May 15 2012: Yeah, I was thinking about that too. First, I noticed she was using f for th sometimes, and had a peculiar way of saying alter (sounded like elter), but what really gave her foreignness away was the clearly pronounced k in knowledge.
And yes, what's surprising is actually the lack of an accent, which is probably why we react. Had there been no outlandish traits of her speech, we wouldn't even observe it. Had she had a thick russian accent, we would notice, but not comment on it. But in this otherwise perfectly native way of speaking tiny differences from the norm (like the k in knowledge) attract attention. (PS: I study linguistics)
Regarding the actual topic of this talk, it is very interesting indeed. It certainly made me think!
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A reply on Talk: Tali Sharot: The optimism bias
And yes, what's surprising is actually the lack of an accent, which is probably why we react. Had there been no outlandish traits of her speech, we wouldn't even observe it. Had she had a thick russian accent, we would notice, but not comment on it. But in this otherwise perfectly native way of speaking tiny differences from the norm (like the k in knowledge) attract attention. (PS: I study linguistics)
Regarding the actual topic of this talk, it is very interesting indeed. It certainly made me think!