Are you an ex-gasper? When and why did you stop gasping? You know when you say a word so many times in a short window and you forget what it means?
Are you an ex-gasper? When and why did you stop gasping? You know when you say a word so many times in a short window and you forget what it means?
I think those people are just less surprised when something happens. I don’t think they are unlearning how to gasp, but it takes a bit more to trigger it in someone who’s already seen worse than the rest of us want to imagine.
So would it be more beneficial to not gasp? Or gasp less at least?
Probably not necessarily? Evolution does kind of a bad job at doing things that are beneficial, it just does things that half work some of the time, or does things at random that don’t really hurt us, or does things at random that do hurt us but don’t cause us to instantly drop dead as soon as we’re born.
This feels to me like a thing that half works some of the time. Raw speculation here, but gasping could be to get a bit of oxygen to deal with a dangerous situation, but evolution equated danger with the unexpected so some of us just reflexively gasp when there’s something unexpected. Or maybe it’s something else, who knows.