WEBVTT - Cluttered Desks, Cluttered Minds & Toddler Hands 0:00:03.120 --> 0:00:06.000 Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind from how Stuff 0:00:06.000 --> 0:00:14.400 Works dot com. Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. 0:00:14.400 --> 0:00:16.840 My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Julie Douglas. Julie, 0:00:16.880 --> 0:00:19.120 I describe your desk here at work for us, Well, 0:00:19.160 --> 0:00:22.160 today it's a little messy. I have some stacks of paper, 0:00:22.239 --> 0:00:25.680 I have a tiger, I have clu waca av my 0:00:25.760 --> 0:00:29.000 sign uh, and I don't know, just a bunch of 0:00:29.000 --> 0:00:34.680 other myrriad objects there. Yeah. Yeah, I've got a beautiful leaf, uh, 0:00:34.920 --> 0:00:41.160 photos uh, Kinsey knife yeah yeah, you um well, minds 0:00:41.159 --> 0:00:44.560 a lot neater now, Like we we moved to locations 0:00:44.680 --> 0:00:48.360 shortly after my son arrived, so for the longest my 0:00:48.400 --> 0:00:50.519 desk was pretty messed up because it's just like a 0:00:50.600 --> 0:00:52.760 pile of art that I wanted to somehow stick to 0:00:52.840 --> 0:00:57.560 our art resistant surfaces around our desk area, like the wall. 0:00:57.600 --> 0:00:59.760 It's not really cubicle, but just I'm lucky enough to 0:00:59.760 --> 0:01:01.800 have to surfaces like the wall in front of me, 0:01:01.840 --> 0:01:04.399 the wall beside me. But it's it's it's made in 0:01:04.400 --> 0:01:06.160 a way to where you can't it's really difficult to 0:01:06.160 --> 0:01:08.800 stick things to and uh and the only way you 0:01:08.800 --> 0:01:10.520 can really do it is like this, this sort of 0:01:10.600 --> 0:01:15.000 complex system where you use uh, pins and um and 0:01:15.120 --> 0:01:17.440 tape at the same time and kind of like sow 0:01:17.520 --> 0:01:21.520 your art into the wall and it takes forever. So that, yeah, 0:01:21.520 --> 0:01:23.440 it's really the only way to do it. So for 0:01:23.480 --> 0:01:26.520 the longest, my desk was just like piles of notes 0:01:26.600 --> 0:01:29.759 for podcast book screen about a monitor that I didn't 0:01:29.760 --> 0:01:32.360 have hooked up yet. Um and you know, it's just 0:01:32.360 --> 0:01:35.640 just awful. I saw it as a fortress of papers 0:01:35.640 --> 0:01:38.560 and books, like you were walling everybody out. I know 0:01:38.680 --> 0:01:40.959 it probably looked pretty bad with the monitor because the 0:01:40.959 --> 0:01:42.920 monitor was was not hooked up, and it was like 0:01:42.959 --> 0:01:45.600 between me and Jonathan Strickland as if I was never 0:01:45.600 --> 0:01:47.199 going to hook up this monitor and I was gonna 0:01:47.240 --> 0:01:49.840 use it slowly as a divider and uh and so 0:01:49.840 --> 0:01:51.880 I'm glad to have that hooked up so people can see, Oh, 0:01:51.880 --> 0:01:55.520 he's not just a defensive clutter. Yeah he was. He 0:01:55.600 --> 0:01:58.000 was going to get there, go somewhere with that at 0:01:58.040 --> 0:02:00.560 some point. So yeah, well, and we are going to 0:02:00.600 --> 0:02:03.840 talk to you about spaces, orderly spaces, chaotic spaces, how 0:02:03.880 --> 0:02:06.120 do they affect us? And I will say that I 0:02:06.200 --> 0:02:09.160 do like a nice orderly space, but when I'm working 0:02:09.160 --> 0:02:12.440 on a project, things spirals sort of everywhere, and that 0:02:12.520 --> 0:02:14.360 makes sense to me because I'm referencing a lot of 0:02:14.400 --> 0:02:20.120 different things. But I might be an order muppet an order. Okay, 0:02:20.120 --> 0:02:22.600 this is the idea that, of course we have casks 0:02:22.600 --> 0:02:26.440 in order. The two great movements in life, right, A 0:02:26.480 --> 0:02:29.560 movement towards order, a movement away from order. Of course, 0:02:29.560 --> 0:02:32.200 to quote while Stevens the poet, a violent order is 0:02:32.200 --> 0:02:34.640 a disorder, and a great disorder is an order, and 0:02:34.720 --> 0:02:37.480 these two things are one. So it's a complicated topic. 0:02:37.480 --> 0:02:40.160 There's a lot of back and forth, but a simplified 0:02:40.200 --> 0:02:42.760 way is too. Indeed, look at Jim Hinson's The Muppets 0:02:42.960 --> 0:02:46.480 and divide them into agents of order and agents of chaos. 0:02:46.720 --> 0:02:50.000 That's right. Dahlia Lithwick, writing for Slate, talked about this, 0:02:50.160 --> 0:02:52.160 this idea that you either fall into one of two 0:02:52.240 --> 0:02:57.480 categories chaos muppet, which are out of control, emotional, volatile. 0:02:57.560 --> 0:02:59.560 They tend towards this is for saying this. They tend 0:02:59.600 --> 0:03:01.799 towards the blue and fuzzy. They make their way through 0:03:01.840 --> 0:03:05.720 life in a swirling maelstrom of food crumbs, small flaming objects, 0:03:05.760 --> 0:03:09.520 and the letter C. We're talking about Cookie Monster, Ernie Grover, Guns, 0:03:09.760 --> 0:03:15.080 Dr Bunsen, Honeydew Animal, and she says, Zelda Fitzgerald, here's 0:03:15.200 --> 0:03:20.040 here's a historical figure who was a chaos Muppet. Okay, 0:03:20.080 --> 0:03:22.600 But on the other side, you've got your order Muppet. 0:03:22.919 --> 0:03:25.640 And she says she's thinking about Bert Scooter Sam the 0:03:25.639 --> 0:03:28.480 Eagle Kermit of course, right, and the blue guy who 0:03:28.560 --> 0:03:31.680 is perennially harassed by Grover at restaurants. She says, the 0:03:31.800 --> 0:03:34.200 order Muppet, every Man, that blue Guy. They tend to 0:03:34.200 --> 0:03:38.440 be neurotic, highly regimented, averse to surprises, and they sport 0:03:38.560 --> 0:03:43.840 monstrously large eyebrows. She said. They represent the responsibility of 0:03:43.920 --> 0:03:47.320 running the world and they feel weighed down by it, 0:03:47.360 --> 0:03:53.720 but they secretly revel the knowledge that they keep things afloat. Okay, Yeah, 0:03:53.960 --> 0:03:56.880 which are you? Well, we were talking about this earlier 0:03:56.920 --> 0:03:59.320 and I'm still struggling to come with an answer because 0:04:00.080 --> 0:04:02.800 I'm definitely not the guy who threw the sword fish. 0:04:03.040 --> 0:04:06.960 Like that's like to me, like he and uh An 0:04:07.000 --> 0:04:09.400 Animal are right up there like the extremes of chaos 0:04:09.520 --> 0:04:12.320 mupet Gonzo too. Really, they're they're right up there at 0:04:12.320 --> 0:04:16.120 the threshold of of of utter chaos. And then of 0:04:16.120 --> 0:04:18.520 course on the other end, you have uh, Sam the Eagle, 0:04:18.560 --> 0:04:21.440 I guess would be like the most orderly Muppet because 0:04:21.480 --> 0:04:23.359 Kermit will wave his arms around a bit. But but 0:04:23.480 --> 0:04:25.480 Sam is a rock and he's gonna stick to it, 0:04:25.880 --> 0:04:28.560 uh no matter what. And I feel like I'm maybe 0:04:28.560 --> 0:04:30.200 a little more towards the middle. So it's hard to 0:04:30.440 --> 0:04:32.920 hard to I mean, maybe some of the members of 0:04:32.960 --> 0:04:35.160 the band were a little more balanced and laid back, 0:04:35.360 --> 0:04:38.680 but I don't think I'm a doctor, both because I 0:04:38.680 --> 0:04:40.800 had to have seen you as a chaos muppet when 0:04:40.800 --> 0:04:43.000 you're working and you're in the middle of something. But 0:04:43.160 --> 0:04:45.400 I have also seen you as the order muppet who 0:04:45.480 --> 0:04:48.840 every six months goes around the office and says, why 0:04:48.960 --> 0:04:51.359 is all this chalk around and clings things up and 0:04:51.360 --> 0:04:53.279 you get rid of all the jars of urine and 0:04:53.320 --> 0:04:57.880 whatnot hanging around. Well, maybe I'm maybe I'm kind of 0:04:57.880 --> 0:05:01.520 like the Count, because the Count is there's yes, the 0:05:01.800 --> 0:05:05.080 Count one, two, three, Uh, he's because he's orderly in 0:05:05.080 --> 0:05:07.880 a very and he's all about the numbers. But this 0:05:08.120 --> 0:05:11.080 his obsession with the numbers tends to disrupt everything else 0:05:11.120 --> 0:05:13.919 in his life. So I feel I feel like, maybe 0:05:13.960 --> 0:05:15.919 I'm not saying that it's a one to one comparison, 0:05:16.000 --> 0:05:18.120 but I feel like I'm kind of that kind of 0:05:18.200 --> 0:05:21.000 mixed where they're they're parts of me that are very orderly, 0:05:21.360 --> 0:05:23.400 but sometimes those get in the way of other stuff 0:05:23.440 --> 0:05:26.320 and causes disorder over here. I'm kind of in flux. 0:05:26.400 --> 0:05:28.919 I guess well, I'm with Dhlia Lithwick. She says that 0:05:29.000 --> 0:05:32.320 she is a faux chaos muppet. Yeah, but at the 0:05:32.440 --> 0:05:35.960 center is order. What about you? That's what I'm saying. 0:05:36.000 --> 0:05:39.920 I'm with I'm with her, that your faux chaos muppet. Okay, yeah, 0:05:40.000 --> 0:05:43.719 but it also depends on the situation and um my 0:05:43.920 --> 0:05:48.039 environments and everybody's environment as well. Discuss But the thing is, 0:05:48.080 --> 0:05:50.920 those chaos muppets, they always get a bad rap, right 0:05:51.040 --> 0:05:54.360 because the surroundings they don't look so good, and people 0:05:54.440 --> 0:05:57.680 perceive them as you know, just sort of lay about 0:05:57.880 --> 0:06:01.320 who can't even be bothered to clean up their spaces. 0:06:01.440 --> 0:06:04.920 In fact, it brings to mind the broken windows theory, right, 0:06:04.960 --> 0:06:08.080 the idea that that the way that you ultimately combat 0:06:08.520 --> 0:06:12.200 um social upheaval and problems of crime is that you 0:06:12.240 --> 0:06:14.159 focus on all the little things you focus on. Say 0:06:14.160 --> 0:06:16.599 that broken window or some graffiti because of the windows 0:06:16.640 --> 0:06:18.799 are broken. If there's graffiti on the wall, it's sending 0:06:18.839 --> 0:06:22.640 this message to everyone else that minor transgressions are okay, 0:06:22.960 --> 0:06:26.559 and therefore we can extrapolate that that the less minor 0:06:27.040 --> 0:06:29.840 and fractions are okay as well. And then it becomes 0:06:29.839 --> 0:06:32.200 more and more chaotic. It builds up like kibble. Yeah, 0:06:32.279 --> 0:06:35.560 like one broken window begets several broken windows, and then 0:06:35.560 --> 0:06:38.320 all of a sudden you've got mayhem going on. And 0:06:38.360 --> 0:06:43.039 I think about the Crag Street Tunnel in Atlanta as 0:06:43.120 --> 0:06:47.800 an example of a graffiti ridden tunnel but also an 0:06:47.839 --> 0:06:52.200 example of extreme creativity. In fact, on any given day 0:06:52.240 --> 0:06:54.920 you can pass by this tunnel and see people getting 0:06:54.920 --> 0:06:57.359 their photograph taken in front of it or making videos 0:06:57.360 --> 0:07:00.720 in front of it, because ultimately it's this stand in 0:07:00.960 --> 0:07:04.960 for an act of creativity. Yeah, it's a graffiti free zone. 0:07:05.000 --> 0:07:06.960 And I think about this a lot every time I 0:07:07.000 --> 0:07:10.440 go past it. I wonder about graffiti free zones and 0:07:10.480 --> 0:07:14.520 to what extent, uh, basically, what affect they have on creativity, 0:07:14.560 --> 0:07:17.400 because it's not it's it's a situation where suddenly it's 0:07:17.400 --> 0:07:20.280 not just like a daring graffiti artist can go there 0:07:20.320 --> 0:07:23.120 and tag. And it's not just you know, somebody throwing 0:07:23.160 --> 0:07:26.080 up some sort of a gang tag either. It's everybody, 0:07:26.120 --> 0:07:28.440 even people who would normally not even think about it. Well, 0:07:28.480 --> 0:07:31.080 the crop tunnel does have a good amount of very 0:07:31.120 --> 0:07:33.280 interesting art, and what I think it's interesting about it 0:07:33.400 --> 0:07:35.600 is that it requires you to stop and take a 0:07:35.640 --> 0:07:38.800 second look. And so that's sort of this idea that 0:07:38.840 --> 0:07:41.360 we're going to look at when we talk about spaces, 0:07:41.480 --> 0:07:46.480 in particular workspaces clutter versus order. Yes, all right, So 0:07:46.520 --> 0:07:48.440 as luck would have it, we have a study that 0:07:48.520 --> 0:07:54.440 looks at how um chaotic versus clean, neat and orderly 0:07:54.520 --> 0:08:00.400 environments affect our productivity, affect our creativity, affect our sponse 0:08:00.440 --> 0:08:03.360 to stimuli. Because again, to your point, we tend to 0:08:03.480 --> 0:08:05.840 put it in a quick Felix and Oscar odd couple 0:08:05.920 --> 0:08:08.880 scenario right where one is the slav and one is 0:08:08.880 --> 0:08:12.120 the orderly individual, and and the slab is just he's 0:08:12.120 --> 0:08:15.120 just a slab. All he's doing is contributing to the 0:08:15.160 --> 0:08:18.720 comedic environment. But that's about it. Where it's it's this 0:08:18.800 --> 0:08:20.920 is study reveals it's a lot more nuanced than that, 0:08:20.960 --> 0:08:23.320 and it's actually a really good study for those of 0:08:23.400 --> 0:08:27.000 us whose desk get a little bit um chaotic from 0:08:27.040 --> 0:08:29.480 time to time. The title this study is physical order 0:08:29.520 --> 0:08:34.680 produces healthy choices, generosity, and conventionality, whereas disorder produces creativity. 0:08:34.679 --> 0:08:37.160 It's a two thousand thirteen paper from the Carlson School 0:08:37.160 --> 0:08:40.760 of Management at the University of Minnesota, and it's it. 0:08:40.760 --> 0:08:45.240 It basically revolves around three different experiments involving an orderly 0:08:45.280 --> 0:08:49.319 work environment and a disorderly work environment. Yeah, and let's 0:08:49.480 --> 0:08:51.000 just read out the first line, because I think this 0:08:51.080 --> 0:08:54.760 sets the tone. The first line is order and disorder 0:08:54.800 --> 0:08:57.760 are prevalent in both nature and culture, which suggests that 0:08:57.840 --> 0:09:01.880 each environ confers advance edges for different outcomes. So it's 0:09:01.920 --> 0:09:03.840 not so black and white as the order and the 0:09:03.880 --> 0:09:06.320 chaos muppets. Yeah, it's not a situation where all right, 0:09:06.360 --> 0:09:08.280 we have the orderly muppets in the calf muppets are 0:09:08.320 --> 0:09:12.640 just tearing down society. Like, both have survived, both have 0:09:12.760 --> 0:09:15.000 are here due to an evolutionary process, so they must 0:09:15.040 --> 0:09:17.439 both must both be important. Like I always come back 0:09:17.480 --> 0:09:21.240 to the cuttlefish and about how you have these larger 0:09:21.240 --> 0:09:23.320 cuttle fish that are mating and you have the masculine 0:09:23.320 --> 0:09:26.160 cuttlefish who are all about brute strength and UH and 0:09:26.200 --> 0:09:28.160 say and and just making sure they get their mate 0:09:28.160 --> 0:09:31.000 that way. And then you have the sneakier, smaller cuttlefish 0:09:31.280 --> 0:09:35.000 who disguised themselves as females. And the ultimate take home 0:09:35.000 --> 0:09:40.319 there is that cuttlefish evolution UH has favored both styles, 0:09:40.360 --> 0:09:43.560 both types of cuttlefish, and ultimately both types of cuttlefish 0:09:43.559 --> 0:09:46.880 are necessary for the survival of the species. And so 0:09:46.920 --> 0:09:49.679 we see a similar thing with disorder muppets and order 0:09:49.760 --> 0:09:53.120 muppets in human society. And you see this in this study, 0:09:53.160 --> 0:09:55.679 which is so interesting because, as you mentioned, there are 0:09:55.800 --> 0:10:01.199 three experiments that Kathleen DeVos and the other re searchers conducted, 0:10:01.320 --> 0:10:04.200 and in the first experiment, they randomly assigned a group 0:10:04.240 --> 0:10:08.000 of college age students to spend time in adjacent office spaces. 0:10:08.360 --> 0:10:10.880 One was tidy, the other was cluttered with papers and 0:10:10.920 --> 0:10:13.520 other work related to try to us, and the students 0:10:13.559 --> 0:10:15.840 spent their time filling out questionnaires that were unrelated to 0:10:15.840 --> 0:10:18.120 the study, so the students didn't know really why they 0:10:18.120 --> 0:10:20.959 were there. After ten minutes, they were told they could 0:10:21.080 --> 0:10:25.840 leave and they were offered an apple or a chocolate bar. Okay, 0:10:25.880 --> 0:10:28.920 So those students who sat in the orderly office were 0:10:29.000 --> 0:10:32.400 twice as likely to choose the apple than those who 0:10:32.400 --> 0:10:37.240 sat amid the chaotic mess of papers. In addition, when 0:10:37.280 --> 0:10:39.800 the participants were presented with the opportunity to donate to 0:10:39.840 --> 0:10:43.079 a charity, those placed in the orderly room donated more 0:10:43.120 --> 0:10:46.160 of their own money. Interesting. Okay, so what's coming out 0:10:46.160 --> 0:10:48.640 of this? The pro I guess you could say for 0:10:48.720 --> 0:10:51.080 the orderly room here is that we were talking about 0:10:51.120 --> 0:10:55.640 more civic minded behavior, more generous and conscientious at least 0:10:55.920 --> 0:10:59.040 in terms of their diets. You know, their their minding, 0:10:59.080 --> 0:11:01.520 their peas and cues. Now, what strikes me about this 0:11:01.559 --> 0:11:04.960 experiment is it I inevitably draw back to our our 0:11:04.960 --> 0:11:08.079 podcasts about symbols and the power of symbols, and the 0:11:08.120 --> 0:11:10.959 idea too about clothed cognition, that our our clothing is 0:11:10.960 --> 0:11:13.200 a kind of symbol that informs how we behave and 0:11:13.200 --> 0:11:15.800 how we carry ourselves. And here we see a physical 0:11:15.960 --> 0:11:19.760 environment that is a symbol for order, a symbol for 0:11:19.880 --> 0:11:23.480 what is expected of us, uh, the symbol for cleanliness, 0:11:23.520 --> 0:11:26.560 and that kind of translates into our mind in terms 0:11:26.600 --> 0:11:30.719 of cleanliness of of ethics, cleanliness of of our of 0:11:31.120 --> 0:11:34.160 our of our dietary habits and uh and and just 0:11:34.280 --> 0:11:37.920 an interesting insight into how spaces control our behavior. So yeah, 0:11:37.960 --> 0:11:40.240 back to the broken window theory. If you're in that 0:11:40.320 --> 0:11:43.440 room that's cluttered, messy, apparently nobody has been paying attention. 0:11:43.679 --> 0:11:45.720 You could eat that chocolate bar. You don't need to 0:11:45.720 --> 0:11:48.800 give that much money to charity, right. Yeah. It also 0:11:48.880 --> 0:11:52.000 reminds me of the Panopticon, you know, because because the 0:11:52.000 --> 0:11:55.040 Panopticon is of course a structure of order. And if 0:11:55.080 --> 0:11:57.520 you if things are disorderly, then you're you're thinking, well, 0:11:57.520 --> 0:11:59.360 I guess nobody's watching. It doesn't it doesn't matter. But 0:11:59.400 --> 0:12:01.720 if everything is lined up, if everything seems to be 0:12:02.400 --> 0:12:05.200 in this heightened states state of order, then you also 0:12:05.280 --> 0:12:09.200 feel like you're more responsible for your actions. Okay, so 0:12:09.360 --> 0:12:13.640 if you out there are messy desk dwellers, you probably 0:12:13.640 --> 0:12:16.440 wanted to get vindicated here and you will in the 0:12:16.440 --> 0:12:20.520 next study. Yeah. So similar deal participants were put into 0:12:20.800 --> 0:12:25.320 the messy room with disorder everywhere they put into the nice, clean, 0:12:25.440 --> 0:12:27.880 or early room. But this time they're asked to come 0:12:27.960 --> 0:12:31.439 up with new uses for ping pong balls and and 0:12:31.679 --> 0:12:34.080 so and of course, which makes me wonder, how many 0:12:34.080 --> 0:12:36.560 different uses can you find for ping pong balls. They're 0:12:36.559 --> 0:12:39.520 pretty pretty specific and what you can do with them, 0:12:39.679 --> 0:12:44.000 but I'll leave that to everyone's imagination. Uh. Anyway, the result, overall, 0:12:44.080 --> 0:12:46.560 participants in the messy room came up with the same 0:12:46.679 --> 0:12:50.040 number of ideas for new ways to use these ping 0:12:50.080 --> 0:12:53.319 pong balls as the clean room counterparts, but their ideas 0:12:53.320 --> 0:12:56.839 were rated as more interesting and creative when evaluated by 0:12:56.960 --> 0:13:01.200 the judges. So dependent judges. The judges they were judging, 0:13:01.240 --> 0:13:04.400 they just like a list of ideas, brainstormed ideas for 0:13:04.480 --> 0:13:06.040 what you could do with a pair of ping ball 0:13:06.160 --> 0:13:09.520 balls and anyway, So ultimately we're showing here that participants 0:13:09.559 --> 0:13:12.440 in the disorderly room were more creative. They were able 0:13:12.480 --> 0:13:15.320 to come up with more novel ideas for what to 0:13:15.360 --> 0:13:18.160 do with those ping boonballs, which again a very limited 0:13:18.600 --> 0:13:23.040 object to have to brainstorm around. Then they're clean room counterparts. 0:13:23.120 --> 0:13:27.360 So making this case that creativity or the ability to 0:13:27.400 --> 0:13:30.959 take a risk in your thought processes is also borne 0:13:30.960 --> 0:13:33.360 out in their final experiment, in which they were given 0:13:33.360 --> 0:13:36.000 the choice of adding a health boost to their lunch 0:13:36.080 --> 0:13:40.640 time smoothie that was labeled either new or classic. Guests 0:13:40.640 --> 0:13:43.400 who chose the classic, well, the classic is going to 0:13:43.480 --> 0:13:45.839 be chosen by the clean room people because they want 0:13:45.840 --> 0:13:48.720 to stick with something that is proven, that is established. 0:13:48.840 --> 0:13:50.640 They're not going to take any risk on some sort 0:13:50.640 --> 0:13:53.280 of new fangled smoothie editive, that's right. But those in 0:13:53.280 --> 0:13:55.439 the messy room, they were like, bringing on, want the 0:13:55.559 --> 0:13:58.240 new formula. Let's go crazy with this smoothie. Just put 0:13:58.240 --> 0:14:03.720 everything in it. I don't care, wood chips, ping pong balls. Yeah, 0:14:03.720 --> 0:14:06.200 the ping pong ball smoothie was born of this experiment, 0:14:06.240 --> 0:14:10.600 I bet. Yeah. So that messy environment can actually cause 0:14:10.640 --> 0:14:13.600 people to feel inspired to break free of tradition, right 0:14:13.679 --> 0:14:16.800 to say, Okay, that window is broken, let's let's do 0:14:16.880 --> 0:14:19.160 something with that. Let's make some artwork out of it. 0:14:19.840 --> 0:14:22.360 You know. I feel like at times it even it 0:14:22.440 --> 0:14:26.440 even helps to have like a disorder avatar to turn to, 0:14:26.640 --> 0:14:29.360 you know, like like a figure like an animal or 0:14:29.480 --> 0:14:31.920 a hunter s Thompson, where you could you you sort 0:14:31.920 --> 0:14:34.280 of think around them, you sort of you sort of 0:14:35.000 --> 0:14:37.720 live vicariously through them for a few moments, and it 0:14:37.760 --> 0:14:41.160 has an overall creative benefit to you, sort of like 0:14:41.200 --> 0:14:43.560 a spirit animal. Yeah, like you know, you have a 0:14:43.680 --> 0:14:46.840 spirit animal is animal you can sort of draw from 0:14:46.880 --> 0:14:49.360 that and uh and yeah, and at least for for 0:14:49.360 --> 0:14:51.520 for a little bit. As you you you sort of 0:14:51.560 --> 0:14:55.000 bath in his glow, you're able to feel a little 0:14:55.000 --> 0:14:58.000 more liberated, a little bit more daring in your ideas. 0:14:58.400 --> 0:15:00.520 All right, let's take a quick break, and when come back, 0:15:00.560 --> 0:15:02.960 we are going to try to get at the bottom 0:15:03.080 --> 0:15:06.520 of why this creativity, in this sort of inspiration and 0:15:06.560 --> 0:15:19.280 perhaps even learning are linked to messy environments. All right, 0:15:19.280 --> 0:15:21.400 we're back, and you know it just real quick, you know, 0:15:21.560 --> 0:15:25.840 talking about working in disorderly environments, chaotic environments. And I 0:15:25.880 --> 0:15:28.320 think to coffee shops again, a place where both of 0:15:28.800 --> 0:15:31.280 you and I working coffee shops a lot, and there's 0:15:31.320 --> 0:15:33.560 a lot of really interesting history about the coffee shops 0:15:33.720 --> 0:15:37.840 roll in uh in creative thought in Western culture, and 0:15:37.960 --> 0:15:41.640 that is a chaotic environment. And in the best of situations, 0:15:41.680 --> 0:15:44.040 because you have people ordering different drinks, you have all 0:15:44.080 --> 0:15:47.720 sorts of weird sounds of the espresso. You know, God 0:15:47.760 --> 0:15:49.640 knows what kind of music we're gonna play. People from 0:15:49.640 --> 0:15:51.160 an in and out, and if you're lucky, it's a 0:15:51.200 --> 0:15:53.560 variety of people. So it's you know, it's beautiful people, 0:15:53.640 --> 0:15:57.280 ugly people. People you know, from from the top of 0:15:57.280 --> 0:15:59.920 the ivory tower, people who sleep under the tower, all 0:16:00.040 --> 0:16:03.240 coming into the same space, and it I for one, 0:16:03.720 --> 0:16:06.440 feel that creative energy rolling off of it. Yeah. I 0:16:06.480 --> 0:16:09.800 mean you talked about the periody of enlightenment and this 0:16:09.920 --> 0:16:13.480 convergence of coffee houses, people turning away from from the liquor, 0:16:13.640 --> 0:16:16.560 from the alcohol and going towards coffee as a stimulant 0:16:16.760 --> 0:16:20.040 and as a result, sharing more of their ideas in 0:16:20.080 --> 0:16:24.480 this community centered, uh sort of area, And the same 0:16:24.520 --> 0:16:26.200 thing today is going on. Although a lot of us 0:16:26.200 --> 0:16:30.480 are wearing headphones, you do get exposure to everyone, and 0:16:30.560 --> 0:16:33.320 so it does make sense to me that the chaos 0:16:33.400 --> 0:16:37.520 of all of that might create these associations that would 0:16:37.520 --> 0:16:40.120 help you kind of ping pong around until you get 0:16:40.120 --> 0:16:43.880 these novel associations, these novel ideas. In fact um, it 0:16:44.000 --> 0:16:47.280 really helps when you're studying a topic. And most people think, oh, 0:16:47.280 --> 0:16:49.400 when I go to study, it should be in a quiet, 0:16:49.600 --> 0:16:52.720 orderly room. But there is a New York Times article 0:16:53.080 --> 0:16:55.800 called Forget what You Know about good study habits, and 0:16:55.840 --> 0:16:58.880 it says in a classic nine experiments, psychologist found that 0:16:58.920 --> 0:17:01.680 college students who study need a list of forty vocabulary 0:17:01.720 --> 0:17:05.280 words in two different rooms, one window lists and cluttered 0:17:05.600 --> 0:17:07.560 and the other modern with a view of the courtyard 0:17:07.640 --> 0:17:10.760 did far better on a test than students who studied 0:17:10.760 --> 0:17:13.760 the words twice in the same room, And later studies 0:17:13.760 --> 0:17:17.080 have confirmed the confirmed the finding for a variety of topics. 0:17:17.320 --> 0:17:21.359 So the idea here is that the outside context is varied, 0:17:21.400 --> 0:17:24.919 the information is enriched, and this slows down the forgetting 0:17:24.960 --> 0:17:27.760 process because the more layers of chaos, I guess you 0:17:27.840 --> 0:17:30.600 could say here, um, the more sort of patterns and 0:17:31.480 --> 0:17:33.680 things that you have to take in data, the more 0:17:33.840 --> 0:17:37.719 points of association your brain makes to whatever it is 0:17:37.760 --> 0:17:40.480 that you are concentrating on at that very moment, and 0:17:40.520 --> 0:17:43.119 so it becomes a stickier memory for people. Yeah, and 0:17:43.160 --> 0:17:45.399 it lines up kind of well with what Wall Steven 0:17:45.440 --> 0:17:47.679 says about the more chaos you have, the chaos kind 0:17:47.680 --> 0:17:49.679 of becomes an order, and the more order you have, 0:17:49.760 --> 0:17:52.680 it kind of comes comes more and more chaotic. Now, 0:17:52.920 --> 0:17:56.960 in talking about learning and chaos, one has to visit 0:17:57.119 --> 0:18:01.080 the world of the child, of the todd of the baby, 0:18:01.119 --> 0:18:04.160 because for one thing is we've touched on many times before. 0:18:04.800 --> 0:18:08.399 Humans are natural born scientists, even the very little wee ones, 0:18:08.760 --> 0:18:11.360 their their their brains are open to the world. There 0:18:11.480 --> 0:18:14.440 they have this lamp like view of things. They're bringing 0:18:14.480 --> 0:18:17.879 in all this data, but at the same time, they 0:18:18.200 --> 0:18:21.920 often seem to be agents of chaos. They seem to 0:18:22.080 --> 0:18:25.960 revel in making a mess. They seem to know no 0:18:26.119 --> 0:18:28.840 other way of life than to smear it on the 0:18:28.840 --> 0:18:31.840 wall on their face, to eat noddles with their hands, 0:18:32.160 --> 0:18:35.120 and then and then rub their their pesto covered fingers 0:18:35.119 --> 0:18:38.960 through their hair. I mean, never was there a better 0:18:39.160 --> 0:18:43.360 chaos muppet than any child, particularly the age of two. Yeah, 0:18:43.400 --> 0:18:46.840 they are all animal uh and with maybe a little 0:18:46.840 --> 0:18:50.320 Gonza or the swordfish dude thrown in for for that 0:18:50.359 --> 0:18:52.480 whole period of time. I actually had a professor in 0:18:52.520 --> 0:18:56.000 college who said that the reason why children love animals 0:18:56.000 --> 0:19:00.320 and stories is that they tend to really um mine 0:19:00.400 --> 0:19:03.119 with them and be like and see themselves as animals, 0:19:03.440 --> 0:19:07.280 unpredictable and crazy and running around until they get more 0:19:07.359 --> 0:19:11.120 of their humanness under their belts. But in this case, 0:19:11.119 --> 0:19:14.400 there is a study that shoes up this idea that 0:19:14.480 --> 0:19:19.680 this uh animal like behavior is helpful in learning things. Yes, 0:19:19.760 --> 0:19:22.520 researches at the University of Iowa study how sixteen month 0:19:22.520 --> 0:19:26.000 old children learn words for non solid objects. So we're 0:19:26.000 --> 0:19:32.760 talking about stuff like oatmeal, glue, peace peas, uh, you know, mucus. Uh, 0:19:33.040 --> 0:19:35.760 all the various non solid objects that they be coming 0:19:35.800 --> 0:19:38.000 out or going into your child. There's a lot of 0:19:38.000 --> 0:19:41.320 traffic there. Uh. Now, previous researches coming out for sure, 0:19:41.440 --> 0:19:46.080 Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, out the nose that it just happens. Now, 0:19:46.640 --> 0:19:49.760 the previous research on this topic had shown that Toddler's 0:19:50.240 --> 0:19:53.879 learn more readily about solid objects because they can easily 0:19:53.920 --> 0:19:56.560 identify them due to their unchanging size and shape. So 0:19:56.600 --> 0:19:59.320 an apple is always shaped like an apple, whereas apple sauce, 0:19:59.720 --> 0:20:01.560 you know, is shaped like whatever the container is. That's 0:20:01.560 --> 0:20:03.879 basic physics and they get it and their brain is 0:20:03.920 --> 0:20:07.800 processing that data. So but but but the previous data said, yeah, 0:20:08.080 --> 0:20:10.159 as far as the oozy stuff, the running stuff, the 0:20:10.160 --> 0:20:12.479 apple sauce, the snot the pas, but what have you, 0:20:12.720 --> 0:20:15.360 They were that they're maybe not as good about identifying 0:20:15.440 --> 0:20:20.000 that stuff. Now, what this study did. The researchers decided 0:20:20.040 --> 0:20:21.440 to test this. They said, is this really the case? 0:20:21.640 --> 0:20:24.560 Is it's just you know, our bias on this particular situation. 0:20:24.720 --> 0:20:28.280 So they exposed sixth sixteen month olds to fourteen non 0:20:28.400 --> 0:20:31.639 solid objects. Mostly it was food and drink stuff like 0:20:31.720 --> 0:20:34.400 you know, apple sauce and pudding and soup. And then 0:20:34.440 --> 0:20:37.920 they presented the items and gave them made up words. 0:20:38.520 --> 0:20:41.000 So like some of the examples though, we're like Dax 0:20:41.040 --> 0:20:46.639 and Kiv, nonwords used to uh to identify these various 0:20:46.920 --> 0:20:49.440 gooey foods. So that this is this idea that they're 0:20:49.440 --> 0:20:51.960 to be purity here, there's no associations because other words 0:20:52.000 --> 0:20:54.320 that they might have learned in relation to this exactly, 0:20:54.720 --> 0:20:57.240 just to test what the sort of information they would 0:20:57.280 --> 0:21:00.800 retain by interaction with this food exactly. And then a 0:21:00.880 --> 0:21:03.560 minute passes and they asked the children to identify the 0:21:03.600 --> 0:21:07.320 same foods in different sizes or shapes uh, so you know, 0:21:07.359 --> 0:21:11.960 again different containers, different visual presentation of this non solid doctor. 0:21:12.440 --> 0:21:15.800 And then so this required the answers to go beyond 0:21:16.000 --> 0:21:18.399 relying simply on shape and size and to explore what 0:21:18.440 --> 0:21:22.200 the substances were made off to make the identification. So 0:21:22.320 --> 0:21:24.719 you can see where this is going in terms of 0:21:24.760 --> 0:21:28.359 how toddlers behave with with dewey foods and UH, and 0:21:28.440 --> 0:21:30.639 how you might interact with them. So of course they 0:21:30.680 --> 0:21:33.520