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Interesting Feelings of Unfamiliarity

mDiPalma

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Have you ever solved a 4x4x4 up to the PLL stage, glanced at the front face and a portion of the right face, and had this instantaneous feeling of extreme unfamiliarity with the color pattern you saw there? Has this led you to know that you have parity, before you can even check?

Have you ever finished F2L-1 on your 3x3x3, glanced at the orientation of all the corners, felt some sort of unfamiliarity with the net corner orientation, and known that you had accidentally twisted a corner, without having felt the corner twist or been able to confirm it?

Have you ever picked up a cube scrambled by one of your friends, experienced a sense of unfamiliarity with overall edge orientation, and known that you had an odd number of bad edges, before you could even count them (perhaps only for zz-ers)?

Have you ever accidentally popped and reassembled your 3x3x3 during a solve, gotten to F2L-1 or F2L-2, and known that you had replaced the edge incorrectly, without yet verifying?


If any of you can help me explain this phenomenon, please post below. I understand that this feeling has something to do with (un)familiarity during a superficial observation phase, but I'd really like to know what's happening in the brain. Any insight would be greatly appreciated!

Any OTHER examples of this phenomenon would also be greatly appreciated. I only posted the ones that happen to me. Please post yours below! :D


The reason I'm asking is because I've recently become reengaged with Porkynator's ZZ-d approach. And from time to time, after I finish eo+2x2x3 and place DFR and DRB, I get this instantaneous feeling that the corner permutation is solved, even without truly checking any of the corners. Thus I trust my gut instinct, finish the F2L, and lo and behold, there's a 2GLL case every single time.
 

Chipmonk8

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i've had it at oll of 3 by3. I think its just that even without realising it u recognise the pieces around the ones you are looking at. So for me i use 2 look oll and so let says i have a bar on top sometimes i can tell something is wrong on the top layer (not the top face) even though it does not at this stage require me to look at anything but the top face.
 

Lchu613

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Yes, instantly, for 3x3 and 4x4, OLL and PLL.
It happens because I study the positioning of the pieces in detail, like if there's a piece sandwiched between two opposite piece colors or stuff, so I know really well what all the cases look like.
 

sneaklyfox

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I wish I had these kinds of feelings when I'm trying to figure out which way I should put a popped piece back in. Unfortunately, I have a tendency to be unlucky so I always have to fix it. (I am only lucky for things I care very little about.)
 

Schmidt

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I wish I had this "power" when I started. I decided to lube my scrambled cube (I could barely solve it without cheat sheet) I popped an edge and put some oil from a hair cutting machine in it and put the piece in backwards. When I got to OLL I couldn't get any algs to work, even if I looked at my cheat sheet. It was 1.30 in the morning before I realized I had put it in backwards :fp
 

applemobile

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Your brain only remembers the time you were right. You have probably had a strange feeling that you had parity/flipped corner/etc a million times, but you haven't been right, so you just forget about it and move on. The couple of times you were right, you remember it and think you hae some kind of super psychic ability. Kind of why people think they have super powers when they take their phone out their pocket and it starts ringing. Reality is, they took their phone out their pocket 100 times that day and nothing happened, but their brain will not register an uneventful event.
 

Renslay

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Your brain only remembers the time you were right. You have probably had a strange feeling that you had parity/flipped corner/etc a million times, but you haven't been right, so you just forget about it and move on. The couple of times you were right, you remember it and think you hae some kind of super psychic ability. Kind of why people think they have super powers when they take their phone out their pocket and it starts ringing. Reality is, they took their phone out their pocket 100 times that day and nothing happened, but their brain will not register an uneventful event.

My thoughts exactly.
 

mDiPalma

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Your brain only remembers the time you were right. You have probably had a strange feeling that you had parity/flipped corner/etc a million times, but you haven't been right, so you just forget about it and move on. The couple of times you were right, you remember it and think you hae some kind of super psychic ability. Kind of why people think they have super powers when they take their phone out their pocket and it starts ringing. Reality is, they took their phone out their pocket 100 times that day and nothing happened, but their brain will not register an uneventful event.

This thread is not about superpowers, luck, or anything to do with chance. These instances are NOT about guessing correctly or predicting a certain case.

This thread IS about taking a glance that would seemingly NOT be enough to make a concrete conclusion about a state of the cube, but making that conclusion anyway based on a sensation of unfamiliarity with the pattern present.

In other words, your subconcious brain requires LESS information to make a conclusion than your conscious brain does. And the question I asked at the start of the thread was: why?

...Because, if we could train our conscious brains to be as efficient as our subconscious ones, we could likely decrease our case recognition time by quite some margin.
 

Spaxxy

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I'm pretty familiar with PLL, so I can recognize PLL parity on a 4x4 pretty quickly. I also pretty much know when I've twisted a corner or popped and put a piece in wrong on my 3x3. I have a pretty good intuition when it comes to those things.
 

TDM

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The reason I'm asking is because I've recently become reengaged with Porkynator's ZZ-d approach. And from time to time, after I finish eo+2x2x3 and place DFR and DRB, I get this instantaneous feeling that the corner permutation is solved, even without truly checking any of the corners. Thus I trust my gut instinct, finish the F2L, and lo and behold, there's a 2GLL case every single time.
I'm never lucky enough to get a CP skip. The three times I've got it it's taken me the same time as normal to recognise. But I definitely know the feeling with 4x4 PLL parity; both OLL and PLL.
 
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