Tag Archives: cognitive bias

Infographiceconintersect50 Cognitive Biases In The Modern World

Cognitive-affective bias. Short post but really a long one considering the links, which are useful in gaining understanding as well as justifying claims.Stumbling and MumblingWhy we are wrongChris Dillow | Investors Chronicle

"Pareidolia" refers to the common human practice of looking at random outcomes but trying to impose patterns on them. For example, we all know in the logical part of our brain that there are a roughly a kajillion different variables in the world, and so if we look through the possibilities, we will will have a 100% chance of finding some variables that are highly correlated with each other. These correlations will be a matter of pure chance, and they carry no meaning. But when my own brain,...

I think there are two separate issues here that depend on intent. "P-hacking" likely implies intent, and that is not necessarily a factor in all cases, and it may well not be in many if not most cases. In some cases there may be intent to persuade by playing loose, or even to deceive. I recall that How to Lie with Statistics was required reading in the Stat 101 course I took over fifty years ago. But this is not the only issue. As Richard Feynman famously observed, science is about...

New research has found that humans have an excellent ability to ignore facts that don't fit with our own biases, not just on Facebook where the stakes are pretty low, but even when it can cost us money. Stefano Palminteri of École Normale Supérieure led a team of researchers from ENS and University College London, which previously reported that humans are biased towards the path of least resistance, even though that can make us depressed later on. In those situations, people don't seem to...