Ever wonder how your brain processes information?
These brain tricks and illusions help to demonstrate the two main systems of Fast and Slow Thinking in your brain.
Brain Tricks – This Is How Your Brain Works
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You may not realize it but your brain actually processes information in two very
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distinct ways. Like when you look at this photo you instantly know she has blonde
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hair, is visibly angry and likely has some choice words to yell. Without any effort
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you experienced fast thinking, But if you look at the following problem something
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different happens. Sure you immediately know it’s a multiplication problem and you
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knew you could solve it if you had the energy, but didn’t.
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If you do try your muscles will tense, your pupils will dilate and your heart
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rate will increase. Now you’ve experienced slow thinking.
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These two systems of fast and slow thinking dictate much of our perception
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and reaction in life.
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Take these lines for example, it is clear that they’re different lengths, but if
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you measure them they’re actually the exact same length. Even now that you
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know, system one, or your fast thinking can’t stop seeing the illusion because it
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acts automatically. A similar effect is seen here, which figure is the largest? Again
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they are all the same size but the suggestion of perspective and depth
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causes your system one to interpret the picture as three-dimensional even though
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it’s on a flat two-dimensional surface.
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It’s making quick work of the available information and so you’re conscious
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system two, or slow thinking, must compensate after the fact and choose not
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to believe your intuition or instinct. Want to see your system two in action? I’ll show you a
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string of four digits, you read them aloud and add one to each of the original
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digits.
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If the card reads 3795 the correct response would be 4806.
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We’ll then go to the next card and you will do the same followed by the
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next card.
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ready? Go.
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Few people can cope with more than four digits, but even harder is add three.
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The interesting bit is that though your pupils would have dilated you often become
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effectively blind when you fully engage system two.
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Did you notice the colour of the text change?
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Or how about the fact that the numbers completely changed when I put them off to
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the side? Listen to the following puzzle. A bat and a ball cost one dollar and
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ten cents. The bat cost one dollar more than the ball.
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How much does the ball cost?
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Chances are your system one intuition was yelling “ten cents”, but this appealing
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system one answer we know is wrong. In fact the correct answer is five cents.
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Even if you worked out the correct answer, you likely thought of ten cents along the
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way. System one is trying to work out an answer as quickly and seamlessly as
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possible which is extremely beneficial in everyday life. If every activity
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required full mental effort it would be exhausting. But knowing this allows us to
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understand that not all of our first impressions are correct.
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How many animals of each kind did Moses take into the ark? So few people
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detect what is wrong with this question and that it has been dubbed the the Moses
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illusion.
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In fact, moses took no animals, Noah did. Again our brain invests as little resources as
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necessary so that things run quickly and smoothly. Because moses is not abnormal
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in the biblical context, system one unconsciously detects an association
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between Moses and arch, and quickly accepts the question.
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In a similar way system one generates context without you knowing. Reading each
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of the following may seem fairly simple “ABC” “Ann approached the bank” and “12, 13, 14”
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But your brain actually interpreted these ambiguous statements without you ever
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knowing. You could have read it as “A 13 C” or “12 B 14”,
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but your brain created the context unconsciously. Also, you likely imagined a
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woman with money on her mind walking towards a building with tellers, but if
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the sentence before this was “they were floating gently down the river” the
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entire scene would have changed because “bank” is no longer associated with “money”.
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Without an explicit context, system one quickly generates one based on previous
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experience. In this case, you have likely visited more banks then rivers and so
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the context is resolved accordingly. This ties into a concept called “priming”.
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For example if I said “wash”, how would you complete this word fragment? Most
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would see “soap”, but had I just shown you the word “eat” you’d be more likely to
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see “soup”.
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I this way both eat and wash
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prime your thoughts. Though system two likes to think that it’s in charge and knows
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what’s going on, the truth is that priming effects have even been shown to
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affect and modify behavior. These arise in system one and you have no conscious
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access to them. If you’d like to learn more about the thinking systems in your
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brain? Check out the book “Thinking Fast and Slow” by Daniel Kahneman which covers
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it in great detail. I’ll put a link in the description which you can check out.
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Got a burning question one answered? Ask it in the comments, or on facebook and twitter
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And subscribe for more weekly science videos
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