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Locus of control is another way of understanding how humans are not necessarily universal to one another by how events are perceived. The missing shape example

Locus of control is another way of understanding how humans are not necessarily universal to one another by how events are perceived. The missing shape example might just be the children never encounter the square & triangles in daily life and are thrown off it. I don't really consider that a great example for showing how behavioural is different.

feanaro 8y ago
The very fact that familiarity with a shape can influence performance on pattern recognition tasks so dramatically is a significant finding on its own. It would mean we are effectively blind(er) to unfamiliar shapes, even though they are extremely simple, like a triangle or square are.
- bellerose 8y ago
  I’m surprised that is a recent discovery. I would think if someone asked a group of kids why someone would get the problem wrong. They would be like well first time seeing shapes.
  - feanaro 8y ago
    Well, some certainly do, but as always, it is a game of sampling, so individual errors are not as important as proportions. If we take the article at face value, proportions differ drastically between very different cultures so there must be something in the culture that biases the proportions towards one outcome or the other systematically. Of course, it's always possible any individual study contained unknown and unaccounted biases. Funding in science is still relatively small, the number of people participating few and science itself is hard.
- KoenDG 8y ago
  I was just thinking. If they gave me this test back in the '90s, but replaced it with a Pokeball and the face of a character from the Pokemon show, I'd probably have done better too. Those would have been things recognizable to me. Things I liked a lot. Also, they would have put my mind somewhat at ease, I think. I wonder how much of the inability to answer some questions is actually down to feeling slightly intimidated by the onslaught of questions, their sterile aura, not knowing the person presenting them, etc... How much does the subconscious feeling of intimidation influence the ability to think?
- topmonk 8y ago
  But that is just conjecture. No one knows why they failed the test more often, only they did. It could have something to do with their written language, for example, and shapes similar to triangles and squares in it appearing in a certain pattern that isn't the basic repeating XXOXXOXXO... Or it could be music and rhythm is a big part of their culture, and XXOXX then follows with XXXO in a large number of their songs.

feanaro 8y ago

The very fact that familiarity with a shape can influence performance on pattern recognition tasks so dramatically is a significant finding on its own. It would mean we are effectively blind(er) to unfamiliar shapes, even though they are extremely simple, like a triangle or square are.

bellerose 8y ago
I’m surprised that is a recent discovery. I would think if someone asked a group of kids why someone would get the problem wrong. They would be like well first time seeing shapes.
- feanaro 8y ago
  Well, some certainly do, but as always, it is a game of sampling, so individual errors are not as important as proportions. If we take the article at face value, proportions differ drastically between very different cultures so there must be something in the culture that biases the proportions towards one outcome or the other systematically. Of course, it's always possible any individual study contained unknown and unaccounted biases. Funding in science is still relatively small, the number of people participating few and science itself is hard.
KoenDG 8y ago
I was just thinking. If they gave me this test back in the '90s, but replaced it with a Pokeball and the face of a character from the Pokemon show, I'd probably have done better too. Those would have been things recognizable to me. Things I liked a lot. Also, they would have put my mind somewhat at ease, I think. I wonder how much of the inability to answer some questions is actually down to feeling slightly intimidated by the onslaught of questions, their sterile aura, not knowing the person presenting them, etc... How much does the subconscious feeling of intimidation influence the ability to think?
topmonk 8y ago
But that is just conjecture. No one knows why they failed the test more often, only they did. It could have something to do with their written language, for example, and shapes similar to triangles and squares in it appearing in a certain pattern that isn't the basic repeating XXOXXOXXO... Or it could be music and rhythm is a big part of their culture, and XXOXX then follows with XXXO in a large number of their songs.