the people too poor to immediately replace all their clothes are wearing any other color.
This one hits close to home.
During my middle school years I was going to a private school with wealthy children. It was all my parents could to to afford regular clothes, however I wanted to keep up. So I saved my money and waited months to go buy the hippest shirt around. So I stroll into a dance that we were having with my (no joke) purple superman t-shirt and quickly get rebuked and laughed at. Needless to say, I was behind the curve on that one—and it never saw the light of day again.
False signal failed.
A few months ago I stumbled upon a game wherein the goal is to guide an elephant from one side of the screen to a pipe; perhaps you have seen it:
This is the only level
Here’s the rub: The rules change on every level. In order to do well you have to be quick to change your view of how the new virtual world works. That takes a flexible mind and accurate interpretation of the cues that the game gives you.
I sent this to some of my colleagues and have concluded anecdotally that their mental flexibility is in rough correlation with their results from the game. I think that experimental games are great and would, if done in a controlled setting, be an interesting way to evaluate mental acuity.