Thinking fast and slow

Two voices in our heads. One good one bad. One slow one fast. Short term memory long term memory. Do we rationally think what we like about one set of ideas and quickly about another set of ideas. Calculation and quick understanding _- about the angry woman photograph.

System 1 and 2 of Daniel kahneman book thinking fast and slow. You either know ur, believe you know or give up if it takes a lot of time. 

Things that need attention are harder to do. And may not be done if you are not paying attention.

How easy is it to recall stored memory?

System 1 and 2 are always on. System 1 reacts fast and automatically. Impressions, intuitions, intentions, and feelings. These are for system 2 to react. But system 2 is just too lazy. It wants to be in the comfort zone. 

If endorsed by System 2, impressions and intuitions turn into beliefs, and

impulses turn into voluntary actions.

The Gorilla experiment. The Gorilla crossed the basketball court but nobody noticed. 

Only while doing complex calculations or making embarrassing mistakes did system 2 come into action for damage control.

Word tasks like upper case and lower case words, but in a different format, like the word upper in lower case format. And the word lower in upper case format. Similarly, right and left. Right written on the left of the page and left written on the right of the page. Similarly, red written in blue, green written in red etc. The brain's automatic response system gets confused with this seemingly simple tasks that lead you out of your comfort zone.

System 2 is in charge of self control

The Muller Lyer illusion shows that the brain is willing to accept what it sees. The illusion has two identical lines with fins or arrows, but one appears longer.

/______\

\.          /

\______/

/           \

This shows your your system 2 accepts whatever your system 1 dishes out unless someone points out the mistake.

Similarly, if someone is all praise about you without even knowing you, say because of his instinct, then he is most likely lying.

30 - useful fiction

Making routine decisions?

The slow brain and fast brain or slow system and fast system.

Daniel talks about things that you comprehend fast, not easily but fast. You latch on to easy. Like somebody who tells you I have talked to many people but nobody understood my problem but I think you can help me. You will easily like the person and want to help him. But the slow system will ask why couldn't others help him? And try to think rationally. - something we attribute to educated and non educated.

That is why we can recognise other people's mistakes easily.

Why system 1 and system 2? Why not call them the automatic system and the effort system? Because our brains like easy things. Automatic is much hard to say even remember. Similarly, our brains like stories. So when we explain things with stories it becomes easy to comprehend. That's why Daniel kahneman uses easy words to remember and makes the two words into characters of a story.

Attention and effort 33

Dr kahneman setup an experiment where he observed the pupils of the volunteers when they were given increasingly difficult mental tasks. The more difficult the mental tasks became the more dilated the pupils became and the heartbeat increased. Pupils dilation upto 50% and heart beat upto 7 beats faster was the most the volunteers would take before giving up.

Sales people can find out about the clothes you are interested in by your pupil dilation.

Page 35.

Mental multiplication takes efforts so the pupil dilates as long as someone is doing the task and contacts when s/he finds a solution or gives up.

Casual conversation doesn't take effort. Is like a stroll. Multiplication is like a sprint. You have to pay attention. Paying attention makes you concentrate on certain things only. You may miss something obvious unless you are looking for it. Like the invisible Gorilla.

36

System 2 and the electrical circuits

Laziness is built into our nature. So is fear and getting away from tasks which we find complex. Consistency in doing something, mental or physical, makes the task a skill we can acquire. Once a tak becomes part of our skill set it becomes easy to do and takes less brain space to think.

It's hard to keep many things at once in the working memory. Also, it's difficult to do more than one focused task at a time.

41 the lazy controller

Strolling can be very refreshing and you can have a meaningful conversation too.

However, when you increase your speed you cannot do complex thinking. Multiplication of two digit numbers becomes difficult. Recalling memories tucked away for a long time specially informative and not experience is difficult.

Flow- every individual has his own speed and flow that helps him do stuff like hobbies. A speed of walking, a speed of writing or painting. Here even the most complex of works becomes effortless.

People who experience flow describe it as

“a state of effortless concentration so deep that they lose their sense of

time, of themselves, of their problems,” and their descriptions of the joy of

that state are so compelling that Csikszentmihalyi has called it an “optimal

experience.”

The busy and depleted

If you are given a memory task like remembering a 7 digit number, and offered 2 desserts one more indulging than the other you will choose the more indulging one i.e. because your system 1 if now in charge since system 2 is busy remembering the numbers. 

Roy Baumeister’s group has repeatedly found that an effort of will or self-

control is tiring; if you have had to force yourself to do something, you are

less willing or less able to exert self-control when the next challenge comes

around. The phenomenon has been named ego depletion.

If difficult tasks are given to a person successively it becomes easy for that person to quit. Also, it will provoke him to do something that he has specifically been asked to avoid. Like being on a diet or not thinking about something, even not being emotional during a tear jerker movie. In other words decision making abilities may be effected.

Effortful mental activities use up more glucose and can be refreshed by intake of glucose. It is the glucose depletion that increases pupil size and heart rate - as mentioned earlier.

On an experiment judges who were going over papers for parole were found to be more observing and lenient right after a meal. The parole applications were rejected more when the last meal time had passed for some time.

The Lazy System 2 pg 45

Although system 2 is supposed to control and monitor system 1 it is usually very lazy. This is highlighted by a small experiment question:

If a bat and ball are worth 1.10 dollars and the bay is worth 1 $ more than the ball how much does the ball cost?

It costs 5¢ but most would guess 10¢ because 1$ more is 1.10$. 

Similarly - 

All roses are flowers. 

Some flowers fade quickly.

Therefore some roses fade quickly.

And the Detroit Michigan question about number of murders

Intelligence, Control, Rationality pg 48

Walter Mischel experiment 

Children were given a choice between a small reward (one Oreo), which they could have at any time, or a larger reward (two cookies) for which they had to wait 15 minutes. They were to

remain alone in a room, facing a desk with two objects: a single cookie

and a bell that the child could ring at any time to call in the experimenter

and receive the one cookie. About half the children managed the feat of waiting for 15 minutes, mainly by keeping their attention away from the tempting

reward. Ten or fifteen years later The resisters had higher measures of executive control in cognitive tasks, and especially the ability to reallocate their attention effectively. As young adults, they were less likely to take drugs. A significant difference in intellectual aptitude emerged: the children who had shown more self-control as four-year-olds had substantially higher scores on tests of intelligence

A team of researchers at the University of Oregon explored the link

between cognitive control and intelligence in several ways. During

five 40-minute sessions, they exposed children aged four to six to various

computer games especially designed to demand attention and control.

Other

research by the same group identified specific genes that are involved in

the control of attention, showed that parenting techniques also affected this

ability, and demonstrated a close connection between the children’s ability

to control their attention and their ability to control their emotions.

Shane Frederick experimented with impulsive people and showed they had little patience. They tended to take smaller graduations that would come immediately rather than wait for a larger reward. Similarly, they were willing to pay higher for immediate gratification like a delivery of an item they ordered rather than wait.

Keith Stanovich - the bat ball question. 

The core of his

argument is that rationality should be distinguished from intelligence. In

his view, superficial or “lazy” thinking is a flaw in the reflective mind, a

failure of rationality. 

The Associative Machine  52

Associative action

Associative coherence

Word or words that evoke a response mostly physical

The Marvels of Priming 54

Word association - so_p is soup if you've eaten and soap if you've had a bath.

John Bargh experiment: students of new York University to read paragraphs that were primed with words related to old age. Later when they were asked to walk across the corridor to another room they were acting like old people.

Idea motor

In a German university people were asked to move around slowly like old people and they were quick to recognise words related to old age is a mirror effect of the new York University experiment.

Forcing some people to smile by making them hold a pencil in their mouths reachers found they treated cartoons funnier than those who were forced to frown by holding the pencil in their mouths from the eraser end.

Similarly, studies suggest that people e who were told to nod their heads while listening to people saying something tended to agree with them while others who were told to shake their heads disagreed more.

Primes that guide us 56

In an experiment it was shown that images of a school and classrooms greatly influenced people to vote for more funding for schools.

Money phrases or screensavers made people money minded.

Money primed people were self dependent and perserverent, but they were also very selfish, they preferred being alone and refrained from helping others.

People who felt they had 'stabbed someone in the back' wanted to wash their hands. People who had lied to someone wanted mouth wash. People who had lied on email or writing preferred soap.

Last Macbeth effect.

In an experiment where tea drinkers voluntarily paid for their cup of tea researchers placed posters of eyes staring directly at the drinker. Alternatively after a week a poster of flowers was hung. Every alternative week the posters were changed, but with different pair of eyes and flowers. It was noticed that whenever the eyes' poster was hung the tea drinkers paid more and they paid even more when the eyes looked like they were staring.

This similar effect is used by tyrants and dictators by installing their posters every where possible so that the public feels they are constantly being watched. 

Cognitive Ease, 61

Cognitive ease is when you don't feel the need to think too much. You feel whatever has been presented to you is easy, familiar or give done it before. 

Alternatively, cognitive strain is when your mind is forced to compute maybe when the information presented to you is complicated.

During chinite ease you'll believe things easily and you are more trusting. During strain you are suspicious and vigilant. You may make less mistakes. On the flip side you are less creative.

Illusions of remembering

Sometimes you read a word or a name - this word is clearly written - and feel it is a familiar word or name. This may happen during cognitive ease.

Illusions of Truth

An emphatic factually wrong sentence cunningly mixed with facts can seem correct. This happens during cognitive ease. You can experience it during multiple choice questions you don't remember the answer to. Also if something is repeated continuously at regular intervals it may seem correct. 

How to Write a Persuasive Message, 64

Since system 2 is lazy it is easier to fool by making up believable fiction. Any lie will work as long as the reader or listener doesn't know the truth. 

Some more tips to make message believable: 

Use expensive paper

Use ref green or blue colour

Write in verse/rhyme

Write in simple language

Strain and Effort, 66

Trick questions:

If it takes 5 machines 5 minutes to make 5 widgets, how long would it take 100 machines to make 100 widgets?

100 minutes OR 5 minutes

In a lake, there is a patch of lily pads. Every day, the patch

doubles in size.

If it takes 48 days for the patch to cover the entire lake, how long would it take for the patch to cover half of the lake?

24 days OR 47 days

The clearer the font the more the mistakes.

40 Princeton students were given the test. 

The more illegible the font the right answers increased.  That means the clarity or the lack of it forces the students to think.

The Pleasure of Cognitive Ease, 67

If names or words are hard to read people usually don't like them and similarly if they are easy to pronounce, people like. 

The chicken egg experiment. Before some of the eggs hatched a certain sound was played. After hatching the chicks of the eggs that had played the sound were less distressed than the one where the sound was not played.

Ease, Mood, and Intuition

Prefix or suffix of words - remote association test - cottage, Swiss, cake - the common word is cheese

Norms, Surprises, and Causes,  72

When you see, experience something once you may not be surprised by it again. Meeting a friend someone abroad. Seeing an accident in the same place. 

Aside:

Does that mean based things can happen and go unnoticed because they are recurring. Crimes against women, murder of certain communities. 

Similarly, we don't notice anomalies of it happens in the same category. Like the question : How many animals did Moses take on the ark? Moses did not take any, but Noah did. However, we miss the point because both are prophets.

If there is no relation in the anomaly then we can catch it quickly. How many animals did George take on the ark?

What if a male voice says: I think I am pregnant.

Or someone says in polished language: I have a large tattoo on my back.

Earth revolves around trouble every year.

The large mouse climbed over a very small elephant.

What do you envision?

Seeing Causes and Intentions, 75

Headlines can be cleverly crafted putting together two completely contrasting and unrelated things to make the readers think about something. Giving seed to thought which can be denied as being said clearly.
Nassim Taleb’s The Black Swan
 Investors were apparently seeking safer assets that morning, and the Bloomberg News service flashed this headline: U.S. TREASURIES RISE; HUSSEIN CAPTURE MAY NOT CURB TERRORISM. Half an hour later, bond prices fell back and the revised headline read: U.S. TREASURIES FALL; HUSSEIN CAPTURE BOOSTS ALLURE OF RISKY ASSETS.


The aristocratic Belgian psychologist Albert Michotte published a book in 1945 (translated into English in 1963) that overturned centuries of thinking about causality, going back at least to Hume’s examination of the association of ideas.
Michotte had a different idea: he argued that we see causality, just as directly as we see color. he created episodes in n ttiowhich a black square drawn on paper is seen in motion; it comes into contact with another square, which immediately begins to move.

In 1944, at about the same time as Michotte published his demonstrations of physical causality, the psychologists Fritz Heider and Mary-Ann Simmel used a method similar to Michotte’s to  demonstrate the perception of intentional causality. They made a film, which lasts all of one
minute and forty seconds, in which you see a large triangle, a small triangle, and a circle moving around a shape that looks like a schematic view of a house with an open door. Viewers see an aggressive large triangle bullying a smaller triangle, a terrified circle, the circle and the small
triangle joining forces to defeat the bully; they also observe much interaction around a door and then an explosive finale.

The psychologist Paul Bloom,
writing in The Atlantic in 2005, presented the provocative claim that our
inborn readiness to separate physical and intentional causality explains the
near universality of religious beliefs. He observes that “we perceive the
world of objects as essentially separate from the world of minds, making it
possible for us to envision soulless bodies and bodiless souls.”

A Machine for Jumping to Conclusions, 79

How do you react to doubt? 

A13 C and 12 B 13 written in hand could look the same but in the former instance you would say B and later as 13. Even if you had a doubt you would overlook it. 

Ann approaching the bank would mean Ann going towards the back to withdraw money and not the river bank. 

Unless you have been river rafting it holidaying near a river. 

Experiments show that you could confuse someone with nonsensical sentences and expect them to recall it as true if the person's cognitive abilities have become overloaded. Like in the experiments they asked the people to remember certain digits while answering.

Also the mind becomes confused if questions are asked with a twist. Is Sam friendly? Or is Sam unfriendly?

Is it possible that prime time is at 9 when the mind is really tired and stressed so that it can accept all the nonsense commercials handed over the idiot Box.

Exaggerated Emotional Coherence (Halo Effect), 81

What You See is All There is 84

We often jump to conclusions like calculating the average size of lines or a person's intelligence by some capability.

System 1 takes over and gives us the answer. 

Substituting easier questions. 97

When faced with difficult questions people tend to answer the easier question or give comparative answers.

Most probably people well answer an emotional question first and then answer the difficult question. 

Example: what will you contribute for dying or animals going extinct. Alongwith what do you feel about dyiing dolphins.

Substituting vizual - the three men in a corridor. Just because a 2D drawing is represented in 3D the figures of the three men look different sizes.

The mood heuristic

Answering questions in sequencing like earlier. If you're asked how happy you were and then about the number of dates you've been to in the last month, then there is no correlation. But if the date question is asked earlier then people gauge their answers according to the dates they've been on in the last month.

The Affect Heuristic, 106

An active, coherence-seeking System 1 suggests solutions to an

undemanding System 2.

Characteristic of system 1

generates impressions, feelings, and inclinations; when endorsed by

System 2 these become beliefs, attitudes, and intentions

operates automatically and quickly, with little or no effort, and no

sense of voluntary control

can be programmed by System 2 to mobilize attention when a

particular pattern is detected (search)

executes skilled responses and generates skilled intuitions, after

adequate training

creates a coherent pattern of activated ideas in associative memory

links a sense of cognitive ease to illusions of truth, pleasant feelings,

and reduced vigilance

distinguishes the surprising from the normal

infers and invents causes and intentions

neglects ambiguity and suppresses doubt

is biased to believe and confirm

exaggerates emotional consistency (halo effect)

focuses on existing evidence and ignores absent evidence

(WYSIATI)

generates a limited set of basic assessments

represents sets by norms and prototypes, does not integrate

matches intensities across scales (e.g., size to loudness)

computes more than intended (mental shotgun)

sometimes substitutes an easier question for a difficult one

(heuristics)

is more sensitive to changes than to states (prospect theory)

*

overweights low probabilities

*

shows diminishing sensitivity to quantity (psychophysics)

*

responds more strongly to losses than to gains (loss aversion)

*

frames decision problems narrowly, in isolation from one another

The Law of Small Numbers, 108

When sample size is small it might throw up extreme numbers. Large size samples are more accurate.

The Law of Small Numbers

A Bias of Confidence Over Doubt

Again the reference to WYSIATI - What you see is all there is.

People pick up what they want to see our believe. A sample size of 300 elders support the President. You will conclude old people support the President. The sample size is ignored.

Cause and chance

We look for patterns. We usually believe that a perfect sequence will be deliberately orchestrated by someone.