See a Pattern on Wall Street?

NY Times ^ | 03 Oct 2008 | John Tierney

[BGHater]

Take a look at the two blurry images below. Can you see an object hidden in each one?

Before I give the answers, here’s another question: Do you feel a certain lack of control over events right now?

These questions are not unrelated, according to a report in the new issue of Science by Jennifer Whitson and Adam Galinsky. The researchers found that when people were primed to feel out of control, they were more likely to see patterns where none exist. They would spot an object in each of the images above, even though only the image on the right contains one (the outline of Saturn and its rings). If you thought you saw something in the image on the left, don’t be too hard on yourself — your feeling may be perfectly understandable given the chaos on Wall Street.

The researchers say that their experiments, which also tested people’s tendency to detect conspiracies and see superstitious lessons in stories, help explain why conspiracy theories and superstitions flourish when people are feeling out of control. Previous researchers have reported, for instance, that first-year business-school students are more prone to imagine conspiracies than are second-year students, and that deep-sea fishermen have more elaborate rituals and superstitions than ones who fish in more predictable conditions near shore.

I asked the Dr. Whitson, a professor at the McCombs School of Business at the University of Texas at Austin, if Wall Street traders might be behaving these days like those deep-sea fishermen.

[Uncle Miltie]

Better question:

Is this Bernanke or Paulson?

[Rodney Dangerfield]

I didn’t see a pattern on the left image.

I saw what looked like to be a space-ship from a bad 50’s Sci-Fi movie on the image on the right.

[dangerdoc]

I see Obama eating babies.

Does that make me special?

[layman]

They look like before and after shots of Joe Biden’s hair.

[dangerdoc]

Or his forehead.

[sazerac]

Space ship landed on a fish - the one on the right.

[ClearCase_guy]

America's newspaper of record asks the tough questions -- the questions that need to be asked! Like: Are stock traders acting like deep-sea fishermen?

And in other news: NYT readership continues it's steady decline.

[stylin19a]

Take a look at the two blurry images below. Can you see an object hidden in each one?

psycho-babble....the question is phrased to make you think there IS an object hidden and therefore you WANT to see one.

[tsomer]

Actually I see a tire planter with cabbage growing out of it.

And it needs weeding.

[Age of Reason]

The image on the left looked to me like hoardes of illegals crossing the border.

The image on the right looked like a sombrero.

[groanup]

The only pattern in the stock market is Soros and his buddies driving it down to get BO elected. Even if that were possible one has to assume that, making money or not, the price action is making Soros ecstatic.

[robomatik]

the image on the right seems to be an old wwII grainy photo of a destroyer through the clouds. the image on the left is too random to discern anything, besides elvis and nixon shaking hands in the oval office. :^)

[BGHater]

Yeah, it’s all Soros fault we overspent and don’t have money now.

[Ken H]

Mother Theresa on the left, the Virgin Mary on the right.

Should go nicely with my potato chip likenesses of the same.

[tx_eggman]

Better still, here's a puzzle for all the libtards lurking on freerepublic this afternoon:

[abigailsmybaby]

lol I couldn’t see an image in either one until the article told me that Saturn was in the right one.

What does that mean?

[princess leah]

Lots of bugs on the left - looks like a planet with a possible ring around it on the right.

[Ken H]

Anyone else see a likeness of Saturn on the right? Looks like a sphere with rings in the middle of the picture.

[ArrogantBustard]

This animal is a ________

This animal is a target for the Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch!