1 00:00:03,040 --> 00:00:06,840 Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of iHeartRadio. 2 00:00:13,440 --> 00:00:15,280 Speaker 2: Hey you welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind. 3 00:00:15,360 --> 00:00:18,880 Speaker 3: My name is Robert Lamb and I am Joe McCormick. 4 00:00:19,000 --> 00:00:22,000 Speaker 3: And today we are returning with part two in our 5 00:00:22,079 --> 00:00:27,200 Speaker 3: series on the Telephone Game, a children's game in which 6 00:00:27,240 --> 00:00:30,520 Speaker 3: a secret message is passed along from one player to 7 00:00:30,600 --> 00:00:34,159 Speaker 3: the next in a chain, until finally the original message 8 00:00:34,200 --> 00:00:37,519 Speaker 3: and the message that emerges at the end are both announced, 9 00:00:37,560 --> 00:00:41,320 Speaker 3: so everybody can see how the information was either preserved 10 00:00:41,360 --> 00:00:45,720 Speaker 3: faithfully or horribly mangled by the passing from mouth to 11 00:00:45,760 --> 00:00:48,400 Speaker 3: ear so many times. Now, if you have not heard 12 00:00:48,400 --> 00:00:50,720 Speaker 3: part one of the series, I think this is a 13 00:00:50,760 --> 00:00:52,720 Speaker 3: case where you really should go back and check that 14 00:00:52,760 --> 00:00:53,080 Speaker 3: one out. 15 00:00:53,120 --> 00:00:53,360 Speaker 2: First. 16 00:00:53,400 --> 00:00:55,680 Speaker 3: We lay a lot of the groundwork for what we're 17 00:00:55,720 --> 00:00:59,160 Speaker 3: talking about today in the first episode, but as a 18 00:00:59,160 --> 00:01:02,240 Speaker 3: brief refresher, we talked about some of our memories of 19 00:01:02,280 --> 00:01:05,759 Speaker 3: these games from childhood, and we also discussed a very 20 00:01:05,760 --> 00:01:09,880 Speaker 3: famous and influential series of experiments from roughly a century ago, 21 00:01:10,480 --> 00:01:14,480 Speaker 3: discussed in a book by the British experimental psychologist Frederick C. 22 00:01:14,800 --> 00:01:20,280 Speaker 3: Bartlett called Remembering a Study in Experimental and Social Psychology. 23 00:01:20,319 --> 00:01:23,039 Speaker 3: That book came out in nineteen thirty two. Now, the 24 00:01:23,120 --> 00:01:27,000 Speaker 3: experiments described by Bartlett in this book concerned what is 25 00:01:27,080 --> 00:01:31,880 Speaker 3: called serial reproduction, which is very similar to the telephone game, 26 00:01:31,920 --> 00:01:35,840 Speaker 3: but involves a written component. So basically, a person would 27 00:01:35,880 --> 00:01:38,440 Speaker 3: be given a text to read, and this could be anything. 28 00:01:38,720 --> 00:01:41,000 Speaker 3: It could be a transcription of a folk tale, it 29 00:01:41,040 --> 00:01:44,200 Speaker 3: could be a newspaper article, a passage from a book, whatever, 30 00:01:44,600 --> 00:01:47,600 Speaker 3: And then that person is allowed to read it several times, 31 00:01:47,680 --> 00:01:50,320 Speaker 3: and then it's taken away, and then later they are 32 00:01:50,360 --> 00:01:54,040 Speaker 3: asked to reproduce the text as accurately as they could 33 00:01:54,400 --> 00:01:58,280 Speaker 3: from memory. Then that reproduction would be the text given 34 00:01:58,320 --> 00:02:00,920 Speaker 3: to the next person in the chain would do at 35 00:02:01,000 --> 00:02:03,640 Speaker 3: the best they could to reproduce that from memory, and 36 00:02:03,680 --> 00:02:07,960 Speaker 3: so on down the chain for an arbitrary number of reproductions. Now, 37 00:02:08,000 --> 00:02:11,680 Speaker 3: what Bartlett found in these experiments was that his text 38 00:02:11,720 --> 00:02:17,000 Speaker 3: based version of the telephone game in most cases produced radical, 39 00:02:17,240 --> 00:02:22,480 Speaker 3: profound alterations to the original story or message. And to 40 00:02:22,600 --> 00:02:25,960 Speaker 3: read from his conclusion of that chapter quote, epithets are 41 00:02:26,080 --> 00:02:30,840 Speaker 3: changed into their opposites, incidents and events are transposed, names 42 00:02:30,840 --> 00:02:34,680 Speaker 3: and numbers rarely survive intact for more than a few reproductions. 43 00:02:35,040 --> 00:02:40,240 Speaker 3: Opinions and conclusions are reversed. Nearly every possible variation seems 44 00:02:40,280 --> 00:02:43,120 Speaker 3: as if it can take place, even in a relatively 45 00:02:43,200 --> 00:02:47,079 Speaker 3: short series. So I wanted to begin today by following 46 00:02:47,160 --> 00:02:49,320 Speaker 3: up on Bartlett's work, which we talked about in the 47 00:02:49,360 --> 00:02:51,720 Speaker 3: last episode, because it cast a very long shadow in 48 00:02:51,760 --> 00:02:55,040 Speaker 3: the study of memory and cultural transmission of information. But 49 00:02:55,080 --> 00:02:57,440 Speaker 3: obviously this book is from a very long time ago, 50 00:02:57,600 --> 00:02:59,720 Speaker 3: so I wanted to see whether there were any more 51 00:02:59,720 --> 00:03:04,440 Speaker 3: recent and scientific reviews commenting on whether his work on 52 00:03:04,520 --> 00:03:07,920 Speaker 3: serial reproduction has stood the test of time and or 53 00:03:08,040 --> 00:03:12,040 Speaker 3: been successfully replicated. So I found a few papers. One 54 00:03:12,360 --> 00:03:16,920 Speaker 3: was actually focused on Bartlett's repeated reproduction experiments. That's where 55 00:03:17,440 --> 00:03:20,519 Speaker 3: the same person tries to recall a story or piece 56 00:03:20,560 --> 00:03:24,440 Speaker 3: of information at different time intervals after being exposed to it, 57 00:03:24,480 --> 00:03:28,240 Speaker 3: as opposed to the serial reproduction experiments where it's given 58 00:03:28,280 --> 00:03:31,399 Speaker 3: from one person to the next. But this study did 59 00:03:31,680 --> 00:03:35,440 Speaker 3: briefly address the other Bartlett experiments in the background section. 60 00:03:35,880 --> 00:03:39,560 Speaker 3: This paper was ken Bartlett's repeated reproduction experiments be replicated 61 00:03:39,600 --> 00:03:42,720 Speaker 3: by Bergmann and Rodeger in Memory and Cognition in nineteen 62 00:03:42,800 --> 00:03:46,800 Speaker 3: ninety nine, and the authors say that quote serial reproduction 63 00:03:46,920 --> 00:03:50,520 Speaker 3: can often lead to dramatic distortions in recall over repeated 64 00:03:50,560 --> 00:03:54,680 Speaker 3: reconstructions of the event. Although rarely used now, this experimental 65 00:03:54,680 --> 00:03:58,320 Speaker 3: technique was used in later studies with results generally confirming 66 00:03:58,440 --> 00:04:03,880 Speaker 3: those of Bartlettlogists interested in transmission of rumors use this technique, 67 00:04:04,200 --> 00:04:07,640 Speaker 3: among others. And then I found another study from more 68 00:04:07,640 --> 00:04:10,560 Speaker 3: recent years. This was from twenty fourteen in the Journal 69 00:04:10,560 --> 00:04:14,440 Speaker 3: of Applied Research in Memory and Cognition by Rodigerette. I'll 70 00:04:14,440 --> 00:04:19,200 Speaker 3: called Bartlett Revisited Direct Comparison of repeated reproduction and serial 71 00:04:19,240 --> 00:04:23,240 Speaker 3: reproduction techniques, and in their review the authors say, in 72 00:04:23,320 --> 00:04:27,360 Speaker 3: some virtually every experiment we can find using Bartlet's serial 73 00:04:27,400 --> 00:04:32,520 Speaker 3: reproduction technique confirms his observations that social transmission of information 74 00:04:32,839 --> 00:04:35,480 Speaker 3: is error prone and that the more links there are 75 00:04:35,480 --> 00:04:38,640 Speaker 3: in the chain, the greater the probability of error. So, 76 00:04:38,800 --> 00:04:42,120 Speaker 3: putting all this together, it looks to me like subsequent 77 00:04:42,200 --> 00:04:44,960 Speaker 3: research may have found some differences at the margins, but 78 00:04:45,160 --> 00:04:49,120 Speaker 3: for the most part, Bartlett's findings about the telephone game 79 00:04:49,200 --> 00:04:52,520 Speaker 3: process have been confirmed. When you do this particular type 80 00:04:52,520 --> 00:04:54,920 Speaker 3: of experiment where one person gets to read a story 81 00:04:55,000 --> 00:04:57,440 Speaker 3: and then they're supposed to repeat it as accurately as 82 00:04:57,480 --> 00:04:59,680 Speaker 3: they can from memory, and you go on and on. 83 00:05:00,240 --> 00:05:02,480 Speaker 3: All the different kinds of changes that we talked about 84 00:05:02,480 --> 00:05:06,240 Speaker 3: in the last episode are introduced. Now there might be 85 00:05:06,279 --> 00:05:09,840 Speaker 3: some important caveats based on what the genre of the 86 00:05:09,880 --> 00:05:12,440 Speaker 3: information is, and we can talk about that later in 87 00:05:12,480 --> 00:05:15,200 Speaker 3: this episode, but for the most part, one of my 88 00:05:15,240 --> 00:05:18,400 Speaker 3: big takeaways from this is we should all be very 89 00:05:18,600 --> 00:05:23,240 Speaker 3: cautious about believing rumors, even if you trust that the 90 00:05:23,279 --> 00:05:28,240 Speaker 3: person directly sharing the information with you is not a liar, 91 00:05:28,360 --> 00:05:30,400 Speaker 3: because this is something people always say when you know, 92 00:05:30,480 --> 00:05:33,919 Speaker 3: when you hear a rumor, people say like, oh, but Johnny, 93 00:05:33,960 --> 00:05:36,240 Speaker 3: who told me this isn't a liar? Why would he 94 00:05:36,320 --> 00:05:37,760 Speaker 3: tell me this if it wasn't true. 95 00:05:38,279 --> 00:05:41,279 Speaker 2: M Yeah, that's a good point, though. I think the 96 00:05:41,320 --> 00:05:44,200 Speaker 2: only example of rumors that you should take to the bank, 97 00:05:44,800 --> 00:05:46,479 Speaker 2: the only example is going to be the of course 98 00:05:46,520 --> 00:05:50,000 Speaker 2: the eleven studio album by Fleetwood Mac, which absolutely holds 99 00:05:50,080 --> 00:05:52,560 Speaker 2: up no doubt about it. 100 00:05:52,880 --> 00:05:54,119 Speaker 3: That's just secondhand news. 101 00:05:55,080 --> 00:05:57,760 Speaker 2: There's also a track you also have the chain on there, 102 00:05:58,000 --> 00:05:59,840 Speaker 2: so take that into account. 103 00:06:00,080 --> 00:06:01,839 Speaker 3: I do love Fleetwood Mac, but I got to ding 104 00:06:01,920 --> 00:06:06,120 Speaker 3: them for a false meteorological fact that they perpetuate in 105 00:06:06,160 --> 00:06:08,760 Speaker 3: one of their songs with the statement the thunder only 106 00:06:08,800 --> 00:06:11,160 Speaker 3: happens when it rains. That is not true. 107 00:06:11,440 --> 00:06:15,440 Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely incorrect, But to your point, Yeah, that's a 108 00:06:15,480 --> 00:06:18,520 Speaker 2: good point on rumors, sort of like the dark side 109 00:06:18,520 --> 00:06:22,640 Speaker 2: of this this phenomenon. I really like the idea of 110 00:06:22,680 --> 00:06:26,080 Speaker 2: the of the storytelling element and the chain of storytellers 111 00:06:26,360 --> 00:06:31,000 Speaker 2: within a given oral storytelling tradition or what have you. 112 00:06:31,080 --> 00:06:34,480 Speaker 2: Like it just it made me rethink and reanalyze the 113 00:06:34,560 --> 00:06:37,200 Speaker 2: role of the storyteller in a given culture. You know 114 00:06:37,279 --> 00:06:41,239 Speaker 2: that with each transmission of this story, you may lose 115 00:06:41,279 --> 00:06:44,039 Speaker 2: so many great things, but you also may gain things. 116 00:06:44,279 --> 00:06:47,520 Speaker 2: It's going to introduce new ways to make this content 117 00:06:48,640 --> 00:06:51,919 Speaker 2: more agreeable with an audience, more beneficial to the audience, 118 00:06:51,960 --> 00:06:55,039 Speaker 2: more entertaining, though at the same time also opening it 119 00:06:55,120 --> 00:06:57,760 Speaker 2: up to further manipulation so that the message of the 120 00:06:57,800 --> 00:06:59,640 Speaker 2: story could also be misused. 121 00:07:00,120 --> 00:07:03,040 Speaker 3: Absolutely. I mean this is noted I think by Bartlett himself, 122 00:07:03,040 --> 00:07:05,760 Speaker 3: but also in many papers I was reading about this research. 123 00:07:06,080 --> 00:07:08,960 Speaker 3: So the thing is that, yes, this should make us 124 00:07:09,040 --> 00:07:13,600 Speaker 3: very skeptical of the objective accuracy of much of memory 125 00:07:13,640 --> 00:07:18,560 Speaker 3: and of chains of information sharing between people, especially where 126 00:07:18,600 --> 00:07:21,520 Speaker 3: the whole process cannot be reviewed with a fixed record, 127 00:07:21,600 --> 00:07:24,160 Speaker 3: because the crucial element of this here is that you 128 00:07:24,280 --> 00:07:27,240 Speaker 3: only have to work with what the previous person told you. 129 00:07:27,680 --> 00:07:30,440 Speaker 3: It's a totally different thing if like it's all done, 130 00:07:30,800 --> 00:07:34,000 Speaker 3: maybe it's all done in writing or somehow it's all recorded, 131 00:07:34,040 --> 00:07:36,520 Speaker 3: and you can go back and review what the story 132 00:07:36,680 --> 00:07:40,320 Speaker 3: was at each point in its history. But for this 133 00:07:40,440 --> 00:07:42,880 Speaker 3: type of information sharing, yes, it should make us skeptical 134 00:07:43,320 --> 00:07:47,960 Speaker 3: about objective accuracy in reproduction of the original. But this 135 00:07:48,040 --> 00:07:51,679 Speaker 3: doesn't mean that the way people process information and serial 136 00:07:51,720 --> 00:07:55,800 Speaker 3: transmission is bad. It just means that you shouldn't rely 137 00:07:55,880 --> 00:07:59,080 Speaker 3: on it to get objective, accurate accounts. It may not 138 00:07:59,160 --> 00:08:02,080 Speaker 3: be good for that, but it's good for other things. 139 00:08:02,360 --> 00:08:06,320 Speaker 3: It's great for creating culture, for enlivening art and narrative 140 00:08:06,360 --> 00:08:11,000 Speaker 3: across time and making it always newly relevant, for maintaining 141 00:08:11,040 --> 00:08:15,720 Speaker 3: friendship and social bonds, for teaching applicable lessons in everyday life. 142 00:08:16,000 --> 00:08:19,160 Speaker 3: In fact, several papers I was reading pointed out that 143 00:08:19,360 --> 00:08:24,440 Speaker 3: in fact, this combination of conservation and distortion of information 144 00:08:24,560 --> 00:08:27,840 Speaker 3: at the same time through transmission from person to person 145 00:08:28,640 --> 00:08:32,080 Speaker 3: could be viewed as metaphorically similar to the combination of 146 00:08:32,480 --> 00:08:37,760 Speaker 3: conservation and distortion in biological evolution. Life can only exist 147 00:08:37,840 --> 00:08:41,840 Speaker 3: on Earth where there is the appropriate balance of conservation 148 00:08:42,400 --> 00:08:46,600 Speaker 3: and distortion of genetic information. So genetic traits are heritable 149 00:08:46,960 --> 00:08:50,000 Speaker 3: and they're passed on from one generation of organisms to another. 150 00:08:50,400 --> 00:08:54,600 Speaker 3: But species survive in a changing environment because they're able 151 00:08:54,600 --> 00:08:57,200 Speaker 3: to adapt and evolve, and they're able to adapt and 152 00:08:57,240 --> 00:09:02,600 Speaker 3: evolve when mutations distortions of that genetic information prove beneficial 153 00:09:02,640 --> 00:09:05,440 Speaker 3: to them. Though it's interesting to note, I think that 154 00:09:05,520 --> 00:09:08,760 Speaker 3: the error rate is probably much higher in the transmission 155 00:09:08,920 --> 00:09:12,520 Speaker 3: of most genres of verbal information than it is for 156 00:09:12,760 --> 00:09:16,800 Speaker 3: genetic information and organisms. Like in life, accurate transmission of 157 00:09:16,840 --> 00:09:20,840 Speaker 3: genes is the norm and mutations are the exception. When 158 00:09:20,840 --> 00:09:23,480 Speaker 3: we're telling stories to each other or repeating something we 159 00:09:23,520 --> 00:09:26,800 Speaker 3: read in the newspaper to a friend. In that kind 160 00:09:26,840 --> 00:09:30,960 Speaker 3: of verbal memory based transmission, mutations are much more the norm. 161 00:09:31,280 --> 00:09:33,160 Speaker 3: But at the same time, I think about how there 162 00:09:33,200 --> 00:09:36,440 Speaker 3: I guess there is a higher survival tolerance there, Like 163 00:09:36,480 --> 00:09:41,080 Speaker 3: a single harmful mutation can prove fatal to a bacterium, 164 00:09:41,679 --> 00:09:44,840 Speaker 3: But how does that work in the analogy for transmitting information? 165 00:09:45,800 --> 00:09:49,200 Speaker 3: Is it possible that one memory error could kill a 166 00:09:49,240 --> 00:09:52,199 Speaker 3: piece of information and prevent it from spreading further. 167 00:09:52,920 --> 00:09:55,240 Speaker 2: I guess so, you know, like the example of the 168 00:09:55,480 --> 00:10:00,240 Speaker 2: story of the ghost Battle the Ghost Warriors and in 169 00:10:00,520 --> 00:10:04,960 Speaker 2: the last episode, you know, like sometimes if certain details, 170 00:10:04,960 --> 00:10:10,760 Speaker 2: certain descriptions, certain narrative choices are removed, like you can 171 00:10:10,800 --> 00:10:13,760 Speaker 2: take the heart out of a particular story, a particular myth, 172 00:10:14,320 --> 00:10:18,080 Speaker 2: and could impact the degree to which people want to 173 00:10:18,120 --> 00:10:19,880 Speaker 2: pass it on or need to pass it on. 174 00:10:20,280 --> 00:10:23,079 Speaker 3: That's a good point. Yes, This thing that Bartlett noticed 175 00:10:23,080 --> 00:10:26,319 Speaker 3: where certain details this is he called the leveling process, 176 00:10:26,400 --> 00:10:31,679 Speaker 3: where individualizing characteristics and stylistic details from a story are 177 00:10:31,800 --> 00:10:35,000 Speaker 3: stripped out as they are reproduced by people who don't 178 00:10:35,000 --> 00:10:39,080 Speaker 3: remember them because they deem them inessential, not realizing that 179 00:10:39,320 --> 00:10:42,360 Speaker 3: the soul of the story lies in those details. The 180 00:10:42,440 --> 00:10:44,920 Speaker 3: fact that those details are now missing could make the 181 00:10:44,960 --> 00:10:47,920 Speaker 3: story so uninteresting to the person who hears it that 182 00:10:47,960 --> 00:10:51,400 Speaker 3: they would never share it again. That's a good point. 183 00:10:51,960 --> 00:10:53,480 Speaker 3: But wait a minute. I wanted to come back to 184 00:10:53,520 --> 00:10:56,319 Speaker 3: something I started saying a minute ago. This thing about 185 00:10:56,520 --> 00:11:00,280 Speaker 3: believing rumors, where people are often inclined to believe or 186 00:11:00,320 --> 00:11:03,240 Speaker 3: because they don't want to believe the individual person who 187 00:11:03,280 --> 00:11:06,480 Speaker 3: shared the rumor with them is a liar, And I 188 00:11:06,480 --> 00:11:09,559 Speaker 3: think that that is such a misguided mentality because, first 189 00:11:09,559 --> 00:11:12,520 Speaker 3: of all, and less related to the experimental findings we're 190 00:11:12,520 --> 00:11:15,280 Speaker 3: talking about here, the person who shared the rumor with 191 00:11:15,360 --> 00:11:17,880 Speaker 3: you may not be a liar, but you know less 192 00:11:17,920 --> 00:11:20,559 Speaker 3: about the person who shared the rumor with them, and 193 00:11:20,640 --> 00:11:23,520 Speaker 3: who that person heard it from, et cetera. You can't 194 00:11:23,600 --> 00:11:27,920 Speaker 3: usually inspect the entire chain of transmission, only the person 195 00:11:27,960 --> 00:11:31,800 Speaker 3: you're directly getting it from. But more relevant to today's topic, 196 00:11:32,120 --> 00:11:36,080 Speaker 3: it's absolutely clear from these experiments that massive distortions of 197 00:11:36,160 --> 00:11:40,920 Speaker 3: original source material can creep into human transmission chains, even 198 00:11:40,960 --> 00:11:44,400 Speaker 3: when the person isn't a liar. When they're not trying 199 00:11:44,440 --> 00:11:47,160 Speaker 3: to distort it, they're trying as best they can to 200 00:11:47,280 --> 00:11:50,800 Speaker 3: accurately reproduce it. And that's in cases where the person 201 00:11:50,960 --> 00:11:54,319 Speaker 3: is not personally invested in the subject matter, where they 202 00:11:54,320 --> 00:11:57,840 Speaker 3: have no incentive to exaggerate and they're just trying to 203 00:11:57,880 --> 00:12:01,559 Speaker 3: reproduce the material as best they can. How much worse 204 00:12:01,600 --> 00:12:04,680 Speaker 3: will things be in the real world. Will distortions be when, 205 00:12:05,000 --> 00:12:08,640 Speaker 3: like somebody is personally invested in the material, maybe in 206 00:12:08,679 --> 00:12:12,040 Speaker 3: it presenting a certain way, when they do have incentives 207 00:12:12,040 --> 00:12:15,360 Speaker 3: to exaggerate or otherwise distort the material, whether that's to 208 00:12:15,559 --> 00:12:19,240 Speaker 3: maybe make it more entertaining, more impressive, more illustrative of 209 00:12:19,280 --> 00:12:21,959 Speaker 3: a point they want to make, or whatever, and when 210 00:12:22,000 --> 00:12:26,520 Speaker 3: they're not necessarily conscious of being scrutinized for accuracy. 211 00:12:27,000 --> 00:12:29,520 Speaker 2: Yeah, so there are all these different types of unconscious 212 00:12:29,920 --> 00:12:32,720 Speaker 2: changes and event of course, intentional changes that can take place. 213 00:12:33,240 --> 00:12:36,000 Speaker 2: And the result is that some details in the story 214 00:12:36,120 --> 00:12:38,360 Speaker 2: or the rumor or what have you, some will change, 215 00:12:38,400 --> 00:12:40,920 Speaker 2: some will remain, and there will also be a sharpening 216 00:12:41,040 --> 00:12:46,000 Speaker 2: of things, you know, like an exaggeration. But what does 217 00:12:46,000 --> 00:12:48,640 Speaker 2: it all mean? I was looking at a handful of 218 00:12:48,640 --> 00:12:53,640 Speaker 2: papers discussing transmission chain experiments and the transmission of urban 219 00:12:53,720 --> 00:12:56,920 Speaker 2: legends and other stories, which I thought seems like a 220 00:12:56,920 --> 00:12:58,720 Speaker 2: really good area to look at, because a lot of 221 00:12:58,720 --> 00:13:01,480 Speaker 2: times urban legends is actually I mean, we're not talking 222 00:13:01,520 --> 00:13:05,360 Speaker 2: about literature, we're not talking about myths. They often kind 223 00:13:05,400 --> 00:13:09,000 Speaker 2: of come out of nowhere, and the way in which 224 00:13:09,000 --> 00:13:12,640 Speaker 2: we pass them on sometimes feels more akin to like 225 00:13:12,720 --> 00:13:15,200 Speaker 2: older oral storytelling traditions. 226 00:13:15,880 --> 00:13:18,080 Speaker 3: Well, right, because the case with urban myths is you 227 00:13:18,120 --> 00:13:23,160 Speaker 3: at least usually assume that they were created by many minds. 228 00:13:23,200 --> 00:13:26,560 Speaker 3: You know, they're the product of this transmission chain, rather 229 00:13:26,640 --> 00:13:30,000 Speaker 3: than say, being originally written down in a fixed form 230 00:13:30,080 --> 00:13:33,040 Speaker 3: by one person and then other people have tried to 231 00:13:33,120 --> 00:13:36,800 Speaker 3: replicate it across time, though in fact there are variation, 232 00:13:37,000 --> 00:13:39,760 Speaker 3: like some urban legends do come from books. That's a 233 00:13:39,800 --> 00:13:42,640 Speaker 3: funny thing that pops up occasionally, like it was originally 234 00:13:43,000 --> 00:13:45,280 Speaker 3: a story somebody wrote, was published in a sci fi 235 00:13:45,360 --> 00:13:48,240 Speaker 3: magazine somewhere, and then it got turned into an urban 236 00:13:48,320 --> 00:13:50,439 Speaker 3: legend and morphed along along the chain. 237 00:13:51,040 --> 00:13:53,320 Speaker 2: Yeah, and of course, speaking of the chain, we have 238 00:13:53,360 --> 00:13:57,360 Speaker 2: to acknowledge the email chain of technology changes things. Technology 239 00:13:57,400 --> 00:13:59,320 Speaker 2: ends up bringing us a scenario or end up with 240 00:13:59,360 --> 00:14:03,480 Speaker 2: things like like pasta creepy pasta and so forth, where 241 00:14:03,840 --> 00:14:06,760 Speaker 2: it's something that is, as the name alludes to, generally 242 00:14:07,040 --> 00:14:10,320 Speaker 2: just copied and pasted, though sometimes there are augmentations made, 243 00:14:10,400 --> 00:14:12,960 Speaker 2: and then of course everyone has received it or at 244 00:14:13,080 --> 00:14:14,520 Speaker 2: least in times pasted. I don't know if this is 245 00:14:14,520 --> 00:14:17,080 Speaker 2: still a thing so much, but when a family member 246 00:14:17,280 --> 00:14:21,160 Speaker 2: forwards you an email and it has some sort of 247 00:14:21,200 --> 00:14:25,640 Speaker 2: perhaps unbelievable quality to it, some sort of tall tail 248 00:14:25,720 --> 00:14:28,400 Speaker 2: or urban legend at the heart of it. But nothing 249 00:14:28,440 --> 00:14:32,760 Speaker 2: has changed except for the string of forwards that are 250 00:14:32,760 --> 00:14:34,040 Speaker 2: at the top of it where you can see all 251 00:14:34,040 --> 00:14:36,000 Speaker 2: these people that have passed it on like a chain letter. 252 00:14:36,520 --> 00:14:38,480 Speaker 3: But if I don't forward this, I'm going to look 253 00:14:38,480 --> 00:14:40,240 Speaker 3: in the mirror and see a ghost and it will 254 00:14:40,320 --> 00:14:40,640 Speaker 3: kill me. 255 00:14:41,120 --> 00:14:52,760 Speaker 2: That's right, in seven days. So one of the papers 256 00:14:52,760 --> 00:14:55,400 Speaker 2: I was looking at was from Storytelling to Facebook by 257 00:14:55,440 --> 00:14:59,440 Speaker 2: Alberto Orcibi, published in Human Nature in twenty twenty two. 258 00:15:00,200 --> 00:15:06,160 Speaker 2: This particular paper utilized a registered online pair of studies, 259 00:15:06,640 --> 00:15:09,880 Speaker 2: one using a traditional transmission chain set up, and the 260 00:15:09,920 --> 00:15:13,040 Speaker 2: other asking subjects whether they would be likely to share 261 00:15:13,080 --> 00:15:16,560 Speaker 2: a story on social media or with friends, you know, 262 00:15:16,640 --> 00:15:21,760 Speaker 2: in a anonymous or attributed status. 263 00:15:21,840 --> 00:15:24,400 Speaker 3: So I thought this was really interesting. So, if I'm 264 00:15:24,480 --> 00:15:28,400 Speaker 3: understanding right, the author wanted to compare different types of 265 00:15:28,440 --> 00:15:31,840 Speaker 3: information sharing in the modern era. One is more like 266 00:15:31,880 --> 00:15:34,160 Speaker 3: the experiments we've been talking about, where somebody has to 267 00:15:34,200 --> 00:15:38,040 Speaker 3: pass along the story effortfully by like using their memory 268 00:15:38,360 --> 00:15:41,280 Speaker 3: to retell the story as they understand it, like in 269 00:15:41,320 --> 00:15:46,400 Speaker 3: the Bartlett experiments, versus the technology assisted passing along of 270 00:15:46,440 --> 00:15:50,640 Speaker 3: a story passively in its original unaltered form. You know, 271 00:15:50,720 --> 00:15:52,600 Speaker 3: you just click the button to share, so you're not 272 00:15:52,640 --> 00:15:56,200 Speaker 3: actually changing it. In that case, you're just deciding whether 273 00:15:56,320 --> 00:15:59,360 Speaker 3: or not you want this same original piece of media 274 00:15:59,400 --> 00:16:01,320 Speaker 3: to go to all of the people following you. 275 00:16:01,920 --> 00:16:05,120 Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, So just some of the very quick sort 276 00:16:05,120 --> 00:16:08,800 Speaker 2: of findings from this. First of all, negative content was 277 00:16:08,800 --> 00:16:12,840 Speaker 2: both better transmitted and transmission chain experiments and shared more 278 00:16:13,120 --> 00:16:14,760 Speaker 2: than its neutral counterpart. 279 00:16:15,320 --> 00:16:17,920 Speaker 3: That should not be surprising based on all the studies 280 00:16:17,920 --> 00:16:21,160 Speaker 3: of what does well online negative content works. 281 00:16:21,640 --> 00:16:26,440 Speaker 2: Yeah. Next, threat related information was successful in transmission chain experiments, 282 00:16:26,800 --> 00:16:31,520 Speaker 2: but not when sharing straight up. So that's that's interesting 283 00:16:31,560 --> 00:16:33,360 Speaker 2: as well, and again kind of matches up with what 284 00:16:33,400 --> 00:16:37,640 Speaker 2: we tend to understand about, you know, why we pass 285 00:16:37,720 --> 00:16:40,400 Speaker 2: something on why we would we would tell someone a 286 00:16:40,440 --> 00:16:45,600 Speaker 2: particular story. And then finally, information eliciting disgust was not 287 00:16:45,760 --> 00:16:48,680 Speaker 2: advantaged in either, which which is interesting. 288 00:16:49,120 --> 00:16:50,000 Speaker 3: That's surprising to me. 289 00:16:50,080 --> 00:16:52,920 Speaker 2: But okay, I guess you know some people. I guess 290 00:16:53,000 --> 00:16:55,680 Speaker 2: maybe it depends on the population. Again, this is this 291 00:16:55,800 --> 00:17:00,360 Speaker 2: was a small study, but it does seem like there 292 00:17:00,360 --> 00:17:02,200 Speaker 2: would be individuals who are like, hey, I got a 293 00:17:02,200 --> 00:17:05,159 Speaker 2: disgusting story I need to tell you listen to me. 294 00:17:06,320 --> 00:17:08,919 Speaker 2: But maybe other's not so much, or maybe it's like 295 00:17:08,960 --> 00:17:11,720 Speaker 2: the disgusting thing that we might might be the thing 296 00:17:11,760 --> 00:17:15,560 Speaker 2: we sort of focus on, like maybe it's ultimately something 297 00:17:15,600 --> 00:17:18,520 Speaker 2: about it being negative or something about it being threat 298 00:17:18,560 --> 00:17:21,879 Speaker 2: related that is more important to the transmission than merely 299 00:17:21,920 --> 00:17:26,200 Speaker 2: the discussed Now, the author points out that content biases 300 00:17:26,240 --> 00:17:30,320 Speaker 2: are strongest when memorization and reproduction aren't involved in the 301 00:17:30,359 --> 00:17:33,679 Speaker 2: transmission of information, as in the telephone game and the 302 00:17:33,720 --> 00:17:37,560 Speaker 2: traditional oral transmission of narratives. Now, another paper I was 303 00:17:37,600 --> 00:17:40,439 Speaker 2: looking at pointed out some other great ideas related to this. 304 00:17:40,640 --> 00:17:44,879 Speaker 2: It's titled serial Killers, Spiders and Cybersex, Social and Survival 305 00:17:44,920 --> 00:17:48,600 Speaker 2: Information by Us in the Transmission of Urban Legends by 306 00:17:48,680 --> 00:17:51,600 Speaker 2: stubbards Field at All, published in the British Journal of 307 00:17:51,640 --> 00:17:56,760 Speaker 2: Psychology in twenty fourteen. Okay, oh, it's great time. The 308 00:17:56,800 --> 00:17:59,399 Speaker 2: authors point out that when we take in information and 309 00:17:59,440 --> 00:18:02,959 Speaker 2: retell it, various cognitive selection pressures kick in to make 310 00:18:03,000 --> 00:18:07,360 Speaker 2: sure it's maximally transmittable. This can alter structure, it can 311 00:18:07,400 --> 00:18:13,719 Speaker 2: alter content, and transmissibility depends on three factors salience, accuracy 312 00:18:13,760 --> 00:18:16,480 Speaker 2: of recall, and motivation to pass it on. 313 00:18:17,160 --> 00:18:19,160 Speaker 3: Okay, so can you explain that The. 314 00:18:19,119 --> 00:18:20,760 Speaker 2: Way I was thinking about is in terms of, like, 315 00:18:20,760 --> 00:18:22,920 Speaker 2: all right, you've heard a good joke and you want 316 00:18:22,920 --> 00:18:24,919 Speaker 2: to retell that joke? Why do you want to retell 317 00:18:24,960 --> 00:18:27,600 Speaker 2: that joke? Is it good? Is it notable? Is it 318 00:18:27,640 --> 00:18:31,520 Speaker 2: attention grabbing in any way? Can you actually remember the 319 00:18:31,560 --> 00:18:34,800 Speaker 2: beats well enough to retell it? And then why are 320 00:18:34,800 --> 00:18:38,080 Speaker 2: you retelling it? Is it timely? Is it entertaining? Is 321 00:18:38,119 --> 00:18:40,840 Speaker 2: it particularly cutting? Are you just trying to create a distraction? 322 00:18:41,280 --> 00:18:43,479 Speaker 2: You know, don't sort of lift the mood. All of 323 00:18:43,520 --> 00:18:46,720 Speaker 2: this matters without any of us having to actively check 324 00:18:46,760 --> 00:18:48,760 Speaker 2: these boxes off in our head. We don't have to 325 00:18:48,800 --> 00:18:51,680 Speaker 2: actually think, like, all right, can I read? Because Lord knows, 326 00:18:51,720 --> 00:18:54,760 Speaker 2: plenty of people launch into a joke without trying to 327 00:18:55,200 --> 00:18:57,679 Speaker 2: without making sure that they can actually retell all the 328 00:18:57,760 --> 00:19:04,120 Speaker 2: necessary beats first, So you're not necessarily conscious of all 329 00:19:04,119 --> 00:19:06,560 Speaker 2: of this as you're about to retell something. 330 00:19:06,640 --> 00:19:09,560 Speaker 3: The horse goes into the doctor's office, has a long face. 331 00:19:10,440 --> 00:19:14,080 Speaker 3: The horse says, why is my face like this? I 332 00:19:14,080 --> 00:19:15,880 Speaker 3: don't remember the rest? Yeah? 333 00:19:16,000 --> 00:19:19,439 Speaker 2: Yeah, But still, it's like you're taking a joke or 334 00:19:19,440 --> 00:19:22,280 Speaker 2: some other bit of information. If it ends with you, 335 00:19:22,400 --> 00:19:25,000 Speaker 2: there's a reason, and if you pass it on, there's 336 00:19:25,000 --> 00:19:28,040 Speaker 2: a reason as well. So the first and third factors here, 337 00:19:28,160 --> 00:19:33,040 Speaker 2: salience and motivation depend on social information bias and survival 338 00:19:33,080 --> 00:19:36,399 Speaker 2: information bias. In other words, coming back to the joke 339 00:19:36,560 --> 00:19:39,160 Speaker 2: or say an urban legend, does the thing you were 340 00:19:39,200 --> 00:19:45,280 Speaker 2: passing on contained to any degree social information or survival information? 341 00:19:45,760 --> 00:19:48,400 Speaker 3: Hmm okay, Yeah. 342 00:19:48,200 --> 00:19:50,359 Speaker 2: It's really interesting to think about this because indeed, some 343 00:19:50,440 --> 00:19:54,399 Speaker 2: of the memorable ideas out there, be they jokes, urban legends, 344 00:19:54,480 --> 00:19:57,760 Speaker 2: or what have you, at least seem to have some 345 00:19:57,840 --> 00:20:02,439 Speaker 2: sort of social revelation or commentary baked into them, and 346 00:20:02,680 --> 00:20:05,359 Speaker 2: or some sort of information that seems to contain a 347 00:20:05,480 --> 00:20:08,080 Speaker 2: lesson on how to survive in the world. 348 00:20:08,640 --> 00:20:08,800 Speaker 3: Yeah. 349 00:20:08,800 --> 00:20:11,800 Speaker 2: I mean, you're not necessarily processing this. You're not thinking like, oh, 350 00:20:11,800 --> 00:20:13,960 Speaker 2: this is a good urban legend. I can use this, 351 00:20:13,960 --> 00:20:16,199 Speaker 2: This might save my life tomorrow. You might not be 352 00:20:16,280 --> 00:20:18,919 Speaker 2: thinking that, but that could be like the reason that 353 00:20:18,960 --> 00:20:20,600 Speaker 2: you're inclined to remember it. 354 00:20:20,840 --> 00:20:22,879 Speaker 3: I think a lot of the jokes that people find 355 00:20:22,920 --> 00:20:27,119 Speaker 3: the funniest are ones that make a playfully negative observation 356 00:20:27,359 --> 00:20:28,879 Speaker 3: about general human nature. 357 00:20:30,240 --> 00:20:30,400 Speaker 2: Yes. 358 00:20:30,800 --> 00:20:33,160 Speaker 3: Classic example, the two hunters in the woods they see 359 00:20:33,160 --> 00:20:35,880 Speaker 3: a bear charging at them. One kneels down to tie 360 00:20:35,960 --> 00:20:38,960 Speaker 3: his shoes. His friend says, why are you tying your shoes? 361 00:20:39,000 --> 00:20:41,440 Speaker 3: You can't outrun a bear. The guy tying his shoes says, 362 00:20:41,440 --> 00:20:43,119 Speaker 3: I don't have to outrun a bear, I just have 363 00:20:43,160 --> 00:20:43,840 Speaker 3: to outrun you. 364 00:20:44,680 --> 00:20:47,520 Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, So you can look to examples like this. 365 00:20:47,680 --> 00:20:51,440 Speaker 2: They are also various parables and coens that really zing 366 00:20:51,600 --> 00:20:54,840 Speaker 2: because they seem to reveal something about human nature. Likewise, 367 00:20:54,840 --> 00:20:57,040 Speaker 2: you can also point to a lot of negative examples, 368 00:20:57,440 --> 00:21:01,840 Speaker 2: things that contain disinformation or just hurt ideas or stereotypes, 369 00:21:02,840 --> 00:21:05,360 Speaker 2: but true or not, they seem to have some sort 370 00:21:05,400 --> 00:21:08,480 Speaker 2: of social information. Now on the survival information front, the 371 00:21:08,520 --> 00:21:11,880 Speaker 2: first place my mind went to was the old urban 372 00:21:11,960 --> 00:21:14,640 Speaker 2: legend of hey, don't flash your lights or your car 373 00:21:14,720 --> 00:21:17,760 Speaker 2: lights at another car that doesn't have its lights on, 374 00:21:18,200 --> 00:21:20,480 Speaker 2: because you know what's going on. This is a murder 375 00:21:20,520 --> 00:21:24,680 Speaker 2: gang initiation. There gang members in that car. They're intentionally 376 00:21:24,760 --> 00:21:27,280 Speaker 2: riding around without their headlights on, and if you flash 377 00:21:27,280 --> 00:21:30,080 Speaker 2: your lights at them, you may think you're generally reminding 378 00:21:30,119 --> 00:21:31,679 Speaker 2: them that they need to turn their lights on. They 379 00:21:31,840 --> 00:21:33,679 Speaker 2: but know it'll be on and they will come and 380 00:21:33,760 --> 00:21:34,200 Speaker 2: kill you. 381 00:21:34,240 --> 00:21:37,920 Speaker 3: So this allegedly has survival information. You need to know this. 382 00:21:38,000 --> 00:21:40,920 Speaker 3: If you don't know this, you could die, right. 383 00:21:41,200 --> 00:21:43,919 Speaker 2: It seems to be important on some level and then 384 00:21:43,960 --> 00:21:47,959 Speaker 2: gets transmitted and passed on it. Of course, completely false. 385 00:21:48,000 --> 00:21:50,520 Speaker 2: This was an urban legend that began in the nineteen eighties, 386 00:21:50,560 --> 00:21:53,399 Speaker 2: has no truth to it, though at times got passed 387 00:21:53,400 --> 00:21:58,119 Speaker 2: on by reputable and semi reputable sources. But again, it 388 00:21:58,240 --> 00:22:02,240 Speaker 2: seems to have survival information inside it, and therefore there's 389 00:22:02,280 --> 00:22:03,360 Speaker 2: a stickiness to it. 390 00:22:03,520 --> 00:22:04,160 Speaker 3: That makes sense. 391 00:22:04,200 --> 00:22:06,920 Speaker 2: Okay, Now back to the paper itself. They conducted a 392 00:22:07,000 --> 00:22:11,600 Speaker 2: very small study but found quote legends which contained social information, 393 00:22:11,760 --> 00:22:15,679 Speaker 2: social type legends which contained survival information survival type, and 394 00:22:15,840 --> 00:22:19,720 Speaker 2: legends which contained both forms of information combined type were 395 00:22:19,760 --> 00:22:24,200 Speaker 2: all recalled with significantly greater accuracy than control material, while 396 00:22:24,280 --> 00:22:27,760 Speaker 2: social and combined type legends were recalled with significantly greater 397 00:22:27,920 --> 00:22:30,480 Speaker 2: accuracy than survival type legends. 398 00:22:30,720 --> 00:22:33,680 Speaker 3: Well, counterintuitive is it may be that social and combined 399 00:22:33,720 --> 00:22:37,280 Speaker 3: beats out survival. I am not really surprised by that, 400 00:22:37,359 --> 00:22:39,560 Speaker 3: because I don't know what is the what is the 401 00:22:39,840 --> 00:22:42,360 Speaker 3: juiciest type of information that if you hear a little 402 00:22:42,440 --> 00:22:44,960 Speaker 3: snippet of you've got to lean in and find out more. 403 00:22:45,320 --> 00:22:48,240 Speaker 3: It's gossip about people, it's you know, it's not people 404 00:22:48,280 --> 00:22:51,080 Speaker 3: talking about life threatening situations. You might lean in and 405 00:22:51,119 --> 00:22:53,960 Speaker 3: want to hear more about life threatening situations. But even 406 00:22:54,000 --> 00:22:57,320 Speaker 3: more so, it's if you hear like, oh man, did 407 00:22:57,400 --> 00:22:59,800 Speaker 3: you hear what Johnny said to say? And then the 408 00:23:00,160 --> 00:23:01,800 Speaker 3: like you have to hear the rest of that. 409 00:23:02,560 --> 00:23:05,520 Speaker 2: Yeah, like the whole thing about gang members driving around 410 00:23:05,520 --> 00:23:08,400 Speaker 2: in cars without their lights on. Yeah, there's the survival 411 00:23:09,119 --> 00:23:12,119 Speaker 2: aspect of it, certainly, but there was also at least 412 00:23:12,280 --> 00:23:14,560 Speaker 2: and I'm not I didn't look at any specific examples 413 00:23:14,640 --> 00:23:16,600 Speaker 2: of the text. I'm just kind of remembering it. There's 414 00:23:16,680 --> 00:23:19,720 Speaker 2: it's at least implied that there's some sort of social 415 00:23:19,760 --> 00:23:24,199 Speaker 2: information about like reckless youth culture or punk gangs, or 416 00:23:24,320 --> 00:23:27,440 Speaker 2: there's some sort of racial connotation to it. That's all 417 00:23:27,480 --> 00:23:30,440 Speaker 2: just kind of baked into the idea, even if they're 418 00:23:30,480 --> 00:23:33,600 Speaker 2: not specific examples added in its transmission. 419 00:23:33,880 --> 00:23:36,040 Speaker 3: Yes, it just it like pings on a lot of 420 00:23:36,160 --> 00:23:38,720 Speaker 3: different unhealthy fixations people might have. 421 00:23:40,520 --> 00:23:42,920 Speaker 2: So anyway, I thought that was interesting. It also I 422 00:23:42,960 --> 00:23:45,200 Speaker 2: would be interested to hear from listeners out there if 423 00:23:45,200 --> 00:23:49,400 Speaker 2: they have other examples of the sort of like urban 424 00:23:49,520 --> 00:23:52,080 Speaker 2: legend transmission. I think there's a there's a lot to 425 00:23:52,119 --> 00:24:02,040 Speaker 2: reveal in these examples. 426 00:24:02,840 --> 00:24:05,880 Speaker 3: Well, speaking of urban legends, I also wanted to talk 427 00:24:05,920 --> 00:24:09,560 Speaker 3: briefly about a study I was looking at that concerned 428 00:24:09,840 --> 00:24:13,760 Speaker 3: urban legends and folk tales. And so this was by 429 00:24:14,040 --> 00:24:17,480 Speaker 3: a host at all, published in the journal Memory very 430 00:24:17,480 --> 00:24:20,440 Speaker 3: recently in twenty twenty two, and the title was the 431 00:24:20,440 --> 00:24:25,320 Speaker 3: serial reproduction of an Urban Myth, revisiting Bartlett's schema theory. 432 00:24:26,920 --> 00:24:30,240 Speaker 3: So the title makes reference to Bartlett's schema theory. This 433 00:24:30,440 --> 00:24:36,359 Speaker 3: is an idea proposed by Bartlett that memory is more 434 00:24:36,480 --> 00:24:41,040 Speaker 3: accurate when it conforms to what he called our schema, 435 00:24:41,600 --> 00:24:45,560 Speaker 3: meaning a sort of an existing body of knowledge and 436 00:24:45,760 --> 00:24:50,399 Speaker 3: expectations that we use to help store memory efficiently and 437 00:24:50,480 --> 00:24:53,520 Speaker 3: make sense of the world. And so according to this theory, 438 00:24:53,560 --> 00:24:57,840 Speaker 3: not all information is distorted at the same rate the 439 00:24:57,880 --> 00:25:01,920 Speaker 3: author's rite quote. According to the law of Bartlett's schema theory, 440 00:25:02,280 --> 00:25:06,000 Speaker 3: remembering should, in relation to certain kinds of material, be 441 00:25:06,160 --> 00:25:11,560 Speaker 3: relatively reliable. And so the authors here investigate the reliability 442 00:25:11,640 --> 00:25:16,480 Speaker 3: of Bartlett style serial reproduction chains by modulating two different variables. 443 00:25:16,920 --> 00:25:21,639 Speaker 3: First of all, whether the original information fits with the 444 00:25:21,680 --> 00:25:26,919 Speaker 3: subject's familiar cultural schema or not, and whether the audience 445 00:25:27,080 --> 00:25:31,760 Speaker 3: of their retelling was understood to be quote lenient or strict. 446 00:25:32,200 --> 00:25:35,000 Speaker 3: And I thought both of these variables were interesting because 447 00:25:35,000 --> 00:25:37,480 Speaker 3: they both came up in Bartlett's discussion of his own work. 448 00:25:37,560 --> 00:25:40,320 Speaker 3: One of the things he was testing with the famous 449 00:25:40,320 --> 00:25:43,639 Speaker 3: example of that story, the War of the Ghosts, which again, 450 00:25:44,040 --> 00:25:46,920 Speaker 3: this is when we discussed in episode one. This is 451 00:25:46,960 --> 00:25:51,920 Speaker 3: a translated adaptation of a Native American folk tale that 452 00:25:52,040 --> 00:25:55,320 Speaker 3: in its original form is we found very haunting and 453 00:25:55,359 --> 00:26:01,399 Speaker 3: beautiful and interesting, but it doesn't conform to common expectations 454 00:26:01,480 --> 00:26:06,440 Speaker 3: of storytelling that might be expected by a Western audience. 455 00:26:07,000 --> 00:26:10,400 Speaker 3: And thus Bartlett featured it because he thought that these 456 00:26:10,920 --> 00:26:16,000 Speaker 3: differences in storytelling conventions and the subjects lack of familiarity 457 00:26:16,080 --> 00:26:18,800 Speaker 3: with the cultural context of the story would make it 458 00:26:19,000 --> 00:26:22,440 Speaker 3: more difficult for them to remember and reproduce it accurately. 459 00:26:22,720 --> 00:26:24,560 Speaker 3: And that did seem to be the case. But here 460 00:26:25,440 --> 00:26:28,959 Speaker 3: the authors of this study wanted to actually compare that 461 00:26:29,160 --> 00:26:33,800 Speaker 3: directly with a much more culturally familiar story, and in 462 00:26:33,840 --> 00:26:37,239 Speaker 3: this case they chose the Vanishing Hitchhiker. Rob Do you 463 00:26:37,280 --> 00:26:39,000 Speaker 3: know the vanishing Hitchhiker tale? 464 00:26:39,400 --> 00:26:40,920 Speaker 2: Oh? I don't know. Is this the one? Or the Hook? 465 00:26:41,560 --> 00:26:43,639 Speaker 3: No? No, no, no, no, not the hook. A hook is 466 00:26:43,640 --> 00:26:46,240 Speaker 3: a good one too, the Vanishing Hitchhiker. There are a 467 00:26:46,280 --> 00:26:49,160 Speaker 3: lot of different variations but usual contours are the same. 468 00:26:49,520 --> 00:26:52,000 Speaker 3: So maybe there is a man driving along a lonely 469 00:26:52,080 --> 00:26:56,080 Speaker 3: highway at night and he sees a hitchhiker, a woman 470 00:26:56,119 --> 00:26:59,639 Speaker 3: who appears to be in distress. She's asking for a ride, 471 00:26:59,680 --> 00:27:01,560 Speaker 3: walking on the side of the highway. She asks him 472 00:27:01,560 --> 00:27:04,280 Speaker 3: for a ride, he picks her up. They have a 473 00:27:04,280 --> 00:27:06,879 Speaker 3: brief conversation as he drives her to the address she 474 00:27:07,000 --> 00:27:09,720 Speaker 3: asks for, and then when he arrives, he turns to 475 00:27:09,760 --> 00:27:13,160 Speaker 3: find she has vanished entirely from the car. And then 476 00:27:13,200 --> 00:27:16,320 Speaker 3: he later often compares his story with somebody else He 477 00:27:16,400 --> 00:27:20,360 Speaker 3: tells this, you know, he's like. He gets home and says, oh, 478 00:27:20,400 --> 00:27:22,320 Speaker 3: you wouldn't believe it. I picked up this woman to 479 00:27:22,320 --> 00:27:24,680 Speaker 3: give her a ride home, and then she disappeared completely. 480 00:27:24,720 --> 00:27:28,240 Speaker 3: And then the person he's talking to says, I've driven 481 00:27:28,280 --> 00:27:30,879 Speaker 3: her home as well. She also disappeared from my car. 482 00:27:31,560 --> 00:27:34,840 Speaker 2: Oh nice, nice, nice. So this is like an automobile 483 00:27:34,920 --> 00:27:38,160 Speaker 2: age sort of take on the classic ghost story where 484 00:27:38,240 --> 00:27:40,760 Speaker 2: you find out after the fact that this mysterious person 485 00:27:40,760 --> 00:27:43,280 Speaker 2: who vanished is a frequently occurring. 486 00:27:42,880 --> 00:27:46,040 Speaker 3: Ghost exactly now. It might have earlier analogs, but I 487 00:27:46,080 --> 00:27:48,639 Speaker 3: think most people would interpret this as like a twentieth 488 00:27:48,680 --> 00:27:49,919 Speaker 3: century folk tale. 489 00:27:50,480 --> 00:27:55,240 Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, yeah, clearly involves the car the hitchhiker. It's 490 00:27:55,359 --> 00:27:56,400 Speaker 2: new for a new age. 491 00:27:56,640 --> 00:27:58,719 Speaker 3: So the authors of this study, first they did a 492 00:27:58,760 --> 00:28:01,639 Speaker 3: pilot study to CoMIR these two stories, the War of 493 00:28:01,680 --> 00:28:06,280 Speaker 3: the Ghosts and the Vanishing Hitchhiker, within to determine how 494 00:28:06,359 --> 00:28:09,760 Speaker 3: scheme of friendly these two stories were in the cultural 495 00:28:09,800 --> 00:28:13,480 Speaker 3: setting of the experiment, which was twenty first century college undergrads. 496 00:28:13,520 --> 00:28:16,480 Speaker 3: I believe in the UK, so again always testing with 497 00:28:16,480 --> 00:28:18,960 Speaker 3: the college students, but okay, you know you at least 498 00:28:18,960 --> 00:28:21,720 Speaker 3: want to find out among the general population that is 499 00:28:21,760 --> 00:28:24,760 Speaker 3: being tested in this study, how familiar would these two 500 00:28:24,800 --> 00:28:28,280 Speaker 3: different types of stories be. And familiarity here doesn't just 501 00:28:28,359 --> 00:28:31,920 Speaker 3: mean like have you heard this story before. They measured 502 00:28:31,960 --> 00:28:34,600 Speaker 3: it along a bunch of different variables, and those variables 503 00:28:34,600 --> 00:28:38,960 Speaker 3: were familiarity of the setting, what the readers perceived to be, 504 00:28:39,160 --> 00:28:43,960 Speaker 3: the logical structure, the clarity of the structure, how understandable 505 00:28:44,000 --> 00:28:47,200 Speaker 3: the events in the story were, and how conventional the 506 00:28:47,320 --> 00:28:50,000 Speaker 3: language was. So I think this is generally a good 507 00:28:50,040 --> 00:28:52,360 Speaker 3: way of approaching it, finding a bunch of different ways 508 00:28:52,360 --> 00:28:56,280 Speaker 3: of scoring, Like when a person in the study encounters 509 00:28:56,320 --> 00:28:59,640 Speaker 3: a particular story how out of their element do they feel? 510 00:29:00,120 --> 00:29:04,280 Speaker 3: And perhaps not surprisingly, participants here rated the Vanishing Hitchhiker 511 00:29:04,600 --> 00:29:07,520 Speaker 3: as much more familiar along these dimensions than the War 512 00:29:07,560 --> 00:29:10,600 Speaker 3: of the Ghosts. No surprise there, And so they tried 513 00:29:10,600 --> 00:29:13,959 Speaker 3: to do the serial reproduction experiments like Bartlett did with 514 00:29:14,080 --> 00:29:18,760 Speaker 3: these two different stories, and in line with their hypothesis, 515 00:29:18,800 --> 00:29:21,840 Speaker 3: they found that while participants in the experimental portion of 516 00:29:21,840 --> 00:29:26,320 Speaker 3: the study came up with enormous distortions while attempting to 517 00:29:26,360 --> 00:29:30,520 Speaker 3: transmit the War of the Ghosts, they produced comparatively very 518 00:29:30,560 --> 00:29:34,960 Speaker 3: accurate copies from memory of the Vanishing Hitchhiker. And I 519 00:29:34,960 --> 00:29:37,720 Speaker 3: thought that was very interesting. It would seem to validate 520 00:29:37,840 --> 00:29:40,800 Speaker 3: some part of the scheme of theory, the idea that 521 00:29:41,320 --> 00:29:45,120 Speaker 3: stories that fit more in the box of our cultural 522 00:29:45,200 --> 00:29:50,520 Speaker 3: expectations are remembered and preserved more accurately and more easily 523 00:29:51,040 --> 00:29:55,440 Speaker 3: than stories that somehow don't fit our expectations or don't 524 00:29:55,480 --> 00:29:58,959 Speaker 3: behave in familiar ways that are easy for us to understand. 525 00:29:59,560 --> 00:30:01,680 Speaker 2: Yeah, that's interesting. I mean, I also can't help but 526 00:30:01,720 --> 00:30:06,160 Speaker 2: think that, like the basic hitchhiker scenario, that the experience 527 00:30:06,200 --> 00:30:07,840 Speaker 2: of picking up a hitchhiker, I guess it's something that 528 00:30:08,920 --> 00:30:10,480 Speaker 2: I mean a lot of people have never done this, 529 00:30:10,720 --> 00:30:13,880 Speaker 2: maybe even more so today, but you've seen it in movies, 530 00:30:13,880 --> 00:30:15,800 Speaker 2: you've seen it heard it in stories. So the basic 531 00:30:15,840 --> 00:30:20,880 Speaker 2: scenario is pretty much like culturally intact, and then this 532 00:30:20,960 --> 00:30:25,360 Speaker 2: is a supernatural twist on that that you know, I 533 00:30:25,400 --> 00:30:30,480 Speaker 2: guess it doesn't particularly have survival information or social information. 534 00:30:30,600 --> 00:30:32,280 Speaker 2: To go back to that earlier study, I mean, it's 535 00:30:32,320 --> 00:30:36,520 Speaker 2: not implied that the ghost is harmful, but it's like 536 00:30:36,520 --> 00:30:38,640 Speaker 2: there's something about the everyday quality of it, Like you're 537 00:30:38,640 --> 00:30:41,680 Speaker 2: saying that it's very relatable. It's relatable to this reality 538 00:30:41,720 --> 00:30:42,880 Speaker 2: of modern life. 539 00:30:43,160 --> 00:30:44,960 Speaker 3: So this is totally a tangent off of what we're 540 00:30:44,960 --> 00:30:47,200 Speaker 3: talking about. But I would almost say that there is 541 00:30:47,360 --> 00:30:53,240 Speaker 3: somehow implied social and survival information in any ghost story, 542 00:30:53,320 --> 00:30:56,200 Speaker 3: even though it's hard to express what that social or 543 00:30:56,240 --> 00:30:59,360 Speaker 3: survival information is. It might have something to do with 544 00:31:00,320 --> 00:31:03,720 Speaker 3: proof of the afterlife. You know, something about life after 545 00:31:03,800 --> 00:31:06,520 Speaker 3: death and the experience of any ghost has some kind 546 00:31:06,560 --> 00:31:10,600 Speaker 3: of inherent survival type value to us, and ghosts are 547 00:31:10,680 --> 00:31:14,000 Speaker 3: usually understood to have some kind of message to the living, 548 00:31:14,120 --> 00:31:18,120 Speaker 3: which has a kind of gossip or social information quality 549 00:31:18,200 --> 00:31:19,760 Speaker 3: to it. At least that's my take. 550 00:31:20,080 --> 00:31:21,800 Speaker 2: Yeah, and I guess you could also make an argument 551 00:31:21,840 --> 00:31:26,080 Speaker 2: that the hitchhiker was not what they seemed. They were 552 00:31:26,120 --> 00:31:29,400 Speaker 2: a ghost. This is basically just a supernatural twist on 553 00:31:29,480 --> 00:31:33,760 Speaker 2: the hitchhiker was not what they seemed, which could arguably 554 00:31:33,800 --> 00:31:38,680 Speaker 2: have survival and social commentary within it, right in a 555 00:31:38,680 --> 00:31:41,520 Speaker 2: more mundane way, like you know, there's some sort of 556 00:31:41,560 --> 00:31:44,720 Speaker 2: criminal threat there or something or some sort of unknown 557 00:31:44,720 --> 00:31:47,040 Speaker 2: that one should be wary of. And this is just 558 00:31:47,120 --> 00:31:51,200 Speaker 2: taking a mundane threat and transforming it into a supernatural 559 00:31:51,240 --> 00:31:53,680 Speaker 2: threat on some level. Because you don't want a ghost 560 00:31:53,680 --> 00:31:55,200 Speaker 2: in your car. You don't know what's gonna happen. 561 00:31:55,480 --> 00:31:57,840 Speaker 3: They might get ectoplasm on your passenger seat. 562 00:31:58,280 --> 00:32:01,080 Speaker 2: Yeah, they might scare you. I mean, we've all heard 563 00:32:01,160 --> 00:32:03,640 Speaker 2: enough ghost stories that don't involve automobiles to know it 564 00:32:03,640 --> 00:32:06,680 Speaker 2: can go any number of ways. Your hitchhiker vanishes, you 565 00:32:07,200 --> 00:32:09,640 Speaker 2: finally pull over the gas station, and then bam, hook 566 00:32:09,680 --> 00:32:11,080 Speaker 2: on the outside handle of the car. 567 00:32:11,280 --> 00:32:14,480 Speaker 3: That's a good twist. At first, it's a ghost, she vanishes, 568 00:32:14,520 --> 00:32:16,320 Speaker 3: but then she reappears with a hook. 569 00:32:16,680 --> 00:32:17,320 Speaker 2: Yeah. 570 00:32:17,760 --> 00:32:20,880 Speaker 3: Okay, but here's another interesting twist on what they found 571 00:32:20,960 --> 00:32:24,680 Speaker 3: in this study. So remember the first variable was does 572 00:32:24,760 --> 00:32:27,400 Speaker 3: familiarity with the story, whether the story fits in the 573 00:32:27,440 --> 00:32:30,440 Speaker 3: box of your cultural expectations, does that affect how well 574 00:32:30,480 --> 00:32:33,440 Speaker 3: you can remember and transmit it. Answer is yes, it does. 575 00:32:34,040 --> 00:32:36,320 Speaker 3: If the story fits in the box, it's easier for 576 00:32:36,400 --> 00:32:38,960 Speaker 3: you to remember and transmit it. The other thing is 577 00:32:39,240 --> 00:32:43,640 Speaker 3: does the implied audience of the story matter. They were 578 00:32:43,680 --> 00:32:49,280 Speaker 3: testing the hypothesis that a listener understood as strict in 579 00:32:49,400 --> 00:32:54,800 Speaker 3: terms of expecting accuracy would produce more accurate recall than 580 00:32:54,840 --> 00:32:58,240 Speaker 3: one understood as lenient. So the way they did this was, 581 00:32:58,360 --> 00:33:01,240 Speaker 3: on one hand, they said, okay, produce this story for 582 00:33:01,360 --> 00:33:03,680 Speaker 3: a friend. Here's the story for you to memorize. Now 583 00:33:03,800 --> 00:33:05,680 Speaker 3: you need to reproduce it and tell it to a friend. 584 00:33:06,080 --> 00:33:09,040 Speaker 3: Second option is reproduce this and tell it to a 585 00:33:09,080 --> 00:33:13,520 Speaker 3: police officer. Well, that changes a lot, Yes, And they 586 00:33:13,560 --> 00:33:17,320 Speaker 3: found this did indeed matter for one type of story 587 00:33:17,560 --> 00:33:20,800 Speaker 3: more than the other. So they say recall was better 588 00:33:20,880 --> 00:33:23,760 Speaker 3: for a strict audience than a lenient audience. People did 589 00:33:23,800 --> 00:33:27,560 Speaker 3: remember better when talking to the cop, but this only 590 00:33:27,640 --> 00:33:31,520 Speaker 3: really applied to one of the stories, so recall was 591 00:33:31,560 --> 00:33:36,000 Speaker 3: more accurate when talking to the cop for the familiar story, 592 00:33:36,200 --> 00:33:41,360 Speaker 3: the vanishing Hitchhiker, but recall seemed to be equally bad 593 00:33:41,480 --> 00:33:44,120 Speaker 3: for the War of the Ghosts. The having a strict 594 00:33:44,240 --> 00:33:48,720 Speaker 3: cop listening to your recounting did not really improve recall 595 00:33:48,920 --> 00:33:51,920 Speaker 3: for the story that was more difficult to remember anyway, 596 00:33:53,520 --> 00:33:55,840 Speaker 3: which I don't know. I guess you could interpret that 597 00:33:55,880 --> 00:33:58,200 Speaker 3: multiple ways. But that makes me wonder if, well, you know, 598 00:33:58,240 --> 00:34:01,320 Speaker 3: when you're talking to a friend, it signals you're probably 599 00:34:01,360 --> 00:34:06,520 Speaker 3: just not putting that much effort into being strictly accurate 600 00:34:06,560 --> 00:34:09,799 Speaker 3: in reproducing a story, even when in cases when you 601 00:34:09,880 --> 00:34:13,040 Speaker 3: could be so the case with the familiar story that's 602 00:34:13,040 --> 00:34:15,680 Speaker 3: easier to reproduce, but when you're trying to reproduce an 603 00:34:15,800 --> 00:34:19,680 Speaker 3: unfamiliar story that doesn't really fit with your schema, is 604 00:34:20,440 --> 00:34:22,879 Speaker 3: it's sort of impossible to do even if you're putting 605 00:34:22,920 --> 00:34:24,160 Speaker 3: that extra effort. 606 00:34:23,800 --> 00:34:26,640 Speaker 2: In Yeah, I mean, I guess, in speaking to a 607 00:34:26,680 --> 00:34:30,120 Speaker 2: police officer about your ghost story, like it's something about 608 00:34:30,120 --> 00:34:32,960 Speaker 2: it should be actionable, right, like, even if it's not 609 00:34:33,040 --> 00:34:35,880 Speaker 2: a ghost story, Like if you're telling a police officer 610 00:34:35,880 --> 00:34:37,880 Speaker 2: about it, it must be because you want the police 611 00:34:37,920 --> 00:34:41,040 Speaker 2: to do something, and therefore that I guess could impact 612 00:34:41,600 --> 00:34:43,280 Speaker 2: your attention to details and so forth. 613 00:34:43,840 --> 00:34:45,719 Speaker 3: But Anyway, at the end today, I wanted to come 614 00:34:45,760 --> 00:34:48,880 Speaker 3: back to something we talked about earlier in the episode, 615 00:34:48,880 --> 00:34:52,480 Speaker 3: which has emphasize my feeling that there are two sides 616 00:34:52,480 --> 00:34:55,120 Speaker 3: to the coin and they're both true. One is that 617 00:34:55,600 --> 00:34:59,760 Speaker 3: serial reproduction of information between people, you know, information passing 618 00:34:59,760 --> 00:35:03,080 Speaker 3: a lot the grapevine between people should not be relied 619 00:35:03,160 --> 00:35:07,640 Speaker 3: upon as representing what that information was accurately at the beginning. 620 00:35:07,680 --> 00:35:10,120 Speaker 3: You just should not trust that. And at the same 621 00:35:10,160 --> 00:35:14,040 Speaker 3: time you should not think about serial reproduction or transmission 622 00:35:14,120 --> 00:35:17,480 Speaker 3: chains as they occur in human culture as bad. It's 623 00:35:17,560 --> 00:35:19,960 Speaker 3: part of what culture is, and it provides a lot 624 00:35:19,960 --> 00:35:23,640 Speaker 3: of good things. It provides a lot of the entertainment 625 00:35:23,800 --> 00:35:27,080 Speaker 3: and the learning and the spice of life, even if 626 00:35:27,120 --> 00:35:32,000 Speaker 3: it does not objectively accurately usually preserve the information from 627 00:35:32,080 --> 00:35:33,120 Speaker 3: the beginning of the chain. 628 00:35:33,640 --> 00:35:35,720 Speaker 2: See, this is all great stuff that I think should 629 00:35:35,719 --> 00:35:38,799 Speaker 2: have been included in the elementary school telephone games that 630 00:35:38,920 --> 00:35:40,800 Speaker 2: does so many of us play, Well. 631 00:35:40,640 --> 00:35:42,320 Speaker 3: I don't know, I mean, it kind of is all there. 632 00:35:42,400 --> 00:35:46,759 Speaker 3: Like the game, you recognize that the message doesn't make 633 00:35:46,800 --> 00:35:49,600 Speaker 3: it to the end intact, so you get a lesson there, like, oh, 634 00:35:49,680 --> 00:35:52,879 Speaker 3: don't believe everything you hear but also the game is fun, 635 00:35:53,440 --> 00:35:56,080 Speaker 3: and the fun comes from the failure. 636 00:35:56,160 --> 00:35:59,520 Speaker 2: Fail and distort. This is how you amuse yourself. This 637 00:35:59,560 --> 00:36:01,840 Speaker 2: is the less into the telephone game I get, but 638 00:36:01,920 --> 00:36:04,520 Speaker 2: it is really revealing. Like I said, I just didn't 639 00:36:04,520 --> 00:36:06,160 Speaker 2: think about it much when I was a kid playing 640 00:36:06,160 --> 00:36:09,360 Speaker 2: this game. But yeah, when you looking at these studies 641 00:36:09,400 --> 00:36:13,600 Speaker 2: and discussing the out effects of transmission of rumors and 642 00:36:13,960 --> 00:36:17,160 Speaker 2: myths and legends, urban legends, et cetera, Yeah, it really 643 00:36:17,200 --> 00:36:17,960 Speaker 2: gets fascinating. 644 00:36:18,520 --> 00:36:21,279 Speaker 3: Another thing I was thinking about was how when we 645 00:36:21,360 --> 00:36:23,960 Speaker 3: talk about rumors, I feel like we still often have 646 00:36:24,000 --> 00:36:27,000 Speaker 3: an understanding of this being entirely word of mouth, just 647 00:36:27,040 --> 00:36:29,520 Speaker 3: like one person talking to another and then that person 648 00:36:29,560 --> 00:36:31,960 Speaker 3: talking to the next person. But it seems to me 649 00:36:32,120 --> 00:36:36,399 Speaker 3: the much more common route of rumors today involves some 650 00:36:36,520 --> 00:36:39,879 Speaker 3: kind of media in between there. So it may go 651 00:36:40,080 --> 00:36:43,120 Speaker 3: like a word of mouth from one person to the next, 652 00:36:43,200 --> 00:36:45,839 Speaker 3: and then to the Internet to a written form, and 653 00:36:45,880 --> 00:36:49,360 Speaker 3: then somebody reading that piece of information on the Internet 654 00:36:49,440 --> 00:36:52,600 Speaker 3: and then telling somebody in person, and then them posting 655 00:36:52,600 --> 00:36:55,160 Speaker 3: on the Internet and reading it. So you're also having 656 00:36:55,239 --> 00:36:59,160 Speaker 3: these media changes back and forth that are not really 657 00:36:59,520 --> 00:37:01,880 Speaker 3: showing up quite so much in at least any of 658 00:37:01,920 --> 00:37:04,560 Speaker 3: the experiments we've looked at, because all of them either 659 00:37:04,600 --> 00:37:08,600 Speaker 3: went you know, they either go entirely oral or entirely 660 00:37:08,640 --> 00:37:09,360 Speaker 3: text based. 661 00:37:09,800 --> 00:37:12,520 Speaker 2: Hmm, yeah, that's a good point. I should also just 662 00:37:12,560 --> 00:37:15,120 Speaker 2: remind everyone probably don't go to the police with your 663 00:37:15,120 --> 00:37:17,759 Speaker 2: ghost story. I'm I'm just there may be exceptions to 664 00:37:17,800 --> 00:37:21,600 Speaker 2: that rule, you know, use your best judgment, but it 665 00:37:21,440 --> 00:37:23,120 Speaker 2: was it's also hard for me to get past that 666 00:37:23,200 --> 00:37:25,280 Speaker 2: idea of just like I think I saw a ghost, 667 00:37:25,360 --> 00:37:26,400 Speaker 2: I better call the police. 668 00:37:26,719 --> 00:37:29,080 Speaker 3: I disagree. I think you should only call the police 669 00:37:29,080 --> 00:37:30,000 Speaker 3: with your ghost story. 670 00:37:31,719 --> 00:37:32,839 Speaker 2: Agree to disagree. 671 00:37:33,160 --> 00:37:35,480 Speaker 3: I'm kidding. Do not call nine one one and tie 672 00:37:35,560 --> 00:37:37,360 Speaker 3: up the phone lines with your ghost story. 673 00:37:38,560 --> 00:37:42,160 Speaker 2: Yes, tell a friend, tell a close friend. All Right, 674 00:37:42,160 --> 00:37:44,879 Speaker 2: we're gonna We're gonna go ahead and close out this episode, 675 00:37:45,120 --> 00:37:49,319 Speaker 2: but we'll be back on Tuesday. So you know, hey, 676 00:37:49,480 --> 00:37:52,160 Speaker 2: keep writing into us because on Mondays we do listener mail, 677 00:37:52,680 --> 00:37:55,640 Speaker 2: and then we do our core episodes on Tuesdays and Thursdays. 678 00:37:55,960 --> 00:37:58,000 Speaker 2: On Wednesdays we do a short form monster fact or 679 00:37:58,120 --> 00:38:01,000 Speaker 2: artifact episode, and Friday's we set us most serious concerns 680 00:38:01,040 --> 00:38:03,560 Speaker 2: to just talk about a weird film on Weird House Cinema. 681 00:38:03,880 --> 00:38:06,960 Speaker 3: Huge thanks to our audio producer JJ Posway. If you 682 00:38:07,000 --> 00:38:09,400 Speaker 3: would like to get in touch with this with feedback 683 00:38:09,440 --> 00:38:11,720 Speaker 3: on this episode or any other, to suggest a topic 684 00:38:11,760 --> 00:38:13,640 Speaker 3: for the future, or just to say hello, you can 685 00:38:13,680 --> 00:38:16,360 Speaker 3: email us at contact at stuff to Blow your Mind 686 00:38:16,480 --> 00:38:24,640 Speaker 3: dot com. 687 00:38:24,719 --> 00:38:27,640 Speaker 1: Stuff to Blow Your Mind is production of iHeartRadio. For 688 00:38:27,719 --> 00:38:31,560 Speaker 1: more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, 689 00:38:31,640 --> 00:38:47,640 Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.