WEBVTT - Short Stuff: Do people move in predictable directions? 0:00:04.200 --> 0:00:06.360 Hey, and welcome to the Short Stuff. I'm Josh, and 0:00:06.400 --> 0:00:08.799 there's Chuck and Jerry's here sitting in for Dave. So 0:00:08.840 --> 0:00:15.240 with short stuff, it is short stuff. Why don't you 0:00:15.320 --> 0:00:22.680 like short Stuff? You're bringing me down? Okay, I felt sure, 0:00:22.680 --> 0:00:25.599 you're going Bill Murray there, I don't remember him saying 0:00:25.600 --> 0:00:28.000 you're bringing me down? Yeah, I think that was what 0:00:28.000 --> 0:00:30.160 he's saying in the Star Wars when he sang the 0:00:30.560 --> 0:00:34.199 words the Star Wars, you're bringing me down? Remember that 0:00:34.360 --> 0:00:37.959 far Uh we are not talking about that though, we're 0:00:38.000 --> 0:00:42.400 talking about directional walking. And this is from our old 0:00:42.440 --> 0:00:45.680 colleagues at house stuffworks dot com and uh not our 0:00:45.680 --> 0:00:48.480 old colleagues, but we used to use cracked all the time. 0:00:49.440 --> 0:00:52.600 I used to love that site. Second to Jack O'Brien days. Yeah, 0:00:52.720 --> 0:00:55.000 I guess Jack O'Brien is now our colleague and has 0:00:55.040 --> 0:00:58.280 been for a while, so we're one degree removed. Check 0:00:58.280 --> 0:01:01.520 out the Daily Zeitgeist if you don't all ready great show. Yep, 0:01:01.800 --> 0:01:05.400 Jack and Miles in the game. That's right. What else 0:01:05.480 --> 0:01:09.759 you've been on that show? I haven't twice. They're gonna 0:01:09.760 --> 0:01:11.200 ask you a third time before they asked me. I 0:01:11.200 --> 0:01:16.399 would love that. I even had those guys a movie crush. 0:01:16.560 --> 0:01:22.480 I know, right, that's okay, this will get back to 0:01:22.520 --> 0:01:26.160 them somehow, somehow, some way. So Chuck that we're not 0:01:26.160 --> 0:01:30.759 talking about daily zeitgeist today. We're not. We're talking about 0:01:30.760 --> 0:01:33.840 something entirely different, which is the direction that people tend 0:01:33.880 --> 0:01:38.720 to move in. That's right. And uh, generally if you 0:01:38.800 --> 0:01:42.320 walk into like an amusement park or a store, and 0:01:42.360 --> 0:01:45.399 we'll talk about shopping kind of towards the end. In general, 0:01:45.959 --> 0:01:49.080 in the United States, people tend to go in and 0:01:49.120 --> 0:01:51.520 move to the right to a place and are indeed 0:01:52.360 --> 0:01:55.960 subtly or not so subtly steered to go to the right. Yeah, 0:01:56.000 --> 0:01:59.480 but from what I understand, it's like a amplifying our 0:01:59.600 --> 0:02:02.240 natural tendency to move to the right, at least in 0:02:02.240 --> 0:02:07.000 the United States and in Great Britain Japan. Um, we 0:02:07.400 --> 0:02:09.720 need to hear from you because we are being told 0:02:10.240 --> 0:02:13.240 that you guys tend to move to the left. Like, say, 0:02:13.240 --> 0:02:15.800 when you enter a grocery store, do you, guys, and 0:02:15.840 --> 0:02:18.280 this is a question to you in the UK and 0:02:18.280 --> 0:02:21.600 in Japan, when you enter a grocery store, do you 0:02:21.639 --> 0:02:24.119 move to the left or do you move to the right? Really, 0:02:24.120 --> 0:02:26.240 stop and think about it and then email and let 0:02:26.360 --> 0:02:30.120 us know. Okay, because supposedly you guys moved to the left, 0:02:30.320 --> 0:02:32.720 we moved to the right. And there's some pretty interesting 0:02:32.760 --> 0:02:36.480 explanations for why. Yeah. I mean, I can say anecdotally, 0:02:36.480 --> 0:02:38.280 and I think you can agree with this. If you 0:02:38.320 --> 0:02:41.800 go to London or something and you're from the United States, 0:02:42.160 --> 0:02:44.400 you're gonna be bumping into people a lot because they 0:02:44.440 --> 0:02:47.720 also tend, I think, to walk down the left side 0:02:47.760 --> 0:02:50.200 of like a hallway as opposed to the right side. 0:02:50.240 --> 0:02:54.960 Isn't that correct, like maniacs? Yeah? Uh. And when you 0:02:55.000 --> 0:02:57.280 look at sports fields, like the way you run bases 0:02:57.360 --> 0:03:00.240 or race a car or a horse or a or 0:03:00.320 --> 0:03:04.560 RaSE your legs, that is done in a you know, 0:03:04.800 --> 0:03:09.800 human Yeah, I've just never uh, that is counterclockwise. And 0:03:09.840 --> 0:03:12.600 they've you know, they found that when people walk up 0:03:12.639 --> 0:03:16.240 to like a track to go running, they instinctively moved 0:03:16.280 --> 0:03:19.440 to the right, which is counterclockwise and jibes with how 0:03:19.600 --> 0:03:24.359 sports are done. Right. But then put differently, that's when 0:03:24.360 --> 0:03:28.119 you're entering like a field of action from the outside. 0:03:28.560 --> 0:03:31.720 If you imagine the field of action being bounded by 0:03:31.760 --> 0:03:34.800 a circle. When you enter that field of action, you 0:03:34.920 --> 0:03:38.600 enter the circle you move to the right, which takes 0:03:38.600 --> 0:03:43.240 you counter clockwise. But if you're already in the circle 0:03:43.600 --> 0:03:47.640 and you decide to just start taking right turns, you're 0:03:47.680 --> 0:03:51.920 actually moving clockwise, which is brain busting if you think 0:03:51.960 --> 0:03:55.600 about it. Okay, I literally did not understand that until 0:03:55.640 --> 0:03:57.600 you just said it that way. I I. That's because 0:03:57.600 --> 0:04:00.680 it was really poorly put. Yeah. I did not get 0:04:00.680 --> 0:04:02.720 it at all, because I was like, doesn't matter like 0:04:02.720 --> 0:04:06.200 which way you're facing to begin with, but if you 0:04:06.240 --> 0:04:10.120 continue to take rights, is what the key? Because you know, 0:04:10.240 --> 0:04:13.440 three wrongs don't make a right, but three rights make 0:04:13.480 --> 0:04:16.520 a left. Is that how it goes, especially if you 0:04:16.520 --> 0:04:19.680 say it like that. Uh. They've done some studies over 0:04:19.680 --> 0:04:22.279 the years because they thought handedness might have something to 0:04:22.320 --> 0:04:25.279 do with it, and this was in the Association of 0:04:25.560 --> 0:04:28.800 for Psychological Science is where it was printed. It sounds, 0:04:28.800 --> 0:04:33.440 but they it does. They did find though, that lefties 0:04:33.520 --> 0:04:35.960 tend to prefer the left side and right he's like 0:04:36.040 --> 0:04:40.120 the right. And they even studied stroke patients who lost 0:04:40.720 --> 0:04:43.719 use of their dominant hand and found that over time 0:04:43.839 --> 0:04:47.200 they had to reverse a natural bias to favor what 0:04:47.360 --> 0:04:50.040 was their original dominant hand, with with which way they 0:04:50.120 --> 0:04:54.000 would go and these studies were very very important in 0:04:54.080 --> 0:04:57.200 helping later determine how to best share a TwixT. Bar 0:04:58.440 --> 0:05:01.159 I was wondered, what was going coming up there? Do 0:05:01.279 --> 0:05:04.280 you you want to take a break real quick? Sure? Okay, 0:05:04.360 --> 0:05:07.120 we're gonna come back and keep talking about the direction 0:05:07.160 --> 0:05:36.520 people tend to move, All right, Chuck, So you kind 0:05:36.520 --> 0:05:38.479 of said it. One thing that has been used to 0:05:38.520 --> 0:05:42.640 explain why people move in certain directions UM has to 0:05:42.680 --> 0:05:45.479 do with possibly has to do with the side of 0:05:45.520 --> 0:05:48.640 the road that you drive on. And yes, anecdotally, if 0:05:48.680 --> 0:05:52.400 you're in America and you're walking down the hallway, you're 0:05:52.440 --> 0:05:57.400 probably walking on the right side, your right side, yes, 0:05:57.520 --> 0:06:00.200 not your left side, because then you would probably bump 0:06:00.279 --> 0:06:02.680 into a lot of people. That's just kind of how 0:06:02.760 --> 0:06:04.680 things are laid out. So it does make sense that 0:06:04.720 --> 0:06:08.400 we would kind of move to the right. Um. And 0:06:08.680 --> 0:06:11.880 the reason why it would be significant if you know, 0:06:12.279 --> 0:06:16.320 people in the UK um go to the left in 0:06:16.360 --> 0:06:18.480 a store, where in America they moved to the right 0:06:18.760 --> 0:06:21.760 is because humans are animals, And it turns out there 0:06:21.800 --> 0:06:26.960 there aren't any geographical differences in migration direction among wild 0:06:27.000 --> 0:06:30.760 animals non human animals. UM, they tend to just go 0:06:30.920 --> 0:06:34.719 the same way. Wherever every member of their species goes 0:06:34.760 --> 0:06:38.120 anywhere in the world, that's the direction they'll go. It's 0:06:38.120 --> 0:06:41.240 not like if one, one group of the species of 0:06:41.320 --> 0:06:44.279 gophers lives in North America and they go to the 0:06:44.320 --> 0:06:47.320 last and then the African family of gophers moved to 0:06:47.360 --> 0:06:49.800 the right when they migrate, That's not how it goes. 0:06:49.839 --> 0:06:54.800 They'll all all gophers move, say, clockwise instead right. And 0:06:54.839 --> 0:06:58.279 these patterns that are generally based on aid from the 0:06:58.279 --> 0:07:00.760 wind if you're a bird, any kind of uh weather 0:07:00.800 --> 0:07:04.600 weather pattern like a solar pathway maybe. Um. The interesting 0:07:04.640 --> 0:07:08.560 thing in that we uh as far as clockwise, Like 0:07:10.080 --> 0:07:12.360 I've never really stopped to think why clockwise is clock 0:07:12.800 --> 0:07:15.320 one o'clock didn't go the other way? But it's based 0:07:15.360 --> 0:07:18.760 on the sun dial, And it's based on specifically a 0:07:18.800 --> 0:07:23.560 northern hemispheric sun dial, because that's the way the sun 0:07:23.600 --> 0:07:26.239 will cast in the northern hemisphere. If it was based 0:07:26.240 --> 0:07:28.800 on a southern hemispheric sun dial, then the clock would 0:07:28.800 --> 0:07:31.040 literally you know, the one and the two and the 0:07:31.040 --> 0:07:33.280 three would be to the left of noon. Yeah, and 0:07:33.360 --> 0:07:36.200 just calling it clockwise kind of begs the question, you know, 0:07:37.320 --> 0:07:42.160 like it's a human constructed direction. But we it seems 0:07:42.200 --> 0:07:44.560 like the most natural thing in the world because not 0:07:44.600 --> 0:07:48.160 only is it called clockwise, it's counter clockwise, which makes 0:07:48.200 --> 0:07:51.559 it seem radical and in opposition of the natural order 0:07:51.600 --> 0:07:55.760 of things to move left word rather than right word right. 0:07:55.880 --> 0:07:58.800 The only thing weirder than seeing a clock that would 0:07:58.800 --> 0:08:01.480 be laid out in reverse would be to see a 0:08:01.520 --> 0:08:05.160 base pop player hit a ball and run to third base. 0:08:06.480 --> 0:08:08.840 That would be very, very strange to my brain, would 0:08:08.840 --> 0:08:11.400 be especially if somebody was timing with the stopwatch that 0:08:11.440 --> 0:08:15.080 was running counterclockwise. I wish Japan did that, because Japanese 0:08:15.120 --> 0:08:17.559 baseball huge. That is huge. That would be so cool 0:08:18.080 --> 0:08:19.840 is if they just ran in the opposite direction and 0:08:19.880 --> 0:08:22.080 that was kind of like their thing they could. I mean, 0:08:22.440 --> 0:08:26.640 intramural games between American MLB teams and Japanese teams would 0:08:26.640 --> 0:08:30.040 be a total mess, but it'd be super entertaining to watch. 0:08:30.680 --> 0:08:32.079 And then you've always got the one guy that just 0:08:32.160 --> 0:08:35.360 runs straight past the picture towards second depending on I'm 0:08:35.360 --> 0:08:37.520 just going there and depending on whose rules you were 0:08:37.520 --> 0:08:39.960 playing like, that person would always be out because you 0:08:40.040 --> 0:08:42.199 just have to throw the first base or third third base. 0:08:43.480 --> 0:08:47.959 They'd also be a double specialist. I guess. Um. One 0:08:48.080 --> 0:08:50.520 way this can come into play those in architecture, because 0:08:51.120 --> 0:08:54.439 architects like to have fun, and that if they're designing 0:08:54.520 --> 0:08:58.920 something that they want to make you feel sort of 0:08:59.000 --> 0:09:01.240 either ill at e is or just sort of get 0:09:01.280 --> 0:09:04.480 your neurons firing in a different way. They can sort 0:09:04.480 --> 0:09:06.880 of drive you left in the United States out of 0:09:06.920 --> 0:09:09.560 the bat and put things of more interest on the left. 0:09:10.080 --> 0:09:12.520 Because and it's you know, it's pretty subtle. It's not 0:09:12.600 --> 0:09:15.480 like some radical ship when you walk in you're like, 0:09:15.520 --> 0:09:18.240 oh my god, what's happening. But you know, moving people 0:09:18.280 --> 0:09:20.400 in a different direction counter to what they usually move 0:09:20.480 --> 0:09:23.160 can can make your brain do different things. That's pretty neat. 0:09:23.240 --> 0:09:26.880 I love that. Um. That's if you want to like 0:09:27.160 --> 0:09:30.120 stimulate people in a weird way and make them slightly uncomfortable. 0:09:30.559 --> 0:09:33.080 In grocery stores and retail stores where you want people 0:09:33.080 --> 0:09:35.720 to feel totally comfortable so they want to stay long 0:09:35.840 --> 0:09:38.160 and spend lots of money there, you want to do 0:09:38.200 --> 0:09:39.760 the opposite. You want to kind of go with the 0:09:39.840 --> 0:09:44.000 natural flow, and we've done We've talked about this extensively 0:09:44.040 --> 0:09:46.920 in videos think other podcasts about how they lay out 0:09:46.960 --> 0:09:50.840 grocery stores to basically I hate to use the word 0:09:50.840 --> 0:09:54.520 manipulate you, but manipulate you into you know, shelling out 0:09:54.559 --> 0:09:57.000 as much cash as possible. And a big part of 0:09:57.040 --> 0:09:59.760 that is funneling you to the right and then placing 0:09:59.800 --> 0:10:04.160 things strategically in that counterclockwise motion that they expect you 0:10:04.200 --> 0:10:08.280 to move through the store in. Yeah, it's I'd never 0:10:08.360 --> 0:10:10.240 think about it, even though we've talked about it a lot, 0:10:10.320 --> 0:10:12.960 But I can't think of a single grocery store I 0:10:13.000 --> 0:10:17.360 go to where the produce and stuff isn't on the right, 0:10:18.160 --> 0:10:20.600 and eventually you wind your way around and on the 0:10:20.679 --> 0:10:24.720 left are like the frozen foods and ice cream and 0:10:24.720 --> 0:10:28.040 stuff like that. And the idea is that if you 0:10:28.120 --> 0:10:29.760 go in and go to the right and there's all 0:10:29.800 --> 0:10:32.080 the kind of junk food, you might just get that 0:10:32.120 --> 0:10:34.520 and leave and not er go not spend as much money. 0:10:35.200 --> 0:10:38.679 I probably choose airgo wrong. But uh, what they do 0:10:38.800 --> 0:10:41.200 is they wind you around to the right, where you 0:10:41.240 --> 0:10:43.240 buy like your produce and the things that you need, 0:10:43.800 --> 0:10:47.160 and then on your way technically on your way out 0:10:47.559 --> 0:10:50.280 of that counterclockwise circle. That's when you're gonna do the 0:10:50.320 --> 0:10:52.960 impulse buys and say like, oh well, let me have 0:10:53.040 --> 0:10:55.920 those those chips in that ice cream or that whatever, 0:10:56.040 --> 0:10:58.400 that whip cream that it's cool whip that ate straight 0:10:58.440 --> 0:11:01.080 out of the bucket. Well, it's just because it's so 0:11:01.080 --> 0:11:04.200 so good, so good. Remember the peanut butter cool whip combo. 0:11:06.040 --> 0:11:07.720 No oh yeah, yeah, I told you. I got on 0:11:07.760 --> 0:11:11.120 that right after you told me it's so dangerous though. Well, 0:11:11.280 --> 0:11:12.720 I mean, we can't keep cool ap in our house. 0:11:12.720 --> 0:11:14.600 It's it's gone in a matter of a day and 0:11:14.600 --> 0:11:17.120 a half. We just can't do it. Like we'll get 0:11:17.160 --> 0:11:20.800 it for for Thanksgiving, for like pumpkin pie, and I 0:11:20.880 --> 0:11:22.880 always get an extra because I know that the pumpkin 0:11:22.960 --> 0:11:25.880 pot is not gonna have anything, because Emily and I 0:11:25.880 --> 0:11:27.839 are just sneaking in there like a spoonful at a time. 0:11:28.679 --> 0:11:30.840 And my daughter doesn't know yet. When she's introduced to that, 0:11:30.880 --> 0:11:33.960 it's all over because the freezer is low enough, right, 0:11:34.520 --> 0:11:38.400 and you have plenty of stools, handy yeah, and fingers 0:11:38.480 --> 0:11:41.319 or spoons. So now that the way you just describe 0:11:41.360 --> 0:11:43.760 the grocery store, now they think about it. Every grocery 0:11:43.800 --> 0:11:47.280 store I've gone into. The pharmacy is the last thing 0:11:47.679 --> 0:11:51.079 to your left when you go in, and there's basically 0:11:51.160 --> 0:11:53.800 no way to get directly to it. You have to 0:11:53.840 --> 0:11:56.920 go through other stuff and then they give you the 0:11:56.960 --> 0:11:59.959 opposite At my public is that right, the pharmamer she is. 0:12:00.440 --> 0:12:02.160 It's the first thing on the right when you walk in. 0:12:02.280 --> 0:12:04.640 I'm thinking publics too. I guess I'm I'm in a 0:12:04.640 --> 0:12:07.160 different design or a different dimension. Maybe there's a barren 0:12:07.200 --> 0:12:11.560 sting effect going on. Weird. Yeah, so, um, you got 0:12:11.559 --> 0:12:15.440 anything else about the way people move? No? I mean 0:12:15.440 --> 0:12:17.600 this last thing is kind of funny. They did a 0:12:17.720 --> 0:12:20.439 test in a store in Philadelphia where they tried to 0:12:20.480 --> 0:12:23.480 funnel people to the left by putting up like palettes 0:12:23.520 --> 0:12:25.920 and all these big things that block your way, and 0:12:25.960 --> 0:12:28.920 people were like literally crawling over palets just so they 0:12:28.920 --> 0:12:32.959 could go to the right. It's it's pretty funny. Philly Strong, 0:12:33.480 --> 0:12:36.920 that's right. So since Chuck said Philly Strong, everybody, of course, 0:12:36.960 --> 0:12:43.440 that means that short stuff is out. Stuff you should 0:12:43.480 --> 0:12:46.439 know is a production of iHeart Radio. 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