There are certain things you intuitively know, without learning or hearing about it, you just know. You also know this information without knowing how or why. This knowledge you sense is inherent, something you know without any external sources having to tell you.
A common test for this instinct is by looking a two images of two different people who are laughing.
Most can instantly detect without knowing the reason why, which laugh is genuine and the other is just laughing on cue, much like an actor for a photo shoot.
What we detect are tells such as how the person’s eyes are smiling, which becomes more apparent once you take a closer look.
But why is it we instinctively know it’s the crinkling around the eyes is what expresses genuine laughter, while it’s absence means they may be faking it.
Things You Instinctively Know
Say you’re sitting inside a noisy restaurant with your head down scrolling your smartphone, and someone silently walks by you. What you instantly feel is a sense of their presence.
You sense someone is near by, without a word being spoken or a sound made.
We all experience this type of awareness on a daily basis and it’s automatic, so much so we don’t think about it or bother wondering why.
In the restaurant, what the ear senses are “sound shadows” once someone passes by, which alerts the brain there’s some type of moving object, a moving shadow of a human.
Another confirmation is the brain is able to localize sound, for instance when your eyes are closed, and someone suddenly claps their hands or snaps their fingers.
They do so on the right side of your head, and you’re able to accurately detect the direction of the sound, while also estimating its distance.
My Chemical Romance
You’re in a busy crowded steamy nightclub. You scan the mounds of people around you, then suddenly fixate and become drawn to another person across the room.
Both of your eyes instantly lock at the same time, because you’re both visually and hypnotically attracted to each other. You feel magnetized to one another, overlooking everyone else.
You then suddenly stand next to one another and without you knowing, you detect their pheromones which are transmitted through the air.
This occurs automatically either by you or the other person, as certain auras of compatibility are released and picked up by the other.
This body odour transmits data regarding the genetic make-up of the individual, which becomes relevant to the type of relationship you both might have.
The Logical Explanation
This is how we primate humans of the opposite sex react to one another, and realize we may be a match for each other.
The following are all instances of a phenomenon, known as implicit learning.
• You’re able to determine a fake or genuine laugh
• You can sense a silent shadowy figure walking behind you in a dark alley
• What you feel is instantly connected to someone you don’t know, or
• You can instinctively detect the distance of sounds
For us to pay attention to these type of events, they need to be stored away as some type of previous memory we can consciously recall.
It’s possible to subconsciously tap into our memories, formed by a previous association we didn’t even pay explicit attention to.
After experiencing a particular sound a few times for instance, we get familiar with its location and associate it with the acoustic information it gives off.
The Detection Of Sounds
What our brain does is implicitly learns and records the spectral content.
We detect it’s frequency or pitch, the sound that’s coming from behind us, and determine it’s different than the spectral sounds which are coming from above our heads.
Similarly, what we note is the sound level in one ear decreases, once someone happens to walk by us.
What our brain subconsciously learns and records, is these sound shadows correlate with someone or something is moving past us.
We can instantly detect a fake laugh from a genuine one, by we subconsciously remembering the context surrounding when we’ve seen how people laugh for real in the past.
We can tell the difference laughing for the camera produces fake laughs, while spontaneous reaction to something genuinely funny does is elicits a real reaction.
Not All Are Learned Responses
Not all of the unconscious awareness is a learned response. The detection of sounds which are either to the left or right, is a hardwired response in our brains.
These have complex circuits which detects and analyzes the intense differences of sounds, that’s heard by both ears.
A sound which is coming from our left, will usually arrive sooner to the left ear than it will to the right, and is also a louder sound in the left ear.
Responses when it comes to those chemical signals in body odour, are hardwired into us at birth.
It becomes useful to be aware we use all our five senses, which are trained to perfection, both learned and innate.
Although we’re not at times even aware of why we react how we do, is because such awareness decreases our self-doubt.
Sense To Protect Oneself
For those who may have developed low self-esteem, this is partially because they mistrust while devaluing their intuition and perception.
When it comes to the “why” of why someone would doubt themselves, many would say they have no reason to believe in their first instinct.
The reason for this, is because they couldn’t consciously tap into or have the faith in their past experiences they previously felt.
Trusting First Instincts
There are valid reasons, some claim clinically reinforced reasons to trust your first instincts, intuition, feelings, and perceptions, even if they don’t make any sense to you.
This is referred to as your sixth sense, and we all have and use them at all times.