Risk, probability, and how our brains are easily misled

[Shenglong]

It's interesting that they mention the Monty Hall problem. I've found that most of the misunderstanding for it comes from the lack of separation of stages in the problem. People confuse choosing a single strategy versus given probability in stages. It seems much easier to understand when that distinction is made.

On a tangent, the part about Africa really ties in well with hypnotism. I'm not sure how many of you have studied it, but hypnotism is full of subtle suggestions like what was mentioned. In fact, it's really just a bunch of suggestions that we have no reason to think critically about. Off the tangent: Considering this makes me wonder how many studies are heavily biased. What a fascinating subject.

[terio]

The part about Africa is about "priming" the subjects, a well-studied psychological effect.

[bchjam]

I read Mlodinow's book (The Drunkard's Walk) last year and really enjoyed it.

Somewhat ironically, I seem to have become anchored around Kahneman & Tversky in terms of this line of research. Can someone recommend a good counterpoint? I'm looking into Gigerenzer now

[GHFigs]

I enjoyed Gigerenzer's Gut Feelings quite a bit. I was afraid from the title that it would be Gladwell-ized into mush, but came away quite happy that it wasn't. As a counterpoint to K&T it's very good, less because of any disagreement in their findings, and more for the difference in perspective on the whole subject.

[astrec]

Anchoring is but one of the many reasons that fixed point estimates are fraught. Intervals are much more useful, and the discussion that results from trying to elicit them is often more valuable than the estimate.

[hamner]

First paragraph doesn't make since - if there are 5 flips, there are 2^5=32 possible outcomes. If the "odds are low that even one person in the audience guessed it" then I'd expect less than 16 people to be in the audience. However, "about a dozen people" did guess it, implying that the audience is in the hundreds (there are >10 "random" looking sequences of the 32).

[shasta]

It's possible. A distribution might have counts of 12,11,8,6,5,5,4,2,1,1,1,1,1,1,1. Odds of someone picking it are under 50%.

[mikk0j]

Love the implicit dualism in the title. How come is it that our brains are misled? As if we or our "minds" were somehow less susceptible.

[Shenglong]

As I mentioned above, it's one of the two major functions in hypnotism: delivering suggestive material to elude critical thinking. When someone asks you a harmless question, we don't tend to ask ourselves whether he/she is lying. However, here, we introduce a benchmark for any further opinions that the brain needs to check against - which serves as an effective suggestion.

You'll see similar suggestions through tone changes (down for commands when asking questions for example), and stories. It's quite fascinating!

[terio]

These are the reasons behind the Daubert motion, like the one that Google is filing against Oracle.

[rcp]

If interested in reading more, I highly recommend Dan Gardner's "Risk: The Science and Politics of Fear". (Also named "Science of Fear" in some markets.) It's a very good examination of risk perception and the cognitive faults we fall into.