Most Conversations Go On Longer Than We Want Them To

Curiosity Weekly

Warner Bros. Discovery

Science

4.6 • 964 Ratings

🗓️ 5 April 2021

⏱️ 13 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Learn about why most conversations go on for a lot longer than we want them to; a genetic mutation that makes some people resilient to the cold; and how homing pigeons pass down their knowledge.

Most conversations go on for twice as long as we want them to by Kelsey Donk

When people want conversations to end. (2021). EurekAlert! https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2021-03/potn-wpw022421.php
Mastroianni, A. M., Gilbert, D. T., Cooney, G., & Wilson, T. D. (2021). Do conversations end when people want them to? Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 118(10), e2011809118. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2011809118

Around 20% of people have a genetic mutation that makes them resilient to the cold by Grant Currin

People with this muscle protein gene variant tolerate the cold better. (2021). EurekAlert! https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2021-02/cp-pwt021121.php
Wyckelsma, V. L., Venckunas, T., Houweling, P. J., Schlittler, M., Lauschke, V. M., Tiong, C. F., Wood, H. D., Ivarsson, N., Paulauskas, H., Eimantas, N., Andersson, D. C., North, K. N., Brazaitis, M., & Westerblad, H. (2021). Loss of α-actinin-3 during human evolution provides superior cold resilience and muscle heat generation. The American Journal of Human Genetics, 108(3), 446–457. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ajhg.2021.01.013
Impervious to cold? A gene helps people to ward off the chills. (2021). Nature, 590(7847), 531–531. https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-021-00433-0

Move Over, Ancient Sages: Homing Pigeons Pass Down Knowledge Too by Hayley Otman

Sasaki, T., & Biro, D. (2017). Cumulative culture can emerge from collective intelligence in animal groups. Nature Communications, 8(1). https://doi.org/10.1038/ncomms15049
Homing pigeons share our ability to build knowledge across generations | University of Oxford. (2017, April 17). Ox.ac.uk. https://www.ox.ac.uk/news/2017-04-18-homing-pigeons-share-our-ability-build-knowledge-across-generations#

Subscribe to Curiosity Daily to learn something new every day with Cody Gough and Ashley Hamer. You can also listen to our podcast as part of your Alexa Flash Briefing; Amazon smart speakers users, click/tap “enable” here: https://www.amazon.com/Curiosity-com-Curiosity-Daily-from/dp/B07CP17DJY

Find episode transcript here: https://curiosity-daily-4e53644e.simplecast.com/episodes/most-conversations-go-on-longer-than-we-want-them-to

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Hi, you're about to get smarter in just a few minutes with Curiosity Daily from
0:04.8	Curiosity.com. I'm Cody Gough. And I'm Ashley Hamer. Today you learn about why most
0:09.4	conversations go on a lot longer than we want them to, a genetic mutation that makes some people
0:14.7	resilient to the cold, and how homing pigeons pass down their knowledge.
0:20.0	Let's satisfy some curiosity.
0:25.3	All right, if you've got social anxiety, you may want to brace yourself for this next story.
0:28.6	Researchers recently found that most conversations
0:32.0	go on for twice as long as we want them to.
0:35.0	And we have no idea when the other person wants the conversation to end.
0:39.0	Before you start spiraling out about how many times you've held people hostage in conversation, let's look at the research.
0:47.0	To get a sense of how conversations work, a team of psychology researchers recruited 932 people to take part in two experiments.
0:56.4	In the first, participants thought back on a recent conversation they had.
1:00.4	In the second, the researchers paired people up with strangers.
1:04.0	The pairs talked about whatever they wanted for as long as they wanted.
1:08.0	Then, after both experiments, the participants had to think back to their conversation
1:12.8	and indicate whether there was a point they had wanted it to end,
1:16.4	and then predict what their conversation partner would say to the same question.
1:21.5	In both of the experiments, the conversations almost never ended when both people wanted them to.
1:27.0	The conversations also didn't end when one person wanted them to.
1:32.0	In fact, when the researchers calculated the difference between when people wanted the conversation to end and when it actually ended,
1:39.0	the average time was about half the duration of the total conversation.
1:44.0	That is, the conversation went on for twice as long as anyone wanted it to.
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Warner Bros. Discovery, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Warner Bros. Discovery and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.