In normal speech, words and phonemes tend to overlap one another so that the sentence we are trying to interpret is nothing more than a long string of syllables without any pauses. In cases such as these, how are we able to understand the content of the sentence? A. We hazard a guess as to where the breaks in the sentence should be. B. We keep a mental record of which syllables occur right next to each other with unusual frequency. C. We wait until the entire speech passage is finished and then try to decode the sentence. D. We work through the speech passage on a trial-and-error basis as the passage occurs.

Not all members of the radio audience of orson welles' war of the worlds broadcast panicked immediately. indeed, some didn't panic until they looked out of the window and saw empty streets; others didn't panic until they saw streets full of traffic. it was after checking out the situation that these citizens decided that the martians had indeed invaded earth. this example illustrates that contagion can result when people look to others for the interpretation of ambiguous situations . can result when cultural norms reinforce people's most likely responses. occurs primarily because humans are by nature irrational creatures. is especially likely when people are motivated to make independent decisions.