what is actually happening psychologically/physiologically when you have a “gut feeling” about something?
In: Biology
Part of human evolution is threat evaluation.
Some animated movies look really bad to us because of the uncanny valley. Our “that looks off” senses are triggered.
We go into instinctive alert mode because we are aware something is new and weird and maybe dangerous.
Similarly we’re evolving in a changing world so humans are constantly dealing with unknown and new threats.
Humans are basically evolving to be better at looking for new things that might kill us, and that’s a great survival mechanism.
One aspect of this is pareidolia. We see things that are there and find patterns that are not. This happened to me when I left a coat on a chair and woke up to get a drink and thought I saw an intruder.
Dogs can actually hear noises we cannot (sensitivity) and I think humans trust our instincts because we really do need to worry about the little noises (threats) we know can actually hurt us, but perhaps we also know we cannot hear.
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