16:26
Which of these faces appears angrier to you? The one on the left or the one on the right? Try to comment your answer before looking at anybody else's and go with your gut. These faces caused quite a stir when we shared them on social media, but it turns out that one of them is way more likely to be chosen. Because of the way your brain is split neurologically, it's the right side that processes the visual field you see on the left and the left side of your brain that processes the visual field on the right. But the right side of your brain also contains the area involved in both facial recognition and the recognition of emotions. And because of that, your brain is better at processing and
understanding emotions on the side of the face in your left visual field. As a result, the majority of people will see this face on the left as angrier because even though the faces are simply mirror images, your emotional recognition is able to process this side of the face more easily. Now, of course, some of you may feel the opposite, which says something interesting about you. But before we get to that, take a look at this soccer goal. I want you to take note of its speed and power. Now, I'm going to play another version of it, and you tell me which one you think was faster. As in, in which clip is the ball moving faster than the other. I'll play the first one again. And here's the second one again. If you
said the first one felt faster, you're more likely from a culture that reads from left to right. And if you said the second one, you're more likely from a culture that reads from right to left. Of course, you might have said that they were both the same speed and just flip videos, and you'd be right. But studies have shown that your culture and your upbringing implicate how you perceive the world. For example, Arabic speakers are more likely to interpret right to left goals as stronger, faster, and more beautiful than left to right ones. Whereas Italians see it the opposite way. Your brain is always working with your history and context to shape your perception. Like listen to this audio.
How do you tell the children? What did you hear? Chances are it mostly sounded like jumbled up noises with a faint hint of some words in there potentially. Your brain is hard at work trying to predict and understand it. But now listen to this. It was a sunny day and the children were going to the park. After hearing this sentence, we can go back and listen to the original and it will sound completely different. It was a sunny day and the children were going to the park. Because your brain has more information, it can make accurate predictions and sense of what it's hearing. Speaking of information, did you know that if I put an object into your hand while blindfolded that your left hand would actually be better at
discerning it? Because touch and spatial tasks have a strong role in the right hemisphere, studies show people are better at comparing shapes and objects in their left hand, and you're likely to understand that shape better in your mind compared to if you were using your right hand. Now, imagining things in your mind is a special brain task. And I want you to use it to picture an apple. What do you see? It can be with your eyes open or closed. But I want to know what happens for you when I say, "Imagine an apple in your mind." Is it a vivid image of an apple as real as seeing it in real life with its texture
and imperfections? Or maybe it's a less detailed version of an apple? Or for some of you, it may even just be an outline or a vague idea of what an apple could look like. Turns out that for around 4% of people, they see nothing. Literally, they are not able to conjure images in their mind on demand. In fact, a lot of people with this condition don't even realize they have it because they don't know that when people say picture something in your mind, they mean it literally. The condition is called aphantasia and it's one of the most fascinating things. But before we dive deeper into that and even more mind-boggling illusions, let's talk about something that everyone can perceive with today's sponsor, Hensen.
And that is a good shave. Let's be honest, most razors are kind of a scam. like cheap plastic, five blade contraptions, endless subscription models. We tried them all. They work just enough to pass, but they're like not actually good and they definitely don't last. Which is why I switched to the Hensen Razer. It is literally made in an aerospace machine shop. Like the same place that made parts for a Mars rover. So, it is in fact precise, but it's the results that are the most impressive. Hensen actually teamed up with medical imaging companies to measure skin irritation. Not just guess, but actually measure. Their razor showed significantly less irrima or redness and razor burn compared to leading multi-blade drugstore razors. And
they're building what might be the first clinical baseline of its kind for shaving, which as a science nerd, I obviously think is pretty cool. See, most of their razors flex and bend and do a lot of tugging, especially as the blade wears out. Hensen does the opposite. Their blade is held rigid. No flex, no gimmicks, just a single blade that glides through hair without tearing up your skin. It's engineered with a 30° shave angle. And the blade only extends 0.0013 in, which is like 03 millimeters. Yeah, that's thinner than a human hair. It's one of those upgrades that feels minor until you try it and then you're wondering like, why did we put up for worse for so long? You can visit hensenshaving.com/asap or use the code ASAP at checkout to get
100 free blades with the purchase of a razor. Just make sure both items are in your cart for the code to take effect. Now, back to how your mind works. Studies show that humans tend to fall on a scale of visualization. But how do we know what's actually going on in somebody else's mind? Like, how do we know we're not all seeing the exact same thing, but just describing it differently? Well, when a person with aphantasia is asked to visualize something on command during a brain scan, the visual parts of the brain don't activate in the same way as somebody with typical visualization. But something even more peculiar is that there is a way to trigger this brain
activity in aphantasia and that is with dreams. When we look at the brain of somebody dreaming, even when they have a fantasia, these visual areas light up and they activate in basically the same way as a typical person's brain. Conversely, if you're reading an interesting or exciting book, the average person begins to sweat. Not like noticeably sweat, but if we're measuring you in a lab, we'll be able to pick up perspiration. Whereas people with aphantasia don't have this sweat response at all, likely because they're not conjuring the imagery that is in turn creating the body's response. Now, if you're just finding out that you have aphantasia or that you fall on the lower end of the visual spectrum, don't
stress. This is all just part of the normal range of human experience. In fact, aphantasia may be protective against certain mental disorders that are linked to negative imagery like PTSD. What's also really fascinating to me is that people with aphantasia are more likely to work in STEM fields, while those with hyperfantasia, people who are really good at visualizing, are more likely to work in the arts. Speaking of visualizing apples, what color is this one? You likely said red, despite the fact that it's actually gray. But your brain has a theory about apples and what color they should be. And so your brain projects those ideas
as opposed to accurately predicting the pixels on the screen. Kind of like if I show you this picture. Some of it's missing. And while you may not be conscious of it, if we put your brain into an MRI scanner right now, it would be lighting up in areas associated with the blanks, predicting and filling in the rest of the image. This reminds me a lot of the height of CO when you would meet a lot of people for the first time wearing masks, like you didn't actually know what their face looked like. And when you eventually saw it for the first time, it would be extremely trippy. Because you didn't know their face, your brain was making a whole bunch of assumptions and predictions about how
they looked. And once you actually saw the real thing, it likely didn't match those predetermined expectations. Now take a look at these faces. Can you tell me what emotion they are expressing? Do they look distressed and upset? Because all of them are actually faces of happiness. But without proper context, it's difficult for your brain to accurately predict their emotions. It's something you would expect humans should be really good at, but it turns out that face shape and contortions aren't always enough without more context and cues. When you look at this tennis player, you can see her happy in one moment after winning a point and disappointed in the other after losing one. But this is the
exact same face superimposed on both bodies. Your brain fills in the emotion based on the body posture. Your mind really is good at filling in information without you knowing. Take a look at this ticking clock for example. I want you to look away for a few seconds and then look back. I'll count you in to look back. Ready? 3 2 1 Look. When you first look back at the ticking hand, did it feel like the first tick was a tiny bit longer than the others? It turns out when you move your eyes from point A to point B quickly, your brain doesn't actually take in the information in between. Instead, it takes the image from point B and back fills that gap. So once your eyes land on the clock, your
brain tells you that the image has been stable since it left the last spot. And as a result, that first tick can often feel longer than the rest. But even with static eyes, brain scans show about a 400 millisecond gap between when your unconscious brain processes information and when your conscious mind receives it. Your consciousness is kind of like a film, which seems continuous, but it's really made up of a series of 24 frames in every second. Ultimately, your consciousness is just pieces of information that have been filtered from your subconscious. Because there's so much information around you at all times, your conscious mind can't possibly process it all. And so your unconscious mind and all your different
body sensors take in that information and basically strip it down to the most important stuff before it's actually sent to the conscious mind to be made understandable. Now going back to the split faces for those of you who see the right-hand version as more angry. What does this mean? Well, there's no perfect answer. Old science might have said some people are more rightrained, some people are more leftrained, but that is a little outdated now. You really use your whole brain for most activities despite some things being localized to different parts of your brain. Chances are it's just another reminder of how all of our brains are unique and that the world as you know it may not be the same for
other people. If you want to learn more about leftrain versus right brain science and more cool illusions, check out our latest SideNote podcast episode. I'll link it here on screen and in the description, or you can listen to it anywhere that you usually listen to podcasts. Thanks so much for watching. If you like these kind of videos, give it a like and subscribe. And we'll see you ASAP for some more science. Peace.
