Hey, everybody, chuck here. You ever been in a public place and you notice somebody's staring at you? Or have you ever been in a public place and stared at somebody? People say it's rude. You're supposed to tell your kids don't stare. That's rude. But what's the deal with staring? Turns out we have a podcast episode from November called What's the deal with Staring? We're gonna answer that for you right now. Please enjoy. Welcome to Stuff you should Know, a production of I Heart Radio. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark, there's Charles w Chuck Bryant, and guest producer Role is actually staying in here. I believe he's staring at us as funny as we speak. It's making my cheek blush just the one though, Yeah, which is weird to tease? Is what that is? Anything? I'm a big tease? Uh spoiler alert? Okay, now that was it? That your cheek is hot? It's a post spoiler alert post. I don't know if those work count. I think you can set the internet off into a frenzy if you do it the wrong way. Oh yes, we've done that before. Oh, Yeah, that's right, say spoiler alert beforehand. Apparently, Yeah, I thought you just spoiled it, and then said spoiler alert as a tag. It's not how it works, Uh chuck. Yes, have you ever been to the grocery store? Uh? Yeah, I was there yesterday. Were you did you go down this? Do you buy cereal? Now? I don't really buy cereal much either. I I um cereal, you know, I'm just glad it's still around, but I just don't buy it myself. Every once while go down the cereal, it's just almost to like visit old friends. Like there's the Count Chocola, there's Fred Flintstone, or what the heck happened to Lucky the Leopard con He doesn't look anything like you did when we were kids, you know, look at Tony Tiger. Yes, while while I'm walking down the cereal, I noticed like they don't like hold my my gaze like they used to. Actually, because you're not seven. No. Actually, there's this study that found and I think to the last couple of years at Cornell University, they have like a whole food psychology program, you know, I love that stuff. Um, And they did a study of like I think sixty five different cereals and found that, um, the average gaze downward gaze is about a nine point six degree gays right of just your normal human walking in the serial. So like if you were looking at Tony the Tiger and you were you were me in our normal adult height, he wouldn't be locking eyes with us, But if we were little kids, he'd be looking right into our eyes. To Can Sam, To Can Sam, Lucky, Captain Crunch, which we talked about, Yeah, the Honey Combs Maniac, Yeah, the Goalen Fiber Stick. Sure, Um, all of those guy they look into little kid's eyes. And the whole reason why is because, um, it builds brand trust and brand loyalty among um cereal boxes where the character is looking right into your kid's eyes on the cereal aisle, there's like brand loyalty compared to like among boxes that don't have little characters looking into your kid's eyes. And it all just kind of goes to show you, like the stare even being stared at by a lifeless cardboard cartoon character is that powerful that it can It can make you say, I want to eat what's inside of you? You know, so the gays it's powerful or like the old days when I was single and I would go into a bar and just like go right up beside a lady and just stare at her face until she looked at me. Make your eyes as wide as you possibly could. They love that stuff. Very powerful. It shows what a pain there you are. A creep, is what that would be? Sure? Yeah, and I mean that's a that's a really great point. Like if it's a leprechn on a cereal box, you're not threatened or intimidated by it, but there's still some sort of power to its gaze. Right, if you're another human being that is so powerful it has to be wielded very delicately, because people don't like to be stared at, as as this this House to Works article points out, it's simply rude to stare. Yeah, it can be. I mean, depending on what culture you live in, it can be everything from intimidation tactic to a to an affront to like something that's very aggressive. Um yeah, it means a lot of things around the world. But I didn't find a lot of cultures where it was super nice. No, the closest thing I can find was Argentina being called out. Um as it being socially acceptable for men to stare at women. That doesn't mean that it's welcomed, right, it's not welcomed necessarily or wanted, but it's not like what are you doing kind of thing. But I couldn't find any culture around the world we're just outright staring is just normal and fine. It seems to be like universally it makes people uncomfortable. It seems like, yeah, well this article, uh, we're gonna draw from a few but one from our own website. Why is it rude to stare? Which it never really answers Actually no, it doesn't. Just sort of give some reasons dance around it. But um, I did think they made a good point whoever wrote this early on in the article, that humans are constantly categorizing things when we look around at anything, uh, from inanimate objects, you know, that desk looks comfortable, or that chair looks nice, or that car is cool, or that person is h white, Uh, that person is a woman, that person is attractive, that person isn't. Like We're always scanning and dropping things into different mental boxes. And uh so they make a pretty good point. I think whenever something is just slightly off, um, like that person has one leg it just the brain has an instinct to to stay stay on that gay is a little longer because it just disrupts the normal, like that's a thing, that's the thing, that's a thing, and that's a difference. So let me look at that for a minute, right, And the the whole idea behind us walking around constantly scanning our environment is this idea that we've evolved to at first, I guess probably hunt for predators. Remember in like the gun control episode, we talked about how humans can recognize a gun in the environment as readily as recognizing snakes or spiders. So we're training to to pluck stuff out of our environment that may or may not be a threat. Yeah, as we've kind of moved away from the possibility of, um, you know, a bear eating you. Typically it still happens in free quently, but for the most part, we're not threatened by bears. Right. Um, we've we've that that same ability has kind of moved into this social realm where that whole in group out group categorization that we've talked about two really kind of comes up. And so we're walking around saying you're okay, you're all right, you maybe a threat. So I'm gonna move over here on the other side of the street. I don't necessarily recognize you, but we can do all this like pretty quickly. Right. But it's like you were saying, if you see somebody with missing a face, for example, is a good is a good one? Um? And I read this Wired article that sited a woman who basically was like she her husband shot her in the face, and she walked around before a face transplant, like missing a significant section in the middle of her face, and she just was stared at all the time. She said she had to get used to it. Um. This article points out that all you're doing necessarily is taking in more information than you're used to, and we we do that by staring. It's a result of saying, there's more info than I can just get through with a quick plants. I need to look at you a little while longer, right. Uh. And then there was a study at usc AS in southern California. This one makes a lot of sense to me because I think what you're doing is you're satisfying a curiosity like, Um, I guess Oscar's historious is a weird example. Now that he's gone through that thing. But let's say pre that, uh, pre that incident, you would see someone like Oscar Oscar Pistorius and say, wow, I want to see how this guy runs without legs. So I'm gonna look at him put on those blades and and run and of course he's a you know, it's a spectator sport anyway, But I mean it happened any day, like, uh, someone who's handicapped, Like, I wonder how they drive a car with no legs, So it's very interesting. So I'm gonna look at that and watch the get in the car and have a specially outfitted car with hand operations. So it's it's it's weird because it's in that case. I don't think it's rude, but you're walking a fine line, but it is still very rude. Another UM non murderous example, like the second one you gave is um uh. There was in this study at USC they used um women with a novel biological effectors, meaning in this case that their arms hadn't fully developed, but they were performing functions that people would normally use their hands for with their residual limbs. Right, So someone might be like, wow, how is she painting exactly cooking her dinner exactly. But at the same time, you're right, you're walking that fine line, so you're staring, but maybe you look away, but then you look back and you kind of have to take it in in pieces, because we are in this weird position where we want to take in but we're also socialized to not stare as well, it's rude. Well. What they determined in the study, though, which sort of backs up the idea that it is satisfying the curiosity, is they looked at the brains of people like staring at uh, let's say the lady without the formed limbs, and after they looked for a little while, the brain lit up at first like oh my gosh, what am I seeing? This is super interesting, and then the brain normalized. I was like, oh, okay, well that's how she cooks her dinner. That's really neat exactly, and then they were able to interact normally after that point. So it's almost like, as long as your brain hasn't gotten enough information to its satisfaction, you're not gonna feel comfortable. There's gonna be something weird and different around. And if you interact with somebody before you've sat your you've satisfied your brains and need to understand what the heck is going on there. Um, then you might not interact with him as comfortably as you would if you were able to sit there and take it back. And they did this by having people watch other people through like a one way mirror I think, and watched them for a few minutes the brains, I guess became satisfied or figure it out, you know what the process was. And then after that they interacted with the people much more normally than they did before they were able to fully satisfy their brains curiosity. Yeah, it's like, this might be a pretty lame example, but it's like if you have a huge ZiT on the end of your nose and you walk into a group of friends for a meeting, you might say, just get over with I got this huge ZiT on my nose, like Fred Savage and Austin Powers the Mole, like acknowledging it, Hey, I got this huge thing. Instead of being weird about it, just go ahead and take a good gander. Isn't it amazing? And now let's just act normal. And then nine times out of ten people are like, yeah, great, I just put my hand in front of my face and pretend that nothing's different. Is the makeup not working right? But the thing is, it's you know, a ZiT. You know, you people have zits themselves, fairly well understood and it's transient, you know what I mean. So there is definitely looking at somebody who is differently abled or um, just different in any way. It can be considered rude, especially if that person has to put up with it again and again. But I think there's just not that understanding of what is the basis of it. And of course kids are going to do that, and his parents you are probably a Johnny on the spot by saying, don't stare at that person, that lady without a face, she you know, it's not nice. Uh, Whereas the kids just thinking like I've never seen someone without a face, right, and the parent you know, I was thinking that same thing, but they're just having to do the parental thing and you know, like steal a quick glance and then tell the kid not to stare because it's been socialized out of them. Yeah, it's super interesting to me, but it seems to be innate because kids do it and then they have to be taught not to do it, right, Yeah, So I wonder almost if it's then in that in that circumstance, if it's like a vestigial trait. Uh, you know, like it's an innate thing that, like the kid is responding to the kids evolutionary history, but it hasn't been socialized to not do that yet. So there's like this social layer that's being put on top of an evolutionary trait. So staring seems pretty straightforward so far, right. Actually it gets way way more complex and we will dig into that right after this. So we're back and we're talking about being stared at, which, by the way, I didn't get a chance to listen to it, but um, Robert and Julie at stuff to blow your mind, did this did a staring episode a few years back? I would guess yeah, yeah, Um again, I don't know. I'm sure they did, though, now that you mentioned so, um, Chuck, we're talking about staring, and you know, maybe the evolutionary adaptations to it. Um, And there's a further idea that we've actually evolved, our eyes have evolved to really understand when somebody's looking at us. Right, I think it's pretty neat the gays detection system. Yeah, they make the point in here which article is just from this one was from Psychology Today. Basically, the difference, the main difference between humans and a lot of animals is with people, you can see a lot more whites of the eye than you can with most animals. So the dark parts, that is, the parts that look at you, Uh, you can really tell when those things are moving around. You can tell when you're being looked at a lot more easily. Yeah. So, like if the dark parts are in the center of the eye, roughly, you can assume that you're being looked at. If the dark parts are to the right, the person is looking at the right. If the dark parts are to the left, vice versa. Right, I'm looking at Knoll out of my I guess you would say peripheral, but exactly so. And I can just I can relax because you're not looking at me. You're looking at Noel, So I can go back to knitting or starting fires whatever. Um. But Noel needs to be on his best behavior. And that's actually one of the two um suggestions for why we're so responsive to being looked at. Like there's there's a couple of things, so this gaze detection system. They've they've determined that, um, if you are looking towards me, chuck, but over my shoulder, and I can just kind of tell. Right, so your head is looking at me, your eyes are generally I mean, but you're just like a degree or two off, like right now, is that weird? Yeah, right now, you're say it is kind of off putting. But right now you're setting off a different kind of neuron in my brain than you are now that you're looking directly at me. Now, different neurons are firing, Like specific neurons for when someone is looking right at you fire, which is exactly like we have basically a region of the brain dedicated to that. And I have to say, you and I are like staring at each other way more than normal in this episode. Oh yeah, interesting, or maybe we're just talking about it more than you so I'm not sure. Uh. The other cool thing is they you tend in your peripheral vision to notice more when uh like, instead of someone just looking at you straight on with her body in their face, if someone is looking from the side and turning their head completely uh to the right to look at you, that will stand out a lot more in your peripheral vision than someone just standing staring straight at you. Yeah, which is super weird. It really is. Today, when I was driving in Um, there was this woman walking her baby and a stroller down the street, and I was just looking at her kid, and I was driving parallel to her, but my head I'm sure was turned toward them. She wasn't looking anywhere near me. Just all of a sudden, she turns her head and just completely like meets my gaze right like like she saw somehow, probably in her peripheral vision, that there was somebody in a car looking at her kid, and she needed to check it out, so she threw the cover over the stroller real quickly. It's like, come on, uh, yeah, it's it's I don't know. I find all this stuff fascinating, Like whether or not you can feel when you're being stared at directly to your back. Let's say, well that's something different. So like this all of sum up to this point, uh, we've been talking about stuff that can be explained away using like your peripheral vision, noticing other people's body language, um, looking at where the eyes are. Now we're getting into just some weirdness and something called the psychic staring effect or scope astigia, or the feeling that you're being stared at from behind, even though there's no way using your normal senses, you should be able to tell that someone is looking at you. Yeah, and this, uh, there was a paper This is from the article of the Feeling of being stared at And there's an old paper from um from Science magazine called the Feeling of being Stared At by Edward uh Titchener. And he said, and this was sort of a weird feedback loop, but he said, you go to the front of a room and you have your back to everyone, you're gonna feel like you're being stared at, and then you're gonna get nervous and start fidgeting around, which will cause people to stare at you. So that doesn't too much for me. He also he also said, um, it's possible that it's um when you think someone staring at you, you start to turn around to see them, to catch somebody staring at you or to see who it is, and they'll then look at you. Right they notice you moving and they start looking at you. Before you've made it all the way around, you were looking at me, and you say no, jerk, didn't look at you until you turn around, looked at me right, and then it just turned into a fist fight every time without fail. So Titchener basically was like, it's all illusory, it's it's done. He didn't really write necessary early about all of his methods or study size or anything like that, but um, he he felt like he kind of settled it. Fifteen years later there was a guy who picked it up again. His name was Je Couver. He wrote another paper called The Feeling of Being Stared At and he tried a little more scientifically to figure out what was going on, and he had a pretty cool I thought his technique was pretty awesome. It was okay. Um. He would sit there and have a study participant with his back to him, and he would roll a dice a die, and if it came up even, he would not stare at them for fifteen seconds. If it came up odd, he would stare at them for fifteen seconds. And then each time the person needed to write down what they thought whether they were being stared at or not. Yeah, and it was it lined up pretty consistently. Um, But what this uh points out and what a few of the other staring studies point out is if you know you're in a staring study, you may be more clued in even if you're blindfolded to think like, oh, you know, I feel like someone staring because I'm supposed to write exactly like you're thinking about being stared exactly. So UM. In this Je Couver study from UM, he found that people guessed at about fifty They were right about fifty percent at the time, which is even with chance. Right. So that suggests that you don't really have at any kind of signal or sense that you're being stared at. You're just guessing, and you're primed to be in guests and yeah like UM. Follow up studies have shown that if people are distracted with another task or if they don't think the studies actually about whether or not they're being stared at, they almost never guessed that they're being stared at. UM. It only starts to show up in studies where you're testing for that sense of being stared at and they're prime. But even then they're just guessing at about the same rate as chance. So Tishner and Couver and others later on over the years have basically suggested that scope astigia, or that feeling you're being stared at, is very widespread. Most people believe that they can tell when somebody's staring at them, but that it's actually an illusion, right. That isn't necessarily explained in any of these but it is. It is a widespread illusion that humans tend to suffer from universally, well and anecdotally. You might remember the times where I feel like someone staring at me and someone is, but not remember the times that you feel like someone staring at you and you look up and no one staring like you don't catalog that. Well, that was another thing they found too, is that there's no no one's ever found any any idea that you can tell when you're not being stared at. It's just it's just being stared at that we suppose you have a sense for. All right, well, let's take another break here and we'll talk about a few more weird staring studies right after this. All right, alrighty, we're back, and here's a weird staring study. Yeah, they've done a lot of them, and this is from an article the Many Creepy Experiments and involves staring at people. Uh great website So this one, UM the Stairs a Stimulus to flight and human subjects, was I thought pretty interesting and kind of a no brainer. Basically, they would have someone stand on a corner and then when people would pull up in their car at the light of the stop sign, they would just stare at them in their car, and then they would time how long it took them to get the heck out of there when the light turned green. And of course, naturally they don't even release the results. Imagine it was about the people sped out of there when the light turned green. Yeah, they had a control group that they specifically didn't stare at or look at, and they definitely left that intersection much more slowly because there's not a creep leering at you. Yeah, that's a weird study, but I mean, I guess it added to the scientific body on staring by um this one. I thought this was interesting because it actually harkens back to uh what Titchener studied too, was that there's this weird part of the psychic staring effect where you you physically you can feel like you're being stared at, like the back of your neck gets hot. When I was in college, I used to like my scalp would get hot or something, you know, like I could just I just knew I was being stared at from behind. Um. And this this study found that we we produced some sort of physical effect when we're stared at. Right, so they had this In this particular study, they had UM, a psychologist sitting there, I guess interviewing a person, and then another psychologist would be staring at the person while they were forced to either read out loud or sing. Yeah. The person being stared at would have to do those things, yeah, thank you for specifying that. And um, the other the second psychologists would stare like directly at their cheek, and the person would blush all over, especially if they were having to sing, But the cheek that was being stared at would blush more, it would get hotter, Like physically, they would measure this. Yeah, it wasn't just anecdotally, like my right cheek feels hotter, and it's no one has any idea how this happens or why this happens, but it's almost like the self consciousness that's produced in being stared at is directed to the specific part of the body that's being looked at. You know. That's very bizarre that has well because they haven't figured it out. I know they'll probably isolate something at some point. Yeah, eventually they will. But I mean, like, if you start to compile like this body of knowledge on staring, you get the idea that we have a very loose grasp on the effects of staring and what it what it does, and what it signifies and why it's around. You know. Yeah, it's pretty interesting. I always loved those episodes. I do too. There was this other study I thought was pretty interesting called gay dar colon I Gaze as identity recognition among gay men and lesbians, and I tried to find a copy. I couldn't find one that I didn't have to pay like fifty bucks for, but I did read some summaries. It basically looks into how how gay men and women use a stare to either assess someone's sexuality or too broadcast their own sexuality. And it's not always just a fixed gaze, you know, not some like creepy stare, but it was mixed with like body language and looking away, uh, and like a flirtation at times. But I thought it was pretty interesting. It's definitely not just like some heterosexual concept um and staring is not just creepy. It's not just for flirting. They've actually found in other studies that it's a it's a way too um to ask for help actually, and it gets results supposedly. Yeah, this one didn't make a ton of sense to me. So, like, if you spilled some groceries, I think is what this one study did. If you drop some groceries and you bend over and picked them up, If you just like kind of keep to yourself and like bend over your groceries and you're looking down at I mean, you got it, you know what I'm saying. In this study, if you look up, though, and you're staring at a passer by while you're doing this, they take that as an invitation, if not a directive, to come help them pick up the groceries. And people respond to that. It's the same thing. Like, think about it, like if somebody is in a situation where they could use help, but it's also ambiguous, like they kind of got it, but did they really need help? If they're looking at you, they're broadcasting help me. They are. It's just kind of funny because I'm trying to think of it just seems like a no brainer. Like if I saw a woman in a parking lot who would like spilled her groceries, and I was walking by, and she looked up right at me as I was passing and picking up, I wouldn't just so like, how you doing and keep going, Yeah, boy, you look like you got it under control, like I would. Of course I would stop. But if she didn't look up, yeah, maybe I would feel like I'm intrudingly, you know, so they doesn't want me putting her hands on her groceries, right, And that is like, like, that is one of the theories behind why we're so adept at catching other people's gazes is that it's a it's a means of communicating non verbally, very directly. Right. So, so that woman who dropped her groceries, or anybody who drops her groceries, if they're handling themselves, leave them alone. If they're looking up directly at you, they're communicating with you. They have spilled their groceries, and what they're saying is I could do some help with some groceries packing them up. Um. And that's that that theory behind that, the idea that we communicate and engage in social behavior just from looking. It's called the cooperative eye hypothesis. And it's basically this idea that a bad band name cooperative eye hypothesis. It's a little worthy, but a little like I could see like a math rock band. It's no Kathleen Turner Overdrive maybe the best band name of all time. Um. But this, this whole thing is that we we are able to communicate. Um, not just that we need help, but also we tend to follow one another's gaze. If one person is looking off in the distance and clearly looking at something not zoned out, people are gonna look over there. And it's basically the same thing as like a herd of gazelle looking over one gazelle and high alert is suddenly looking at Yeah, you wanna you wanna have some fun, Go to New York City or any city and just with one other person and just go stand and both look up and stare at something and then just sit back. Well, you can't sit back, but have a friend sit back and watch how many people? And in New York, of course they won't stop and look, but everyone that passes you by will look up and say, what in the world are these two people looking at? What are you looking at? What's up there? You just don't say anything, and then a game of telephone will break out. People will just start making up what's up there? Yeah, And then it becomes a what do you call it when people all get together and dance at one time? Some flash mob? Flash mob? That's an organic flash Yeah. You have a bunch of people staring um. It's very boring flash mob. I got one more, all right. The idea that UM being aware of being stared at is basically keeps us in line. And the idea that we're being stared at or watched, oh makes you behave Yeah. Another socially pro social motivation UM. And I got another grocery store example. I was at the grocery store yesterday and I was walking in the parking lot and this woman had her cart and I noticed her like looking around, and she was about to leave her cart right there and the parking lot. Next ser she saw me looking at her, and she like just suddenly went and walked it over the car corral. I could tell by her movement she was not playing on going to the car correl until she saw me watching her, and then she took it to the car crawl and I'm like, yes, exactly. You engage in more ethical behavior if you think you're being watched, and that would explain why we're so. We're such a social species and they just having that height and awareness that you're being watched is possibly part of that. Yeah, that's one of my couple of big rules in life that are meaningless to most people. But always return your card, yeah, you honest, people like, oh they pay people to go around and get the cards. It's because they have to write because of you. And the other thing is, uh, always throw your movie theater popcorn and drinks away on your way out. Oh yeah, the people that just get up and leave the movie theater with their popcorn bag and their drink there. Yeah, I just don't get it. Like those are I'm just gonna go and say it. Those are the worst people on the planet. If you want to become canonized Chuck, not only should you return your cart, you can do the opposite and take a cart from somebody so they don't even have to take it back if you're on your way in. You I have done that. That's that's the stuff. I rarely use the big cart though, I'm I do a lot of daily grocery shopping. Good way to go. It's very Dutch, is it? According to the stuff for the next article, it is. Yeah, well I wear my wooden clogs and ride my bicycle. It's very astute of you. Thank you. Are you got anything else? You know what? This just reminded me. I did have one slight more thing you've heard of vidal I goo, um what Michael Jackson had their skin condition? Where parts of your skinner lighter than others? Uh? Uh? I posted on Facebook there was this uh young woman who has viddle igo on her arms and she finally just got a tattoo and lovely script on her forearm that said it's called a middleago. And I posted about this, and then she apparently listened to the show and she posted thanks for sharing this guy. Yeah, I thought it was kind of neat, But I'm curious to hear from people that have I can't remember what they call them in the studies novel novel biological effects, Right, Basically, you know something unusual physically that people might be prone to stare at. I want to hear from people and how you deal with that, or if you've gotten used to it, or if you think it is super rude, or if you're like yeah, I would stare at me too. Yeah, but that is a great call out. Yeah. Um, and well let's see listener mail and then we'll hit it up again. All right, La todos. My name is Amy and I'm an English teacher living abroad in Malaga, Spain. I'm a recent fan and only discovered your part casts when I was desperate for something to listen to on the metro rides. That's when everybody comes to the first podcast I listened to us how Nazis invaded Florida and I haven't stopped downloading. Now. The real reason I'm sending the emails a little strange. I teach many adult classes. My students are always asking how they can practice listening to native speakers. Many people don't know that in Spain all of the American or English TV series or movies are dubbed. I did not know that in Spanish voice that right didn't have any I figured like a high percentage would be, but not all of them, you know. Uh so there isn't aren't many options to practice listening skills. Once I got addicted to your show, I started suggesting that my higher level students listen to you guys as well. Honestly didn't think many of them would actually go home and start listening. However, I was wrong and this isn't all caps. Every single one of them are now addicted like me and then back to regular non all caps. Yeah, so thanks guys. Uh, my students want me to send an email to say thank you for speaking slow but not too slow, and using vocabulary that makes any topic of science, astrophysics, biology and history easy to understand. I've noticed a big change in their listening skills and even have the entertainment of teaching some puns and slang that you both say on the show. It makes class much more enjoyable. The only bad side is now they want a tour of the UK so we can all come to see you guys live. That's so cool. See everybody in the United States. Oh, you guys aren't coming to St. Louis. It can't possibly come to you. People are talking about traveling from Spain to England to see Yes. Seriously, come on, don't go to Milwaukee. I'm in Madison. Uh, keep on showing out this podcast and garzias Porto Hostelwego. Amy culver Amy. Thank you for that. I love that email. Let's email uh asta le vista to your class. Thank you very much for writing in UM and uh, that's wonderful. I hope you guys keep listening. We're known for us slang, aren't we get on the trolley? Chuck? Yeah, that old thing. Uh. If you want to get in touch with us to say hi in another language, that's cool. But like Chuck said, we want to hear from you if you have a novel biological effect or and get stared at and what you do in dealing with that. UM. You can tweak to us at s y s K podcast. You can join us on Facebook dot com slash Stuff you Should Know. You can send us an email to Stuff podcast at how Stuff Works dot com and has always joined us at our home on the web. Stuff you Should Know dot Com. 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Hey, everybody, chuck here. You ever been in a public place and you notice somebody's staring at you? Or have you ever been in a public place and stared at somebody? People say it's rude. You're supposed to tell your kids don't stare. That's rude. But what's the deal with staring? Turns out we have a podcast episode from November called What's the deal with Staring? We're gonna answer that for you right now. Please enjoy. Welcome to Stuff you should Know, a production of I Heart Radio. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark, there's Charles w Chuck Bryant, and guest producer Role is actually staying in here. I believe he's staring at us as funny as we speak. It's making my cheek blush just the one though, Yeah, which is weird to tease? Is what that is? Anything? I'm a big tease? Uh spoiler alert? Okay, now that was it? That your cheek is hot? It's a post spoiler alert post. I don't know if those work count. I think you can set the internet off into a frenzy if you do it the wrong way. Oh yes, we've done that before. Oh, Yeah, that's right, say spoiler alert beforehand. Apparently, Yeah, I thought you just spoiled it, and then said spoiler alert as a tag. It's not how it works, Uh chuck. Yes, have you ever been to the grocery store? Uh? Yeah, I was there yesterday. Were you did you go down this? Do you buy cereal? Now? I don't really buy cereal much either. I I um cereal, you know, I'm just glad it's still around, but I just don't buy it myself. Every once while go down the cereal, it's just almost to like visit old friends. Like there's the Count Chocola, there's Fred Flintstone, or what the heck happened to Lucky the Leopard con He doesn't look anything like you did when we were kids, you know, look at Tony Tiger. Yes, while while I'm walking down the cereal, I noticed like they don't like hold my my gaze like they used to. Actually, because you're not seven. No. Actually, there's this study that found and I think to the last couple of years at Cornell University, they have like a whole food psychology program, you know, I love that stuff. Um, And they did a study of like I think sixty five different cereals and found that, um, the average gaze downward gaze is about a nine point six degree gays right of just your normal human walking in the serial. So like if you were looking at Tony the Tiger and you were you were me in our normal adult height, he wouldn't be locking eyes with us, But if we were little kids, he'd be looking right into our eyes. To Can Sam, To Can Sam, Lucky, Captain Crunch, which we talked about, Yeah, the Honey Combs Maniac, Yeah, the Goalen Fiber Stick. Sure, Um, all of those guy they look into little kid's eyes. And the whole reason why is because, um, it builds brand trust and brand loyalty among um cereal boxes where the character is looking right into your kid's eyes on the cereal aisle, there's like brand loyalty compared to like among boxes that don't have little characters looking into your kid's eyes. And it all just kind of goes to show you, like the stare even being stared at by a lifeless cardboard cartoon character is that powerful that it can It can make you say, I want to eat what's inside of you? You know, so the gays it's powerful or like the old days when I was single and I would go into a bar and just like go right up beside a lady and just stare at her face until she looked at me. Make your eyes as wide as you possibly could. They love that stuff. Very powerful. It shows what a pain there you are. A creep, is what that would be? Sure? Yeah, and I mean that's a that's a really great point. Like if it's a leprechn on a cereal box, you're not threatened or intimidated by it, but there's still some sort of power to its gaze. Right, if you're another human being that is so powerful it has to be wielded very delicately, because people don't like to be stared at, as as this this House to Works article points out, it's simply rude to stare. Yeah, it can be. I mean, depending on what culture you live in, it can be everything from intimidation tactic to a to an affront to like something that's very aggressive. Um yeah, it means a lot of things around the world. But I didn't find a lot of cultures where it was super nice. No, the closest thing I can find was Argentina being called out. Um as it being socially acceptable for men to stare at women. That doesn't mean that it's welcomed, right, it's not welcomed necessarily or wanted, but it's not like what are you doing kind of thing. But I couldn't find any culture around the world we're just outright staring is just normal and fine. It seems to be like universally it makes people uncomfortable. It seems like, yeah, well this article, uh, we're gonna draw from a few but one from our own website. Why is it rude to stare? Which it never really answers Actually no, it doesn't. Just sort of give some reasons dance around it. But um, I did think they made a good point whoever wrote this early on in the article, that humans are constantly categorizing things when we look around at anything, uh, from inanimate objects, you know, that desk looks comfortable, or that chair looks nice, or that car is cool, or that person is h white, Uh, that person is a woman, that person is attractive, that person isn't. Like We're always scanning and dropping things into different mental boxes. And uh so they make a pretty good point. I think whenever something is just slightly off, um, like that person has one leg it just the brain has an instinct to to stay stay on that gay is a little longer because it just disrupts the normal, like that's a thing, that's the thing, that's a thing, and that's a difference. So let me look at that for a minute, right, And the the whole idea behind us walking around constantly scanning our environment is this idea that we've evolved to at first, I guess probably hunt for predators. Remember in like the gun control episode, we talked about how humans can recognize a gun in the environment as readily as recognizing snakes or spiders. So we're training to to pluck stuff out of our environment that may or may not be a threat. Yeah, as we've kind of moved away from the possibility of, um, you know, a bear eating you. Typically it still happens in free quently, but for the most part, we're not threatened by bears. Right. Um, we've we've that that same ability has kind of moved into this social realm where that whole in group out group categorization that we've talked about two really kind of comes up. And so we're walking around saying you're okay, you're all right, you maybe a threat. So I'm gonna move over here on the other side of the street. I don't necessarily recognize you, but we can do all this like pretty quickly. Right. But it's like you were saying, if you see somebody with missing a face, for example, is a good is a good one? Um? And I read this Wired article that sited a woman who basically was like she her husband shot her in the face, and she walked around before a face transplant, like missing a significant section in the middle of her face, and she just was stared at all the time. She said she had to get used to it. Um. This article points out that all you're doing necessarily is taking in more information than you're used to, and we we do that by staring. It's a result of saying, there's more info than I can just get through with a quick plants. I need to look at you a little while longer, right. Uh. And then there was a study at usc AS in southern California. This one makes a lot of sense to me because I think what you're doing is you're satisfying a curiosity like, Um, I guess Oscar's historious is a weird example. Now that he's gone through that thing. But let's say pre that, uh, pre that incident, you would see someone like Oscar Oscar Pistorius and say, wow, I want to see how this guy runs without legs. So I'm gonna look at him put on those blades and and run and of course he's a you know, it's a spectator sport anyway, But I mean it happened any day, like, uh, someone who's handicapped, Like, I wonder how they drive a car with no legs, So it's very interesting. So I'm gonna look at that and watch the get in the car and have a specially outfitted car with hand operations. So it's it's it's weird because it's in that case. I don't think it's rude, but you're walking a fine line, but it is still very rude. Another UM non murderous example, like the second one you gave is um uh. There was in this study at USC they used um women with a novel biological effectors, meaning in this case that their arms hadn't fully developed, but they were performing functions that people would normally use their hands for with their residual limbs. Right, So someone might be like, wow, how is she painting exactly cooking her dinner exactly. But at the same time, you're right, you're walking that fine line, so you're staring, but maybe you look away, but then you look back and you kind of have to take it in in pieces, because we are in this weird position where we want to take in but we're also socialized to not stare as well, it's rude. Well. What they determined in the study, though, which sort of backs up the idea that it is satisfying the curiosity, is they looked at the brains of people like staring at uh, let's say the lady without the formed limbs, and after they looked for a little while, the brain lit up at first like oh my gosh, what am I seeing? This is super interesting, and then the brain normalized. I was like, oh, okay, well that's how she cooks her dinner. That's really neat exactly, and then they were able to interact normally after that point. So it's almost like, as long as your brain hasn't gotten enough information to its satisfaction, you're not gonna feel comfortable. There's gonna be something weird and different around. And if you interact with somebody before you've sat your you've satisfied your brains and need to understand what the heck is going on there. Um, then you might not interact with him as comfortably as you would if you were able to sit there and take it back. And they did this by having people watch other people through like a one way mirror I think, and watched them for a few minutes the brains, I guess became satisfied or figure it out, you know what the process was. And then after that they interacted with the people much more normally than they did before they were able to fully satisfy their brains curiosity. Yeah, it's like, this might be a pretty lame example, but it's like if you have a huge ZiT on the end of your nose and you walk into a group of friends for a meeting, you might say, just get over with I got this huge ZiT on my nose, like Fred Savage and Austin Powers the Mole, like acknowledging it, Hey, I got this huge thing. Instead of being weird about it, just go ahead and take a good gander. Isn't it amazing? And now let's just act normal. And then nine times out of ten people are like, yeah, great, I just put my hand in front of my face and pretend that nothing's different. Is the makeup not working right? But the thing is, it's you know, a ZiT. You know, you people have zits themselves, fairly well understood and it's transient, you know what I mean. So there is definitely looking at somebody who is differently abled or um, just different in any way. It can be considered rude, especially if that person has to put up with it again and again. But I think there's just not that understanding of what is the basis of it. And of course kids are going to do that, and his parents you are probably a Johnny on the spot by saying, don't stare at that person, that lady without a face, she you know, it's not nice. Uh, Whereas the kids just thinking like I've never seen someone without a face, right, and the parent you know, I was thinking that same thing, but they're just having to do the parental thing and you know, like steal a quick glance and then tell the kid not to stare because it's been socialized out of them. Yeah, it's super interesting to me, but it seems to be innate because kids do it and then they have to be taught not to do it, right, Yeah, So I wonder almost if it's then in that in that circumstance, if it's like a vestigial trait. Uh, you know, like it's an innate thing that, like the kid is responding to the kids evolutionary history, but it hasn't been socialized to not do that yet. So there's like this social layer that's being put on top of an evolutionary trait. So staring seems pretty straightforward so far, right. Actually it gets way way more complex and we will dig into that right after this. So we're back and we're talking about being stared at, which, by the way, I didn't get a chance to listen to it, but um, Robert and Julie at stuff to blow your mind, did this did a staring episode a few years back? I would guess yeah, yeah, Um again, I don't know. I'm sure they did, though, now that you mentioned so, um, Chuck, we're talking about staring, and you know, maybe the evolutionary adaptations to it. Um, And there's a further idea that we've actually evolved, our eyes have evolved to really understand when somebody's looking at us. Right, I think it's pretty neat the gays detection system. Yeah, they make the point in here which article is just from this one was from Psychology Today. Basically, the difference, the main difference between humans and a lot of animals is with people, you can see a lot more whites of the eye than you can with most animals. So the dark parts, that is, the parts that look at you, Uh, you can really tell when those things are moving around. You can tell when you're being looked at a lot more easily. Yeah. So, like if the dark parts are in the center of the eye, roughly, you can assume that you're being looked at. If the dark parts are to the right, the person is looking at the right. If the dark parts are to the left, vice versa. Right, I'm looking at Knoll out of my I guess you would say peripheral, but exactly so. And I can just I can relax because you're not looking at me. You're looking at Noel, So I can go back to knitting or starting fires whatever. Um. But Noel needs to be on his best behavior. And that's actually one of the two um suggestions for why we're so responsive to being looked at. Like there's there's a couple of things, so this gaze detection system. They've they've determined that, um, if you are looking towards me, chuck, but over my shoulder, and I can just kind of tell. Right, so your head is looking at me, your eyes are generally I mean, but you're just like a degree or two off, like right now, is that weird? Yeah, right now, you're say it is kind of off putting. But right now you're setting off a different kind of neuron in my brain than you are now that you're looking directly at me. Now, different neurons are firing, Like specific neurons for when someone is looking right at you fire, which is exactly like we have basically a region of the brain dedicated to that. And I have to say, you and I are like staring at each other way more than normal in this episode. Oh yeah, interesting, or maybe we're just talking about it more than you so I'm not sure. Uh. The other cool thing is they you tend in your peripheral vision to notice more when uh like, instead of someone just looking at you straight on with her body in their face, if someone is looking from the side and turning their head completely uh to the right to look at you, that will stand out a lot more in your peripheral vision than someone just standing staring straight at you. Yeah, which is super weird. It really is. Today, when I was driving in Um, there was this woman walking her baby and a stroller down the street, and I was just looking at her kid, and I was driving parallel to her, but my head I'm sure was turned toward them. She wasn't looking anywhere near me. Just all of a sudden, she turns her head and just completely like meets my gaze right like like she saw somehow, probably in her peripheral vision, that there was somebody in a car looking at her kid, and she needed to check it out, so she threw the cover over the stroller real quickly. It's like, come on, uh, yeah, it's it's I don't know. I find all this stuff fascinating, Like whether or not you can feel when you're being stared at directly to your back. Let's say, well that's something different. So like this all of sum up to this point, uh, we've been talking about stuff that can be explained away using like your peripheral vision, noticing other people's body language, um, looking at where the eyes are. Now we're getting into just some weirdness and something called the psychic staring effect or scope astigia, or the feeling that you're being stared at from behind, even though there's no way using your normal senses, you should be able to tell that someone is looking at you. Yeah, and this, uh, there was a paper This is from the article of the Feeling of being stared at And there's an old paper from um from Science magazine called the Feeling of being Stared At by Edward uh Titchener. And he said, and this was sort of a weird feedback loop, but he said, you go to the front of a room and you have your back to everyone, you're gonna feel like you're being stared at, and then you're gonna get nervous and start fidgeting around, which will cause people to stare at you. So that doesn't too much for me. He also he also said, um, it's possible that it's um when you think someone staring at you, you start to turn around to see them, to catch somebody staring at you or to see who it is, and they'll then look at you. Right they notice you moving and they start looking at you. Before you've made it all the way around, you were looking at me, and you say no, jerk, didn't look at you until you turn around, looked at me right, and then it just turned into a fist fight every time without fail. So Titchener basically was like, it's all illusory, it's it's done. He didn't really write necessary early about all of his methods or study size or anything like that, but um, he he felt like he kind of settled it. Fifteen years later there was a guy who picked it up again. His name was Je Couver. He wrote another paper called The Feeling of Being Stared At and he tried a little more scientifically to figure out what was going on, and he had a pretty cool I thought his technique was pretty awesome. It was okay. Um. He would sit there and have a study participant with his back to him, and he would roll a dice a die, and if it came up even, he would not stare at them for fifteen seconds. If it came up odd, he would stare at them for fifteen seconds. And then each time the person needed to write down what they thought whether they were being stared at or not. Yeah, and it was it lined up pretty consistently. Um, But what this uh points out and what a few of the other staring studies point out is if you know you're in a staring study, you may be more clued in even if you're blindfolded to think like, oh, you know, I feel like someone staring because I'm supposed to write exactly like you're thinking about being stared exactly. So UM. In this Je Couver study from UM, he found that people guessed at about fifty They were right about fifty percent at the time, which is even with chance. Right. So that suggests that you don't really have at any kind of signal or sense that you're being stared at. You're just guessing, and you're primed to be in guests and yeah like UM. Follow up studies have shown that if people are distracted with another task or if they don't think the studies actually about whether or not they're being stared at, they almost never guessed that they're being stared at. UM. It only starts to show up in studies where you're testing for that sense of being stared at and they're prime. But even then they're just guessing at about the same rate as chance. So Tishner and Couver and others later on over the years have basically suggested that scope astigia, or that feeling you're being stared at, is very widespread. Most people believe that they can tell when somebody's staring at them, but that it's actually an illusion, right. That isn't necessarily explained in any of these but it is. It is a widespread illusion that humans tend to suffer from universally, well and anecdotally. You might remember the times where I feel like someone staring at me and someone is, but not remember the times that you feel like someone staring at you and you look up and no one staring like you don't catalog that. Well, that was another thing they found too, is that there's no no one's ever found any any idea that you can tell when you're not being stared at. It's just it's just being stared at that we suppose you have a sense for. All right, well, let's take another break here and we'll talk about a few more weird staring studies right after this. All right, alrighty, we're back, and here's a weird staring study. Yeah, they've done a lot of them, and this is from an article the Many Creepy Experiments and involves staring at people. Uh great website So this one, UM the Stairs a Stimulus to flight and human subjects, was I thought pretty interesting and kind of a no brainer. Basically, they would have someone stand on a corner and then when people would pull up in their car at the light of the stop sign, they would just stare at them in their car, and then they would time how long it took them to get the heck out of there when the light turned green. And of course, naturally they don't even release the results. Imagine it was about the people sped out of there when the light turned green. Yeah, they had a control group that they specifically didn't stare at or look at, and they definitely left that intersection much more slowly because there's not a creep leering at you. Yeah, that's a weird study, but I mean, I guess it added to the scientific body on staring by um this one. I thought this was interesting because it actually harkens back to uh what Titchener studied too, was that there's this weird part of the psychic staring effect where you you physically you can feel like you're being stared at, like the back of your neck gets hot. When I was in college, I used to like my scalp would get hot or something, you know, like I could just I just knew I was being stared at from behind. Um. And this this study found that we we produced some sort of physical effect when we're stared at. Right, so they had this In this particular study, they had UM, a psychologist sitting there, I guess interviewing a person, and then another psychologist would be staring at the person while they were forced to either read out loud or sing. Yeah. The person being stared at would have to do those things, yeah, thank you for specifying that. And um, the other the second psychologists would stare like directly at their cheek, and the person would blush all over, especially if they were having to sing, But the cheek that was being stared at would blush more, it would get hotter, Like physically, they would measure this. Yeah, it wasn't just anecdotally, like my right cheek feels hotter, and it's no one has any idea how this happens or why this happens, but it's almost like the self consciousness that's produced in being stared at is directed to the specific part of the body that's being looked at. You know. That's very bizarre that has well because they haven't figured it out. I know they'll probably isolate something at some point. Yeah, eventually they will. But I mean, like, if you start to compile like this body of knowledge on staring, you get the idea that we have a very loose grasp on the effects of staring and what it what it does, and what it signifies and why it's around. You know. Yeah, it's pretty interesting. I always loved those episodes. I do too. There was this other study I thought was pretty interesting called gay dar colon I Gaze as identity recognition among gay men and lesbians, and I tried to find a copy. I couldn't find one that I didn't have to pay like fifty bucks for, but I did read some summaries. It basically looks into how how gay men and women use a stare to either assess someone's sexuality or too broadcast their own sexuality. And it's not always just a fixed gaze, you know, not some like creepy stare, but it was mixed with like body language and looking away, uh, and like a flirtation at times. But I thought it was pretty interesting. It's definitely not just like some heterosexual concept um and staring is not just creepy. It's not just for flirting. They've actually found in other studies that it's a it's a way too um to ask for help actually, and it gets results supposedly. Yeah, this one didn't make a ton of sense to me. So, like, if you spilled some groceries, I think is what this one study did. If you drop some groceries and you bend over and picked them up, If you just like kind of keep to yourself and like bend over your groceries and you're looking down at I mean, you got it, you know what I'm saying. In this study, if you look up, though, and you're staring at a passer by while you're doing this, they take that as an invitation, if not a directive, to come help them pick up the groceries. And people respond to that. It's the same thing. Like, think about it, like if somebody is in a situation where they could use help, but it's also ambiguous, like they kind of got it, but did they really need help? If they're looking at you, they're broadcasting help me. They are. It's just kind of funny because I'm trying to think of it just seems like a no brainer. Like if I saw a woman in a parking lot who would like spilled her groceries, and I was walking by, and she looked up right at me as I was passing and picking up, I wouldn't just so like, how you doing and keep going, Yeah, boy, you look like you got it under control, like I would. Of course I would stop. But if she didn't look up, yeah, maybe I would feel like I'm intrudingly, you know, so they doesn't want me putting her hands on her groceries, right, And that is like, like, that is one of the theories behind why we're so adept at catching other people's gazes is that it's a it's a means of communicating non verbally, very directly. Right. So, so that woman who dropped her groceries, or anybody who drops her groceries, if they're handling themselves, leave them alone. If they're looking up directly at you, they're communicating with you. They have spilled their groceries, and what they're saying is I could do some help with some groceries packing them up. Um. And that's that that theory behind that, the idea that we communicate and engage in social behavior just from looking. It's called the cooperative eye hypothesis. And it's basically this idea that a bad band name cooperative eye hypothesis. It's a little worthy, but a little like I could see like a math rock band. It's no Kathleen Turner Overdrive maybe the best band name of all time. Um. But this, this whole thing is that we we are able to communicate. Um, not just that we need help, but also we tend to follow one another's gaze. If one person is looking off in the distance and clearly looking at something not zoned out, people are gonna look over there. And it's basically the same thing as like a herd of gazelle looking over one gazelle and high alert is suddenly looking at Yeah, you wanna you wanna have some fun, Go to New York City or any city and just with one other person and just go stand and both look up and stare at something and then just sit back. Well, you can't sit back, but have a friend sit back and watch how many people? And in New York, of course they won't stop and look, but everyone that passes you by will look up and say, what in the world are these two people looking at? What are you looking at? What's up there? You just don't say anything, and then a game of telephone will break out. People will just start making up what's up there? Yeah, And then it becomes a what do you call it when people all get together and dance at one time? Some flash mob? Flash mob? That's an organic flash Yeah. You have a bunch of people staring um. It's very boring flash mob. I got one more, all right. The idea that UM being aware of being stared at is basically keeps us in line. And the idea that we're being stared at or watched, oh makes you behave Yeah. Another socially pro social motivation UM. And I got another grocery store example. I was at the grocery store yesterday and I was walking in the parking lot and this woman had her cart and I noticed her like looking around, and she was about to leave her cart right there and the parking lot. Next ser she saw me looking at her, and she like just suddenly went and walked it over the car corral. I could tell by her movement she was not playing on going to the car correl until she saw me watching her, and then she took it to the car crawl and I'm like, yes, exactly. You engage in more ethical behavior if you think you're being watched, and that would explain why we're so. We're such a social species and they just having that height and awareness that you're being watched is possibly part of that. Yeah, that's one of my couple of big rules in life that are meaningless to most people. But always return your card, yeah, you honest, people like, oh they pay people to go around and get the cards. It's because they have to write because of you. And the other thing is, uh, always throw your movie theater popcorn and drinks away on your way out. Oh yeah, the people that just get up and leave the movie theater with their popcorn bag and their drink there. Yeah, I just don't get it. Like those are I'm just gonna go and say it. Those are the worst people on the planet. If you want to become canonized Chuck, not only should you return your cart, you can do the opposite and take a cart from somebody so they don't even have to take it back if you're on your way in. You I have done that. That's that's the stuff. I rarely use the big cart though, I'm I do a lot of daily grocery shopping. Good way to go. It's very Dutch, is it? According to the stuff for the next article, it is. Yeah, well I wear my wooden clogs and ride my bicycle. It's very astute of you. Thank you. Are you got anything else? You know what? This just reminded me. I did have one slight more thing you've heard of vidal I goo, um what Michael Jackson had their skin condition? Where parts of your skinner lighter than others? Uh? Uh? I posted on Facebook there was this uh young woman who has viddle igo on her arms and she finally just got a tattoo and lovely script on her forearm that said it's called a middleago. And I posted about this, and then she apparently listened to the show and she posted thanks for sharing this guy. Yeah, I thought it was kind of neat, But I'm curious to hear from people that have I can't remember what they call them in the studies novel novel biological effects, Right, Basically, you know something unusual physically that people might be prone to stare at. I want to hear from people and how you deal with that, or if you've gotten used to it, or if you think it is super rude, or if you're like yeah, I would stare at me too. Yeah, but that is a great call out. Yeah. Um, and well let's see listener mail and then we'll hit it up again. All right, La todos. My name is Amy and I'm an English teacher living abroad in Malaga, Spain. I'm a recent fan and only discovered your part casts when I was desperate for something to listen to on the metro rides. That's when everybody comes to the first podcast I listened to us how Nazis invaded Florida and I haven't stopped downloading. Now. The real reason I'm sending the emails a little strange. I teach many adult classes. My students are always asking how they can practice listening to native speakers. Many people don't know that in Spain all of the American or English TV series or movies are dubbed. I did not know that in Spanish voice that right didn't have any I figured like a high percentage would be, but not all of them, you know. Uh so there isn't aren't many options to practice listening skills. Once I got addicted to your show, I started suggesting that my higher level students listen to you guys as well. Honestly didn't think many of them would actually go home and start listening. However, I was wrong and this isn't all caps. Every single one of them are now addicted like me and then back to regular non all caps. Yeah, so thanks guys. Uh, my students want me to send an email to say thank you for speaking slow but not too slow, and using vocabulary that makes any topic of science, astrophysics, biology and history easy to understand. I've noticed a big change in their listening skills and even have the entertainment of teaching some puns and slang that you both say on the show. It makes class much more enjoyable. The only bad side is now they want a tour of the UK so we can all come to see you guys live. That's so cool. See everybody in the United States. Oh, you guys aren't coming to St. Louis. It can't possibly come to you. People are talking about traveling from Spain to England to see Yes. Seriously, come on, don't go to Milwaukee. I'm in Madison. Uh, keep on showing out this podcast and garzias Porto Hostelwego. Amy culver Amy. Thank you for that. I love that email. Let's email uh asta le vista to your class. Thank you very much for writing in UM and uh, that's wonderful. I hope you guys keep listening. We're known for us slang, aren't we get on the trolley? Chuck? Yeah, that old thing. Uh. If you want to get in touch with us to say hi in another language, that's cool. But like Chuck said, we want to hear from you if you have a novel biological effect or and get stared at and what you do in dealing with that. UM. You can tweak to us at s y s K podcast. You can join us on Facebook dot com slash Stuff you Should Know. You can send us an email to Stuff podcast at how Stuff Works dot com and has always joined us at our home on the web. Stuff you Should Know dot Com. 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