning in the 1960s, when the term was advertised alongside the English translation "The Death Touch" by American eccentric Count Dante. In ca. 1990, Taika Seiyu Oyata founded the style of Ryū-te which involves "pressure point fighting" (Kyūshojutsu). Kung fu films[edit] In contemporary western pop culture[edit] See also[edit]

Related: