the.com/flinch
your body voting no before your brain finishes reading the ballot
means To make a sudden involuntary movement away from something painful, frightening, or surprising.
from From an older verb 'flecchen,' meaning to bend or turn aside, which came into English through Old French 'flenchir' or 'flechir' (to bend, give way) and is thought to trace back to a Germanic root for bending. The sense slid from 'bending away' to 'shrinking back,' the way a body curls from a blow.
- speed
- reflex fires in milliseconds, faster than thought
- origin
- from Old French flenchir, to turn aside
- survival
- protects eyes, face, and skull instinctively
- tell
- poker players hunt it like buried treasure
- game
- a whole staring contest built around not doing it
for instance
pavlov's dogs — conditioned reflex experiment where dogs flinched/salivated at bell sound, ivan pavlov 1890s
startle response — acoustic reflex where humans flinch involuntarily at sudden loud noises above 130 decibels