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When listeners pay attention to stories, their heart rates rise and fall in sync

blog.pnas.org

41–50 of 87 posts

Re: When listeners pay attention to stories, their heart rates rise and fall in sync

#41
post #13

Fake headline. This is not the usual meaning of the word “synchronize”. As many other commenters here point out, this makes the story a non-story. Strictly speaking, the headline is true in that the heart rates “synchronize”, but not the heart beats , which I would think that most people would mis-read the headline as.

The actual phrase here is “synchronization of HR fluctuations”

Re: When listeners pay attention to stories, their heart rates rise and fall in sync

#42
post #3

As the list of ways to trigger and activate the chimp brain gets refined, how long before we end up with something like a Laser for society? The echo chambers on social media and reinforcement/amplification they produce seems to be very similar to the mechanism to generate coherent light. Does analogy break somehow? Instead of syncing waves or particles just button press and sync a bunch of humans brains. I guess arm…

> something like a Laser for society What does that mean?

In a laser you are basically getting photons to behave exactly the same way. Trillions of them.

To do that two things are required, keep a bunch of atoms continually excited by heat, electricity, whatever. And secondly, an echo chamber (think a tube with mirrors where photons fly back and forth). This sets up chain reactions. Each photon that flies thro an excited atom produces another photon which mysteriously has the exact same speed, color, phase as the original. Then you get a cascade as they bump into other excited atoms.

The comment is saying, replace atoms with humans, photons with human action?, social media/news media/russians as source of excitation and amplification and you probably can get a whole bunch of humans in sync.

Should point out no one really knew what to do with lasers for a long time after they were discovered.

Re: When listeners pay attention to stories, their heart rates rise and fall in sync

#43
post #17
post #13

Fake headline. This is not the usual meaning of the word “synchronize”. As many other commenters here point out, this makes the story a non-story. Strictly speaking, the headline is true in that the heart rates “synchronize”, but not the heart beats , which I would think that most people would mis-read the headline as.

And even then, the actual rate itself is unlikely to synchronize, only the delta on the rate over time. You don't put a bunch of people in a room, tell them all a story, and they all suddenly have 65 bpm rates.

Shoot. Just as I was just constructing the perfect murder story.

Re: When listeners pay attention to stories, their heart rates rise and fall in sync

#44
post #19
post #13

Fake headline. This is not the usual meaning of the word “synchronize”. As many other commenters here point out, this makes the story a non-story. Strictly speaking, the headline is true in that the heart rates “synchronize”, but not the heart beats , which I would think that most people would mis-read the headline as.

Agreed. The headline is fascinating the content is appalling. PNAS reporting the shocking news that peoples heart rates tend to increase during the exciting part of a story and that an increased rate leads to higher correlation between subjects. Edit: Without naming any author in particular - does anyone else spot a pattern whereby certain researchers consistently hype their findings to the point of borderline dishon…

In academia, you're often evaluated on "impact". So you have an incentive to be impactful, not truthful, and while many (most?) try to be honest in the content, hyping the title is an easy way to increase your metric (impact) while not having a very bad conscience because "everyone does it" and "the truth is in the contents, actually"

Re: When listeners pay attention to stories, their heart rates rise and fall in sync

#45
post #13

Fake headline. This is not the usual meaning of the word “synchronize”. As many other commenters here point out, this makes the story a non-story. Strictly speaking, the headline is true in that the heart rates “synchronize”, but not the heart beats , which I would think that most people would mis-read the headline as.

Not sure we can fault them if it is a justified true headline but we expect that 'other people' can't read.

Per the Wason selection task this is a great experiment to run, because if it isn't true then that's strong evidence many more complex theories relating to sync are likely to be false.

Re: When listeners pay attention to stories, their heart rates rise and fall in sync

#46
post #13

Fake headline. This is not the usual meaning of the word “synchronize”. As many other commenters here point out, this makes the story a non-story. Strictly speaking, the headline is true in that the heart rates “synchronize”, but not the heart beats , which I would think that most people would mis-read the headline as.

An alien visiting from another planet might not be aware that there's a correlation among humans in what they find exciting and that changes in heart rate correlate with excitement.

Re: When listeners pay attention to stories, their heart rates rise and fall in sync

#47
post #13

Fake headline. This is not the usual meaning of the word “synchronize”. As many other commenters here point out, this makes the story a non-story. Strictly speaking, the headline is true in that the heart rates “synchronize”, but not the heart beats , which I would think that most people would mis-read the headline as.

[deleted]

Re: When listeners pay attention to stories, their heart rates rise and fall in sync

#49
Am following this topic from another thread on HN today about soundscapes and binaural beats, and what is the theoretical framework behind it, or is it just sympathetic magic?

I was in a meeting yesterday about the truth and reconciliation stuff going on in Canada right now, and the first hour of the meeting was given to people who were sharing their experiences of residential schools by telling stories about them. The storytellers were fantastic, and one of them had a mesmerising and hypnotic effect that I was trying to isolate as a technique. I could see others attempting it as well. I had seen a similar story telling technique used by top professional stage actors in the past. When you watch the documentary, "Wild Wild Country," which is about charismatic spiritual leadership, they use a similar verbal mesmerism technique that can give people "chills," which are also physiological response, just not a cardiogram effect.

Working in tech, one encounters improbable clusters of professors, behavioral economics readers, intelligence operatives, ad-tech designers, political campaign operatives, magicians, hypnotists, practitioners of so-called NLP, "pick up artists," con artists, and other people who practice and apply systematized methods of persuasion. My interest in it is mainly for experimenting with music, but my own practice of a simlar dynamic would be exercising craft as a writer.

Of what is this synchronization and mesmerism the effect?

Re: When listeners pay attention to stories, their heart rates rise and fall in sync

#50
post #13

Fake headline. This is not the usual meaning of the word “synchronize”. As many other commenters here point out, this makes the story a non-story. Strictly speaking, the headline is true in that the heart rates “synchronize”, but not the heart beats , which I would think that most people would mis-read the headline as.

[deleted]
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