

Whoa, this is heavy: brain equates weight with importance - neuroworld
http://trueslant.com/ryansager/2009/08/27/whoa-this-is-heavy/

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calambrac
The paper is available here [pdf]:

[http://www.igroup.org/schubert/papers/jostmann_lakens_schube...](http://www.igroup.org/schubert/papers/jostmann_lakens_schubert_ps_2009.pdf)

The experiment design has an interesting flaw: the values that the users
assigned to the questions were indicated by marking a position on a line, not
by writing out a number.

In other words, they might have simply measured where people who don't give a
shit about answering questions in a stupid survey make arbitrary line markings
on a sheet of paper when having to struggle a bit to hold up a heavy
clipboard, versus when easily holding a light one.

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kmcgivney
I've noticed this with chess pieces. Play on a cheap unweighted plastic set,
it feels a lot different than playing on a heavily weighted one.

~~~
BRadmin
Poker chips as well...

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electromagnetic
Agreed, you can easily notice the difference in how someone plays when you're
using lightweight plastic chips and properly weighted ceramic chips. It
affects how someone plays more than money (usually putting $5 on a game will
be enough to get people to play serious, but the proper chips and cards will
make people play like it's a $50 game).

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endtime
So we think heavy things are important, and we use the word heavy (or, more
formally, weighty) to mean important. In fact, gravitas means something like
importance as well. I wonder which direction the causality flows. The article
speculates that it might flow from experience (as an infant) to
language...which would suggest that languages other than English should have
similar metaphors. Anyone know of any?

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jamesbritt
I've been getting artwork together for new business cards, and found a company
to print them. They sent me some samples of available paper types, and my
first thought was that the card stock felt flimsy. And flimsy cards send the
wrong message.

I've had really solid biz cards before (you could loid a office lock with
them), and they suck because you can only get three of them in your wallet.
But although a card is really just an information storage and transfer device,
and paper stock really shouldn't matter, I can't bring myself to get wobbly
cards. Like or not, how it feels also imparts information.

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philwelch
If you go too overboard on this track, you turn into this guy:

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4YBxeDN4tbk>

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sstrudeau
Perhaps this explains the American Express Centurion Card (aka "Black Card")
which is made from anodized titanium--its weight is immediately noticeable.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Centurion_Card>

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helveticaman
It would have been even cooler to have made it out of tungsten.

Specific gravity for titanium: 4.506. For tungsten, 19.3.

~~~
eru
Or gold which is even heavier.

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dazmax
In cognitive linguistics this is called conceptual metaphor. If you're
interested in it, read "Metaphors We Live By" by Lakoff and Johnson. My
favorite conceptual metaphor experiment (I think by Lera Boroditsky) was based
on a question like:

 _The meeting was scheduled for Wednesday but was moved forward 2 days. What
day is it on now?_

Because this uses the common "time is motion" conceptual metaphor, if you ask
it to people on a moving bus, they are more likely to say "Friday" than are
people sitting at a bus stop.

The people who are in motion are more likely to conceptualize themselves
moving through time and "moving the meeting forward" means forward in their
direction of motion. The people who are not in motion conceptualize time as
moving past them, and "moving the meeting forward" means forward towards them,
making them more likely to say "Monday".

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nollidge
I wonder what would happen if they asked people who were facing backwards on
the bus?

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robg
I think they're exactly right on the developmental basis of these effects. Our
thoughts are embodied because that's how we develop. Just because we learn new
stuff doesn't mean it's not rooted in the old.

That's at least one clear place where the brain-as-computer metaphor breaks
down. I have yet to see evidence of a neural "delete" function. The question
is how robust the overwrite functions are. And so far the evidence suggests
the formation of new "files" rather than tampering with, or overwriting, old
ones. Based on the neuroanatomy, these basal responses are likely to arise
from posterior and subcortical structures. The frontal cortex is then used to
abstract away and resolve conflicts.

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jpwagner
This is always a factor in people's comparison of iphone vs. palm pre.

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andreyf
This is a good case for the embodied mind.

 _[Those] who study the embodied mind believe that the nature of the human
mind is largely determined by the form of the human body. They argue that all
aspects of cognition, such as ideas, thoughts, concepts and categories are
shaped by aspects of the body. These aspects include the perceptual system,
the intuitions that underlie the ability to move, activities and interactions
with our environment and the naive understanding of the world that is built
into the body and the brain._ (from:
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embodied_cognition>)

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jibiki
<http://senseis.xmp.net/?Heavy>

The meaning isn't exactly "important", more like "unwieldy". (Although I can't
see how unimportant stones could ever be labeled heavy.)

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ashishk
I've noticed that doors on expensive cars are much heavier and "solid" feeling
than lower-end models.

Maybe the manufacturers picked up on this.

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bouncingsoul
A lot of extra thought that goes into high-end cars. I remember reading an
article about how the _sound_ of the door shutting is carefully tweaked to
make it feel substantial and expensive.

Edit: Found this: [http://soundinthemachine.org/2009/01/21/the-swaying-car-
door...](http://soundinthemachine.org/2009/01/21/the-swaying-car-door.aspx)

 _Few things sound like they actually do. The sounds made by technology are
more a story about what it should sound like than what it actually does._

 _Because drivers don’t get the sensation of a “real” car in a hybrid electric
car, speakers are now being placed in the cab to play synthetic engine noise
for the driver. And, because it’s synthetic, the noise piped into a Prius can
be made to sound like a Lamborghini._

~~~
jws
Yesterday's BMW article had in interesting section on how they made a special
dual mass flywheel to dampen vibration at lower RPMs so the sound would be
more agreeable and people would not downshift as early.

A lot of effort and expense to work around a misprogrammed driver.

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nazgulnarsil
I've wondered about why we think dense objects are valuable and whether this
is a large contributor to gold's historical use as money.

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ChillyWater
Heavy things cost more to ship, therefore as the relative weight of any given
piece of equipment goes up, so does the price. And we all know that pricier
things are better, right?

Unless you are talking about equipment for activities that actively value
lightness (camping, rock climbing, hang-gliding).

~~~
furyg3
laptoping

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psygnisfive
there's that word again, "heavy". why are things so heavy in the future? is
there a problem with the earths gravitational pull?

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lamby
Cool, now how do I make a heavy website?

~~~
RyanMcGreal
CSS image resizing.

~~~
jamesbritt
Or Flash.

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messel
The nuances of our collective psyches never cease to amaze me. Now to off to
do some "heavy" thinking.

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ctingom
That was a heavy article.

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polos
But it's not true for all of us...

For someone, it could perfectly be the other way round:

"Hey, it's perfect, and it's light too! Wow! Now go to h*ll all of you too
earth-bound children, while we will continue to fly high in the sky...".

;)

