As mentioned above, some of the same cognitive processes involved in believing in the Loch Ness Monster were those involved in keeping early humans alive. One such process is called Hyperactive Agency-Detection Device, or HADD. This is a mental tool that helps humans establish cause-and-effect relationships between novel stimulus and previous knowledge. Essentially, HADD is responsible for allowing humans to perceive that a predator is in the grass that just rustled. “Hyperactive” means that sometimes this device kicks in even when the rustling grass is just the result of the wind. However, it is clear that the ancestors who heard a lion instead of the wind were much more fortunate than those who heard the wind when it was a lion. It is this same device that allows believers to see Nessie in a few large ripples on the Loch Ness.
|
If you answered $0.10 then you would be a more intuitive thinker. You would also be wrong. If the ball cost $0.10, then the bat would cost $1.10, putting the total up to $1.20. As an intuitive thinker, your mind shortcut doing the math, and gave you the incorrect answer. On the other hand, reflexive thinkers, who likely took an extra minute to, at least mentally, write out the problem would have come up with the correct answer of $0.05. The minds of intuitive thinkers tend to jump hoops like this, causing them to often misread or mislabel normal stimulus as something out of the ordinary.
|