Surprise (emotion)

With surprise is defined as the experience of unforeseen situations, feelings or encounters, unexpected words, gifts and the like. In the magazine New Scientist surprise was defined as " change of expectation due to the arrival of new data."

Almost always throws surprises confusion and / or a violent emotion - and therefore mostly spontaneous physical responses such as change of perspective or look up, blushing, laughing, hand, head or foot movements, twitching and so on.

The changes brought about feelings may be pleasantly ( bright, warm) or unpleasant (dark, etc. defensively ) be - depending on the situation, type of person, personal constitution or triggering person. This can have uncontrolled exclamation result.

But surprises should not be foreign to animals and are often - as well as in humans in dangerous situations - answered by protective instincts or reflexes.

The tactics to surprise an enemy, bringing military advantage. See surprise attack.

Element of surprise

In connection with the formulation of business or purchase agreements, the term of surprise, a surprise attack perceived by the customer (or duping ). This element of surprise can also - be perceived when the clause is objectively recognized than usual or was if expressly and explicitly in the contract in addition to this clause - for example, by inexperience.

If you are timing faster operations and Handstoppungen in astrometry or sports moments of surprise cause prolongation of the reaction time. For foreseeable events, the delay is about a tenth of a second, which corresponds approximately to the cognitive processing time. When completely surprising events ( eg in traffic ) it can reach up to the so-called moment of shock.

Information Theory

The surprise value (or information content ) of an event or message depends - regardless of context - from the reciprocal of the arrival probability from.