Darkness, therefore, equals danger.
“sirebral”
adapted from a comment at www.ScientificAmerican.com/Mind-and-Brain

Herbert commented briefly on the concept of different races having different reactions to the colors black and white, but he did not mention different cultures. In China, for example, white is the color of death (or mourning) rather than purity. Brides do not wear white there. I wonder if the Chinese—or people from other cultures for whom black and white are not so clearly related to stain and purity—would behave differently on the psychological experiments described in this article.
Suzanne Hillman
via e-mail

Growing Pains
Obviously the body’s perception of itself must be plastic, as Frederik Joelving reports in “Evolving Mental Maps” [Head Lines]. If it were not, we would be in dire trouble when as teenagers we undergo a growth spurt.
“eco-stave”
adapted from a comment at www.ScientificAmerican.com/Mind-and-Brain

Credit-Card Error
Michael Manchester wrote to Ask the Brains to wonder why most of his customers are confused by his instructions to swipe their credit card with the magnetic stripe “toward me.” In the face of repeated failure, can anyone explain why he hasn’t simply changed his instruction to something like “swipe the card with the magnetic stripe facing away from you?” It is my gut feeling that such an instruction would result in far less confusion, which would not only relieve Mr. Manchester’s stress at work but also poke a hole in the “phonological loop” versus “intelligent interpretation of meaning” theory given in your magazine. If, on the other hand, the same customers who fail to intelligently interpret “stripe toward me” also misinterpret “stripe away from you,” the failure rate would not change, and I would be proved incorrect.
Wayne Keyser
Eldersburg, Md.

Why are people proposing a variety of social solutions, such as the store clerk giving the directions differently, to what is simply a technical problem? This issue is simply the result of a design fault in the user interface of the card reader. The card reader should be designed to accept the card in either direction.
“istaines”
adapted from a comment at www.ScientificAmerican.com/Mind-and-Brain

Seeing in Stereo
Neuroscientist Terry Sejnowski’s explanation of mental calculations in Ask the Brains got me thinking. A long time ago I noticed that if I watched a movie or television with only one eye I would get more of a sensation of depth than when watching with both eyes. This seemed to make sense to me because I figured that the brain uses many variables to determine depth (including size, occlusion, movement, and so on), but it probably gives priority to stereo vision.

Closing one eye removes stereo vision from the equation, thereby reducing the impact of seeing the flat two-dimensional screen and allowing the other depth cues in the moving images to come to the fore. Try it sometime—especially when there is a scene with a lot of relative movement, such as a swimming school of fish.
“zselway”
adapted from a comment at www.ScientificAmerican.com/Mind-and-Brain

5 Comments

1. 1. martyweiss 11:26 PM 3/26/10

   Common sense is often a product of experience. I noticed the difference between "farm kids" and urbanites. Raised on a farm, exposure to mechanics and responsibility made them an order of magnitude safer with power tools than others. This quality appeared to bridge into a kind of maturity the urbanites lacked.
   Insulated from reality, urban kids often grow into adult responsibility slower than others and are slower to comprehend the consequences of their actions. The age of maturity of a farm kid begins when his legs reach the tractor pedals. Reality bites and, if we survive, teaches.

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2. 2. e_caroline 02:02 PM 3/29/10

   I have subscribed to Scientific American since I was in the 7th grade... in 1967.
   
   Scientific American is a legitimate. peer-reviewed science magazine.
   
   I will jot subscribe to Scientific American Mind since it is a mouthpiece for the therapy industry whose efforts at "science" are laughable.
   
   The therapy industry is engaged in speculations on various philosophies of the mind and is so overloaded with sheer creationist-style pseudoscience that is is unworthy of my financial support.
   
   If I read it at all.. it will be in a library.
   

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3. 3. mo98 08:50 PM 3/29/10

   Openness is at odds with security. Context sensitive rationality can be devoid its environment in tweetscape as well.

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