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Peripersonal Space: Humans’ Got Talent · Stuff You Should Know

0:01
Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of I
0:04
Speaker 1: Heart Radio. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh,
0:13
Speaker 1: and there's Chuck and Jerry's here too, and that's the
0:16
Speaker 1: podcast that they call Stuff You Should Know. Big sound
0:22
Speaker 1: any different? You sound exactly the same? Do I Really?
0:26
Speaker 1: That's good because I just got the stints out from
0:28
Speaker 1: having my deviated septoms fixed once and for all. Dude,
0:33
Speaker 1: what's it like, what's the reveal? Well, the big reveal
0:37
Speaker 1: is that my voice didn't change, which is something I
0:39
Speaker 1: was actually really worried about. Yeah, yeah, because I mean, like, um,
0:43
Speaker 1: that's what I used as my job when I was like, well,
0:46
Speaker 1: you know, if I've got like my septum pressed all
0:49
Speaker 1: the way up against one side of my face, how
0:51
Speaker 1: does that make my voice sound, and what will it
0:53
Speaker 1: sound like with you know out that happening. But I
0:56
Speaker 1: can breathe through both nostrils for the first time in memory.
0:59
Speaker 1: I I literally can't remember the last time. I think
1:02
Speaker 1: I'm probably was sixth grade. Again. My friend saw me
1:05
Speaker 1: punched me in the face, and I'm almost positive that's
1:08
Speaker 1: that's the only thing I can come up with that
1:10
Speaker 1: would have deviated my septem But I've been in such
1:13
Speaker 1: a good mood since those stints got pulled out. Man,
1:16
Speaker 1: I'm I'm just on air, dude. I love it. So
1:19
Speaker 1: happy to hear that. Thank you. I bet those stints
1:23
Speaker 1: being in there was not fun. No, it wasn't. In
1:26
Speaker 1: um My doctor guy named Capelle Segal was really really good,
1:32
Speaker 1: as was Alicia the p A too, and he said
1:35
Speaker 1: that he was I don't think he said it was
1:37
Speaker 1: the most deviated septum ever, but I'm just gonna go
1:40
Speaker 1: ahead and say that's essentially what he was saying, that
1:43
Speaker 1: it was really really deviated septem and so he got
1:46
Speaker 1: it straight and everything's going bully right now. Did you
1:50
Speaker 1: shave any off any anywhere here and there? No, he said,
1:54
Speaker 1: you know that bump is still going to be there, right,
1:56
Speaker 1: We're not doing a rhino plastic And I was like, yeah,
1:57
Speaker 1: I've made peace with my nose is fine nose. So
2:00
Speaker 1: he's like, great, okay, I love it. I can't wait.
2:02
Speaker 1: I can't wait to breathe my breath into your nostrils
2:06
Speaker 1: and have you. I can't accept it for the first time. Here,
2:09
Speaker 1: do it now, and we'll see if I can smell
2:11
Speaker 1: it over the microphone. Mom, Yeah, that's nice, Chuck, it
2:17
Speaker 1: smells like seagulls. Uh, it's funny. People listening to this
2:21
Speaker 1: might be thinking, why did Chuck almost shout the word
2:24
Speaker 1: big at the beginning of this episode. Oh yeah, because
2:29
Speaker 1: I was going to say big, props and thanks to
2:32
Speaker 1: you for picking this subject. Okay, great, because I thought
2:36
Speaker 1: I thought it was endlessly fascinating and had so many
2:41
Speaker 1: potential little ten drils that weren't even in the great
2:45
Speaker 1: thing that Livia put together for us. Uh. It just
2:49
Speaker 1: it really got my brain kind of thinking about a
2:51
Speaker 1: lot of different ways that pair of personal space and
2:55
Speaker 1: how our brains are wired, and how that how many
2:58
Speaker 1: things that has impacted in will impact and can't impact.
3:01
Speaker 1: I loved it. Yeah, it is that's I mean, that's
3:04
Speaker 1: why I was like, we gotta do one on this.
3:06
Speaker 1: I don't remember how I stumbled across. I think I
3:08
Speaker 1: actually was like, I remember hearing that every human needs
3:12
Speaker 1: like one point seven meters square meters of personal space
3:15
Speaker 1: or something, or actual physical space, and I was like,
3:18
Speaker 1: is that true? And I went and looked it up
3:19
Speaker 1: and I stumbled upon pair of personal space, which is different.
3:23
Speaker 1: There's personal space, there's pair of personal space. And this
3:26
Speaker 1: this science even though we've been like kind of picking
3:28
Speaker 1: at the edges of it since the seventies. UM, it's
3:32
Speaker 1: still so new that we're not quite sure if we're
3:35
Speaker 1: talking about the same thing or these overlapping systems. But
3:39
Speaker 1: the upshot of a pair of personal space while we're
3:41
Speaker 1: talking about is the area around you that you can reach,
3:46
Speaker 1: like as far as your arm extends, and that if
3:49
Speaker 1: you stop and think about it, this is the way
3:51
Speaker 1: that we physically interact with the world. This is the
3:54
Speaker 1: space and it changes because we move around the world.
3:57
Speaker 1: We sit down, we stand up, we hands, we just
4:01
Speaker 1: we do stuff, so it moves with us. It's locked
4:04
Speaker 1: into our body, but it is it's the space where
4:08
Speaker 1: where we interface with reality essentially UM in any physical way. Yeah,
4:14
Speaker 1: and it's UM. And by the way, Teaser, there are
4:18
Speaker 1: two other kinds of spaces that you didn't even mention
4:20
Speaker 1: that we're going to talk about. Okay, so just you know,
4:24
Speaker 1: put that under your lid. Let's smoke listening, audience. Uh.
4:29
Speaker 1: It's sort of related to what's called body schema, and
4:32
Speaker 1: we'll talk about sort of the history and all this
4:34
Speaker 1: and all these cool studies, but body schema is just
4:36
Speaker 1: the understanding that we have of how we're built. Like
4:41
Speaker 1: you know, Uh, it's like if you put on one
4:44
Speaker 1: of those big sumo wrestling suits, you're gonna be knocking
4:48
Speaker 1: stuff over, like Nathan for you episode in a China
4:52
Speaker 1: in a China shop. Um, because you're your your brain
4:57
Speaker 1: is wired to be used to how big you are. Uh,
5:01
Speaker 1: Like when we squeeze through a sideways thing, like we know,
5:05
Speaker 1: like I've got to turn sideways when I get to
5:07
Speaker 1: this thing because I know how big I am and
5:09
Speaker 1: I know how wide I am, And like, you can't
5:13
Speaker 1: overstate the massive importance this had evolutionarily speaking, I think,
5:20
Speaker 1: because that relates to everything from along with pps pair
5:23
Speaker 1: of personal space, everything from like can I reach from
5:27
Speaker 1: this limb out to get that piece of fruit without
5:31
Speaker 1: falling and killing myself too? Can I use this club
5:36
Speaker 1: and we'll get into some really interesting stuff about extensions
5:38
Speaker 1: of your own space. Can I use this club to
5:41
Speaker 1: hit that guy before he gets to me? All of
5:44
Speaker 1: this stuff matter, Like even fruit flies have a version
5:48
Speaker 1: of body schema, which is can I make it from
5:51
Speaker 1: here to there? Essentially with my little fruit fly body?
5:54
Speaker 1: Can I get through that gap? Is it too small? Um?
5:58
Speaker 1: As that. Yeah, that reveals that body schema is a
6:02
Speaker 1: really really ancient um mechanism. It's a really ancient system
6:07
Speaker 1: among life, right that if you stop and think about it,
6:11
Speaker 1: anything that moves through the world probably has some form
6:14
Speaker 1: of body schema because otherwise they'd be running into stuff,
6:18
Speaker 1: they would be um, they wouldn't be able to feed themselves,
6:21
Speaker 1: they would miss the prey that they were running after. UM.
6:24
Speaker 1: It would like it's really basically impossible to overstate how
6:30
Speaker 1: constantly we use these this this um process, and how
6:36
Speaker 1: constant it's updated. And the most remarkable thing about it
6:40
Speaker 1: is we do all this without even giving it a thought.
6:43
Speaker 1: It just happens. And it's not just body schema we're
6:47
Speaker 1: talking about. And this is where we kind of get
6:48
Speaker 1: into um what I was talking about earlier that we're
6:51
Speaker 1: still not quite sure is is body scheme up part
6:54
Speaker 1: of it? Are we talking about body schema? We're just
6:57
Speaker 1: accidentally using a different a different term, Like that's where
7:00
Speaker 1: the field is right now, But like neurology has definitely
7:04
Speaker 1: taken up a pair of personal space and is investigating
7:08
Speaker 1: it with full gusto. So it probably won't be too
7:11
Speaker 1: terribly long before we understand it much more and have
7:14
Speaker 1: like a much more precise definition that all of the
7:17
Speaker 1: scientific community agrees on. Yeah, and you know that's basically
7:21
Speaker 1: where we're studying here and talking about today is neurology.
7:24
Speaker 1: Because it's very easy to say, well, of course, you know,
7:26
Speaker 1: you can't squeeze through a certain area if it's too
7:29
Speaker 1: small for your body. But it's not instinct. It is
7:32
Speaker 1: neurons firing on an unconscious level that is telling you
7:36
Speaker 1: to do or to not attempt this thing. Basically, it's
7:40
Speaker 1: very cool. Yeah, and again it's it's a It's how
7:43
Speaker 1: we do just about everything with our bodies, like from dancing, um,
7:48
Speaker 1: playing sports, um, making a crewdriver, making love, um, what
7:54
Speaker 1: some people called doing it. Um. How if somebody shoots
7:58
Speaker 1: an arrow at your face and you catch the arrow
8:00
Speaker 1: right before it hits your face without even thinking about it.
8:04
Speaker 1: It's how we catch flies out of the air with chopsticks.
8:07
Speaker 1: Anything that we do physically moving has to do with this.
8:12
Speaker 1: And again it has to do with how incredibly advanced
8:16
Speaker 1: our brains are. That's what we're finding out. That's what
8:20
Speaker 1: this this whole thing reveals, is this thing that we've
8:23
Speaker 1: just taken for granted, we finally reached the point in
8:26
Speaker 1: our like understanding of the universe and us and how
8:29
Speaker 1: things work, um, sorry, how stuff works, um, that we're
8:34
Speaker 1: now investigating things that we've just totally taken for granted.
8:37
Speaker 1: And what we're finding is like, oh my god, our
8:40
Speaker 1: brains are so ridiculously powerful that it's this is just
8:44
Speaker 1: fun to even talk about. And that's why we're talking
8:47
Speaker 1: about it today. A couple of the first neurologists to
8:50
Speaker 1: sort of start poking around this, uh pair of personal
8:53
Speaker 1: space was in nineteen eleven, uh do name, Henry Head
8:56
Speaker 1: good name, as Libya points out, and Gordon Holmes put
9:00
Speaker 1: out a paper um that talked about body schema, and
9:04
Speaker 1: they were looking at it in terms of like people
9:06
Speaker 1: that had brain damage. They noticed that certain kinds of
9:09
Speaker 1: brain damage would render odd ways that they might position
9:14
Speaker 1: a limb, or that they might have a sensation and
9:17
Speaker 1: a limb or something like that. So that's how they
9:20
Speaker 1: kind of, uh started kind of launched the field of
9:23
Speaker 1: studying this body scheme of thing neurologically speaking. And they
9:28
Speaker 1: also and this is super cool, this is just one
9:29
Speaker 1: of like a million cool things. They're the first ones
9:32
Speaker 1: that came up with this idea that if if something
9:35
Speaker 1: is attached to your body in a way that it's
9:37
Speaker 1: moving with your body, then your brain accepts that neurologically
9:42
Speaker 1: and factors that in. So if you're wearing a tin
9:45
Speaker 1: gallon hat, uh, You're you're gonna duck a little more
9:49
Speaker 1: readily because you know you're wearing that hat unless you know,
9:52
Speaker 1: unless you're just really dense and you just keep knocking
9:54
Speaker 1: that hat off. But eventually you're not going to be
9:57
Speaker 1: a cartoon character and you're going to realize this large
10:00
Speaker 1: hat or this whatever I'm wearing. Like and I remember,
10:04
Speaker 1: I think I've talked about it before and college. One
10:06
Speaker 1: of the greatest h Halloween costumes ever saw in downtown
10:11
Speaker 1: Athens was Uh. I kind of knew him. His name
10:14
Speaker 1: was Blake, but he was Surface Area man one year
10:17
Speaker 1: and he just had these huge foam disks that he
10:20
Speaker 1: made a suit out of around his arms and legs
10:22
Speaker 1: in his body that he took up like, you know,
10:26
Speaker 1: maybe fifteen square feet and he would just walk around
10:29
Speaker 1: Athens bumping into things saying, I'm surface area man. But
10:33
Speaker 1: it's it sort of ties in with this and that. Uh.
10:36
Speaker 1: He went against the idea like neurologically speaking, he would
10:41
Speaker 1: have known he can't go into the bar and not
10:44
Speaker 1: knock people over. And I'm sure he did know this,
10:46
Speaker 1: it was part of the gag. But uh, if it's
10:49
Speaker 1: attached to you and moves with you, your brain factors
10:51
Speaker 1: at in. Yeah, Like if you stop and think about
10:54
Speaker 1: that for a second, your body schema, if you put
10:58
Speaker 1: a hat on your body schema enlarges and changes shape
11:02
Speaker 1: to include that hat. Now, that's astounding. That's an amazing
11:06
Speaker 1: thing that we just again don't even think about. So
11:09
Speaker 1: Head and Homes were the ones who were really first
11:12
Speaker 1: kind of bringing this up, like, hey, guys, we're taking
11:14
Speaker 1: some stuff for granted, we need to investigate this. And
11:17
Speaker 1: it was followed up in UM by W. R. Brain,
11:22
Speaker 1: another neurologists UM, and he said, hey, you know what
11:27
Speaker 1: we kind of think of space around us is like, um,
11:30
Speaker 1: you know this, the door is just three ft in
11:34
Speaker 1: front of me, or the ceiling is a six ft ceiling,
11:38
Speaker 1: And we think of it in Cartesian terms like things
11:40
Speaker 1: can be mapped out as if on a graph. And
11:43
Speaker 1: he said that's not actually how our brain encoades things.
11:46
Speaker 1: It encoades things much more simply basically what's in grasping
11:50
Speaker 1: distance and what's in walking distance. And he kind of
11:54
Speaker 1: prefigured all the way back in one this idea of
11:57
Speaker 1: pair of personal space grasping distance, and then other types
12:01
Speaker 1: of space. And it seems to be the case that
12:03
Speaker 1: that is kind of how our brain divides things. And
12:06
Speaker 1: it's not binary like that. It's not like a straight
12:08
Speaker 1: line like either it's in walking distance or it's in
12:11
Speaker 1: grasping distance. There's gradients of it. But he he was
12:15
Speaker 1: pretty smart for having come up with this kind of
12:17
Speaker 1: seeing things differently. Yeah, and there were there were a
12:19
Speaker 1: couple of philosophers. Uh, I'm sure many people have put
12:23
Speaker 1: this forward, but uh common Kline and Frederick they Vanimon
12:29
Speaker 1: uh kind of throw out that, Hey, I think this
12:31
Speaker 1: evolved originally out of self defense, and that makes a
12:35
Speaker 1: lot of sense. I think even though we're so far
12:39
Speaker 1: removed from took took In and our ancestors like that, Uh,
12:44
Speaker 1: I think many people still in a place where they
12:48
Speaker 1: maybe even not feel threatened, maybe even when they're sitting
12:52
Speaker 1: in their own living room. No, like all right, the
12:55
Speaker 1: fire pokers, you know, within grasping distance, just in case
12:59
Speaker 1: some and bust in that door. Yeah, Like I remember
13:02
Speaker 1: being a kid and like and I wasn't a paranoid
13:06
Speaker 1: worried kid at all, but I used to go into
13:08
Speaker 1: places and all, right, where's where's the defense weapon? Like
13:13
Speaker 1: in this room? What would I grab if some maybe
13:15
Speaker 1: I was a paranoid where he could Now, Yeah, I
13:17
Speaker 1: was gonna say I walk into the room and be like,
13:20
Speaker 1: where's the cookies? I would think I could throw the
13:23
Speaker 1: cookie jar at someone's head? But I think that's the
13:26
Speaker 1: evolutionary sort of remnant still sticking around, which is like,
13:31
Speaker 1: what can I grasp to defend myself? And your brain
13:35
Speaker 1: is sort of wired that way. Uh, not only with us,
13:39
Speaker 1: but you know animals they found out kind of do
13:41
Speaker 1: the same thing, right, Yeah, and like that we that
13:44
Speaker 1: we would have taken this initial thing that's self defense.
13:47
Speaker 1: So there's a bubble of of like protection around us
13:50
Speaker 1: that when something starts to come into it, we're like, okay,
13:52
Speaker 1: alarms are going off. And that over time our brain
13:56
Speaker 1: was like, we can do a lot more with this.
13:57
Speaker 1: Let's figure out unique and novel ways, and that that
14:00
Speaker 1: eventually evolved into being able to grasp the hot poker.
14:03
Speaker 1: And they point out the two philosophers you mentioned that
14:06
Speaker 1: um it's not an adaptation. That's called an exaptation. And
14:10
Speaker 1: we talked about it in a Human Intelligence episode UM,
14:13
Speaker 1: where the ability to remember where you set your baby
14:17
Speaker 1: down on that rock eventually evolved into wayfinding, like our
14:21
Speaker 1: ability to create mental maps and find our way around
14:24
Speaker 1: or find our way back from something. But yeah, you
14:27
Speaker 1: said something about the animals, and there was a Swiss
14:30
Speaker 1: zoo director. I'm just gonna take his name. Okay, I'm
14:33
Speaker 1: usually pretty generous, but I want to take this one. Okay,
14:37
Speaker 1: heine Headagar. It's pretty straightforward. It's a great name. Heinie Hedagar,
14:43
Speaker 1: Swiss Zoo director UM started studying animals because he wanted
14:46
Speaker 1: to figure out at what like, how can you put
14:49
Speaker 1: animals into the same enclosure but they're from different species
14:52
Speaker 1: without scaring one another to death? And so he started
14:55
Speaker 1: studying how close you could get the animals and came
14:58
Speaker 1: up with this whole um kind of con tribution to
15:00
Speaker 1: the eventual pair of personal understanding of space. That's right.
15:05
Speaker 1: So what happened was Heinie Hettegar. You gotta say both names.
15:10
Speaker 1: It's really hard not to, uh said. I want to
15:12
Speaker 1: figure out a few different things. I want to figure
15:14
Speaker 1: out um, how far like a predator species can be
15:19
Speaker 1: from a prey before uh, we'll call it the flight
15:22
Speaker 1: distance before one of the prey runs away or maybe
15:27
Speaker 1: fights back. We'll call that the defense distance or plays dead.
15:31
Speaker 1: That's critical distance. And found out that there was just
15:35
Speaker 1: a lot of consistency among different individuals within a species,
15:39
Speaker 1: which a was interesting, but also created the definition of
15:43
Speaker 1: what a tame animal is, which is kind of cool.
15:45
Speaker 1: Which is a flight distance of zero when it comes
15:48
Speaker 1: to humans. So you can go up and pet, pet
15:51
Speaker 1: that thing, basically give it a scritch again, and and
15:54
Speaker 1: heinie hettagar um. You can kind of take him and
15:57
Speaker 1: set him to the side for a little bit. Because
15:59
Speaker 1: his findings really kind of come to pass in proxemics,
16:03
Speaker 1: which is the personal spaces most people understand it um,
16:07
Speaker 1: which eventually, you know, we'll talk about overlaps with pair
16:10
Speaker 1: of personal space, but but pair of personal spaces we
16:13
Speaker 1: understand it today was termed I think around and there's
16:18
Speaker 1: gonna be a lot of Chuck's Italian imitations because the Italians,
16:22
Speaker 1: really they did a lot of studying of para personal space.
16:26
Speaker 1: I don't know, I don't know, but they just they
16:29
Speaker 1: just are into that kind of thing. But from the
16:31
Speaker 1: seventies to the nineties there was a lot of sad
16:35
Speaker 1: monkey experiments. Um so said, I'm like, when are we
16:39
Speaker 1: going to stop doing that? We have to figure out
16:42
Speaker 1: a different way because it's just so ghastly if you
16:44
Speaker 1: stop and think about what they're doing through these poor monkeys. Um.
16:48
Speaker 1: But essentially what they figured out is, yeah, w R
16:51
Speaker 1: brain was right. Our brains basically say that's near, that's far,
16:56
Speaker 1: And yes, there's you know, variations on the theme, but
17:00
Speaker 1: essentially that's how we see the world. And the stuff
17:03
Speaker 1: that's near is the really hot action stuff because that's
17:07
Speaker 1: the stuff we can interact with. Right. But also there
17:11
Speaker 1: was an Italian UH neuro physiologist name do you say
17:16
Speaker 1: Giacomo or Jacomo? Oh? I don't know, I'm gonna say Giacomo, Okay,
17:22
Speaker 1: Giacomo riz A Latti um basically found out that as
17:27
Speaker 1: far as the neurons of this macaque monkey goes, and
17:31
Speaker 1: as sensibly humans obviously that's why they're studying these monkeys
17:35
Speaker 1: to begin with, uh, their neurons would fire if the
17:39
Speaker 1: monkey was touched, like literally touched on the skin, or
17:44
Speaker 1: the same thing would happen if a flash of light
17:46
Speaker 1: went off near its body. So it you know, we're
17:49
Speaker 1: talking about pair of personal space versus extra personal space.
17:53
Speaker 1: That was one of the two types that we didn't
17:55
Speaker 1: mention extra personalist out of your reach grasp, right, yes,
18:00
Speaker 1: So basically found out that certain neurons react to that
18:04
Speaker 1: extra personal space exclusively visually. But when it came to
18:09
Speaker 1: these pair of personal neurons, they were responding to both
18:12
Speaker 1: tactile or visual stimulus in the same way. Right, So
18:15
Speaker 1: as long as something was happening in this in this
18:19
Speaker 1: pair of personal space, that neuron could be stimulated by
18:23
Speaker 1: different kinds of input. Right. That's right, That's that's kinda
18:26
Speaker 1: that's gonna become big in a second. Um. There's another
18:29
Speaker 1: researcher named Michael Graziano, Chuck Graziana. Actually he's Americans, all bet,
18:36
Speaker 1: it's just Michael Graziano. UM. And he studied macaques too
18:40
Speaker 1: with electrical currents, and this one, this is the one
18:43
Speaker 1: that gets me. He implanted electrodes into these neurons that
18:47
Speaker 1: m Risolotti had discovered, UM, and said, what happens if
18:52
Speaker 1: I like stimulate this, And when he stimulated the neurons
18:56
Speaker 1: that were activated within the peri personal space, the monkeys
19:00
Speaker 1: would like flinch, they would like throw their hands up
19:03
Speaker 1: defensively in front of their faces. Um, they would they
19:07
Speaker 1: would respond like there was a predator that was about
19:10
Speaker 1: to attack them, like it had just invaded their pair
19:12
Speaker 1: of personal space, or as Henny Heideger would say, their
19:16
Speaker 1: um defense distance, right, yeah, which I mean that leads
19:20
Speaker 1: to the you know, that really backs up the whole
19:22
Speaker 1: original defense mechanism thing right exactly. Um that that that's
19:26
Speaker 1: probably what it evolved from. And then when he did
19:28
Speaker 1: the opposite, if he if he prevented those neurons for firing,
19:32
Speaker 1: he could get as close as you wanted and the
19:34
Speaker 1: monkey wouldn't flinch, essentially all right. And then nineties seven
19:37
Speaker 1: rise a lotty. I believe this is where the first
19:40
Speaker 1: sort of big book around this came out. He and
19:43
Speaker 1: his colleagues put out a book called The Space Around Us,
19:46
Speaker 1: where they basically gathered up, you know, a couple of
19:48
Speaker 1: decades worth of research and said here's what we've got
19:51
Speaker 1: so far. Right. One of the big things that they
19:54
Speaker 1: said in that was that, hey, what we thought before
19:57
Speaker 1: is that there's all this different sensories information coming in
20:01
Speaker 1: tactile information audio, visual, all that stuff, and the brain
20:05
Speaker 1: is kind of bringing it all together and analyzing it
20:08
Speaker 1: and then telling the motor nerves what to do to respond.
20:12
Speaker 1: That's not right. It turns out that there are neurons
20:16
Speaker 1: that can be stimulated by by visual input, by tactile input,
20:21
Speaker 1: by audio input, the same neuron it will respond. The
20:25
Speaker 1: point isn't what kind of stimulus it is, it's where
20:29
Speaker 1: it's happening. So like, if something's happening in the pair
20:32
Speaker 1: of personal space, a neuron that's responsible for the pair
20:35
Speaker 1: of personal space around your right elbow, if you see
20:39
Speaker 1: something around your right elbow coming at it, like an arrow,
20:43
Speaker 1: or if an arrow is actually touching now your elbow,
20:47
Speaker 1: that same neuron is going to fire in just the
20:50
Speaker 1: same way. Um. That that was a big thing. It's
20:53
Speaker 1: not stimulus specific, it's location specific. And so that kind
20:57
Speaker 1: of changed our entire understanding of how the brain kind
21:01
Speaker 1: of processes all this stuff. It's it's um Rather than
21:04
Speaker 1: redundancy having all these different regions taking in stuff and
21:07
Speaker 1: then I put it together, it's you know, specific neurons
21:11
Speaker 1: are are dedicated to specific regions no matter how that
21:15
Speaker 1: that sensory input is coming in well, and even in
21:18
Speaker 1: the cool little Cherry on this Sunday was they also
21:21
Speaker 1: found out that it's not just where something is located,
21:24
Speaker 1: but their neurons start firing on, you know, if it's
21:28
Speaker 1: a bow and arrow or a rake, or a club
21:30
Speaker 1: or a baseball bat or a coffee cup. Your your
21:34
Speaker 1: brains fires on like how you're going to physically engage
21:37
Speaker 1: with that thing because of its locate, you know, and
21:40
Speaker 1: and coordination with its physical location. So that comes up
21:45
Speaker 1: a little bit later at the end with the mirror
21:47
Speaker 1: neurons experiment. Uh, and maybe we'll just say that that
21:51
Speaker 1: will be a nice little teaser, Okay. Cool. Another thing
21:55
Speaker 1: that they figured out to um, I'm not sure what
21:58
Speaker 1: the year was, but Andreas Areno at the MySpace Lab
22:03
Speaker 1: pretty great name. Um. She found out that the size
22:06
Speaker 1: of your PPS varies depending on what part of the
22:10
Speaker 1: body is being studied. So, um, it's different sizes around
22:13
Speaker 1: that your torso or your face or your hands. And
22:17
Speaker 1: what I found just monumentally astounding, Chuck, is that the
22:22
Speaker 1: size of your PPS altars size and shape. I believe
22:26
Speaker 1: as you bring one PPS area into another PPS area,
22:31
Speaker 1: so like your face comes up or your hand comes
22:34
Speaker 1: to touch your face, and they think that this is
22:36
Speaker 1: to prevent your hand from getting captured by your PPS,
22:42
Speaker 1: your faces pair of personal space, and then who knows
22:46
Speaker 1: what sort of crazy cognitive sensation that would create. So
22:49
Speaker 1: you actually there's a mechanism to prevent that from happening,
22:52
Speaker 1: to prevent your hands PPS from merging accidentally with your
22:56
Speaker 1: faces PPS. Right. But one thing that they kind of
23:00
Speaker 1: got wrong that they realized later on, and I think, Uh,
23:04
Speaker 1: this paper came out just a few years ago. In
23:08
Speaker 1: was that Uh, And I believe let's shout out who
23:12
Speaker 1: it was researchers Rory Uh, Buffacci, Man, what is going
23:16
Speaker 1: on here? I love it? Rory doesn't doesn't make you do?
23:21
Speaker 1: You're not expecting Buffon, Rory J. Buffacci and gian Domenico Ionetti. Um.
23:30
Speaker 1: They put forth the argument that it's like, it's not
23:32
Speaker 1: like a switch though it's a it's a sort of
23:33
Speaker 1: like a a gradient range basically based on the distance
23:38
Speaker 1: something is from you. So it's not like is it
23:41
Speaker 1: within my grasping distance or is it not? Neurons can
23:44
Speaker 1: fire if it like it might be like if they
23:47
Speaker 1: move something a little bit closer, the way your neurons
23:50
Speaker 1: fire change. Yeah, They've also found that it depends on
23:54
Speaker 1: if the thing is moving or if it's stationary, and
23:58
Speaker 1: if it's moving, isn't moving towards you as am moving away?
24:00
Speaker 1: Like there are a lot of nuance to it, rather
24:03
Speaker 1: than it's either in my extra personal space or it's
24:05
Speaker 1: in my pair of personal space, which was kind of
24:07
Speaker 1: like the the general model for years or finding like, no,
24:10
Speaker 1: it's it's much more nuanced than that. Um So, Chuck,
24:15
Speaker 1: I we just realized off camera, off Mike, we have
24:22
Speaker 1: not we haven't taken a break yet. Now. See this
24:25
Speaker 1: is so fascinating. It's like we're having a good old
24:27
Speaker 1: fashioned conversation. Okay, well, let's let's take that break now
24:30
Speaker 1: then and come back. Okay, yeah, like people do in
24:32
Speaker 1: good old fashioned conversations. All right, so we're back. Uh.
25:04
Speaker 1: I know everyone else takes add breaks when they have
25:06
Speaker 1: great conversations with people. So that's what we did. Sure,
25:11
Speaker 1: Uh where are we now? We are? We had tools?
25:13
Speaker 1: Can we talk about tools? Yeah? This is where it
25:16
Speaker 1: really starts to get mind blowing. Yeah, this is super
25:19
Speaker 1: cool because not only does your pair of personal space
25:23
Speaker 1: change automatically if you wear a tin gallon hat, but
25:27
Speaker 1: your pair of personal space will change according to what
25:30
Speaker 1: kind of tool you're using. Yeah, and this is sort
25:33
Speaker 1: of what I was talking about with Took. Took all
25:36
Speaker 1: of a sudden has a as a four ft club
25:39
Speaker 1: in his hand, and he now knows that that uh,
25:43
Speaker 1: that animal he wants to kill or that person coming
25:45
Speaker 1: at him, that the neurons are firing basically as if
25:49
Speaker 1: his arm is three and a half feet longer. Yes,
25:53
Speaker 1: it includes that. And this I think is just like
25:57
Speaker 1: if you just think about the development of weapons over
25:59
Speaker 1: the years, you and weapons, I think, well, I mean
26:02
Speaker 1: some of this stuff was actually in our book on
26:05
Speaker 1: the chapter on the first gun, but it really I
26:08
Speaker 1: don't know, it never occurred to me that all weapons
26:10
Speaker 1: development since the beginning of time has just been to
26:14
Speaker 1: get further and further away from your enemy. Oh yeah,
26:17
Speaker 1: that's a good point. Like you have a club that
26:18
Speaker 1: you can hit some with or a sword, and then
26:21
Speaker 1: you're backing up a little bit more and your pair
26:23
Speaker 1: of personal space is automatically reading this in. But I'm
26:27
Speaker 1: curious about like when you start shooting arrows and then
26:30
Speaker 1: guns and then eventually long range missiles, like neurologically speaking,
26:35
Speaker 1: what that does you know? Right? Um? But also with tools,
26:40
Speaker 1: not just weapons, but any like the fact that you
26:42
Speaker 1: can use a screwdriver, um or hit a baseball with
26:46
Speaker 1: a bat. It's not about sometimes I'm like co on,
26:50
Speaker 1: let's chill out, Chuck, let's get a more Richard scary
26:52
Speaker 1: than actually scary. Um. So. Uh. The fact that you
26:56
Speaker 1: can use a screwdriver is not because your hand is
26:59
Speaker 1: pres cisely guiding that screwdriver. It seems to be because
27:04
Speaker 1: the pair of personal space of your hand is now
27:07
Speaker 1: being extended to the tip of that screwdriver. So it's
27:09
Speaker 1: almost like if you could turn screws with your finger.
27:13
Speaker 1: You're doing something very similar as far as your neurons
27:16
Speaker 1: are concerned, because they've now adopted the screwdriver as part
27:19
Speaker 1: of your hand and extended your pair of personal space
27:22
Speaker 1: around it. So your body schema has now adjusted and
27:25
Speaker 1: you look like you have an extra finger that's really
27:27
Speaker 1: thin and really long. Uh. There's a really cool study
27:31
Speaker 1: again in Italy. Uh in two thousand, uh Anna Berti
27:36
Speaker 1: and Francisa Fressinetti looked at a woman who had a
27:40
Speaker 1: stroke on the right hemisphere of her brain and they
27:44
Speaker 1: did these experiments to you know, these near and far
27:47
Speaker 1: space experiments to see how her neurons fired when like
27:52
Speaker 1: reaching for something with a hand or reaching for something
27:56
Speaker 1: not really reaching, but using a laser pointer to you know,
28:00
Speaker 1: extend your extra personal space really far out there. Uh.
28:04
Speaker 1: And I believe when she was asked to find the
28:06
Speaker 1: midpoint of a line within her pair of personal space,
28:09
Speaker 1: like with her finger, maybe she put the mark really
28:13
Speaker 1: far to the right because the right hemisphere of her
28:16
Speaker 1: brain had been damaged through the stroke. She was asked
28:19
Speaker 1: to do the same thing with this laser and she
28:22
Speaker 1: did a really much better job. And then they gave
28:25
Speaker 1: her a stick, And I believe that she used the
28:28
Speaker 1: stick and did uh, worse than the laser, right, but
28:33
Speaker 1: better than her finger. Yeah, because her brain didn't adopt
28:37
Speaker 1: the laser dot as part of her body schema, but
28:41
Speaker 1: it did adopt the stick, so constantly remapping basically. Yeah.
28:45
Speaker 1: But it also showed that the brain treats these two
28:48
Speaker 1: places very much differently that they're they're they're not the
28:52
Speaker 1: same as far as the brain is concerned. And it
28:54
Speaker 1: also showed that when you use a stick over a
28:57
Speaker 1: laser point in your brain is treating that stick like
29:00
Speaker 1: a tool. It was just really good early evidence that, Yeah,
29:03
Speaker 1: we definitely change our body scheme and to adopt tools
29:05
Speaker 1: when we use them. Yeah, and it sort of made
29:08
Speaker 1: me think about along with this next study, this was
29:10
Speaker 1: UM not in Italy actually, this is in Japan around
29:14
Speaker 1: two thousand, where they took monkeys again and they gave
29:18
Speaker 1: them rakes, uh to see if they would treat a
29:20
Speaker 1: rake like an extension of their body neurologically speaking, and
29:24
Speaker 1: they did. They could get food that was you know,
29:27
Speaker 1: further away just using that rake, but they also were
29:30
Speaker 1: able to use a video monitor. These monkeys would to
29:34
Speaker 1: see an area where there would be food that they
29:38
Speaker 1: couldn't see without looking at the video monitor, and they
29:41
Speaker 1: looked at this monitor basically to see where this food
29:44
Speaker 1: was hidden. And they still use this rake as an extension.
29:48
Speaker 1: Like it made me think of sort of like a
29:50
Speaker 1: surgeon using robotics basically the same thing must be happening
29:55
Speaker 1: in their brain when they're looking at a video screen
29:58
Speaker 1: and operating an extension of their you know, scalpel. Yeah.
30:02
Speaker 1: I think more more recent tests UM using virtual reality
30:06
Speaker 1: headsets have found like that. Yeah, you like, that's exactly
30:09
Speaker 1: what's going on your You can adopt something on a
30:12
Speaker 1: video screen your brain can and be like this is
30:14
Speaker 1: what this is part of my body schema for the moment.
30:17
Speaker 1: And what I thought was even more interesting, or at
30:20
Speaker 1: least as interesting, is that the same researchers found that, um,
30:24
Speaker 1: when the monkeys were just holding the rake, their their
30:28
Speaker 1: pair of personal space just shrunk back down to normal.
30:31
Speaker 1: But when they were yes and if they were using
30:34
Speaker 1: as a tool, then the pair of personal space extended
30:37
Speaker 1: around it. So it has to do with like what
30:39
Speaker 1: I can't remember. One of the researchers was saying, like,
30:41
Speaker 1: we interact with the world and objects, and we retreat
30:44
Speaker 1: objects based on what we can or can't or plan
30:47
Speaker 1: to do with those things when we interact with them
30:50
Speaker 1: in pair of personal space. And all of that, by
30:53
Speaker 1: the way, was in Japanese researchers at Sushi Riki's lab
31:00
Speaker 1: with an Italian flare. It's got to be for this episode.
31:04
Speaker 1: The same thing happens. Like when you're in a car,
31:06
Speaker 1: if you're driving a small car as opposed to driving
31:09
Speaker 1: like a big box truck, your your neurons are gonna
31:12
Speaker 1: fire differently because you know, you know, you're constantly trying
31:15
Speaker 1: to figure out if you can squeeze in through a
31:18
Speaker 1: space with a larger vehicle. Dude, the very fact that
31:22
Speaker 1: we can drive a car is because of a pair
31:25
Speaker 1: of personal space. Can you imagine like we could conceivably
31:28
Speaker 1: still drive, um it just knowing like if I turned
31:32
Speaker 1: the wheel this way or turn them um, But it
31:35
Speaker 1: would be the most harrowing experience. No one would drive.
31:38
Speaker 1: It would be so scary to drive because we we
31:43
Speaker 1: the reason why it's not as scary as we have.
31:46
Speaker 1: We've extended our pair of personal space to our car. Now.
31:49
Speaker 1: It's nuts what our brains are willing to do when
31:52
Speaker 1: we throw technology at them. Well, and you know I've
31:55
Speaker 1: mentioned before when I drove in Australia opposite z steering wheel,
31:59
Speaker 1: opposite side of the road, I had to really concentrate,
32:04
Speaker 1: very very hard because you were so wired to just
32:07
Speaker 1: being in a car and driving and making turns in
32:10
Speaker 1: a certain way. Uh. It really shook shook me up.
32:14
Speaker 1: And I think stimulated. Uh I say stimulated me And
32:18
Speaker 1: it sounds dirty all of a sudden, I'm driving around
32:21
Speaker 1: Australia in a in an excited state, but that was
32:25
Speaker 1: but it stimulated my brain. I just felt more. I
32:28
Speaker 1: felt so alive. Yeah with you, Yeah, because you zone
32:32
Speaker 1: out so easily when you drive. Sometimes when you're just
32:34
Speaker 1: taking off for granted driven that yeah, it is dangerous. Um.
32:39
Speaker 1: There was one other thing I saw that I thought
32:40
Speaker 1: was just astounding about this. Um. It seems that your
32:44
Speaker 1: pair of personal space can basically merge with another person's
32:48
Speaker 1: under certain conditions to where you're doing, um, synchronized motions
32:53
Speaker 1: and movements that require coming into contact with one another,
32:56
Speaker 1: like synchronoz swimming. Let's say no, no, because you're not
33:00
Speaker 1: actually touching. This would be more like a bucket brigade,
33:03
Speaker 1: or if you're doing a baton run and you're handing
33:06
Speaker 1: off a baton at that moment when the baton is
33:09
Speaker 1: being passed, that it's being manipulated. It's a part of
33:13
Speaker 1: two different people's pair of personal space at the same time,
33:16
Speaker 1: so you are connected to that person via a pair
33:19
Speaker 1: of personal space through the baton. Are you do people
33:22
Speaker 1: touch in senor nice swimming? I don't think I think
33:25
Speaker 1: you get disqualified for that. It's frowned on. Oh no,
33:28
Speaker 1: I thought you're saying they did touch. No, no, I'm
33:31
Speaker 1: saying not not synchronized swimming because they don't touch. Okay,
33:35
Speaker 1: Oh man, I'm just confused now. Do they touch or not.
33:38
Speaker 1: They do not talk. They just swim around near each
33:40
Speaker 1: other in the same pattern. Right. Although I have a
33:43
Speaker 1: great story, Um, it's not synchronized swimming. But I was
33:45
Speaker 1: on a swimming team when I was a younger kid,
33:48
Speaker 1: and I was terrible, terrible. I now realized that the
33:51
Speaker 1: coaches put me in just for fun, just just to
33:54
Speaker 1: get their their kicks watching me swim terribly. And um,
33:58
Speaker 1: one of the reasons why I know that is because
33:59
Speaker 1: they put me in a backstroke and I was the
34:01
Speaker 1: worst backstroke swimmer ever. Um, because I would cross at
34:06
Speaker 1: least one lane if not to and bump into another
34:10
Speaker 1: swimmer and we'd both be so surprised we'd stop and
34:13
Speaker 1: stand up, and I would accidentally disqualify both of us
34:16
Speaker 1: because if you stand up in the pool, if your
34:17
Speaker 1: feet touch the bottom, you're disqualified. So that was in
34:22
Speaker 1: that case. It wasn't synchronized swimming, but we were touching.
34:26
Speaker 1: Young Josh being like, why would anyone swim backwards so
34:31
Speaker 1: dumb you can't see anything. Just let me do the breaststroke.
34:35
Speaker 1: I can do that. Or you developed the first backstroke
34:38
Speaker 1: rear view mirror that just like sits on your chest Uh,
34:44
Speaker 1: so maybe we should talk a little bit about some
34:46
Speaker 1: of the other cool findings, like uh they have found that, um,
34:52
Speaker 1: it's not just tools, but like anxiety and your mood
34:56
Speaker 1: can change your pair of personal space whether or not
35:00
Speaker 1: you're interacting with someone from a different culture can uh.
35:04
Speaker 1: They have found that, you know, if if you're interacting
35:07
Speaker 1: with someone from a different culture, generally, UM you might
35:11
Speaker 1: not feel as comfortable with them being close to you
35:13
Speaker 1: as you would someone from your own culture, which explains
35:16
Speaker 1: a lot. It definitely does. UM. They also found that
35:20
Speaker 1: spinal injuries can reduce the size of the um pps
35:24
Speaker 1: if the person is lost the ability to control their
35:27
Speaker 1: limb um and they you can actually simulate this if
35:30
Speaker 1: you have ten hours to kill UM. You can just
35:34
Speaker 1: keep your leg immobilized for ten hours and it will
35:37
Speaker 1: temporarily shrink your personal space around your leg because your
35:41
Speaker 1: brain is basically like, oh, I guess that legs not
35:45
Speaker 1: in use any longer. Yeah, well, if you're pregnant, you're
35:49
Speaker 1: gonna grow that PPS because all of a sudden you
35:53
Speaker 1: have a a basketball under your shirt. So it's you know,
35:58
Speaker 1: people think that was obviously probably in a luctionary um
36:01
Speaker 1: protection measure to protect that baby in the belly. People
36:06
Speaker 1: take a wider berth around people they deem important or
36:11
Speaker 1: high status or celebrity or famous or whatever. Uh. And
36:15
Speaker 1: it's not them saying, hey, I need space. It's it's
36:18
Speaker 1: you regarding their status and instinctively not going as close
36:24
Speaker 1: to them. No, that's true, but you're increasing your space. Um,
36:31
Speaker 1: because you're I guess, kind of anxious around them. Yeah,
36:34
Speaker 1: it's very interesting. Um, one that I saw that explains
36:37
Speaker 1: a lot. I hadn't really thought about it. Um, it's claustrophobia.
36:42
Speaker 1: People who have claustrophobia have bigger pair of personal spaces.
36:45
Speaker 1: So it's like, if you're stuffed into a like a
36:48
Speaker 1: I don't know, drainage culvert or something that's narrower than
36:53
Speaker 1: your pair of personal spaces by a lot, you could
36:56
Speaker 1: have claustrophobia. I think that's fascinating. Or I'll give you
37:00
Speaker 1: a different example. If you're kidnapped and put into a
37:03
Speaker 1: coffin and buried alive, you may feel claustrophobic because your
37:06
Speaker 1: pair of personal spaces being violated. We uh got pivoted
37:11
Speaker 1: away from Florida because of the hurricane for fall break,
37:14
Speaker 1: and so we went to last minute trip to Chattanooga, Tennessee.
37:18
Speaker 1: And this sort of stuff is all in play if
37:21
Speaker 1: you're doing Rock City and Ruby Falls, because in Ruby
37:25
Speaker 1: Falls you're either ducking or avoiding things, or in Rock
37:29
Speaker 1: City there are quite a few places where you're squeezing
37:32
Speaker 1: through tight areas, uh and also ducking. So I wish
37:36
Speaker 1: i'd I mean, it's not like I was running into
37:38
Speaker 1: things because I have my neurons are working fine. But um,
37:42
Speaker 1: if you have claustrophobia, imagine you have a hard time
37:44
Speaker 1: with places like that, or any sort of neurological condition
37:48
Speaker 1: that affects your PPS, than those places are not gonna
37:52
Speaker 1: be great for you. Yeah, we had a good talk, man. Yeah,
37:55
Speaker 1: I was gonna say there aren't that many roadside attractions
37:58
Speaker 1: from the thirties that still hold up to day, but
38:00
Speaker 1: those two definitely do. Both very cool. Um, Chuck, I
38:04
Speaker 1: say that we take a break and come back and
38:06
Speaker 1: talk about personal space as most people understand it. How
38:09
Speaker 1: about that let's do it so like I was saying
38:39
Speaker 1: personal spaces as most people think of it, as like, Um,
38:42
Speaker 1: you're making me a little nervous, you're a little close
38:44
Speaker 1: talking to me or whatever. Who wasn't judge Reinhold the
38:48
Speaker 1: close talker and signfld um. That's called prox semics, and
38:52
Speaker 1: that got its name from an anthropologist, actually, a guy
38:55
Speaker 1: named Edward Hall back in ninety six. And I don't
38:58
Speaker 1: know if he adapted Heinie heddagers um distances that he
39:03
Speaker 1: came up with for animals or if it was just
39:06
Speaker 1: like he made the same observations and came up with
39:09
Speaker 1: different labels, but he basically replicated headagers thing for the
39:14
Speaker 1: swing in sixties instead. Yeah, and you know, when it
39:17
Speaker 1: comes to proximics in personal space, obviously all of this
39:22
Speaker 1: depends on who it is. Like they don't do studies
39:25
Speaker 1: on like if your if your boyfriend or girlfriend walks
39:28
Speaker 1: into the room, like you know, all those rules are
39:31
Speaker 1: kind of thrown out the window. They're talking about like,
39:33
Speaker 1: you know, strangers who don't know each other generally. And
39:36
Speaker 1: the way they might research this is having a participant
39:41
Speaker 1: like stand there and have a um, you know, control
39:45
Speaker 1: walk into the room and say, hey, you just tell
39:48
Speaker 1: me when to stop, like right when you start feeling
39:52
Speaker 1: uncomfortable to how close I am, tell me when to stop,
39:55
Speaker 1: shout stop stop, Which this is gonna very wildly among people,
39:59
Speaker 1: I think, uh in general, but I think they did
40:03
Speaker 1: find some commonalities among cultures when it comes to comfort distances. Uh,
40:10
Speaker 1: they're they're like I said, some people are gonna have
40:13
Speaker 1: their own uh uh like really good reasons, personal hang ups. Uh,
40:18
Speaker 1: some people have neurological conditions that are gonna kind of
40:21
Speaker 1: factor in. But if you're just generally talking about a
40:24
Speaker 1: person and a culture, they have found that. Weirdly, I
40:28
Speaker 1: was surprised that Americans are about average with um, what
40:33
Speaker 1: do they call it, like average physical proximity. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
40:37
Speaker 1: We're we're a little more than average ly comfortable with
40:41
Speaker 1: that kind of that. Just it feels like Americans are
40:43
Speaker 1: more prone than other cultures to be like, hey, like
40:47
Speaker 1: do you mind backing off a little bit? Yeah, But
40:50
Speaker 1: it makes sense. And there was a guy um who
40:53
Speaker 1: suggested I think it actually might have been Edward Hall
40:56
Speaker 1: who suggested that, um, different cities in different countries are
41:00
Speaker 1: laid out differently based on the personal space that that
41:04
Speaker 1: culture has, And it would make sense. In America, we're
41:07
Speaker 1: all about wide open spaces and don't fence me in
41:11
Speaker 1: and all that stuff. So I could totally see that
41:14
Speaker 1: being you know, American compared to like a European city
41:17
Speaker 1: where buildings are just built on top of buildings. There's
41:19
Speaker 1: little narrow alleyways that lead to charming bookshops and stuff
41:23
Speaker 1: like that. I I could see that totally based on
41:26
Speaker 1: personal space, that that culture values without anyone having any
41:31
Speaker 1: idea that's what's doing. Yeah, And I had to you know,
41:34
Speaker 1: I value my personal space and I had when I
41:36
Speaker 1: lived in l A. I had to reckon with um
41:39
Speaker 1: realizing that like, hey, in a town like Los Angeles,
41:42
Speaker 1: a melting pot like that, people are coming from all
41:45
Speaker 1: over the world and you're gonna be shopping, uh in
41:49
Speaker 1: close proximity to them and rubbing elbows and there lived
41:53
Speaker 1: experienced wherever they came from. It's different than your bub
41:58
Speaker 1: and so like you can't you know, if if someone
42:02
Speaker 1: grew up in India and uh, like I'm trying to
42:05
Speaker 1: picture like a really crowded bazare or something where people
42:10
Speaker 1: are like packed in and trying to order things like,
42:13
Speaker 1: that's a whole different experience than growing up in the
42:15
Speaker 1: Southeast in a in a big, huge grocery store. And
42:20
Speaker 1: so if someone creeps up on you a little bit,
42:22
Speaker 1: you gotta keep that in mind as an American, and
42:25
Speaker 1: I can see you laying there thinking that with your
42:28
Speaker 1: elbows out to the side, your hands behind your head,
42:31
Speaker 1: and then your brain says, Okay, now get up and
42:33
Speaker 1: go squeeze some orange shoes because it's gonna be a
42:36
Speaker 1: beautiful day. I did have a little bit of I
42:39
Speaker 1: try to be understanding, but I got a little salty
42:40
Speaker 1: a couple of times in chatt a new personal space
42:43
Speaker 1: really well. But the little statue elves my personal philosophy
42:48
Speaker 1: is is if I can't like reach behind myself and
42:51
Speaker 1: get like my wallet out of my pocket without elbowing someone, sure,
42:55
Speaker 1: that's way too close. Then you're too close. Especially in
42:58
Speaker 1: these days, that person is used an r F I
43:01
Speaker 1: D skimmer on you if they're that close to your wallet.
43:04
Speaker 1: Also had a kid behind me that was doing that,
43:07
Speaker 1: like let's let's kick the guy's feet when he walks
43:10
Speaker 1: and laugh about it with his brother, and I was like,
43:12
Speaker 1: all right, they were kicking your feet. Yeah, yeah, one
43:16
Speaker 1: of the kids was kicking his feet and I heard
43:17
Speaker 1: him laughing to his brother and I was like, all right,
43:20
Speaker 1: just stay cool, chuck. This is a kid. Your kid
43:23
Speaker 1: annoys people too. And then the mom I didn't even
43:26
Speaker 1: have to like give a dirty look. The mom was
43:29
Speaker 1: on it and was like, you need to back off
43:31
Speaker 1: of that guy, and I was like, oh, it's fine,
43:34
Speaker 1: but yeah, right, Oh, I hadn't even noticed anyway, A
43:39
Speaker 1: long way of saying that people come from different cultures
43:42
Speaker 1: where they have different levels of comfort with what Edward
43:45
Speaker 1: Hall called um intimate distance, which is hugging which is great,
43:52
Speaker 1: or whispering in someone's ear, which is the worst possible thing,
43:55
Speaker 1: putting your tongue in someone's here, Uh, that could be nice.
43:59
Speaker 1: Um personal distance, which is comfortable with close friends but
44:03
Speaker 1: not acquaintances. Social distance, which is like the water cooler
44:06
Speaker 1: chat six ft, yes, six ft, or what they call
44:09
Speaker 1: public distance, what he called public distance, and that's I
44:13
Speaker 1: guess when you're like on a stage projecting and guesturing
44:17
Speaker 1: largely and stuff like that. Yes, And it really does
44:20
Speaker 1: remarkably resemble Heinie Hettagar's um separation of zones for for
44:26
Speaker 1: animals species and that makes sense because we're still animals too,
44:31
Speaker 1: And so it seems like what the differences between personal
44:35
Speaker 1: space and para personal space and physically they overlap a lot,
44:40
Speaker 1: is that And this is just me editorializing, but I
44:43
Speaker 1: think personal space is that original defensive zone that evolved
44:48
Speaker 1: that animals have that Heinie Hettagar turned up, um, that
44:53
Speaker 1: we still have again because we're animals, and that para
44:55
Speaker 1: personal space is that acceptation that came out of that
45:00
Speaker 1: personal space defensive zone and and that allows us to
45:03
Speaker 1: interact with the environment and all sorts of new and
45:05
Speaker 1: amazing and interesting ways. Yeah. I like that. Physically they
45:10
Speaker 1: occupy the same space, but mentally, um, neurologically they're they're distinct. Yeah.
45:18
Speaker 1: Super fascinating. Uh, I guess we can finish up on
45:21
Speaker 1: the return of mirror neurons. Yeah, totally very excited. I
45:24
Speaker 1: feel like we used to talk about mirror neurons a lot,
45:28
Speaker 1: but we had I believe, a complete episode on them, right,
45:32
Speaker 1: and then talked about them a lot. But it's sort
45:34
Speaker 1: of the idea and this is a reductive way of
45:36
Speaker 1: looking at it, But like seeing a football player break
45:40
Speaker 1: their leg on the TV screen might send a weird
45:45
Speaker 1: pain sensation through your own leg or but it's the
45:49
Speaker 1: opposite side, and that what they figured out. I don't know,
45:53
Speaker 1: I'm not sure, but who was it? Willis mcgahey, Uh,
45:58
Speaker 1: the Miami Hurricane guy who's knee all the way backwards.
46:01
Speaker 1: So I don't know. I was thinking thisman, there's been
46:03
Speaker 1: so many bad sort of incidences over the year, But
46:07
Speaker 1: this is the idea that you're these are mirror neurons
46:10
Speaker 1: and they're picking up what has happened to someone else
46:13
Speaker 1: and like literally physically affecting you in your body. Yeah.
46:18
Speaker 1: And one of the reasons that this would relate to
46:21
Speaker 1: pair of personal spaces, they think that mirror neurons help
46:23
Speaker 1: us basically create a mental construct of what we're going
46:30
Speaker 1: to do with our body with our hands by watching
46:34
Speaker 1: someone else doing it. And they say, well, this is
46:37
Speaker 1: obviously how like stone toolmaking was passed down from generation
46:40
Speaker 1: to generation because we had the ability to watch someone
46:44
Speaker 1: else do something and then do it ourselves because of
46:47
Speaker 1: this body schema and um mirror neurons, which are probably
46:52
Speaker 1: very much inter related to the point where mirror neurons
46:56
Speaker 1: and the pair of personal space or body schema neurons
46:59
Speaker 1: are one and the same in some cases. Yeah. And
47:02
Speaker 1: they did a study again with the monkeys. Uh, and
47:05
Speaker 1: this had to do with kind of what I mentioned
47:06
Speaker 1: at the beginning about whether or not you're going to
47:09
Speaker 1: interact with something, where they watched monkeys watching a human
47:14
Speaker 1: grab an object. So the monkeys just watching a person like,
47:18
Speaker 1: let's they grab an apple, and about a quarter of
47:20
Speaker 1: the mirror neurons and these monkeys fired more rapidly if
47:25
Speaker 1: the person grabbing the apple was just simply closer to
47:28
Speaker 1: the monkey. So, in other words, all of a sudden,
47:31
Speaker 1: the monkey says, all right, I might have be interacting
47:34
Speaker 1: with this thing. So different neurons are lighting up. And
47:38
Speaker 1: when they put up a barrier, and it was a
47:40
Speaker 1: clear barrier, this is what confused me a little bit.
47:44
Speaker 1: They put up a clear barrier between the person and
47:46
Speaker 1: the monkey, and it actually did reduce those neurons lighting
47:50
Speaker 1: up just because there was a barrier there. But it
47:53
Speaker 1: was was the monkey, I guess aware of the barrier.
47:56
Speaker 1: It had to be yeah, okay, yeah, but it could
47:58
Speaker 1: still see what they was doing. But it had shut
48:02
Speaker 1: down the possibility to the monkey's brain that it would
48:04
Speaker 1: be interacting with the apple. So a different, a different
48:08
Speaker 1: experience happened in the monkey's brain because it wasn't trying
48:11
Speaker 1: to interact with it wasn't going to interact with the apple.
48:14
Speaker 1: Super cool, very cool, me too, man, pair of personal space.
48:19
Speaker 1: I'm glad we did one on it. Um, you got
48:21
Speaker 1: anything else right now? No, just if you see me out,
48:25
Speaker 1: give me a little room. Yeah, for sure. Don't kick
48:28
Speaker 1: Chuck's feet. It's weird though, because I do like a
48:30
Speaker 1: good hug, but like someone whispering to me, and I
48:34
Speaker 1: think I have like childhood triggers for that for certain
48:36
Speaker 1: reasons I won't get into. But like anybody whispering and
48:40
Speaker 1: my daughter whispering in my ear, I just can't handle.
48:43
Speaker 1: I cannot handle a whisper in my ear. I'm not
48:46
Speaker 1: sure I knew that. Man. Well, I don't mind your whisper.
48:49
Speaker 1: You're kind of the only one. Okay, how's gonna say?
48:51
Speaker 1: I feel like the sweet Nothings really do it for me. Yeah,
48:57
Speaker 1: that Harvey's bombing episode was so good. Job. See, I
49:00
Speaker 1: don't mind hearing a whisper. It's got to be in
49:02
Speaker 1: my ear. Yeah, I understand that. I mean probably because
49:06
Speaker 1: it's not just um audio, it's tactile to the air
49:09
Speaker 1: pushing on your ear drum. Because I don't think we
49:12
Speaker 1: mentioned the final fourth type of space. Uh what was
49:18
Speaker 1: it called? That? Just something close to your skin paracutaneous
49:22
Speaker 1: paracutaneous space, Yes, where that sets off a whole different
49:27
Speaker 1: set of neurons. They think too. That's kind of like
49:29
Speaker 1: the new leading edge of this um and that reminds me, Chuck,
49:33
Speaker 1: I cannot find this essay to save my life. But
49:36
Speaker 1: it was by a philosopher, and he was basically saying, like,
49:39
Speaker 1: where do you and and the rest of the world begin,
49:45
Speaker 1: And obviously most people say your skin, but then he
49:47
Speaker 1: pointed out that there's molecular exchange. There's gas exchange through
49:52
Speaker 1: your skin, so at a point where like a air
49:55
Speaker 1: molecules moving into your body through your skin, Like, is
49:59
Speaker 1: there really any true barrier between you and the outside world.
50:03
Speaker 1: It just jogged my memory when when they were talking
50:05
Speaker 1: about paracutaneous space, and I was like, I wish I
50:08
Speaker 1: could find the essay. It was one of the cooler
50:09
Speaker 1: things I've ever read, or that cool uh thing you
50:13
Speaker 1: can do, like when you close your eyes and you
50:15
Speaker 1: can feel when someone's hand gets close to your face. Yeah,
50:19
Speaker 1: you know, yeah, because they said it's not it's not
50:22
Speaker 1: you don't have to be touching. It can be up
50:25
Speaker 1: to like five centimeters away, and that paracutaneous space is
50:28
Speaker 1: still going to give your your brain information. It's our energy,
50:32
Speaker 1: bro it is man, Chakra, do you got anything else?
50:37
Speaker 1: I got nothing else. I wish we could just talk
50:40
Speaker 1: about this stuff all day. It's good stuff, I agree,
50:44
Speaker 1: and I think everybody listening agrees. And since Chuck said
50:47
Speaker 1: good stuff, that means it's time for a listener. Man.
50:52
Speaker 1: But if you're like, you know, after we record, we
50:54
Speaker 1: can just keep chatting about it, that's okay. I'm not
50:57
Speaker 1: doing anything else. I gotta ticket nap you all right.
51:01
Speaker 1: I'm gonna call this license plate funny boy. You never
51:06
Speaker 1: know with this show what people are gonna respond to. Yeah,
51:10
Speaker 1: I know that one got so much license plates just
51:13
Speaker 1: people loved it. It was really we got a lot
51:15
Speaker 1: of email about it. I think the ubiquity of some
51:18
Speaker 1: of these lend itself to that. But here we go.
51:21
Speaker 1: I love the episode of license Plate Guys, despite what
51:24
Speaker 1: Josh predicted at the beginning, because I think you said
51:27
Speaker 1: it was gonna be boring or something. How wrong I did. Sorry.
51:30
Speaker 1: I was surprised that you hadn't come across the lists
51:33
Speaker 1: of rejected vanity plates that you can find for different states.
51:36
Speaker 1: I'm seventeen, and when I got my license about a
51:39
Speaker 1: year ago, these state kept lists of vanity license plates.
51:42
Speaker 1: Were almost legend in our driver's head. I don't know
51:46
Speaker 1: if Georgia keeps track, but Utah Shirt does. It's still
51:50
Speaker 1: very fun to delight in your inner six year old
51:52
Speaker 1: when you're reading these. My personal favorites are lilt toot
51:58
Speaker 1: poops with a Z and I can't believe this one.
52:03
Speaker 1: I know, I guess these are rejected huh uh I'm farting.
52:08
Speaker 1: Someone actually wanted a license weight that said I'm farting.
52:14
Speaker 1: I like that. I would love to see that in
52:15
Speaker 1: real life. I would too, highly recommend you try and
52:18
Speaker 1: find the list for Georgia guys. The ones that aren't
52:20
Speaker 1: like super racists are pretty fun to read through. Much
52:24
Speaker 1: love from Elijah uh he him from Probo Utah awesome, Elijah,
52:30
Speaker 1: that's really cool. Thank you for that. We totally didn't
52:33
Speaker 1: run across this, so thanks for bringing it to our attention. Um.
52:37
Speaker 1: And speaking of Utah Chuck, it just reminded me. Have
52:39
Speaker 1: you seen Friend of the Family on Peacock No, I
52:43
Speaker 1: don't know anything about it. Uh. It is off the rails.
52:46
Speaker 1: It's set in the seventies, true story, weirdo true crime
52:50
Speaker 1: in a way, but also just beyond nuts um and
52:53
Speaker 1: has the extra bonus of my niece Mila being in it.
52:56
Speaker 1: She's one of the daughters. Fantastic check it out. Though
52:59
Speaker 1: it's really it's really good with thro without Mila, but
53:02
Speaker 1: it's even better because Mela's in it, of course. And
53:04
Speaker 1: you know, while we're shouting now Peacock, I don't know
53:07
Speaker 1: if we ever shouted out our good friend Andy Sierra's show,
53:09
Speaker 1: The Resort. Oh no, we don't know. Yeah, it's our
53:13
Speaker 1: old friend Andy Sierra, who uh we got to know
53:17
Speaker 1: through the band. He was in the Henry Clay People.
53:19
Speaker 1: He and his brother Joey long story short, they wrote
53:22
Speaker 1: the theme song to our TV show and we're also
53:25
Speaker 1: story editors as screenwriters for our show. Uh. Andy's the
53:29
Speaker 1: one that did the Hulu movie with Andy Sandberg called
53:33
Speaker 1: Palm Springs, and uh he has his very own TV
53:37
Speaker 1: show that is fully on Peacock now. It's called The Resort.
53:40
Speaker 1: It is really good. Joey was a writer on it
53:42
Speaker 1: as well, and it's just a very cool, fun show.
53:46
Speaker 1: I highly recommended Emily and I loved it. Well. Congratulations Andy,
53:49
Speaker 1: that's enormous good stuff. Yeah, we're gonna check that out.
53:53
Speaker 1: Thanks for telling everybody about it too. Chuck Well, thanks
53:56
Speaker 1: for Elijah for that email. And if you want to
53:57
Speaker 1: be like Elijah and send an email at Jogs our
54:00
Speaker 1: Memory to talk about unrelated TV shows. We love that
54:03
Speaker 1: kind of thing. You can send us an email to
54:06
Speaker 1: Stuff podcast at iHeart radio dot com. Stuff you Should
54:12
Speaker 1: Know is a production of I heart Radio. For more
54:14
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54:18
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