Mental Models - Yum, Yuck, Meh 👅
Issue #68
Here’s a simple shortcut to find out someone’s intuitive preference on something, or maybe even get in touch with your own…
What is Yum, Yuck or Meh?
I came across this simple framework this on a popular health podcast called Huberman Lab.
Huberman talks about how our neural circuits in the brain divide our sensory experiences along three dimensions: Yum, Yuck or Meh.
Yum, you want more.
Yuck, you want to avoid it.
Meh, so-so.
It’s as simple as that, neurons are pretty basic! And yes sensory experience includes taste, but also sight, sound, smell, and touch.
Why is this interesting?
For most foods your are probably very aware of your intuitive reaction preference, but this model can be used as a metaphor more broadly. It’s a great way to get in touch with intuitive preference for about just about anything.
You could ask customer how they feel about a new product feature on a yum-yuck-meh scale for a change, instead the regular types of satisfaction spectrums. You might get more of a gut feeling response from them this way, rather than a reasoned response that might have more bias.
Or if you think you might not be too in touch with your own intuitive preferences, when faced with a choice, try asking yourself if a particular option feels more yum, yuck, or meh.
Want to go deeper?
🤔 Even more simply: just bring to mind your job, or your startup, or a hobby, or even a relationship, and see if you get a feeling of yum, yuck, or meh.
🔖 I’d be remiss not to leave a Kahneman reminder: intuition is not magic:
Expert intuition strikes us as magical, but it is not. Indeed, each of us performs feats of intuitive expertise many times each day. Most of us are pitch-perfect in detecting anger in the first word of a telephone call, recognize as we enter a room that we were the subject of the conversation, and quickly react to subtle signs that the driver of the car in the next lane is dangerous.
The situation has provided a cue; this cue has given the expert access to information stored in memory, and the information provides the answer. Intuition is nothing more and nothing less than recognition.
🔖 This is a more simple and less mundane scale that hits intuitive preference more that Satisfaction Spectrum or Emotional Valence scale might.
💎 This reminded me of this quote that always has rang true, from writer Elie Wiesel:
The opposite of love is not hate, it's indifference.
🎧 Here’s the whole podcast episode, he talks about yum, yuck, meh at 49:23.
Revisit related mental models
🧠 Build your latticework
Sensory Food what do you ingest via all the senses?
Myelination how do things get wired in the brain?
Regret Minimization Framework what might you regret not doing?