Are you 98% or 2%??

exile

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Blue axe.

I think Elder's absolutely right about this: red is in some respects the canonical color, and a hammer is in some ways the canonical hand tool. Here's what we need to do: send out a two-question poll to a random group of people:

Name the first color that comes into your head.

Name the first tool that comes into your head.


and then compare the results with the OP poll. Then send out a single question poll to a different, random group:

Think of a tool of a certain color. What is it (both tool type and color)?


The null hypothesis is that you'd get the same %age of people saying 'red' and 'hammer' in the first poll as say 'red hammer' in the second (and in the OP poll). But if there's a systematic discrepancy over many repetitions of this two-pronged polling experiment, it would suggest that there's something about redness and hammerhood that tend to reinforce each other (hard to say what that might be; but it's logically possible that there is...).

My guess, for what it's worth, is that you would get very close to the same %age for both of these, and that %age would be same as in the original poll that the OP here is about. The beauty part of this is that anyone who's curious about the outcome can pick a few dozen people they know and run the test themselves... and if you do, please do post your results on MT!
 
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zDom

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Black calculator :idunno:

:lol: The answer that made the most sense, IMO :)

I panicked when asked to think of a colored tool quick. Black calculator DID enter my mind as a possibility :)

But I decided on "Black Saw" for some reason :shrug:

OOH RAH! for the 2-percenters!!!
 

jks9199

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Sorry... I thought "What the hell does a tool have to do with the silly math?"
 

punisher73

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My theory is this....

Arithmetic is done on the left side of the brain. Creative ideas are done with the right side of the brain. The math forces you to be dominate with your left side of the brain, then you are asked to do a "creative task" by picking a colored tool. You are told to do it quickly so you don't have time to switch over to the rightside (i noticed that many answers that didn't have red hammer had other thoughts first before doing the task at hand allowing a switch over).

Since your brain is on left side and not creative, it defaults to a primary color and tool. Red is one of the first colors learned and the same with a hammer. These are easily pulled from memory without thought.

My hypothesis is that people who didn't pick "red hammer" are more rightside dominate or equal or they had a "break state" in which they switched tasks with internal dialog before answering.

discuss..... :uhyeah:
 

morph4me

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What I found most interesting is that when the question about the color and the tool came up a vivid picture popped into my mind and I had to translate that picture into the words that described it.
 

exile

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My theory is this....

Arithmetic is done on the left side of the brain. Creative ideas are done with the right side of the brain. The math forces you to be dominate with your left side of the brain, then you are asked to do a "creative task" by picking a colored tool. You are told to do it quickly so you don't have time to switch over to the rightside (i noticed that many answers that didn't have red hammer had other thoughts first before doing the task at hand allowing a switch over).

Since your brain is on left side and not creative, it defaults to a primary color and tool. Red is one of the first colors learned and the same with a hammer. These are easily pulled from memory without thought.

My hypothesis is that people who didn't pick "red hammer" are more rightside dominate or equal or they had a "break state" in which they switched tasks with internal dialog before answering.

discuss..... :uhyeah:

Yes, this is what I was getting at in terms of the default status of both redness and 'hammerhood' in their own respective areas of our experience. It's a good point about using the arithmetic problems to kind of wash out any pre-existing inclination in the test subject's mind to go for a non-default pair of concepts. If you've spent the day working with your kid on putting together a model Spitfire, for example, and you try to answer the question without the math 'scrambler' first, you're probably much more likely to say something like 'silver tweezers' or 'blue needlenode pliers', and so on.
 
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MA-Caver

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My theory is this....

Arithmetic is done on the left side of the brain. Creative ideas are done with the right side of the brain. The math forces you to be dominate with your left side of the brain, then you are asked to do a "creative task" by picking a colored tool. You are told to do it quickly so you don't have time to switch over to the rightside (i noticed that many answers that didn't have red hammer had other thoughts first before doing the task at hand allowing a switch over).

Since your brain is on left side and not creative, it defaults to a primary color and tool. Red is one of the first colors learned and the same with a hammer. These are easily pulled from memory without thought.

My hypothesis is that people who didn't pick "red hammer" are more right side dominate or equal or they had a "break state" in which they switched tasks with internal dialog before answering.

discuss..... :uhyeah:
Speaking as one of the FEW 98%'ers when I took the test initially I did the computations as fast as I could and then answered the color/tool question just as quickly... so I reckon I'm right side dominate although my artistic endeavors say I'm left...

Now I'm confused and my head hurts.
 

punisher73

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Speaking as one of the FEW 98%'ers when I took the test initially I did the computations as fast as I could and then answered the color/tool question just as quickly... so I reckon I'm right side dominate although my artistic endeavors say I'm left...

Now I'm confused and my head hurts.

Actually it would be the opposite.

Right side=mainly creative, artistic, intuitive
Left=mainly logical, organized

You can find tests online that will test for right/left side brain dominance.
 

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