SURPRISE!

M. Alexandra
Toro S
What is surprise?
The word "surprise" has 3 different meanings:

Countable noun
A surprise is an unexpected event, fact, or piece of
news.
Uncountable noun
Surprise is the feeling that you have when something
unexpected happens.
Verb
If something surprises you, it gives you a feeling of
surprise.

Source: https://www.collinsdictionary.com/es/diccionario/ingles/surprise
 Definition
It´s one of the seven universal emotions and arises when we
encounter and unexpected sounds or movements. As the
briefest of the universal emotions, its function is to focus our
attention on determining what is happening.

Source: https://www.paulekman.com/universal-emotions/what-is-surprise/
 Is surprise
an emotion?

Common‐sense classifies others regard it as an

surprise as an emotion. In emotion, but not a basic
contrast, in scientific one; and yet others do not
psychology, this question is classify surprise as an
an emotion is controversial. emotion at all.
Some emotion theorists
regard surprise not only as
an emotion, but even as a
basic emotion;
Source: https://psychologie.uni-
greifswald.de/storages/uni-
greifswald/fakultaet/mnf/psychologie/Al
lgemeine_II/Publikationen/Reisenzein_M
eyer_Niepel_2012_Surprise.pdf
 Why is it
important?
It turns out that surprise works on the
dopamine system in our brains, helping us
to focus our attention and inspiring us to
look at our situation in new ways.

Source: https://greatergood.berkeley.edu/article/item/why_humans_need_surprise
Luna and Renninger (both psychologists) outline four stages of the surprise response:

1 Freeze—when we are stopped in our tracks

because of the unexpected

2 Find—when we get hooked into trying to

understand what’s going on/how this happened

3 Shift—when we begin to shift our perspectives,

based on conflicting findings

4 Share—when we feel the pull to share our

surprises with others
 https://theworld.org/stories/2015-04-02/heres-what-happens-after-surprise

What causes
surprise?
Surprises actually cause humans to physically freeze for
1/25th of a second. Then they usually trigger something
in the brain that Luna calls “find” — a moment that
causes humans to generate extreme curiosity to figure
out what is happening.

Common surprise triggers are:

Loud sounds
Unexpected movements
Representation in art/history

https://www.revistaad.es/arte/articulos/20-mejores-obras-historia-arte-espanol/25058

Fleeing from criticism,

by Pere Borrell del Caso.
 A personal example

My last birthday
March 10th

"I thought I would have no more gifts!"

THANK YOU!

M. Alexandra
Toro S