behind the scenes of decision makingbehind the scenes of decision making: heuristics, black swans...
TRANSCRIPT
Behind the Scenes of
Decision Making:
Heuristics, Black Swans and Invisible
Gorillas
Prof Claudine Storbeck & Dr Bianca Birdsey
The Centre for Deaf Studies
HI HOPES – Early Intervention Programme
University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, SA
Claudine Storbeck & Bianca Birdsey
How Do we really make decisions in this field ?
Claudine Storbeck & Bianca Birdsey
Do we really make decisions in this field ?
First Impressions & beyond …
• 4 x 3
• 10 x 8
• 7 x 7
• 5 x 6
System 1:
Automatic, quick & without much mental effort at
all …..... HEURISTIC PROCESSING
System2:
Significant mental effort & Complex
computations ......SYSTEMATIC PROCESSING
An approach to problem solving and decision
making, using cognitive short cuts which are
automatic
Fast & Intuitive, often subconscious process
Used in everyday decision making,
judgments, stereotypes and predictions
WHY? Economical, reduces cognitive load
Heuristics
The ease of recall
The most outstanding “available” memory - a unique/extreme event
Likelihood of re-occurance is then overestimated
Example: CI Risk / CI Benefit
Can also lead to illusionary correlation Deaf children in schools for the Deaf/ poor education …. Therfor SL as medium of education gives poor education
When a conclusion or decision is made using
an estimate based on a known anchor eg.
The 1st person Heuristic becomes the anchor
Over confidence of an estimate ….
Good questions to consider - who is the 1st
person the family engages with etc
When a characteristic of the prototype is seen as a generalised characteristic of a larger group or category eg. And this leads to overestimating of rare qualities and underestimation of more common qualities which is known as base-rate falacy ….
Ignorance of sample size eg. Small sample size often distorts the representation of any results and the probability of the future events that they allude to.... Sampling theory - caution for over generalised research
Something that requires a greater investment
of time / money/ effort is seen as more
valuable and superior
o Equipment & products
o Methodology
o School choices
The Framing effect – present information in
different ways (10% major complications or
90% is totally uneventful)
The Halo effect – tendency to like or dislike
something/ some person (including things not
observed)
….. Consider Sam & Adam
Sam:
Intelligent, Industrious, impulsive, critical,
stubborn, envious
Adam:
Envious, stubborn, critical, impulsive,
industrious, intelligent
Cognitive error and Biases Can we really be ‘unbiased’ Early Interventionists
Cognitive Errors or Bias
Blind spot Bias
Dunning Kruger Bias
Illusion of control
The human brain is capable of failing to
notice something they were not expecting to
see
Cognitive capture
“Rara avis in terris nigroque similisa
cygne”
“A bird as rare as a black swan”
Latin poet - Juvenal
We can be blind to the obvious
We can be blind to our blindness
What we don't know is far more relevant
than what we do know
Our world is dominated by the extreme, the unknown and
The highly improbable
The theory explores a fascinating triplet
1. Rare event = outlier
2. Extreme impact
3. Retrospective rationalisation
The theory is not to teach us how to predict, but to recognise black swans (both positive and negative)
Prof Claudine Storbeck & Dr Bianca Birdsey
The Centre for Deaf Studies
University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, SA