What Numbers Dont Tell You

(Correctly)

Richard Pircher
University of Applied Sciences bfi Vienna
richard-pircher.net

A Quiz

Count
how many times
the players wearing
white
pass the ball
please dont talk to your neighbour
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IGQmdoK_ZfY (second Video)

Focus
To be able to focus on something is a
valuable ability
To perceive all stimuli around us would
be far too much
To focus on something means
missing everything else
Numbers only may quantify what
is noticed as important
(Most, Scholl, Cliffort & Simons, 2001 )

Invisible Gorilla

Some people may know the

first video with an invisible
gorilla already
Do they realize the other
surprising details which are
new in the second video?

The Monkey Business Illusion

Among those people who already knew
the first video with the Gorilla only
17 % took notice of the other two
events
=> they probably thought they knew
the video already
Among those who didnt know the first
video 29 % realized the curtain
changing colour and the leaving player.

The Monkey Business Illusion

When youre looking

for a gorilla,
you often miss other
unexpected events

The Monkey Business Illusion

Prior experiences and

knowledge
may be
misleading

Sensing the Future?

of our brains capacity is occupied with differentiating
valuable from irrelevant information
For this task the brain uses
expectations based
on experiences from
the past
May we be sure that
nothing is missed
which could be

important for
the future?

Change Blindness Blindness

The change blindness study
Most people firmly believe that they
would notice such large changes
We tend to be blind to our own
blindness
Thats a kind of
change blindness blindness
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qb-gT6vDrmU&index=56&list=PL944828D6EF3E7530
(Levin et al. 2000, Simons / Rensink 2005)

Change Blindness Blindness

We dont want to believe that
we can be that easily
manipulated
We want to believe in
everything which confirms our
current beliefs and which
flatters our ego

Planning fallacy
People tend to
underestimate the time, costs, and risks of future
actions and to overestimate the benefits of their
own tasks (optimistic bias)
overestimate the time needed as outside
observers of somebody elses task (pessimistic
bias)
This phenomenon occurs regardless of the
individual's knowledge that past tasks of a similar
nature have taken longer to complete than
generally planned.
(Kahneman / Tversky 1979, Lovallo / Kahneman 2003)

Loneliness feels cold

One group of test persons is asked to recall an
experience of social exclusion within a larger test
context
The other group is asked to recall an experience of
social inclusion
With the pretext of a heating problem both groups
were asked to estimate the room temperature
Those who recalled the social exclusion experienced
a significantly lower room temperature than those
who recalled an inclusion experience
(Zhong & Leonardelli, 2008, Bargh / Shalev, 2012)

Emotional
and social
contexts influence our
perception and
judgment

The Unconscious Rules

Everyday intuitions suggest full conscious
control of behavior, but conscious thought
has little or no impact on behavior.
In fact the unconscious strongly influences
our behaviour
It is plausible that almost every human
behavior comes from a mixture of
conscious and unconscious processing
(Baumeister, Masicampo, & Vohs, 2011)

Thinking Too Little

Thinking Too Much
Thinking too little causes
mistakes, errors and
actions which contradict other decisions and actions
Thinking is a kind of mental test run.

Thinking too much leads to

a tunnel vision and narrow minded decisions
decisions which are easy to explain to others but are
not consistent with our own feelings and preferences
any more
(Ariely / Norton, 2011, Nordgren et al., 2011)

Using the Best of Both Worlds

System 1 old and powerful

System 2 new and controllable

(unconscious, intuitive)

(conscious, reflective)

Automatic, affective
Effortless
Associative
Rapid, parallel
Process opaque
Skilled action
Concrete, specific
Causal propensities
Prototypes
e.g.: DRIVING A CAR ON A
WELL-KNOWN ROUTE

Controlled
Effortful
Deductive
Slow, serial
Self-aware
Rule application
Neutral, abstract
Statistics
Sets
e.g.: FINDING THE BEST WAY TO
DRIVE ROUND ROAD WORKS

Adapted from Kahneman / Frederick 2002

Using the Best of Both Worlds

Unconscious ressources may be integrated:
Sleep on decisions: during sleep the brain
consolidates information and connects it with prior
knowledge
Stop thinking about something and switch to noncognitive activities: sports, nature, meditation, etc.
Invite contradictive and diverse perspectives to
identify blind spots instead of favoring mainly
affirmative oppinions, e.g. through critical people,
customers, etc.

The strengths of our

unconscious resources
may be consciously
integrated in
everyday life

Take-away Guidelines
1.

2.
3.
4.

5.

Be aware that we usually focus on what we already

know. We overlook a lot which could be important
for the future. Numbers only quantify what we
already notice as being important.
Question current beliefs and the misleading power
of your own ego. Knowledge may be distortive.
Use the best of both worlds:
Consciousness and unconsciousness
Ask yourself the question:
Am I thinking too little or
am I thinking too much?
Use diverse and non-cognitive activities to
enlarge perspectives and to identify blind spots

I would be glad to
answer your questions and to
discuss the topic
Feel free to contact me!
Richard Pircher

University of Applied Sciences bfi Vienna, Austria

richard.pircher@fh-vie.ac.at
richard-pircher.net
Slides are available at de.slideshare.net/pircher