14 DAY TRIAL // Researchers at Carnegie Mellon University (CMU), led by psychologists Roberta Klatzky and J. David Creswell, were recently able to gain a deeper understanding of a mysterious human behavior called priming, which is an unconscious phenomenon wherein the context of data or information we are exposed to causes imperceptible shifts in the way we think and act.
A good example of this is the heighten subconscious feeling of interpersonal warmth that many of us experience when holding a cup of hot coffee, or the slowness of our walk after hearing an old age-related discourse from a friend. All of these behaviors have previously been measured scientifically.
The new study looks at priming as just another form of interacting senses. As such, the team focused its efforts on understanding how two or more senses interact to form perception, PsychCentral reports.
Researchers have found that the feeling of heat we get from holding a cup of coffee while meeting a new person can be subconsciously transferred onto that person, so that we perceive them as warm in the end.
“Our approach is to understand how the basic processes work, in order to account for the inconsistencies. Because, as scientists, once you understand the underlying causes, you are gifted with control over when effects occur and when they don’t,” Klatzky explains.