Ask someone to do these or similar adding and subtracting problems…tell them to write them down
14+1 13+2 20-5…etc…
they all equal 15, do about ten of them…
Ask them to write down the first vegetable that pops in their head… Over 90 percent of the time they will say carrot…WHY?
And are there any similar tricks like that?
Can anyone provide links to sites that have this kind of stuff?
hmmm. This is an interesting variant on the version I had heard of this same trick. In the version I heard, you were supposed to ask someone what 3+3 was, then 4+2, then 1+5, then 9-3, and on and on, and they would be saying six, six, six, six, six, etc. . .Then all of sudden you would stop asking the math questions and say “Quick! Name a vegetable!” They would almost always say “carrot.” I have tried this on many people myself, and they really do almost always say carrot. The best theories I could come up with are:
Carrots are a very easily recognized and common vegetable (this was the most plausible theory).
That saying six, six, six, six, six, etc. made people think subconsciously of sex, and they would say carrot because of its relatively phallic nature. This is most likely not the answer, because then why wouldn’t people say “cucumber,” which is fairly well known for its properties as a sexual aid, I suppose. Erggghh. Maybe some combination of the phallic theory and the common nature of carrots?
After hearing your version, I would lean even further toward theory number one, because saying 15, 15, 15, 15, does not make me think about sex even in the slightest. That is, it does not make me think about more than I always am, anyway 
Yep - I think it’s just because most people think of “carrot” when they think of vegetables.
It’s like that word-association thingy. You do something to get their mind focused on extremely non-vegetable subject matter, then mention vegetables, the first thing that pops up is carrot.
I heard from a friend that the number 15 and carrot have some sub-concious(should learn to spell) connection. That seems somewhat reasonable.
After carrot its usually lettuce…In my experiences.
There is nothing I can add to what Chronos said then
Interesting. I remember learning this trick years ago, except that the number you kept adding up to was 14. I always thought the logical reason people would always say carrot was because subconsiciously they were thinking “14 karat”. But it seems people do it with other numbers and they still come up with carrot. Guess people just like carots!
Hey spluurtaf,
Spelling a word online is easy.
Go to Merriam-Webster OnLine.
Just type in the word as best you can and then enter it.
If it is not a word then the dictionary will take you to a list of possible words that link to definitions. Click the one you think is the right spelling and you can check the definition to make sure.
The only problem is this only helps you spell words you think might be misspelled. For other mistakes you need a spellchecker.
I hope this helps.
When I first learned that trick (about thirty years ago), the questions were “What’s your favorite colour?”, “What’s your favorite TV show?”, etc., finishing up with “What’s your favorite vegetable?” - the answer almost always being “carrot”. So numbers and their associations have nothing to do with it. The funny thing is that when that trick was done on me, I said “carrot” even though it definitely wasn’t my favorite vegetable (I couldn’t stand them).
It’s called ‘Mass Psychology’
In a group, a given number of people pick the same answer. Thus, your chances of reading minds is based on what percentage of those people choose the specific answer.
e.g. that magic trick, which has a couple forms. ask this question: ‘name a prime number between 1 & fifty, which no two digits are the same’ I saw this on tv yesterday as "name a two digit odd number between one and fifty, no two digits the same’
about 35% of the mass of people always choose ‘37’ for either one. Thus, the tv magic trick only showed a person who gave the right answer, 37. So you think, wowsa.
The first time someone tried that on me, I said broccoli. I guess I’m weird.
I did read a long discussion on this subject on another MB. I wish that I could remember everything that was said, as it turned out to be fairly interesting.
There’s another one where you’re supposed to come up with elephant (think of an animal that starts with E) and Denmark (think of a country that starts with D). Does anyone remember how that one goes? I just remembered I screwed that one up too. I said Emu.
The funnest one I’ve ever seen is where you spell various words that end in -less, (like speachless, loveless, penniless, shirtless) and ask them to state the word spelled. Then you spell T-I-T-L-E-S. Most times, they’ll answer (with a smirk or smile) titless (without tits). Then you embarrass them by correcting them: titles (names of books, movies). :D:D
I always figured it’s because the only vegetable we link with numbers as a society is “carrot”, or karat. That’s the reasoning I have always bought, and it makes sense to me.
darkcool reporting in with field study. I asked 37 people this question in a monotone voice, “This is not a trick question, name the first vegetable that comes to your mind”. (O.K., it’s not really a question)
34 (!) said carrot. This was with no ‘prep’ (math questions, etc). Chronos vindicated! ( like he needed it )
It’s not as amazing as it sounds. I think the actual wording was two digits, both digits are odd, prime number, less than fifty…
Obviously, 1-9 can’t be double digits.
Every even number can’t be a prime number.
the 20’s and 40’s are eliminated.
So it leaves you with 11, 13, 17, 19, 31, 37.
So I guess most people start at 1 and work up, then get frustrated (because they can’t find any in the first 10), so they start at 50 and work down… And get to 37.
And as for the the Denmark/elephant one… I think it goes:
Pick any number, 1 to 9.
Multiply by 9.
Add the 2 digits together.
If you still have two digits, add them again (it’ll always give 9).
Take away 5. (4)
If A=1, B=2, C=3, assign a letter to your number.
Name a country starting with D (options: Denmark, Djibouti, Dominica, Dominican Republic), and seeing as it’ll probably take a while to figure out a country, people will pick the first one they think of (Denmark)
Pick the second letter in your country (E)
Name an animal starting with E (Elephant is most obvious)
Tell me the colour of that animal (Gray).
Amazement by all.
Your explanation makes sense, but it has nothing to do with “mass psychology”. That has to do with the behaviour of large groups of people who have a means of interaction at the time the behaviour is observed. If they have no means of interacting (like when you ask 100,000 separate people to answer the OP’s questions), it is not mass psychology.
Another “trick” like this is to write numbers 1,2,3 and 4 in order on a single card, and have someone pick one of the numbers. Most people choose 3 - at least 2 out of 3 people, in my experience.
Slight variation on how I heard it.
Pick any number, 1 to 9
Subtract 5. (Make the sums easier; some folk get them wrong)
Multiply by 3. (Too many people know the 9 thing)
Square it. (Got my 9 now 
)
Add digits together to get single digit number. (Now we’re on 9 or 0)
If number is bigger than 5, subtract 5, if less than 5, add 4. (Gets us 4 and avoids mentioning 9 or 0)
Pick letter of alphabet corresponding to number. (D)
Country beginning with letter. (Denmark. Some folk get Dom. Rep. Maybe a fix should go in next step? e.g. if it has 2 names the second letter of the second part)
Second letter of country. (E)
Pick a mammal that begins with that letter. (Elephant. Elks must die!)
Colour of animal. (Grey)
somewhere in one of Martin Gardner’s books is a whole test of these ‘clairvoyant’ questions, about half simple math (which never ceases to amaze some people) and the others common mass psychology, like the two-digit odd no. one above or ‘name a country in Europe’. Even if you don’t think the same way as most others, you’ll probably get a high number of answers that match his.
I’ve gotten a rather puzzled look for saying ‘jackal’ on that D-country question.
I agree with most of the people above in that I think most people answer “carrot” because it’s often the first vegetable we learn about as children, and it’s in damn near everything. It would be interesting to try this in other countries to see what people would say.
I thought I might add to the chorus and say that no, the numbers 14 or 6 don’t have anything to do with the result. When I do the trick I just think of random simple sums to ask people, and it still works. I just asked my little sister without any mathematical preface, and she said carrot as well.
Anybody ever noticed that when given a choice of numbers between one to ten, a disproportionate amount seem to pick seven?
In a different forum, I saw this question asked, with the numbers all adding up to six. While a lot of people answered “carrot,” a significant minority answered “celery,” “tomato,” and “squash.”
I myself answered “cherry.” Duh.
But what I found most interesting was that the vast majority of the responses, vegetable or not, were six letter words.