Nine Brain Quirks You Didn’t Realize You Had
I think the brain is most interesting when it doesn’t work the way you expect it should. Psychology often confirms our intuitions about how our minds work, but it offers quite a few surprises as well. Although some psychology buff’s will have heard a few of these before, here’s a list of quirks in your brain you probably didn’t realize you had:
1) Your short-term memory has a max capacity of seven.
Humans have three forms of memory: sensory, long-term and short-term. Long-term memory is like hard-drive space, while short-term memory works like a very small RAM. This short-term memory can hold only about five to nine (average is seven) items at a time.
Remembering information longer than this requires you to either compress it down into seven units or store it in long-term memory. Most phone numbers are only seven digits.
2) Chartreuse is the most visible color.
Yellow-green, chartreuse, sits right in the middle of the frequencies of visible light. Your eyes have receptors for blue, green and red. Being in the middle, yellow-green triggers the most of these receptors to fire, making it easy to spot. In some cities, firetrucks have been changed from red to a yellow-green color to make them more visible.
3) Your subconscious is smarter than you are.
Or at least more powerful. In one study, a square was assigned to a location on a computer screen through a complex pattern. After watching it, people began to get results better than chance of picking out where the square would pop up next. But when asked to consciously determine the pattern, even given a few hours, nobody could do it.
4) You have two nervous systems.
One set controls excitation and the other controls inhibition. If you hold out your hand, you might notice minor tremors. This is caused by slight, random differences in the amount each of the two systems are firing.
5) Your brain is awful at probability.
Okay, so maybe your high-school math teacher could have told you this one. But, what’s interesting isn’t that your brain is bad at probability, but how. In one study recipients were asked:
Linda is 31 years old, single, outspoken, and very bright. She majored in philosophy. As a student, she was deeply concerned with issues of discrimination and social justice, and also participated in anti-nuclear demonstrations.
Rank the following statements from most probable to least probable:Linda is a teacher in an elementary school.
- Linda works in a bookstore and takes Yoga classes.
- Linda is active in the feminist movement.
- Linda is a psychiatric social worker.
- Linda is a member of the League of Women Voters.
- Linda is a bank teller.
- Linda is an insurance salesperson.
- Linda is a bank teller and is active in the feminist movement.
Almost 90% of students responded that #7 was more probable than #5. This is despite the fact that to be a bank teller and in the feminist movement is completely contained within the set of #5 (just being a bank teller). It seems our minds like to think more details make events more probable, not less.
6) Your memory isn’t great either.
Studies have shown that people are highly likely to misremember past events. Even worse, it is incredibly easy to suggest a memory that never happened. This is why so-called “repressed” memories should be given a lot of thought. It is far easier to suggest a memory of an event never happened, then it is to recover one that actually did.
7) You can perceive depth with one eye.
It’s a myth that depth perception is entirely the result of having two eyes. Binocular vision does assist in making a three-dimensional picture. However, most of your ability to perceive depth comes from inside your brain. It has been wired to look at angles and proportions to judge distance.
If you required two eyes to perceive depth then most optical illusions wouldn’t work and it would be incredibly difficult to gather information from flat photographs. Not to mention a lot more one-eyed pirates walking overboard.
8 ) Long-term memory shuts down during sleep.
The parts of the brain that transfer information to long-term memory shut down while sleeping. This is why dreams quickly fade away after you wake up. Although you may have several dreams in a night, they aren’t being recorded into long-term memory. Generally only the fragments of a dream left in short-term memory have a chance to be encoded after you wake up.
9) You have an instant playback feature.
At the beginning I mentioned that humans have three forms of memory, short-term, long-term and sensory. Sensory memory is your brain’s equivalent to an instant playback feature. Working for both your vision and hearing, your thalamus can resend signals a few seconds after they were originally sent.
Imagine being at a party and overhearing someone say your name. Often you can recall what they said even though you were focused on another conversation. This is because your sensory memory re-sends the signals when it finds something important, such as your name. If you lacked this form of memory, activities such as multitasking or taking notes from a speaker would be impossible.
If you’re asked to repeat something you just said because the other person wasn’t listening, just wait a few seconds. Often they can replay the message in their head and give a response.
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Comments
creed says on July 11th, 2007 at 11:21 am
Greetings! I take exception to item #7 here. I have had the use of only one eye since birth. Not only has this caused me a great deal of trouble in being able to figure out where the front of an unfamiliar car is (say when parking), but I cannot see anything in those neat 3-D puzzles and pictures. Nor can I watch a 3-D movie. I can eventually learn where the front end of a car is after pulling up, stopping, getting out and realizing I’m 2 feet away, but it takes time. Also, most sports are beyond my abilities simply because I have no idea where the baseball is until it hits me in the head!!! Just some observation based on experience. Have a great binocular day!
Eugene says on July 11th, 2007 at 11:55 am
Same here, I can only use one eye at a time and it caused me to have a terrible time at school sports/gym class or anything else requiring fast adjustment to depth. Things like driving a car my brain is able to guess pretty accuratly based on size of objects but thats more of a compensation.
Kirk says on July 11th, 2007 at 1:01 pm
I disagree with #5. I might have given answer #7 as being more probable than #5 because it’s existence seems to imply that #5 is really “Linda is a bank teller and is *not* active in the feminist movement.” Strictly speaking, it doesn’t necessarily mean that, but I think that’s probably the more common interpretation within the context. It goes back to multiple choice tests; you’re trained from an early age to look for the differences between two similar answers.
Which isn’t to say that people aren’t awful at probability. I just don’t think that’s a good example.
Chuck says on July 11th, 2007 at 2:24 pm
In response to #1…it’s not actually 7, it’s 7±2…see Miller’s classic study:
http://psychclassics.yorku.ca/Miller/
Mookie says on July 11th, 2007 at 2:26 pm
This is a poorly-researched article that has no sources to verify any of its claims. The author should be ashamed and embarrassed.
That’s not to say that some of these things are not true (or close to true), just that some of the items are definitely bogus, and others are so skimpy that they are more confusing than enlightening.
rationalpsychic says on July 11th, 2007 at 3:14 pm
I love this stuff. I’m always trying to find ways to become better friends with my brain.
joe says on July 11th, 2007 at 3:39 pm
About #2: Its Chartreuse-yellow, not chartreuse.
see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chartreuse_yellow
Anderl says on July 11th, 2007 at 6:51 pm
Kirk, I disagree. with your statement on topic #5. It is a topic on probability. It is about the likelihood of Linda being a member of two groups rather than being a member of one. The odds of her being a member of both groups is less likely than being a member of one or the other.
If Linda was a bank teller, she is not a firewoman, she is not a police officer, she is not a politician, etc. There is an endless array of nots that pertain to Linda. Linda is a bank teller states just that. She is a bank teller. You are implying additional information to the statement that is simply not there.
barkley says on July 11th, 2007 at 8:10 pm
Mookie has a stinky butt.
roger says on July 11th, 2007 at 8:42 pm
#5 is actually completely off. Our brains excel at calculating Bayes’ probability, which is difficult task even for modern computers.
loonidood says on July 11th, 2007 at 8:59 pm
you know, i smelled it for a second there, too….
Neuroscientist says on July 11th, 2007 at 9:29 pm
The responses are more interesting than the article itself, which content should be covered by two semesters psychology universit education.
As far as I’m concerned every fact stated is more or less bulletbroof. Those studies he writes about have really been conducted and have really yielded those results.
Quiet obvious the author of this article didn’t read the original work though. I think this article is in parts seriously misleading and should be partly rewritten.
Have a nice day
empty_other says on July 12th, 2007 at 2:38 am
#8 can’t be true. Not entirely, at least. When i am dreaming, i can (in the dream) often remember that i have dreamt it once before. “Only old reruns on dream-channel today..”
Alex says on July 12th, 2007 at 7:45 am
holy photoshopping, batman.
David says on July 12th, 2007 at 7:55 am
#4 is wrong, at least the hand part (well you wouldn’t call it two systems at least, and in-inhibition and inhibition’s are both controlled by the amygdilla. The reason your arm shakes when you hold it out is because your muscles are arranged in fibers. Imagine a large mass that is your muscle with many many fibers. Maybe it takes 100 fibers to hold up your arm. These fibers will get tired, and must be switched with one of the many other fibers. The randomness of switching creates times when there are 101 fibers holding up your arm, causing it to go up a little, and times when there’s 99, causing it to go down.
NeuroStu says on July 12th, 2007 at 8:01 am
4) You have two nervous systems.
One set controls excitation and the other controls inhibition. If you hold out your hand, you might notice minor tremors. This is caused by slight, random differences in the amount each of the two systems are firing.
This is totally wrong. Yes there are multiple nervous systems: The Central Nervous System, The Peripheral, The Autonomic, and the Enteric. What you described however is COMPLETELY INCORRECT
paul says on July 12th, 2007 at 8:06 am
I think that both the commenters and the author are right in a sense about #7.
I remember hearing somewhere that you can have only one eye and still have depth perception if your dominant eye is still usable. But i am unsure on how to determine the dominant eye(is it the same as your hand?).
Are you guys lefties or righties and which eye do you not have control over?
Dscho says on July 12th, 2007 at 8:33 am
To expand on roger:
In #5 you have more information available than what is suggested by the explanation.
For example, if you know that George W. Bush is president of the USA, what is more likely:
1) he is male
2) he is male, and is president
In spite of 2) being much more unlikely in the general case, I hope you agree that the information you have about Dubya makes 2) look less unlikely in this case.
But I agree that humans are terrible at probabilities, as the explanation of #5 shows
AT says on July 12th, 2007 at 8:54 am
I don’t get #1. The header says that max capacity is 7, but the next paragraph says that it can hold from 5 - 9. So why say the max capacity is 7?!?
K says on July 12th, 2007 at 9:04 am
every time I see a list based on “science” or “facts” like this I wish the authors would do enough research to add some sort of citation of where they found the information… especially since reading through the list makes it obvious the author has never bothered to read so much as an introductory level psychology text.
GO says on July 12th, 2007 at 9:58 am
Regarding #2, I believe they tried repainting fire trucks in Boston a few years ago… only to find that Yellow-chartreuse fades into the background in snowy conditions, and red was still better for year-round visibility.
No, I don’t have a cite, but it matches my visible observations.
penny says on July 12th, 2007 at 11:01 am
First, I also have use of one eye since birth and I play ping pong just fine, and have no problem catching balls and frisbees. On the other hand, the only way I can see a stereogram is to memorize each part and afterwards use my mind to combine the pictures. The single page modern three dimensional encodings are impossible for me, as for “the others who posted.
I have no problem remembering a hundred
digits in short term memory. Such abilities vary greatly in the population.
As to the sources and accuracy etc., I recognize most of these “facts” as things one used to find in Ripley’s Believe it or not”, and in newspaper and magazine fillers. They are thus VERY out of date, and poor popular science crud at best.
People today are more sophisticated and require dated refs and some idea of what experiment ( with the limits of the experimental design) for such “Facts”. They are less trusting.
That is why complaints are posted by others.
Penny
James says on July 12th, 2007 at 11:07 am
Problems:
#8- Long term memory does not turn off when you sleep. In fact, reading or studying something before sleeping is a very effective way of making sure that info gets into long term memory. This process occurs while sleeping.
#5 is actually correct, very much so. There is a wealth of scientific literature on the topic of how humans are TERRIBLE when it comes to probabilistic decisions. Base Rate Neglect, Gambler’s Fallacy, Conjunction Error- the list goes on and on and on. (Research these, they are immensely interesting, btw).
#4 is referring to the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems. Makes a valid point.
#1 is wrong- it’s 7 plus or minus 2.
Eugene says on July 12th, 2007 at 11:39 am
@paul
I suppose in a way then the article is right. Since I can only use one eye my brain has to compensate for the lack of the second and guess at the depth by other factors such as size of the object I’m looking at. So in a way I have some depth perception just not real depth perception as its a calculated guess on the part of my brain and not the normal function my eyes would do.
Jack says on July 12th, 2007 at 12:19 pm
This is just worthless junk.
Where’s my beer….
AJ says on July 12th, 2007 at 12:23 pm
Hi, I have been a 3D computer vision masters student in computer science myself and believe me, 2 eyes are there for a reason. I beg to completely differ from your opinion. What depth may seem like with one eye is actually our perception of things such as - 1) Shadows of the objects 2) size of the objects, 3)Angular displacement/motion of objects w.r.t. their surroundings.
I was involved in algorithms where we tried to see how to make computers understand exactly like how humans do.
Believe it or not, you do need binocular vision.
Joanna says on July 12th, 2007 at 12:41 pm
#8 is very wrong. Tons of studies show the exact opposite - memory is recapitulated during sleep, where memories are consolidated into long term stores.
Matt says on July 12th, 2007 at 1:26 pm
Do you have a reference to the article you cite in #3? I’d love to read it.
Sarah says on July 12th, 2007 at 2:22 pm
To everyone who is stating that #8 is wrong, I think you are misreading what the author is saying. He is not saying that during your dreams, you cannot access things you know from long term memory but simply that what you are actually dreaming is not able to be recorded in your long term memory (at least not your conscious long term memory). That is why when you wake up you might remember your dream but if you don’t tell someone about it or write it down, it will fade quickly because it was not committed to long term memory.
[- \/ @ says on July 12th, 2007 at 2:24 pm
Wow. Impressive…not.
Whoever wrote this article didn’t really know much about psychology…
#1 leaves out the fact that chunking works tons better. Max is 7??? No. It’s 7+ or - 2.
#3 The subconscious isn’t an actual part of your mind…Duh. Not even Freud mentioned the subconscious.
#4 You have “2 nervous systems”. But this is stated wrong. You have a parasympathetic and sympathetic branch of the autonomic nervous system.
#5 Those students can’t think. Honestly, it’s analogous to a group project. The more people you have working, the harder it is to find a time where everyone can work together. Same in this case, the more details, the less likely all of it will be true.
#6 Don’t generalize. Did your memory suggest that all of these facts were actually true? Or did someone else? Give an example.
#7 No shit, Sherlock. By saying that it’s a myth, it just shows how people never bother to try. Have you tried? I’ve tried and found that it’s only harder to perceive depth with one eye.
#8 That’s so damn absurd. You don’t cite examples. I’ll give you one. People do better on exams when they review right before they sleep cause they retain the information much better.
#9 You don’t have 3 forms of memory. Those are only stages of memory of a THEORY. And you put them in the wrong order too…Sad. The thalamus can resend signals after a few seconds? Gee, I guess that also disproves that neurons can fire 100 times a second…
When you ‘hear’ something, it skips the thalamus, dumbass.
Like I’ve mentioned a few times, go and cite examples. This is very poorly written article and whoever wrote this needs to consult more than just one source. Sad excuse.
Sp says on July 12th, 2007 at 3:17 pm
On # 7, I would like to comment that it does not says that binocular vision is not necessary, but that the brain has some other resources to deal with 3D. It is not only the binocular function. Mayby AJ could explain that even that binocular is necessary, true 3D involves many more factors.
You can make an experiment: close one eye, in a safe, familiar, well-light environment; and walk around, open the door, pick a pencil from the table, take a glass of water and you will notice that you don’t see the world as a flat surface and you can, more less, accomplish this task quite well.
In #1, I agree and understand that as there is no specific answer, 7 is an average. So, I think is a correct answer.
Congratulations for this interesting post.
[- \/ @ says on July 12th, 2007 at 3:21 pm
Uh Sp, check some of the previous posts before you say number one is correct…
Sp says on July 12th, 2007 at 3:54 pm
For #1, I think (IMHO) that there is no *correct* answer. It may depend on the subject, the particular experience, the state (tired, stressed, distracted), …
I think, after re-reading the posts and the classic article, that it is a good response: More less 7, about 7, between 5 and 9, 7 plus/minus 2. Maybe even between 4 and 10, maybe someone can only record 4 things and other, 11; who knows.
The important (or interesting) thing, I think, is that we have a (short) limit in our immediate memory. So, it is natural if you can’t remember all the 16 digits of a credit card as easily as a six digit phone number.
By the way, I saw a program at Disc Ch about memory. It said that it is easy, in some circumstances, to forget something or to remember something that didn’t occurred as if it was true.
Thanks again.
[- \/ @ says on July 12th, 2007 at 4:15 pm
Ah ok. I think I misinterpreted what you were saying.
Jasmine says on July 12th, 2007 at 4:54 pm
You can trick your mind to remember more than seven things by reducing the number of actual things to less that seven. Thus you can remember a credit card number as 4 sets of 4 digits each. Easy. Same with your social security number. You can remember someone else’s number instantly because it’s only 3 things ###, ##, and ####.
As for “Linda” - the ONLY item in the list that is “probable” at all is the that she is in the League of Women Voters. All of those other items conflict with being a schoolteacher to some degree, since that is a full-time job. Therefore it’s more likely that she is a social work, than she is a bank teller, which is another full time job and an obvious conflict. It is a bad example, and it doesn’t really support the conclusion. Deal or No Deal is the proof that people don’t understand probability.
Brandon Sprouse says on July 12th, 2007 at 5:28 pm
As for the 9th one; I find it very true. I often don’t listen to people unless in a conversation (I guess you could call it selective hearing) and I often ask people to repeat questions and then answer them before they ever have a chance to reply.
drn says on July 12th, 2007 at 5:39 pm
what about procedural memory?
Sleeping Dude says on July 12th, 2007 at 5:42 pm
Disagree about number 5. It’s pure logic. Either you have it, or you just guess (this is what happened in those experiements).
And on #8. Long-term memory shuts down during sleep… - how then I’m having dreams about people and events from 15-20 years ago?
Allan says on July 12th, 2007 at 6:13 pm
It’s like you know me better than I know me!
michael says on July 12th, 2007 at 9:31 pm
#1
There was a study published in 2001 that placed the average number of chunks at 4, not 7. This article is one of the most referenced articles in the cognitive sciences and, I think, the most in Behavioral and Brain Sciences.
Cowan, N. (2001). The magical number 4 in short-term memory: A reconsideration of mental storage capacity. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 24, 87-185
Suck it!
SilentNN says on July 12th, 2007 at 9:56 pm
#5 (the probability one) is very true, and even though this example is the best, it is certainly valid.
About whether #1 is titled wrong or not, I think it is ok to say that as he means your short-term memory [probably] has a max capacity of 7.
Kelli says on July 13th, 2007 at 2:55 am
I’ve been blind in my left eye all my life and I’ve never, that I can recall, had a problem with dept perception except for small, fast-moving objects, like a baseball. I’m sure it doesn’t look the same as it does to someone with binocular vision, but I have no problems looking at an object and judging how far away it is with reasonable accuracy.
MacDude says on July 14th, 2007 at 11:08 am
Along with the short term memory holding 7 + or - 2 the rest of Miller’s research says it holds chunks of information. Many people make the mistake of thinking that’s why phone #’s are 7 digits and zip codes are 5. However, in reality we almost never say a phone number as 7 independent items. We don’t say “9-8-7-6-5-4-3″. Most people say a phone number as “987-65-43″. So instead of 7 chunks you have 3. Likewise zip codes are not read as 5 separate digits. It’s usually “902-10″ or two chunks. If you really want try 7 items try listing the 7 dwarfs or the 7 deadly sins.
Rafa says on July 14th, 2007 at 8:42 pm
OMG, where did you “research” all this? Wikipedia?
First, you could add some references, otherwise it’s just like saying that you heard from someone at the shopping mall talking about X and Z.
Second, I’m gonna do exactly that. I’m too lazy to look for the resources and this is just a comment, not an “article”:
* Your short-term memory has a max capacity of seven.
This is not true. It has a capacity of 5plus/minus2 chunks of memory. That is why, when trying to remember a numbe like 215435423410 you will split it in between 5 and 9 “chunks” that make sense to you, e.g. 21 54 354 23 410
* You can perceive depth with one eye.
This is not completely true. Those who are blind on one eye “can” see depth *because* they unconsciously and very subtly move their heads in small “swings” to be able to have 2 points of view of a given object or sight. But with a static head, they can’t.
(if I remember correctly, it is those who became blind after a certain age; those who were blind at birth, don’t even know what depth is, so they can’t retrain themselves to do these movements)
I know these two concepts partly from a course in Human-Computer Interaction where a neurologist explained how the brain works, more or less.
bill says on July 16th, 2007 at 9:08 am
To quote Edward Tufte (great discussion at that link):
Now and then the narrow bandwidth of lists presented on computer screens and bullet points on PowerPoint slides is said to be a virtue, a claim justified by loose reference to George Miller’s classic 1956 paper “The Magical Number Seven, Plus or Minus Two.” That essay reviews psychological experiments that discovered people had a hard time remembering more than about 7 unrelated pieces of really dull data all at once. These studies on memorizing nonsense then led some interface designers to conclude that only 7 items belong on a list or a slide, a conclusion which can be sustained only by not reading the paper. In fact Miller’s paper neither states nor implies rules for the amount of information to be shown in a presentation (except possibly for slides that consist of nonsense syllables that the audience must memorize and repeat back to a psychologist). Indeed, the deep point of Miller’s paper is to suggest strategies, such as placing information within a context, that extend the reach of memory beyond tiny clumps of data.
From George Miller, about his 1965 study:
But the point was that 7 was a limit for the discrimination of unidimensional stimuli (pitches, loudness, brightness, etc.) and also a limit for immediate recall, neither of which has anything to do with a person’s capacity to comprehend printed text.
bill says on July 16th, 2007 at 9:09 am
edit: 1956 not 1965
Dawn says on September 16th, 2007 at 5:52 pm
Is it possible for some people to learn better sitting down than standing up? Lets say in a work envoronment, making pizza may seem easy or working in an office environement. Is it possible that your brain or some peoples brains just don’t function if they have a job standing verses sitting?
Mighty Quinn says on September 20th, 2007 at 11:54 am
We Love your web site, keep up the great work!
Jeff says on November 12th, 2007 at 7:43 am
All 3D projection or display technologies rely on presenting the left and right eye with images of a scene taken from slightly different perspectives. They mimic just how the brain receives images of the real world from a slightly different perspective (distance between eyes). It implies that binocular vision plays a very important part in quality 3D depth perception.
The is a detailed explanation of how one 3D display technology from Philips works. http://www.presentationtek.com.....echnology/