College students watched two triangles and a circle move silently on screen, then invented elaborate stories about them: the big triangle was a bully, the small ones were lovers. Your brain automatically assigns personalities and drama to nearly anything it sees.
Two triangles and one circle, and then your mind adds drama. Two researchers showed college students a short animation: two triangles and a little circle moving around a white screen. So there's no narration, there's no background music, there's no explanation, just triangles and circles moving around. But when people were asked to describe what they saw, most people didn't say the facts of like, what was happening, like 3 shapes moved around on a white background. What happened instead is they told stories about those facts. They told interpretations or explanations about why those facts were happening. So like in the video, the big triangle is kind of like— people say that it's bullying the little triangle. They say that the little triangle and the circle are in love in this relationship, and like the big triangle's angry and like breaking this box that it's in. Anyway, the stories are not boring. They are full of drama, personalities, power dynamics, and even purpose.
