
Risk, probability, and how our brains are easily misled - shawndumas
http://arstechnica.com/science/news/2011/06/risk-probability-and-how-our-brains-are-easily-misled.ars
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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.

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

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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

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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.

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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.

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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).

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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%.

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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.

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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!

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

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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.

