VANESSA: This episode is supported by Prudential.
So what are we doing?
I'm here with Mike Rugnetta from "Idea Channel," Dianna
from "Physics Girl," and Joe from "It's OK to be Smart."
Hi, Vanessa.
Hello.
So first question for you, Dianna.
How would you use these objects to mount a candle to the wall
to illuminate the room?
So you have a box of tacks.
OK.
That was meant to be a box, but it's actually the bottom of a--
It's not very square.
It's the bottom of a coffee cup that I cut out with scissors.
You can call it a box if you want.
Thank you.
You have a candle, and you have some matches.
OK.
Can I use them in any way?
In any way you like.
Without setting the room on fire?
Without setting the room on fire.
Imagine it's this room, imagine there
are no lights in this room, and you
need to somehow solve this little puzzle
to make the room bright and happy.
These are obviously going to light the candle.
OK.
OK, I think I would have to--
I would make some sort of a platform and pin the--
kind of secure the candle thusly.
To the wall?
To the wall.
This way.
OK.
How's the platform going to come into existence?
I'm going to push the pins into the wall.
I'm going to rest the candle on top of two of them.
I'm going to put one pin on either side
to hold it in place.
Oh, OK.
So you're going to make a pin platform, so pins
down the bottom and everything.
Mm-hmm, that's what I'm going to do.
I would sandwich the candle this way.
OK.
Then I would take one of these.
OK.
And then I would--
should I do it?
Yeah, I mean, this is your set.
We're actually on the "Idea Channel" set today,
so if you want to put a hole in the wall of your set,
you can do it.
I don't know if I can.
Uh, Morgan?
Holes in the wall?
Do you think the candle wick will be too close to the wall?
There's only one way to find out.
Oh, Morgan's upset.
No.
I'm thinking maybe, like, melting a little of the wax,
and sticking it to a tack, and then
just sticking that into the wall.
Oh, interesting.
I'm thinking maybe I would--
So it's a horizontal candle lamp.
Yeah, mm-hmm.
Yeah, OK.
Or I'm thinking maybe I would just melt the wax a little bit,
and then stick that to the wall with just the wax and not
even use the tacks.
I mean, the set's new.
Yeah, yeah.
I don't really want to burn it down.
How about you pretend that my arm is the wall?
[LAUGH]
Yeah, that seems much more safe.
I would maybe tack the box to the wall.
I don't-- how would you melt the wax onto the wall?
Like--
How does gravity work in this situation?
Well-- excuse me.
Yeah.
So I'm asking you.
So the force countering the force of gravity would be
the friction between the wax and the wall once you've got that--
But how is it going to drip onto the wall?
You just want to melt-- you're going to use the match to melt
a little bit--
Oh, yeah, yeah.
We use the match to melt the back
and then stick that to the wall.
OK, yeah.
I thought you were talking about dripping wax,
and I'm like, mm-mmm, mm-mmm, no.
No, no, no, just heat this up.
That can't drip onto a wall.
Just no, no, no.
Good question.
This test is called the candle problem,
and it was first used by a psychologist called
Carl Duncker in 1945.
What is suggested when this test was first
done is that you would tack the box to the wall--
Sure.
And then you would drip some wax into here
and put the candle in the box.
Duncker coined this term called "functional fixedness," which--
I like that term.
Yeah, which is a mental block that people have when they
cannot use objects in different ways outside of their proposed
function.
So basically, if you put it in simpler English,
it's just that you imagine that things have a fixed function,
and it's hard to think around that.
So wait, this object is part of the available--
Oh, yeah.
Oh.
Yeah, yeah.
And what is really interesting is
when they had small linguistic differences when they were
doing the test, when they said "box of tacks" instead of "box
and tacks," people don't think to use the box as often.
Right.
Yeah.
Which one did you say to me?
I said "box of tacks."
People would identify these as two separate things.
People would more often use the box.
Yeah.
Didn't even occur to me.
That's very obvious now that you say it.
And what people have found when they've
done the test is that children, younger children,
like younger than five, actually perform better
at using things in different ways.
No preconceived notion of what it's for.
Yeah, what you should use things for.
Well, I think I did great.
Your solution to the problem was
very similar to the one that's suggested.
Yeah, you had the same kind of logic to get there.
I feel, like, 60% smart.
[LAUGH]
It's OK to be 60% smart.
OK.
Second question for you.
Mary's mother has four children--
April, May, June, and--
what's the name of the fourth child?
So my gut answer is to say July.
Mary.
Yes.
Yes!
Mary.
Yes.
Mary is the fourth child.
Yeah.
A lot of people like to say July, as you probably
would have guessed.
Wait, so ask the question again.
Mary's mother--
Oh.
Uh-huh.
Your brain loves pattern recognition, and essentially,
we're--
I would say "kind of lazy," but to put it in a nicer way,
we like to operate as efficiently as possible,
and find the quickest way to make a decision
and to think around a problem.
So you said "Mary's mother has four children,"
and so I was picturing-- like, I have to picture things
in my head.
So were you picturing Mary first,
and then you were adding the other three?
Yeah.
Luckily, I don't trust you.
I really like that one.
You do?
Yeah?
Yeah, because you-- right, it abandons the premise so quickly
and gets you so focused on pattern recognition
that you don't realize you are already
in possession of the answer.
You know, people with accents that
are different to those of the people consuming
the media and such that they watch distrust
people with accents more.
So there was a cognitive psychologist
called Herbert A. Simon.
He looked at psychology through a mathematical lens,
and he used the term "heuristics" quite a lot.
You have an accent?
A heuristic is a practical shortcut
the brain uses to get to an answer,
but it's not necessarily the right answer.
Third question for you, Dianna.
Ah, yes.
I feel like I want to call you Physics Girl
because everyone-- nobody knows your actual name.
Well, you're teaching it to them.
Yeah, yeah, this is educational.
I have a list of words here that I
would like you to read out from the word "red"
as fast as you can.
From the word "red" as fast as I can.
As fast as you can.
OK.
"Red, yellow, green, blue, red, blue, yellow, green, blue,
red."
"Red, yellow, green, blue, red, blue, yellow, green, blue,
red."
"Red, yellow, green, blue, red, blue, yellow, green, blue,
red."
Excellent.
Thank you.
OK, and now I would like you to read
this list of words starting from "red" as fast as you can.
As fast-- oh, man, I feel like this one's going to be harder.
OK, well, who knows?
OK.
Yeah.
"Red, yellow, green, blue, red, blue, yellow, green, blue,
red."
"Red, yellow, green, blue, red, blue, yellow, green, blue,
red."
"Red, yellow, green, blue, red, blue, yellow, green, blue,
red."
Great, well done.
That was actually really quick.
Have you seen this test before?
No.
Really?
No.
Have you done this test before?
I have done a test like this before.
OK.
It's called the Stroop color test, as you may know,
and what it measures is the Stroop effect.
I feel like we did this in middle school or something
as a challenge.
Yeah, possibly, yeah.
And they show you that it's harder
when you've got two things you're
processing at the same time.
Definitely.
Now the Stroop effect is the difference in time
that it takes from you reading the first list, where
the colors were the same as the words, to the second list,
where the colors and the words are different.
When you read this one, your time
is meant to be much slower.
Yeah, it really messes with your--
like, you have these natural categories in your head,
that you're just unconsciously a little
biased towards this and that, and it really
gives you a brain cramp.
I felt like I slowed down at "blue" next to "yellow"
where blue is yellow, and yellow is blue.
Right, yeah.
And that was a moment where I could feel my brain
sort of skipping a beat.
And it was first done by a man called
John Ridley Stroop in 1935.
I think he has the best name.
Stroop.
John Ridley Stroop.
Isn't that great?
I think that's really great.
I wish that were my grandpa.
Your brain is kind of working overtime when you do this,
and you are both processing language and color
information at the same time.
So the idea is that reading doesn't require
your controlled attention, but the act of you reading
uses enough attentional resources
to take that away from your color processing ability.
Reading is almost automatic to us,
but not so much because it still uses a little bit
of information processing.
And when you add color information processing
into that, it becomes hard to balance between two
areas of your brain.
Yeah, it's like-- you know when you
find yourself driving sometimes, and you realize
you've been on autopilot?
Yeah, yeah.
You realize you read like that.
And then I felt myself on the other one, you're like,
I've gotta break out of my usual little pattern.
Yeah.
When they do this study with bilingual people,
and bilingual people actually have this weird processing
thing.
It's like a processing superpower,
I would say, for people who speak two languages.
But they can do this more quickly
than people who are monolingual.
Interesting.
So the Stroop effect is less.
Bilingual people had a better capacity
to regulate their attention responses.
Sure.
I mean, the thing with psychology tests
is that quite often, it's hard to say
why you do a test better.
It could be a practice effect.
It could be because you are bilingual.
It could be because you're more intelligent.
"Red, yellow, green, blue, red, blue, yellow, green, blue."
And it's actually used a lot in those brain-training apps that
are questionable, except they have a lot of practice effects,
so you get better at a lot of those tasks over time,
and this is one of them.
Hm.
Whoo!
Thank you so much, Joe.
Thank you so much, Vanessa.
For tricking me.
You're welcome.
Thanks for having me.
This was super fun.
Great.
And I'm a lot less stressed out than I thought I would be.
Yeah, I didn't trick you that much.
You did really well.
Thanks.
Yeah, yeah.
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