Just an odd hard to explain observation.
So I build and run escape rooms.
To put it in context, it's like watching the same TV shows over and over with different actors. Total Bell curve of predicatable actions. BUT every once in a while a pattern develops where there should be no pattern. For example: there is a wooden blocks on the end of a cord. It is supposed to plug into a certain shape on another thing. (Unimportant) so all of a sudden one person will carry it to the opposite side of the room, and weigh it. Keep in mind no one has done this before, hundreds of room runs, no one has done this. Then the next day, someone else does it, and a few hours later, someone else. Then now it's a thing that happens occasionally. This is just 1 example, I have several. Boggles my mind.
Back in the 70's there was a book called "The Hundredth Monkey". It presented a similar scenario where monkeys in one island would learn how to use a simple tool. Once the "hundredth monkey" had learned that skill, monkeys on other islands mysteriously started doing this.
[en.wikipedia.org] One of your responders referred to the Hundreth Monkey Effect. Here is a link for it
Perhaps triggered by something seen on television that nobody actually remembers seeing. Something external to the room that everyone experienced.
Did you ever play the computer game "Myst"? That sort of behavior sounds like something out of a computer game (even the first versions of Adventure by Woods and Crowther required you to catch a bird, cage it, and then release it to scare/attack/kill the snake in another part of the game.)
I really enjoyed those games.... I should look them up again as I've probably forgotten enough to make it enjoyable all over again!
What a cool job! I would LOVE to do an escape room sometime! It's on my to-do list.
Telephone, telegram, cars, etc etc all invented by multiple people practically simultaneously........is there a name for this other than (IMO inadequate) "serendipity"? There certainly should be!
Hi, Jason, and welcome to the website,
Sounds similar to the controversial "100th monkey" effect. Researchers studying some young macaque monkeys that had learned to wash sand off sweet potatoes in a stream from watching older monkeys doing it, observed that after a certain critical percentage of monkeys learned the behavior through watching other monkeys, that same washing behavior seemed to appear spontaneously in other macaque populations on nearby islands.
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My guess would be that another escape room had to do this (maybe there is another local one or something they seen on tv/internet). I remember seeing an escape room on the Big Bang show but I do not remember if they had to weigh anything or not...
How intriguing. I wonder what psychologists would say about this.
That it's likely an example of the Baader-Meinhof phenomenon
@ghost_warlock Of course!