Big ideas.
Once a week.
Subscribe to our weekly newsletter.
Extroverts Prefer Plains, Introverts Like Mountains
There's a very curious link between topography and personality.

People who live in mountainous U.S. states are more introverted than their fellow Americans in the flatter states. That curious link between topography and personality is proposed by a recent article in the Journal of Research in Personality.
The article, titled “Personality and Geography: Introverts Prefer Mountains," contains a fascinating graph, linking elevation difference to large-scale personality data from all 50 states and D.C.
States on the left of the graph are flatter than states on the right; states at the bottom have relatively more introverts than states at the top of the graph. Alaska, by far the most mountainous state, is among the most introverted — only preceded by Maryland and New Hampshire (which are, however, much less incidented). North Dakota, America's most extroverted state, is also one of its flatter ones. Extroversion runners-up Wisconsin and D.C. are almost pancake-flat too.
The graph does not explain whether people become introverted in a mountain state, or flat-state introverts have a tendency to head for the hilly parts of the country. The old nature versus nurture debate, in other words. But in a very strange context.
Full article here in the Journal of Research in Personality. Many thanks to Mark Feldman, who saw it mentioned here on The Washington Post's Wonkblog.
Strange Maps #732
Got a strange map? Let me know at strangemaps@gmail.com.
What early US presidents looked like, according to AI-generated images
"Deepfakes" and "cheap fakes" are becoming strikingly convincing — even ones generated on freely available apps.
Abraham Lincoln, George Washington
- A writer named Magdalene Visaggio recently used FaceApp and Airbrush to generate convincing portraits of early U.S. presidents.
- "Deepfake" technology has improved drastically in recent years, and some countries are already experiencing how it can weaponized for political purposes.
- It's currently unknown whether it'll be possible to develop technology that can quickly and accurately determine whether a given video is real or fake.
The future of deepfakes
<p>In 2018, Gabon's president Ali Bongo had been out of the country for months receiving medical treatment. After Bongo hadn't been seen in public for months, rumors began swirling about his condition. Some suggested Bongo might even be dead. In response, Bongo's administration released a video that seemed to show the president addressing the nation.</p><p>But the <a href="https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=324528215059254" target="_blank">video</a> is strange, appearing choppy and blurry in parts. After political opponents declared the video to be a deepfake, Gabon's military attempted an unsuccessful coup. What's striking about the story is that, to this day, experts in the field of deepfakes can't conclusively verify whether the video was real. </p><p>The uncertainty and confusion generated by deepfakes poses a "global problem," according to a <a href="https://www.brookings.edu/research/is-seeing-still-believing-the-deepfake-challenge-to-truth-in-politics/#cancel" target="_blank">2020 report from The Brookings Institution</a>. In 2018, the U.S. Department of Defense released some of the first tools able to successfully detect deepfake videos. The problem, however, is that deepfake technology keeps improving, meaning forensic approaches may forever be one step behind the most sophisticated forms of deepfakes. </p><p>As the 2020 report noted, even if the private sector or governments create technology to identify deepfakes, they will:</p><p style="margin-left: 20px;">"...operate more slowly than the generation of these fakes, allowing false representations to dominate the media landscape for days or even weeks. "A lie can go halfway around the world before the truth can get its shoes on," warns David Doermann, the director of the Artificial Intelligence Institute at the University of Buffalo. And if defensive methods yield results short of certainty, as many will, technology companies will be hesitant to label the likely misrepresentations as fakes."</p>The COVID-19 pandemic has introduced a number of new behaviours into daily routines, like physical distancing, mask-wearing and hand sanitizing. Meanwhile, many old behaviours such as attending events, eating out and seeing friends have been put on hold.
VR experiments manipulate how people feel about coffee
A new study looks at how images of coffee's origins affect the perception of its premiumness and quality.
Expert drinking coffee while wearing a VR headset.
- Images can affect how people perceive the quality of a product.
- In a new study, researchers show using virtual reality that images of farms positively influence the subjects' experience of coffee.
- The results provide insights on the psychology and power of marketing.
Is empathy always good?
Research has shown how important empathy is to relationships, but there are limits to its power.
