Hi, it's Sam here. Welcome to Radio Headspace and to Friday. So I knew I wanted to study psychology

pretty early in life. I love that the field of psychology is constantly evolving and new

branches emerge often. One field that I read about recently is called Embodied Cognition.

And this field looks at the ways in which our physical senses, our sight, smell, taste, sound,

and touch. Subconsciously influence our behavior, our emotions, and our decisions.

By becoming aware of how our sensory perception affects behavior, we can harness their

influence to improve our lives and the lives of others. I'd like to highlight a few experiments

that point out some interesting interactions between our perception and our behavior.

In one experiment, researchers looked at how a participant's generosity was affected by holding

hot or cold objects. They told the participants that they wanted them to review a therapeutic pad

that was either hot or cold. After they reviewed the product, they then asked them to choose a reward.

They could either choose a refreshment for themselves or a gift card for a friend. Among the warm pad

reviewers, about half chose the gift card for a friend. Only 25% of cold pad reviewers did the same.

And there are many other experiments that have shown that simply holding warm objects like a warm

cup of coffee makes us more generous and willing to cooperate. In another study, Dutch researchers

looked at how holding a warm or cold beverage affected participants' perception of

closeness with people in their lives. And they found that those who held the warm beverage

rated their relationships as significantly closer than those who held the cold cup.

Who knew that our perception of closeness could be altered so easily?

But this is the subconscious power of our environment. Small influences like temperature,

shift our perception in the moment, skewing the truth in one direction over another.

When we're meditating, we often see the tone of our mind change moment by moment.

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