In one rail study, pointing and calling cut errors by 84%
A century-old Japanese railway habit works because it forces the brain out of autopilot, in two places at once.
Curiosity Chronicle · A Japanese Ritual to Improve Your HabitsWatch a train conductor in Japan and you will see something odd. He jabs a finger toward a trackside light and announces what it shows. The century-old practice is still in effect today.
The ritual is called shisa kanko, which means pointing and calling. According to the telling, the method was written into railway manuals in 1913 as spoken calls with replies. Near the end of the 1920s, an extended-finger gesture was added on top. Drivers had to aim a finger toward each trackside light and announce what it showed, while the assistant in the cab echoed it back.
The thought is to turn a routine glance into a conscious act, so slips become less likely. In one test of a simple task, the reduction was striking.
In a 1994 study by rail researchers in Japan, workers doing nothing special averaged 2.38 slip-ups in every 100 moves. Adding either pointing alone or calling alone brought the rate down only modestly.
Adding both pointing and calling cut errors to 0.38 per 100 actions, an 84 percent reduction from the baseline. Either step alone helped a little. The two together did something different.
Researchers offered a reason in findings published in 2013 after review by outside experts. They found the pair strengthens the brain's system for effortful oversight, the deliberate control network. In that account, gesturing directs sight toward the precise object. Speaking aloud pulls the relevant procedure from short-term mental storage. Put plainly, the pair makes you check on purpose, which can help when a habitual move could turn risky.
Questions people ask
Is pointing and calling used outside Japanese trains?
This account only describes trains, and the 84 percent result comes only from a simple task test with rail workers. Whether pilots, drivers, or factory crews use the same ritual is not covered by this study, so the number cannot be assumed to apply to them.
Would just saying it aloud work just as well?
Not as much, in that test. Calling alone or pointing alone lowered errors only modestly. The large drop came when workers did both together, which fits the finding that the two steps engage attention in different ways.