Plenty of situations evoking such a reaction are shared on the subreddit titled exactly that. Boasting more than 14,000 members, the ‘Wait What’ community is dedicated to all sorts of unexpected turns of events and humorous stories, some of which you can find in the list below; so scroll down to view them and see for yourself how a joke can stop you dead in your tracks. According to Scientific American, novelty within a familiar context allows a person to store a certain event in their memory more easily, thanks to the brain part known as the ‘novelty detector’. Located in the temporal lobe of the cerebral cortex, for those well familiar with what’s happening inside our heads, the said ‘novelty detector’ is the hippocampus—one of the most significant brain regions in regards to discovering, processing, and storing sensory information. The reason why the hippocampus is called the ‘novelty detector’ is because it is activated more by new stimuli than by something one is already familiar with. After traveling through different parts of the brain, it connects to the hippocampus again and triggers release of more dopamine, creating a feedback mechanism known as the hippocampal-SN/VTA loop, which can help people memorize and learn things more easily. “And then you instantly form a new belief—cars can hover,” the expert continued, and pointed out that people don’t form such a belief intentionally; it happens to them and there’s nothing they can do to undo it. One way to do it, according to the professor, is to trigger surprise by suggesting that something one considers a weakness is actually an asset: astonishing someone in such a way hijacks their attention and forces the person on the receiving end to try to make sense of the information, and consequently form a positive belief about themselves. Studies suggest that as long as people are mindful about it, routine social media use—logging in to respond to content shared by others, for instance—is positively linked with one’s social well-being, positive mental health, and self-rated health. Follow Bored Panda on Google News! Follow us on Flipboard.com/@boredpanda! Please use high-res photos without watermarks Ooops! Your image is too large, maximum file size is 8 MB.
