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why does stuff like this work?

N

NTB

Diamond Member
A buddy a work showed me an e-mail yesterday that, now that I think about it, I've seen before, but I fell for it anyway. It worked the first time I saw it too; so I wasn't just remembering it this time. After I read it, I started wondering how / why it works: it asks you to scroll down the e-mail, adding together a bunch of pairs of numbers, and when you get close to the end it says "Quick! think of a color and a tool" and the first things to come to mind were "red" and "hammer". Then you get to the end, and it says "did you think of a red hammer?" :Q wtf?

Nate
 
I don't know but I think I have seen a variation of it that asks for a vegtable and maybe an animal. I am pretty the vegetable alwyas ended up being a carrot and I think the animal was an elephant.

I know it doesn't work every time, I don't think I fell into the mean on that one. But I know it does manage to catch a large majority
 
Originally posted by: coolred
I don't know but I think I have seen a variation of it that asks for a vegtable and maybe an animal. I am pretty the vegetable alwyas ended up being a carrot and I think the animal was an elephant.

I know it doesn't work every time, I don't think I fell into the mean on that one. But I know it does manage to catch a large majority
Click to expand...

I think I have seen a couple variations of it too. a lot of people *do* think of the things that are at the end of them though; I'm curious to find out if there's any rhyme or reason to why they work.

Nate
 
Maybe because, statistically, "red" and "hammer" are the first things that most people will think of, thus most people who read this e-mail will be all "OMG IT WORKS LOLZ!!1!11!!!!" and e-mail it to everyone they know, whereas those who read it and go "Huh, that's not what I was thinking" will not e-mail it to anyone.


It's like if I say "Think of an operating system" or "think of a hot girl"

I could say, "Were you thinking of Windows XP/Jessica Alba?" (respectively of course)

The majority of people will probably be all "OMG teh noes, get out of my mind!" The rest will not react like that.
 
Originally posted by: Jeff7
Maybe because, statistically, "red" and "hammer" are the first things that most people will think of, thus most people who read this e-mail will be all "OMG IT WORKS LOLZ!!1!11!!!!" and e-mail it to everyone they know, whereas those who read it and go "Huh, that's not what I was thinking" will not e-mail it to anyone.


It's like if I say "Think of an operating system" or "think of a hot girl"

I could say, "Were you thinking of Windows XP/Jessica Alba?" (respectively of course)

The majority of people will probably be all "OMG teh noes, get out of my mind!" The rest will not react like that.
Click to expand...

That's what I was thinking, too, but I wasn't sure.

Nathan
 
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