Thinking about Thinkingand the demands of the post-digital world
Cassandra Moore, PhDAquilent
IA Summit 2014
The digital revolution is over.Nicholas Negroponte
We have a growing internet of things.
Data is ubiquitous, sensors are autonomous.
Post-digital is the state of things after the fanfare.
How do we dwell in an information ecology?
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What we Don’t See
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How do we build digital systems to resonate with those parameters?
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Everything we think, feel, sense is filtered through the particular parameters of our sensory and
cognitive systems.
System 1 System 2
• Automatic, effortless, quick• Largely unconscious,
difficult/impossible to control• Operates on biases and heuristics• Does most of the work of thinking
• Controlled, effortful, slow• Usually conscious• Logically coherent, rule-governed• Lazy, difficult to engage• Who we think we are
Two Families of Mental Operation
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Paying more When Watched
Bateson, M et al, Cues of being watched enhance cooperation in a real-world setting. Biology Letters (2006) 2, 412-414
Expertise is Intuitive Thinking
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BIASES IN INTUITIVE THINKING
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ASSOCIATIVE COHERENCE
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Priming
VOMIT BANANAS
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When did Attila the Hun Rise to Power?
It depends on the serial number.@Seymour188
The Invisible Gorilla
Chablis and Simons, The Invisible Gorilla
Associative Coherence
• Suppression of ambiguity or doubt
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• Incorporation of extraneous information
• World seems much more coherent than it is
CAUSALITY AND INTENT
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Merely Shapes on a Screen
Heider and Simmel, 1944
Causality & Intent
• Coincident timing perceived as causality
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• Agency is attributed to objects
• Motives are attributed to objects
STATISTICS AND NUMEROSITY
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Substituting Similarity for Probability
Linda studied philosophy in college , most people think she went to Berkeley. She participated in anti-nuclear marches, she was very bright and very active.
Linda is a feminist bank teller.
Ten years have passed. Which of the following is most probable?
Linda is a bank teller.
P(Feminist and Teller)P(Teller)
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We Suck at Statistics
• Substitute easier operations for hard ones
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• Discount the base rate
• Small numbers are lawless
It’s tough to make predictions, especially about the future.
– Yogi Berra
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Impact Bias
• Overestimate the impact of events on future happiness
• Focus solely on the event, tend to forget other things will occur
• Best predictor is how others are doing in the same situation
Overconfidence Bias
• Pundits’ predictions around chance
• Overconfidence in predictions
• Discount falsifying evidence
• Reluctant to change in the face of negative evidence
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Where do we go from here?
• Expect everything to become a coherent story
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• Multi-tasking isn’t
• Under-design – causality comes for free
• Tell people’s stories to improve decisions
• Do the stats behind the scenes
A Different Perspective
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Percentages are Difficult
A health survey was conducted on a sample of adult males of all ages and occupations.
What percentage of the men have had a heart attack?
What percentage of the men are both over 55 and have had a heart attack?
A health survey was conducted on a sample of 100 adult males of all ages and occupations.
How many of the 100 men have had a heart attack?
How many of the men are both over 55 and have had a heart attack?
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