behind the scenes of decision makingbehind the scenes of decision making: heuristics, black swans...

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

Claudine.Storbeck@gmail.com

BiancaBirdsey@gmail.com