The Science Of How Applause Spreads In An Audience
Put Your Hands Together Austin Public Library Clapping is just as infectious as a disease, according to a new study. Sorry, Toastmasters. When people clap at a performance, they're not really driven by how much they enjoyed what they saw, according to a new study. Instead, they decide how long to applaud based on the applause they hear around them. The research is part of a larger field in which scientists try to figure out how memes spread among people. Clapping is like a small, brief meme that moves its way through the limited audience watching a performance. And it really is just as infectious as a great gif or a communicable disease. When the researchers graphed the times at which people started and stopped clapping, the graph had a sigmoidal curve, like graphs of people getting infected and then recovering from a disease, the researchers wrote in a paper published this...