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Mini: Arrows Point the Way · Why We Do What We Do

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  Speaker 1: You're listening to Why we do what we do? Welcome
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: to Why we do what we do Many.
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  Speaker 2: I am your host, Abraham, and I'm your host Shane.
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  Speaker 2: We are a psychology podcast. We talk about the things
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  Speaker 2: that humans and non human animals do, and in minis
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  Speaker 2: we do it in short form, quick bite sized discussion.
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  Speaker 1: That's what we do.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, and so here today we are talking about arrows.
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  Speaker 3: Every time I think of the word arrow, I think
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  Speaker 3: of a comic book shop owner that lives in my
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  Speaker 3: town that always sounded very stuffy and he would.
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  Speaker 4: Say aoo like that, and I can't help but think
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  Speaker 4: of that.
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  Speaker 3: Like he asked me one time, He's like, have you
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  Speaker 3: seen the show al And I was like, yes, I have.
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  Speaker 4: I have.
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  Speaker 3: And that's so that's what I think of when I
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  Speaker 3: hear that I can't it's my own learning history.
• 1:02
  Speaker 2: Fantastic. Well, yes, we're talking about arrows, the symbolic version
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  Speaker 2: of arrows that is, which maybe sounds boring, but I
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  Speaker 2: think is more interesting than it sounds. I think, and
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  Speaker 2: hopefully you will too. If you're joining us for the
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  Speaker 2: first time, welcome here. I hope that you enjoy this
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  Speaker 2: discussion and that we give you some little nuggets of
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  Speaker 2: things to think about, and if you are a returning person,
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  Speaker 2: then welcome back. This is I hope this also gives
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  Speaker 2: you little nuggets of things to think about, just to
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  Speaker 2: you know, be reflective about the things around us and
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  Speaker 2: acknowledge we take a lot for granted.
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  Speaker 1: That's the stuff.
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  Speaker 2: If you'd like to support us, you can join us
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  Speaker 2: at the end of this discussion. I think that is everything.
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  Speaker 2: Are we ready to jump into our topic?
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  Speaker 4: Let's do it all right?
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  Speaker 2: So we the humans, we use a lot of symbolism
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  Speaker 2: and reference to communicate and influence behavior, and one symbol
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  Speaker 2: that I feel we tend to take for granted is
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  Speaker 2: the humble arrow.
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  Speaker 3: M h it's yeah, it's carrying a lot on the symbol.
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  Speaker 3: We find in a tremendous amount of communication, from instructions
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  Speaker 3: to signs, the politics, to everywhere where symbols exist, there
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  Speaker 3: is an arrow to be found.
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  Speaker 2: Indeed, we'll briefly discuss in this episode the history of
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  Speaker 2: the arrow and why it is kind of an interesting
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  Speaker 2: and unique symbol.
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  Speaker 3: Yes, so let's go ahead and give you some basic descriptions.
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  Speaker 3: Arrows most commonly have a line, usually straight, and a
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  Speaker 3: straight line, and at one end of the line a
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  Speaker 3: very short where lines converge at a point.
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  Speaker 4: Like kind of like it like almost like a tip, right.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah.
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  Speaker 3: Sometimes it is a triangle, with the line intersecting a
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  Speaker 3: line of the triangle perpendicularly and the point again converging
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  Speaker 3: at the end of the line. So it's just kind
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  Speaker 3: of it ends up being a point.
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  Speaker 4: At one end.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's a good way to put it. Just Yeah,
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  Speaker 2: the direction of the line seem to converge in a point,
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  Speaker 2: suggesting that that is the direction, and the whole purpose
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  Speaker 2: of the symbol is to indicate the flow or direction
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  Speaker 2: of something. The converged point at the end of the
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  Speaker 2: line indicates the direction of the flow. So, for example,
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  Speaker 2: if you had a horizontal line and the lines that
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  Speaker 2: converge or the triangle converges to a point on the
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  Speaker 2: right side of the line, that would indicate going to
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  Speaker 2: the right. For those of you who are not familiar
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  Speaker 2: with the arrow.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, absolutely, this likely feels extremely intuitive. But the current
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  Speaker 3: symbol appears to be less than four hundred years old,
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  Speaker 3: which is that's wild to think that it's like very young.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, it is kind of strange, but it is actually
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  Speaker 2: kind of a recent invention. So before the modern symbol
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  Speaker 2: of the arrow, some of the earliest directional symbols were
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  Speaker 2: instead other images because as you can imagine that before
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  Speaker 2: there were arrows, people still were trying to communicate direction.
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  Speaker 2: So how would they do that? Well, one example of
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  Speaker 2: how this was done was a two D image of
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  Speaker 2: a bare foot. So you had essentially the outline of
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  Speaker 2: a foot and that was it, and the direction the
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  Speaker 2: foot was pointed indicated the direction to go what they
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  Speaker 2: were walking toward, which makes sense if you think about it.
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  Speaker 2: If you didn't have a symbol to indicate direction, then
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  Speaker 2: pointing the way a foot is oriented is pretty clear
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  Speaker 2: in what direction is because that would imply that should
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  Speaker 2: you follow that, if you oriented your feet in that
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  Speaker 2: direction and went there, you would end up at a
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  Speaker 2: particular place.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, and I think, I mean, if we wanted to
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  Speaker 3: extrapolate that, I'm going to do a little bit of
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  Speaker 3: armchair psychology on this. It makes sense that following the
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  Speaker 3: direction of bare feet like that does make sense from
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  Speaker 3: like a hunter like perspective, right, Like those animal tracks
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  Speaker 3: follow a certain direction end with the animal lot the
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  Speaker 3: end of those tracks, So it makes sense that you
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  Speaker 3: would follow those tracks towards a certain destination, right, So
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  Speaker 3: like I could see that being like already in somebody's
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  Speaker 3: learning history and being like, oh, this is easy to follow.
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  Speaker 3: It's just human feet this time.
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  Speaker 2: Yes, absolutely, very great catch. So yeah, essentially would see
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  Speaker 2: these signs with maybe feet printed on them and be like,
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  Speaker 2: why are they advertising feet? Okay, we're back. We've been
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  Speaker 2: discussing the history of the arrow and that it's much
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  Speaker 2: newer than we originally or that you might think it
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  Speaker 2: would be. It actually seems like it would be a
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  Speaker 2: symbol that's been around for a long time. But we
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  Speaker 2: had other ways of indicating direction before we had arrows.
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  Speaker 4: Yes.
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  Speaker 3: Other pictographic images include a hand pointing in a particular
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  Speaker 3: direction with the index finger extended in a particular direction
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  Speaker 3: and the other fingers clenched inward. And actually the history
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  Speaker 3: and the fact that we can respond to pointing at
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  Speaker 3: all is very unique among humans.
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  Speaker 4: Interesting skill than you might think.
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  Speaker 3: If you point at something to your dog or cat,
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  Speaker 3: they behave with respect to the thing you're pointing to.
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  Speaker 3: Sometimes if they're trained, right, if they've been trained to
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  Speaker 3: kind of sometimes in certain circumstances, but mostly they treat
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  Speaker 3: the pointing apparatus as a thing simply extended in worth smelling.
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  Speaker 3: So if you ever pointed around a dog, they'll just
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  Speaker 3: smell your finger.
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  Speaker 2: Yes, it's pointing is kind of interesting with humans, the
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  Speaker 2: fact that we can point in something and we treat
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  Speaker 2: that as there being sort of an invisible line from
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  Speaker 2: extending out from the point to something else that that
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  Speaker 2: can influence our behavior. It seems like we don't really
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  Speaker 2: see that among other non human animals very much unless
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  Speaker 2: they've been sort of trained to do that. But with humans,
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  Speaker 2: we do it very intuitively and it's kind of its
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  Speaker 2: own thing. But anyway, similar idea here. If you think
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  Speaker 2: about like a sign with a hand with a finger pointing,
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  Speaker 2: that that would be another way to indicate direction.
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  Speaker 4: Yeah, it's interesting too.
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  Speaker 3: There's like a whole culture around pointing and like different
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  Speaker 3: ways the point that are like socially acceptable. I don't
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  Speaker 3: know if most people know this, but like if you
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  Speaker 3: get hired to work at Disney as a cast member,
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  Speaker 3: you are trained to point with two fingers and not one,
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  Speaker 3: So you're index to your middle finger designed to point
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  Speaker 3: in a certain direction because that is more socially appropriate
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  Speaker 3: for international tourists and international guests, so they teach them
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  Speaker 3: the point a different way than what might be casual
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  Speaker 3: for them as United States citizens.
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  Speaker 2: Wow, okay, I didn't know that all right. So once
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  Speaker 2: arrows started being drawn to indicate direction, they were drawn
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  Speaker 2: as a hunter's arrow. They had like the full arrowhead
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  Speaker 2: and fletching at the end of the arrow with the
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  Speaker 2: feathers and everything, so they weren't quite the level of
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  Speaker 2: abstracted arrow we're used to today.
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  Speaker 4: Makes sense, Like that makes perfect sense.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, over time, this is still down into the abstracted,
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  Speaker 3: simple two d arrow that we're pretty familiar with now.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, it does seem to be at this point fairly
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  Speaker 2: universally stood across cultures. I was kind of wondering if
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  Speaker 2: perhaps a directional symbol might have lines at the point
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  Speaker 2: of the arrow that actually open outward instead of converging inward,
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  Speaker 2: and I thought maybe that would that diverging pattern rather
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  Speaker 2: than a converging pattern, might indicate things opening up in
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  Speaker 2: a particular direction. But it doesn't really appear that that's
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  Speaker 2: the case. It seems like everyone sort of just agreed
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  Speaker 2: that arrows are when you have lines converging on each
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  Speaker 2: other in sort of a sloped manner, and that that
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  Speaker 2: is the way to indicate direction. And then everyone's just
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  Speaker 2: like got it, Okay, we're good. Yeah, that seems like
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  Speaker 2: that's pretty intuitive among people for whatever reason.
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  Speaker 4: Yeah, it's super super interesting.
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  Speaker 3: Now, would we expect another like alien species from another
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  Speaker 3: planet that communicates using symbolic language to understand or even
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  Speaker 3: use arrows? Would they recognize and into it our arrows
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  Speaker 3: if they beheld them. It's difficult to say. Just because
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  Speaker 3: it's seemingly universal among humans doesn't mean that all species
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  Speaker 3: will converge on the same symbols. And I think that
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  Speaker 3: we can see that through the example of animals, like
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  Speaker 3: non human animals that exist on the planet. They can
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  Speaker 3: see an arrow and not really think twice about it, right,
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  Speaker 3: So it seems to require some at least some basic
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  Speaker 3: learning history around languaging and direction that would make that
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  Speaker 3: would really make a difference.
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  Speaker 2: Yes, we mentioned at the top it tends to be
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  Speaker 2: a straight line with a point at one end indicating direction. Technically,
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  Speaker 2: arrows can look a lot of different ways. So like
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  Speaker 2: a U turn symbol is an arrow, but it's shaped
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  Speaker 2: like an overturned and upside down. You you can have
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  Speaker 2: sort of squiggly lines with arrows at the end. You
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  Speaker 2: might see those on road signs indicating a windy road.
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  Speaker 2: There can be arrows slightly curved, various directions, arrows with
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  Speaker 2: like a flat base or a dot. There's a lot
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  Speaker 2: of different ways that people use arrows anymore, but the
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  Speaker 2: one consistent thing is they are designed to imply directionality
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  Speaker 2: of some sort.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, directionality flow all those things, Like in math they
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  Speaker 3: do that too.
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  Speaker 4: They're like, it's moving towards the direction.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, that's exactly right. Yeah, it's been adopted in
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  Speaker 2: like a variouscienceys in math and whatnot. So all right,
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  Speaker 2: well arrows. Hopefully you found that interesting because it's arrows,
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  Speaker 2: So I can understand why you might not. But you
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  Speaker 2: imagine that if you were to just paint some symbols
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  Speaker 2: on the ground, and like somebody who doesn't know your
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  Speaker 2: language and you don't know theirs, they encounter those symbols
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  Speaker 2: and are able to behave with respect to those symbols,
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  Speaker 2: that's kind of amazing, Like, yeah, that that.
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  Speaker 1: Could even work.
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  Speaker 2: And so the humble aroo, I think is more interesting
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  Speaker 2: than we might give it. Otherwise, give it credit because
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  Speaker 2: the fact that we can influence behavior just by sort
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  Speaker 2: of pictorially drawing something that seems to be universal across
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  Speaker 2: languages is pretty cool.
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  Speaker 4: Yeah, it's super neat. It's super neat. I love it
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  Speaker 4: all right.
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  Speaker 2: Well, if you'd like to tell us your thoughts and arrows,
• 10:43
  Speaker 2: you can email us directly at info at wwdwwdpodcast dot com,
• 10:47
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• 10:50
  Speaker 2: we do look forward to hearing from you. If you
• 10:52
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• 11:02
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• 11:07
  Speaker 2: end of our.
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: Full length discussions.
• 11:09
  Speaker 2: Thank you so much to my team of people without
• 11:11
  Speaker 2: whom I cannot make this podcast.
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  Speaker 1: Thank you for recording with me today.
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  Speaker 4: Shane, thanks for having me.
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  Speaker 2: Is there anything that I message you'd like to add
• 11:17
  Speaker 2: before we sayah, goodbyes.
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  Speaker 4: Nope, I think that covers it.
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: Okay, I think that's it. Then this is Abraham and
• 11:22
  Speaker 1: this is Shane. Why we do what we do? Mini
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: is out.
• 11:24
  Speaker 4: Bye.
• 11:26
  Speaker 1: You've been listening to Why We Do What We Do.
• 11:28
  Speaker 3: You can learn more about this and other episodes by
• 11:31
  Speaker 3: going to wwdwwdpodcast dot com. Thanks for listening, and we
• 11:37
  Speaker 3: hope you have an awesome day.