As a lifeguard one of my positions to 'guard' is the bottom of the flumes, aka a very boring, hot and humid half hour. Today however I am there in my usual slumped pose, eyeing up a couple of girls with a poke chips. It was then I realised they have just started to pour two sachets of sugar on their chips. Did they know it wasn't salt?! It was just like the Starburst experiment we conducted yesterday - seeing whether we can answer the question of what flavour is each sweet correctly without seeing the colour of packet. So did they they realise?! No. 2 sachets of sugar and a poke of chips later (which they enjoyed just usually as the average child) the girls went back to get more 'salt' when they finally realised the mistake they had made. It wasn't the taste that told them the answer, it was the packaging. When do we cross the line from what we see and other senses taking over? The packet did say suagr, not salt. Like signs should be, it just wasn't completely universially obvious. Because their brains believed it was salt, and it looked like salt, it took over other senses, taste on this occasion, and they truely believed it was. Crazy as it seems, I can't help asking myself the same question, would I notice something so 'obvious'?
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