from a young age we believe they have a unique essence

In one experiment, neuroscientists scanned participants' brains
while they allocated various objects either to a basket labeled mine,or another labeled;Alex's When participants subsequently looked at their new things,their brains showed more activity
in a region that usually flickers into life whenever we think about ourselves.Another reason we're so fond of our possessions
is that from a young age we believe they have a unique essence.
Psychologists showed us this by using an illusion to convince three to six-year-olds they built a copying machine,a device that could create perfect replicas of any item.