On the first day of Christmas —
We can tell if it’s about how many objects are inside, or the shape of those objects.
Jennifer Ouellette
– Dec 25, 2023 5:18 pm UTC
Enlarge / Shake, shake, shake: this adorable young child would love to guess what he’s getting for Christmas this year.
Johns Hopkins University
Can Others Tell What You’re Shaking This Christmas?
Christmas Day is a time for opening presents and finally ending the suspense of what one is receiving this year, but chances are some of us may have already guessed what’s under the wrapping—perhaps by strategically shaking the boxes for clues about its contents. According to a November paper published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, if someone happened to see you shaking a wrapped gift, they would be able to tell from those motions what you were trying to learn by doing so.
“There are few things more delightful than seeing a child’s eyes light up as they pick up a present and wonder what might be inside,” said co-author Chaz Firestone of Johns Hopkins University, who studies how vision and thought interact. “What our work shows is that your mind is able to track the information they are seeking. Just as they might be able to tell what’s inside the box by shaking it around, you can tell what they are trying to figure out when they shake it.” Christmas presents are “the perfect real-life example of our experiment.”
According to Firestone et al., there is a large scientific literature devoted to studying how people represent and interpret basic actions like walking, reaching, lifting, eating, chasing, or following. It’s a vital ability that helps us anticipate the behavior of others. These are all examples of pragmatic actions with a specific aim, whether it be retrieving an object or moving from one place to the next. Other kinds of actions might be communication-oriented, such as waving, pointing, or assuming an aggressive (or friendly) posture.
The JHU study focused on so-called “epistemic” actions, in which one is seeking information: dipping a toe into the bathtub to see how hot is, for example, testing a door to see if it is locked, or shaking a wrapped box to glean information about what might be inside—like a child trying to guess whether a wrapped Christmas present contains Lego blocks or a teddy bear. “Epistemic actions pervade our lives, and recognizing them does, too,” the authors wrote, citing the ability to tell that a “meandering” campus visitor needs directions,
