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We know that people make up false memories if prompted. But since our brain never stops being a jerk, we can also convert real memories into things we believe we imagined…
Cryptomnesia – the misattribution of memories – is a fairly easy trap to fall into. According to the The British Journal of Psychiatry, we experience partial cryptomnesia all the time. We remember things, but don’t remember where we learned them. So we may recommend a book to the person who recommended it to us, or tell a new piece of gossip to the person who first told us about it. We remember learning something, but not where we learned it. -Esther Inglis-Arkell
Fiction Writing Prompt: Write a story that relies on cryptomnesia as a plot point.
Journaling Prompt: Write about a time when you misremembered something.
Art Prompt: Cryptomnesia
Non-Fiction / Speechwriting Prompt: Inform your audience about the phenomenon of cryptomnesia and give a humorous example of a time when you experienced it.
Photo Credit: knitsteel on Flickr
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Create whatever this visual prompt inspires in you!
Photo by Bert Heymans on Flickr.
Send to KindleRelated posts:
- Prompt #443 – Visual Prompt of the Week – Stonehenge and the Milky Way
- Prompt #589 Visual Prompt of the Week – Favorite Hat
- Prompt #408 – Visual Prompt of the Week – Longing
- Prompt #457 – Visual Prompt of the Week – Moon over a Country Road
- Prompt #526 Visual Prompt of the Week – Fire Escape
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It was the baby, of all things, that woke her up. Not her husband. Not the police. Just the baby and his crying. -Todd Ritter, Bad Moon
Fiction Writing Prompt: Use the first line of the week as the starting point or inspiration for a scene, story, poem, or haiku.
Journaling Prompt: What is usually your first indication that something is wrong at your house? Describe how it happens.
Art Prompt: The Curious Incident of the Baby in the Night Time
Non-Fiction / Speechwriting Prompt: Write a humorous piece about your personal security system, whether it be a baby, a dog, or something else.
Photo Credit: rabble on Flickr
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“What a Fuller Man did was virtuosic. ‘The Fuller art of opening doors was regarded by connoisseurs of cold-turkey peddling in somewhat the same way that balletomanes esteem a performance of the Bolshoi — as pure poetry,’ American Heritage wrote. ‘In the hands of a deft Fuller dealer, brushes became not homely commodities but specialized tools obtainable nowhere else.’ Yet he was also virtuous, his constant presence in neighborhoods turning him neighborly. ‘Fuller Brush Men pulled teeth, massaged headaches, delivered babies, gave emetics for poison, prevented suicides, discovered murders, helped arrange funerals, and drove patients to hospitals.’ ” -Daniel H. Pink, To Sell is Human: The Surprising Truth About Moving Others
Fiction Writing Prompt: Write a story, scene, poem, or haiku involving a door-to-door salesman.
Journaling Prompt: How do you react to sales tactics? What works and what doesn’t if someone is trying to sell you something? Why do you react the way you do?
Art Prompt: Fuller Brush Man
Non-Fiction / Speechwriting Prompt: Tell your audience how they can become better at sales through studying the example of the Fuller Brush Man.
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“Intense focusing on a task can make people effectively blind, even to stimuli that normally attract attention. The most dramatic demonstration was offered by Christopher Chabris and Daniel Simons in their book The Invisible Gorilla. They constructed a short film of two teams passing basketballs, one team wearing white shirts, the other wearing black. The viewers of the film are instructed to count the number of passes made by the white team, ignoring the black players. This task is difficult and completely absorbing. Halfway through the video, a woman wearing a gorilla suit appears, crosses the court, thumps her chest, and moves on. The gorilla is in view for 9 seconds.
“Many thousands of people have seen the video, and about half of them do not notice anything unusual. It is the counting task — and especially the instruction to ignore one of the teams — that causes the blindness. No one who watches the video without that task would miss the gorilla. Seeing and orienting are automatic functions of System 1, but they depend on the allocation of some attention to the relevant stimulus. The authors note that the most remarkable observation of their study is that people find its results very surprising. Indeed, the viewers who fail to see the gorilla are initially sure that it was not there — they cannot imagine missing such a striking event. The gorilla study illustrates two important facts about our minds: we can be blind to the obvious, and we are also blind to our blindness.” -Daniel Kahneman, Thinking, Fast and Slow
Fiction Writing Prompt: Write a scene where your protagonist misses an important detail because he or she is intensely focused on an absorbing task.
Journaling Prompt: Write about a time when you missed something obvious because you were distracted by something else.
Art Prompt: Invisible Gorilla
Non-Fiction / Speechwriting Prompt: Inform your audience about the consequences of intense focus, then tell them what they might be missing.
Photo Credit: Abhinav Mishra on Flickr
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People seeking shelter during tornadoes and cyclones are often called back, or delayed, by people doing normal activities, who refuse to believe the emergency is happening. These people are displaying what’s known as normalcy bias. About 70% of people in a disaster do it. Although movies show crowds screaming and panicking, most people move dazedly through normal activities in a crisis. This can be a good thing; researchers find that people who are in this state are docile and can be directed without chaos. They even tend to quiet and calm the 10-15% of people who freak out.
The downside of the bias is the fact that they tend to retard the progress of the 10-15% of people who act appropriately. The main source of delay masquerades as the need to get more data. Scientists call this “milling.” People will usually get about four opinions on what’s going on and what they should do before taking any action — even in an obvious crisis. People in emergency situations report calling out to others, asking, “What’s going on?” When someone tells them to evacuate, or to take shelter, they fail to comply and move on, asking other people the same question. -Esther Inglis-Arkell
Fiction Writing Prompt: Write a story using normalcy bias to create conflict.
Journaling Prompt: When do you tend to deny danger, whether it’s a tornado or something more abstract, like overdue bills? How do you act?
Art Prompt: Normalcy Bias
Non-Fiction / Speechwriting Prompt: Inform your audience about normalcy bias and how it reveals information about our ability to deny what is in front of us. Give your audience strategies to break through denial.
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Create whatever this visual prompt inspires in you!
Photo by Robbert van der Steeg on Flickr.
Send to KindleRelated posts:
- Prompt #296 – Visual Prompt of the Week – Surrounded by Words
- Prompt #443 – Visual Prompt of the Week – Stonehenge and the Milky Way
- Prompt #589 Visual Prompt of the Week – Favorite Hat
- Prompt #436 – Visual Prompt of the Week – Storm Warning
- Prompt #575 Visual Prompt of the Week – Waiting
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“Jonah was dead for a brief time before the paramedics brought him back to life.” -Dan Chaon, You Remind Me of Me
Fiction Writing Prompt: Use the first line of the week as the starting point or inspiration for a scene, story, poem, or haiku.
Journaling Prompt: Write about a time when you felt like you were getting a second chance and what it meant to you.
Art Prompt: Risen from the dead
Non-Fiction / Speechwriting Prompt: Write a piece with the theme of resurrection or second chances.
Photo Credit: ER24 EMS (Pty) Ltd. on Flickr
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billown. a large undulating mass of something, typically cloud, smoke, or steam. ARCHAIC a large sea wave.v. [no obj., with adverbial of direction] (of fabric) fill with air and swell outwards: her dress billowed out around her. (as adj. billowing) a billowing skirt and shirt. (of smoke, cloud, or steam) move or flow outward with an undulating motion: smoke was billowing from the chimney-mouth | (as adj. billowing) all I could see was thick, billowing smoke. billowy adj. mid 16th century: from Old Norse bylgja.
Fiction Writing Prompt: Use the word of the week in whatever you write today.
Journaling Prompt: Write about some billows you have seen and the place you saw them.
Art Prompt: Billow
Non-Fiction / Speechwriting Prompt: Use the word of the week in your article or speech.
Photo Credit: Bruce Guenter on Flickr
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Teenage girls were a strange breed of animal, prone to strange trends and behaviors. – Bradley Convissar, Blink
Fiction Writing Prompt: Write a story, scene, or poem that features the exotic creature known as the teenage girl.
Journaling Prompt: What is the strangest trend you have seen in teenage girls, whether in this generation or your own generation.
Art Prompt: Teenage Girls
Non-Fiction / Speechwriting Prompt: Write a humorous piece about teenage girls and their strange trends and behaviors.
Photo Credit: Pink Sherbet Photography on Flickr
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