Jay Ingram - The Science of Everyday Life

PENGUIN CELEBRATIONS

THE SCIENCE OF EVERYDAY LIFE

JAY INGRAM has been the host of Discovery Channel Canadas Daily Planet since it began in 1995. At the time it was the only hour-long, prime-time, daily science show in the world. Prior to joining Discovery, he hosted CBC Radios national science show, Quirks and Quarks, from 1979 to 1992. During that time he won two ACTRA Awards, one for best host, and several Canadian Science Writers Awards. Ingram wrote and hosted two CBC Radio documentary series and short radio and television science stories for a variety of programs. He was a contributing editor to Owl magazine for ten years and wrote a weekly science column in the Toronto Star for twelve. He has also written ten books.

Ingram has received the Sandford Fleming Medal from the Royal Canadian Institute for his efforts to popularize science, the Royal Societys McNeil Medal for the Public Awareness of Science, and the Michael Smith Award from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council. He is a distinguished alumnus of the University of Alberta and has received four honorary doctorates.

JAY INGRAM

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First published in a Viking Canada hardcover by Penguin Group (Canada), a division of Pearson Canada Inc., 1989

Published in Penguin Canada paperback by Penguin Group (Canada), a division of Pearson Canada Inc., 1990, 1994

Revised edition published in Penguin Canada paperback by Penguin Group (Canada), a division of Pearson Canada Inc., 2006

Published in this edition, 2009

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Original edition copyright Jay Ingram, 1989

Revised edition copyright Jay Ingram, 2006

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ISBN: 978-0-14-317157-7

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To Cinzia

T ry to remember the last time you had to do something with great control and precision or concentrationlike threading a needle or reading the instructions for your VCR. Was the tip of your tongue showing between your lips? If youre not aware of doing it yourself, think about the last time you saw a young child concentrating hard on connecting the numbered dots in a puzzle. Id bet you saw the tip of his or her tongue then. Behavioural scientists call this peculiar little phenomenon tongue-showing (with their usual imaginative flair for naming), and its a common and powerful form of non-verbal behaviour.

There are many ways of showing your tongue. You can just stick the tip of it out between your teeth and leave it there or flick it in and out or leave it folded over between your teeth without sticking it out or even point it to one side or the other. No matter what specific form tongue-showing takes, its always done to convey the message, Dont bother me. Whats intriguing is that the message is sent and received unconsciouslyneither the person showing his or her tongue nor the person at whom the display is aimed is aware of the intent or even the act itself. This immediately differentiates tongue-showing from sticking your tongue out at somebody or even running the tip of the tongue suggestively along the lips. These are both deliberate and conscious acts, and tongue-showing is neither. Yet its a very common human signal, and its possible to predict when someone will do it and what the effect will be on those that see it.

Children in nursery school tongue-show most often when theyre involved in activities such as working with dough, drawing with crayons or even kicking a ball. The greater the concentration needed, the more often the tongue appears. In one experiment, as children made their way to the top of an ever-narrowing set of steps, their tongues started to creep out. Even children who are not tongue-showing to begin with start to do so the moment they catch an adult watching them.

The tongue-showing of pool-playing fraternity brothers at the University of Pennsylvania correlated directly with the difficulty of the shot, and the poorer players tongue-showed more than the good players. Even gorillas follow the patternthey show their tongues more when engaged in demanding tasks like balancing on an upturned wagon or hanging from chains.

There are many other situations where tongue-showing has been observed, but the explanation is the same: people (or gorillas) show their tongues when they dont want to be disturbed by others, usually because theyre involved in something thats demanding their total attention. Its a subtle form of social rejection, a signal to stay away from the tongue-showing individual. The setting may be unusual: the most dramatic tongue-show I have ever seen was produced by a woman riding a bicycle down the centre line of a busy downtown street in Toronto, her tongue folly extended. She was engrossed in keeping her bicycle steady, and her tongue-showing worked as far as I could tell: every car gave her as wide a berth as possible.

An experiment in Philadelphia illustrated how we rely on tongue-showing to keep others away. In this study a twenty-five-year-old white male sat at the top of a set of stairs leading into an office building. He stared intently at anyone who climbed the stairs to enter the building, but did not threaten actual physical contact. A hidden observer recorded the reactions of all those who approached the building alone. Their reactions were predictably varied: some looked away immediately, some smiled hesitatingly, others looked at their watches or brushed their hair.