Priming

just seeing something in a certain place primes you to expect that thing to happen again

  • ex. Seeing a car burning on first at exit 66 on highway 99. If we see a fire burning here again, we are less surprised because system 1 designates this spot "the place where cars burn"
  • ex. that spot on River Road near Tidewaters Pub will always be the spot where cops do radar, since I got a ticket there once

primed ideas have some ability to prime other ideas, although more weakly. Like ripples on a pond, activation spreads through a small part of the vast network of associated ideas.

  • ex. during the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, whenever you saw certain letters together, like c/d, v/d, c/v, you'd see coronavirus/covid-19

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