In this podcast, Cody Gough and Ashley Hamer discuss the following stories from Curiosity.com to help you get smarter and learn something new in just a few minutes: The Longest Lunar Eclipse of the Century is Happening in Two Days Perceptual Creep Makes It Hard Not To Find What You're Looking For This Mental Trick Could Help You Finally Enjoy Running Want to support our show?Register for the 2018 Podcast Awards and nominate Curiosity Daily to win for People’s Choice, Education, and Science & Medicine. Just register at the link and select Curiosity Daily from the drop-down menus (no need to pick nominees in every category):https://curiosity.im/podcast-awards-2018 For even more ways your mind plays tricks on you, check out "You Are Not So Smart: Why You Have Too Many Friends on Facebook, Why Your Memory Is Mostly Fiction, and 46 Other Ways You're Deluding Yourself" by David McRaney. We handpick reading recommendations we think you may like. If you choose to make a purchase, Curiosity will get a share of the sale. Learn about these topics and more onCuriosity.com, and download our5-star app for Android and iOS. Then, join the conversation onFacebook,Twitter, andInstagram. Plus: Amazon smart speaker users, enable ourAlexa Flash Briefing to learn something new in just a few minutes every day!
In this podcast, Cody Gough and Ashley Hamer discuss the following stories from Curiosity.com to help you get smarter and learn something new in just a few minutes:
Want to support our show? Register for the 2018 Podcast Awards and nominate Curiosity Daily to win for People’s Choice, Education, and Science & Medicine. Just register at the link and select Curiosity Daily from the drop-down menus (no need to pick nominees in every category): https://curiosity.im/podcast-awards-2018
For even more ways your mind plays tricks on you, check out "You Are Not So Smart: Why You Have Too Many Friends on Facebook, Why Your Memory Is Mostly Fiction, and 46 Other Ways You're Deluding Yourself" by David McRaney. We handpick reading recommendations we think you may like. If you choose to make a purchase, Curiosity will get a share of the sale.
Learn about these topics and more on Curiosity.com, and download our 5-star app for Android and iOS. Then, join the conversation on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.
Plus: Amazon smart speaker users, enable our Alexa Flash Briefing to learn something new in just a few minutes every day!
Full episode transcript here: https://curiosity-daily-4e53644e.simplecast.com/episodes/mental-trick-to-enjoy-running-longest-lunar-eclipse-of-the-century-and-perceptual-creep
[MUSIC PLAYING] CODY GOUGH: Hi. We've got three stories from curiosity.com to help you get smarter in just a few minutes. I'm Cody Gough.
ASHLEY HAMER: And I'm Ashley Hamer. Today, you'll learn about the longest lunar eclipse of the century, which is happening this week, a mental trick that might help you enjoy running, and a psychological phenomenon called perceptual creep.
CODY GOUGH: Let's satisfy some curiosity.
ASHLEY HAMER: Cody, do you know what this week is?
CODY GOUGH: Podcast Movement 2018.
ASHLEY HAMER: Oh, yeah?
CODY GOUGH: Yeah, that's all I know.
[LAUGHTER]
ASHLEY HAMER: Well, this Friday, July 27, most of the world will see the longest lunar eclipse of the century. Shout out to our awesome listeners in South America, Australia, and basically everywhere in between, except the United States. Here in the US, we got front row seats to the solar eclipse last year. But we're going to miss this lunar eclipse altogether. Why though?
First, here's a quick refresher. A lunar eclipse is when the moon passes into the earth's shadow. Since we're blocking the sun from the moon, the sun's light waves have to come through our atmosphere to make it to the moon during the eclipse. Because of that, only long wavelengths of red light make it to the moon. And that makes the moon reflect a deep crimson, which looks super cool.
But you know how we've talked about supermoons and how they happen when the moon is closest to the earth? Well, this lunar eclipse is actually happening during a mini moon, which is the opposite of a supermoon. That's why the eclipse will last so long. It has to travel along a longer path to get out of our shadow. You'll be able to see it for a full hour and 43 minutes. And the best part? You can see it from anywhere you can see the moon.
A solar eclipse only casts a shadow on part of the earth, but earth is bigger than the moon. So the whole moon will be in shadow. The problem is, the moon doesn't rise at the same time everywhere in the world. So you won't be able to see the moon over the horizon in North America when it ends. The next big lunar eclipse for most Americans will be Sunday, January 20 of 2019 into Monday, January 21. Mark your calendars so you've got something to look forward to.
CODY GOUGH: And for the rest of you out there, enjoy the lunar eclipse.
ASHLEY HAMER: Send pictures.
CODY GOUGH: Yeah.
ASHLEY HAMER: It never really looks that great in pictures. But do it, anyway.
CODY GOUGH: That's fine. Tweet at us. I'll be tweet it?
ASHLEY HAMER: Yeah.
CODY GOUGH: OK, Ashley. I know you're happily employed here at curiosity.com. But in any of your job searches, have you ever been looking at particular jobs and been like, oh, these are the jobs I want. And then you started to broaden your search a little bit and being like, well, this isn't really what I want. But I can include this. This seems good enough.
ASHLEY HAMER: Yeah, for sure.
CODY GOUGH: Well, today we have a story on what's called perceptual creep. It's a psychological phenomenon. And a study published just last month showed that it can influence everything from your judgments to abstract thinking. It's a pretty simple concept. It's not actually creepy, and it's really interesting actually.
In this study, researchers showed participants an image with 1,000 dots on it. The dots had different colors. They were ranging from blue to purple. OK. So you can picture that.
Now first, about half the dots were more on the blue side of the spectrum. And in later trials, researchers started to slowly phase out the blue. So by the end, most of the dots were on the purple end of the spectrum in this 1,000 image.
But check this out. The participants identified roughly the same number of dots as blue in every trial. So when the dots were made more purple, their definition of blue literally grew to include more purple tones. Even when they were told by the researchers that there would be more purple than blue dots in the final tests, they still did it. And get this. participants even still did it when they were offered a cash prize for not saying the purplest dots were blue. So even a financial incentive couldn't stop this phenomenon.
This study shows that even when we're looking at something objective right in front of us, we can actually change what fits into certain categories in our head. And this affects basically everything. It's like when you're about to clean your house, and you say, OK, I'm just going to wipe off really dirty surfaces. And then, all of a sudden, you realize you've wiped down every surface because your definition of really dirty changed.
There's an even broader version of this, called concept creep, which some argue might explain rising rates of psychiatric diagnoses in the Western world, for example. Now this thing we do isn't always bad. It's good you can change your idea of happiness and success so that you don't get too disappointed or too elated when something really good or bad happens to you. But this does make a good case for writing down your goals and projects before you get started. So you can look back and not get carried away with whatever you're about to do.
ASHLEY HAMER: That's like when you're trying to perfect a skill like music. When you're first starting out, it's just good enough to play the notes as they are. And as you go, you keep changing your definition of what good is. And you never quite get good because good is always one step further.
CODY GOUGH: This happens to me in video games pretty badly.
ASHLEY HAMER: Really?
CODY GOUGH: Yeah. I'll say, all right, all I want to do is clear this dungeon and then I'm done. And then it becomes-- let's say there's a point system at the end. Well, I got a 96 on this dungeon, so now I'm going to clear the dungeon with 100. Because I was so close anyway, I just kind of creep my goals?
ASHLEY HAMER: Hmm. Yeah.
CODY GOUGH: I don't know if it's the exact same phenomenon but it seems pretty similar.
ASHLEY HAMER: I think it's healthy to want to be better at everything you do. But just it's good to remember that you've come far in the process.
CODY GOUGH: It is.
ASHLEY HAMER: All right, Cody, you know I like running. But do you like running?
CODY GOUGH: I ran four years of cross country in high school.
ASHLEY HAMER: Nice.
CODY GOUGH: And at no point did I ever know why.
[LAUGHTER]
I'm like, why am I doing this?
ASHLEY HAMER: Right.
CODY GOUGH: No one forced me. It's not like a peer pressure thing or anything from my parents or friends or family. I don't know. Like a weird habitual thing that I did.
ASHLEY HAMER: High school is weird that way.
[LAUGHTER]
Well, because I'm a runner, and so people will tell me what they think about running, which is usually, oh my gosh, that's so awful. I hate running.
CODY GOUGH: Yeah.
ASHLEY HAMER: But also, I think a lot of people say that because they want to like it, because it's so easy. It's cheap. All you need is just a pair of shoes, and you leave your house, and that's it.
CODY GOUGH: When you're out of town, you can just go anywhere.
ASHLEY HAMER: Yeah, you don't need a gym membership. Well, a recent study published in the journal, Motivation and Emotion, says that if you want to enjoy running, you just got to change your mindset. Easier said than done probably, but hear us out.
Researchers put 24 experienced runners on treadmills and asked them to test two mental strategies. You might remember these techniques from that time we talked about ways to get over a breakup actually. One of the strategies the runners used is called cognitive reappraisal, which is taking a neutral detached attitude, like a scientist or a journalist. The other strategy was just called distraction. And that had them focus on something totally unrelated and neutral like the contents of an office supply store.
Well, distraction made zero difference, but cognitive reappraisal worked great. Runners using that strategy felt like they were actually putting in less effort, and they felt lower levels of emotional arousal.
Now this study comes with a big asterisk because some of the runners said they weren't thinking exactly what they were told to think during the study. Instead of observing their runs like a scientist, they said that they quote, "tried to see the situation as positively as possible" and quote, "thought rationally about the running experience," end quote. Those are both technically, forms of cognitive reappraisal, just not the specific kind that the researchers instructed them to use.
But in the end, the researchers decided that their definition of cognitive reappraisal was too strict. So they changed their definition and ended up considering what the runners had thought about to actually be cognitive reappraisal after all.
Those might not be the most airtight results. But if you want to love running, give cognitive reappraisal a try. Instead of distracting yourself with music, which this study did show to be useless, see if you can think about your run in a positive light. Consider how energized you'll feel and how much good you're doing for your body. See if it helps. You can read about the full study and the rest of today's stories on curiosity.com and on the Curiosity app for Android and iOS.
CODY GOUGH: A quick reminder that Curiosity Daily is a finalist in the 2018 Podcast Awards. Please go vote for us if you haven't already. I promise I will stop reminding you soon. But voting closes in the next few days. So we would really love if you would go vote for us. You can find a link to that in the show notes or visit podcastawards.com.
ASHLEY HAMER: Join us again tomorrow for the Curiosity Daily, and learn something new in just a few minutes. I'm Ashley Hamer.
CODY GOUGH: And I'm Cody Gough.
ASHLEY HAMER: Stay curious.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
SPEAKER: On the Westwood One Podcast Network.