Reply by NathanAllen

Regardless of what it is there is an important lession here.

The best example I can think of is the leg twitch. Before we had cell phones that would vibrate in our pants pocket we had no frame of reference; it was just a twitch. But now no matter if you’re positive your phone is in another location you invariably check your pocket after one. We’ve managed to associate a body function with a piece of technology because we’re easily fooled by mimicry.

This woman’s actions mimic talking into a cell phone; something that is a representative action. Take ten people dancing; none of them look alike but our brain has a representative picture of dancing so we can identify them all as dancing. Maybe one is actually having a seizure; nevermind our brain still says “dancing.” We rely on patterns to speed up recognition. The main reason why we see faces in the floor, walls and patterns where they don’t actually exist (Grilled Jesus Sandwich) is bad “software” leftover from when we had to recognize patterns quickly or risk being eaten by a big cat.

Twenty years ago we wouldn’t have associated this woman’s actions with talking on a cell phone and twenty years from now people will see something different. However, right now our brains are fooled by mimicry into recognizing a pattern that doesn’t actually exist.