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Biting Commentary about Infinity, and Beyond!

« Round Umpteen | Main | Killer App »

Weird Test, Weird Me

Andrew Sullivan and Susanna Cornett are in the two percent. So am I. (I wonder if bloggers are out of proportion to the general population?) I'm not sure what this means.

What bothers me about it is that there's no way to do a controlled experiment. You can only take the test once.

What do all the math questions have to do with it? Why should we think you'd come up with a different answer if you just asked the final question up front?

Also, just to show how weird I really am, I didn't think of a modified object. I thought of the object, and the modification, as separate entities (that's what it actually asked for).

I think it's because I don't think in pictures. I think with words (one reason that I'm a natural speller).

Feynman tells the story of how he was trying to do some literal thought experiments to distinguish subjective from objective time. He would count in his head while doing various tasks, to see if his internal clock was accurate and consistent. But he discovered that he couldn't talk while counting. He told a friend of his, and his friend said, "Why not? I can."

And he demonstrated, jabbering away for a while, at the end of which he said, "I just got to number thirty."

He figured out that when he counted in his head, he was subvocalizing, "one, two, three, ..." and it was occupying the part of his brain that does speech, so he couldn't say anything else. His friend, on the other hand, was watching an imaginary banner roll by in his mind, with the numbers on it.

I'm like Feynman was (in that regard, not the physics genius part...). I can't talk and count to myself simultaneously. I also can't visualize the banner, (or much of anything else) which is why I can't be a visual artist--I am pretty much unable to retain images. I recognize things and people when I see them, but I have a great deal of difficulty visualizing them when they're not present.

Posted by Rand Simberg at June 05, 2002 09:40 AM

Comments

I believe it's "Feynman". Matthew Broderick yelled at me for pronouncing it wrong...

Posted by Eli at June 5, 2002 10:51 AM

So it is. Though how did you know I wasn't talking about some other guy named Feinman? ;-)

Posted by Rand Simberg at June 5, 2002 11:02 AM

That's interesting - so did I. I thought "*****l" then "****" (as opposed to **** ******)

And what exactly does the quiz test for? Is being in the 2% of people who thought of something other than a *** ****** somehow indicative of anything in particular? Furthermore, why are 98% of the testees choosing the same answer?

Weird, to say the least.

[note, I've redacted the answers so as not to spoil the test for anyone who hasn't taken it--ed]

Posted by Dorrin at June 5, 2002 11:25 AM

The "subvocalizing" vs. "scrolling banner" methods of counting in one's head raises a very interesting point. In my own case, although I would instinctively go to the "one, one-thousand, two, one-thousand..." method of counting seconds, when I need to spell a word I visualize it.

Back in the 8th grade I won a county spelling bee that way.

As for the test, I think it's supposed to be a joke.

(Scientists and engineers. Sheesh.)

Posted by Kevin McGehee at June 5, 2002 12:31 PM

Humans can multitask well so long as they're different tasks, like following a TV show while carrying on a phone conversation or reading a magazine. Simulating a banner feed in one's head seems perfectly valid. But then I'm a person whose license plate frame reads, "I'd rather be... Oh yeah, I am reading."

I came up with a ****** but the color was ****, largely I suspect because the last ****** I used had a **** rubber grip. If I had taken the test as achild I think I'd have said ******. My favorite song featured a silver hammer. Anyone who cannot figure it out will have his credentials as a memeber of Western Civilization revoked.

[Note: comment has critical items redacted to prevent spoiling the contest for those who haven't taken it yet.

And I assume that the protagonist of the song was named "Maxwell."--ed]

Posted by Eric Pobirs at June 5, 2002 12:55 PM

Not to rain on Bubba's parade, but why is everyone taking his word that there's a 98% consistency in the answers given?

To me, this isn't a test of how a random series of math questions makes people think of certain colors and objects -- it's a test of how a population of test-takers reacts when they're told their answer is in a distinctly small minority.

Posted by Dan Hartung at June 5, 2002 07:24 PM

Either Rand is withholding evidence, or he has a very subtle sense of humor and a good troll going, or I have a valid point. My question is, why do the people who take the test and come up "abnormal" think any explanation at all is necessary? Is there any reason to think that the 2% and 98% numbers are accurate? If so, show me the numbers. If the 2% / 98% is totally made up and unsupported, why try to explain it? Does someone who tests "abnormal" have any objective reason to think that their result really is abnormal? A site inspired by South Park might be kidding.

Having said that, my wife and I were both "normal". Normal people have the moral high ground in puzzlement here, I think, since it is hard for me to believe that it is just a lucky guess. Even if 98% is way overstated, my personal experience is sort of spooky.

So, lets volunteer Rand's site to keep score. Put me down as two normals.

Regards

Posted by Tom Maguire at June 5, 2002 07:53 PM

First i'd like to say that i learned to count both ways (though i'm a natural subvocalizer) after reading the Feynman story. I just have one question, am i the only one who did get the "popular" answer?

Posted by Andrew Rettek at June 5, 2002 07:55 PM

Oh, fine, what Dan said. But I'm not a total idiot, I started my post before his was visible, its just this damn basketball game distracting me. Then again, I'm rooting for the Nets, so maybe I am a total idiot. That's us normal folks for you.

Regards

Posted by Tom Maguire at June 5, 2002 08:02 PM

I got the "right" color but for the other part got a word that started with the same letter. That was enough to make me go "Hmmm."

Posted by DP at June 5, 2002 08:13 PM

Apparently I'm a two-percenter, as well. Not that I have much idea what that's supposed to mean. And I also answered the question literally - "xxxx" and "xxxxxx" were separate ideas, not combined.

Your thoughts make sense to me. My last year of school I had a laptop with a wireless card so, of course, I surfed the Net in class a lot. I found I had no difficulty following the professor's comments and class discussion when I did something non-verbal on the computer (like playing Hearts), but reading web pages used up too much of my verbal processing grey matter to simultaneously follow any complex lecture or discussion.

Somehow, I passed my classes anyway.

Posted by The Dodd at June 5, 2002 08:39 PM

Dan--Good question. We have no reason to believe the stated 98/2 ratio.

So at least here (though it's extremely unscientific), we've found the first three "normals."

Posted by Rand Simberg at June 5, 2002 09:05 PM

Oh, and I should add, that while I'm withholding the specific evidence, both of them were in the supposed two percenters.

Posted by at June 5, 2002 09:06 PM

Well, two "normals" here, and one "abnormal". I think the abnormal got her result by reading the question literally. She came up with the expected color, and a tool that normally comes in that shade.

I showed the test to my wife last night just before she went to bed. She got the normal result and was somewhat freaked by it. She stayed up another hour or so pestering me with questions.

Posted by Ron Copeland at June 5, 2002 09:56 PM

The updated test at the original site has added an instant vote box so you can record your result and make a snide comment. More fun for everyone, and I won't leak the poll results.

Posted by Tom Maguire at June 6, 2002 07:07 AM

I came up with the 98% response, so I asked a friend who majored in psychology. His answer, for what it is worth, is that on a subconscious level some words and numbers have associations that they don't have on a conscious level, and that the questions probably took advantage of this. He said that this sort of question and response is not unusual.

Because I do Japanese Embroidery, and frequently run up against a color vocabulary and usage barrier ("Use red couching thread" actually means orange) I asked and my informant said that these sorts of tests were very culturally dependent.

Interesting. I may suggest this to my children as next year's social science project....

Posted by oreta at June 6, 2002 11:03 AM

Somebody sent me an e-mail version of this back in the begining of April. The ">" marks were 12 deep, so it had been forwarded around a bit. The word "color" was spelled "colour", so it could be that this originated outside the US. It definitely does not appear to be a Bubba original, so he probably has no data to backup the 98% thing...

For what it's worth, I did not get the "majority" answer, but the person who sent it me did.

Posted by Gazi at June 6, 2002 04:09 PM

I doubt the statistics, not because I was in the "two percent" (although the majority of commenters being in it is a good start for a reason), but because there seems to be little reason to expect people to get any answer in particular. Way too little for 98%.

I'd be interested in seeing the results of the social science project, though.

About counting, I generally subvocalise, but sometimes, like when I'm counting items in some sort of list, I count them off on my fingers without, leaving that part of my mind free for other tasks, like remembering whether I've listed something off yet.

The banner approach to counting sounds really hard. I am a visual artist and pinning down how things look can be hard. The more you learn, the more you realize how much you have to learn?

Posted by Mel at June 10, 2002 04:58 AM


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