Month: June 2012
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Apple’s Implementation of the Duration-of-Exposure Effect: Screens at 70˚
Hours after writing about the duration-of-exposure effect (whereby merely touching an unowned object increases our attachment to it and how much we value it), a post came into my feed reader pointing out how Apple Inc. take advantage of this effect in their “painstakingly calibrated” stores. Carmine Gallo, providing a glimpse into his upcoming book, The Apple…
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Increasing Attachment and Valuation Through Touch
The endowment effect is old news: the amount that we value an object increases once we take ownership of it. The ‘extended version’ shows that the impact of the endowment effect increases with time: our valuation of an object increases more and more as the amount of time that we own it also increases. This…
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The Long Game: Civilization II and Sim City’s Magnasanti
After ten years of playing the same Civilization II campaign (my favourite game ever), Reddit user Lycerius has ended up creating a dystopian semi-self-sustaining world, where the three remaining “super-nations” are in a constant state of espionage and nuclear war. The details of Lycerius’ “hellish nightmare” world are absolutely fascinating: the military stalemate; the 1700-year…
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Sagan’s Cosmos on the Scientific Method and Uncomfortable Ideas
I’m currently watching Carl Sagan’s excellent Cosmos: A Personal Voyage. I feel compelled to post the following quote from episode four, Heaven and Hell, as it stood out for its elegant argument for the strength of scientific ideas and for not rejecting uncomfortable (if incorrect) ideas: There are many hypotheses in science which are wrong. That’s all…
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The Zeigarnik Effect and the Force of Incomplete Tasks
Why do unresolved issues linger in our mind, making us ponder them for days on end? Why are cliffhangers so successful in getting viewers to tune in to the next episode? How can we overcome procrastination? These questions can be answered by learning about the psychological concept/theory known as the Zeigarnik effect. ‘Discovered’ by Soviet…