Visitors can take part in any or all of the eight current exhibits, which include “What Feels True,” “Design Your Best Life,” and “How Do Our Eyes Fool Us?” In the latter exhibit, participants explore how the eyes (and mind) can play tricks on us by scrutinizing images of famous faces arranged both right side up and upside down. Upside down, participants assume the faces are simply that—upside down. But once they view the faces in their common, right-side-up form, participants are able to notice important details that they originally missed—a phenomenon known as the “Thatcher Effect.”
Additional exhibits explore risk taking, how well we know our friends—an amusing game-based demo, especially if you visit Mindworks with a friend—as well as the ambiguity of regrets. In “The Power of Regrets,” it’s revealed that (spoiler alert!) we often regret our actions in the short-term, but we regret our inactions for much longer.
Mindworks is a continuation of the world class research operations at CDR’s PIMCO Decision Research Laboratories. In the fall of 2018, CDR and PIMCO, one of the world’s premier fixed income investment managers, announced a partnership in support of the center’s behavioral science research, which included opening Mindworks to foster greater engagement with the public, increase the diversity of participants in research studies, and yield scientific discoveries with the potential to improve the lives of individuals and communities.
“Mindworks will be the only hands-on behavioral science lab in the world where you can both study and be studied simultaneously,” Epley said, “expanding research beyond the ivory tower, into our everyday lives.”