Archive for the ‘Insight in 60 Seconds’ Category

Are Too Many Options Bad For You?

Sunday, August 15th, 2010

Ever since I read Sidney Parnes’ The Magic of Your Mind more than twenty years ago, I have firmly believed that having more options is preferable to having fewer options. On the other hand, just about every time I go to the grocery store, I wish there were fewer choices. So I am conflicted: my training and belief system tell me the more options, the better; my experience, sometimes just the opposite.

Research now validates the conflict I experience.

Sheena Iyengar’s fascinating presentation, On the Art of Choosing, discusses the impact of culture on decision-making. One of her key research findings is that the American belief that more options are better than fewer is not universally held by all cultures: “Though all humans share the basic need and desire for choice, we don’t all see choice in the same places or to the same extent.”

I find this interesting but not surprising. What did surprise me is her assertion that even for Americans, having too many options can result in poorer decision-making: “When there are too many choices to compare and contrast, the process of choosing can be confusing and frustrating. Instead of making better choices, we become overwhelmed by choice, sometimes even afraid of it. Choice no longer offers opportunities but imposes constraints.” In fact, Iyengar’s research demonstrates that when you give people “ten or more options when they are making a choice, they make poor decisions.”

To view Iyengar’s full discussion of the impact of culture on decision-making, click below. If you wish to go directly to her dismantling of the assumption that the “more choices you have, the more likely you are to make the best choice,” fast forward to 8 minutes 10 seconds.

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The Monkey Business Illusion

Monday, August 2nd, 2010


The video below tests your perceptual acuity. Listen carefully to the directions and then watch the video. (Note: if you think you’ve seen this video, you probably have not. It is a May 2010 sequel to the widely viewed 1999 selective attention test video that many of you probably have seen.)




How did you do? Miss anything? If you did, you are in good company. I, for one, counted the number of passes correctly but failed to see the gorilla in the 1999 version. And in this new version I missed the player in black dropping out. On a positive note: I did notice the color change!

Cognitive scientist Daniel Simons showed the video to 76 University of Illinois students. As reported in i-PERCEPTION, for those who had not seen the 1999 version, only 56% noticed the gorilla (23 out of 41). Just “11% of subjects noticed the curtain change, and 16% noticed the change to the number of players on the black team. Only 1 participant noticed both the curtain and the player change.”

Simons defines the phenomenon as inattentional blindness, “the failure to notice unusual and salient events in their visual world when attention is otherwise engaged and the events are unexpected.” In a Seed Magazine interview, he discusses the implications to our everyday life:

In inattentional blindness you’re not seeing something that’s right there because your attention is engaged. The most obvious practical application of that is driving. We intuitively think that if something important happens right in front of us, we will see it…Dan Levin has done studies where he just asked people, would you notice if something like this happens? He shows people the video, gives them the instructions, points out the gorilla, and then asks them “how likely would you be to notice the gorilla if you were doing this task and counting the passes?” Ninety percent of people say they’d notice. Regardless of how you ask that question, you get high confidence, and a high percentage saying “yeah, of course I’d notice that.”

That’s the intuition that’s interesting, and that’s the one that’s dangerous. If we were completely aware of these limits on attention, we wouldn’t do things like talking on cell phone while driving: We would know that it would make us just that much less likely to notice something. But we don’t have that insight into our own awareness. It’s only in that rare case where you actually have an accident that you become aware that you’ve missed something.

As Simon’s studies have demonstrated, we are all prone to innattentional blindness. What impact does it have on our problem solving? What salient events in our visual field are we missing, even though we are confident we are not? How often do we see what we are looking for and not what is there?


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Is America in a Creativity Crisis?

Monday, July 19th, 2010


Last week, Newsweek published The Creativity Crisis with this subheading: For the first time, research shows that American creativity is declining. What was the evidence for this disturbing claim?

College of William & Mary researcher Kyung Hee Kim analyzed 300,000 scores of children and adults on the Torrance® Tests of Creative Thinking. She discovered that although creativity scores had been steadily rising until 1990, “since then, creativity scores have consistently inched downward. ‘It’s very clear, and the decrease is very significant,’ Kim says. It is the scores of younger children in America — from kindergarten through sixth grade — for whom the decline is ‘most serious.’”

Three days after the Newsweek piece appeared, my local newspaper published an article with the following lede:

“Nicholas Nieves is a veteran test taker. The Horace Mann Elementary student is 10 years old. ‘We do practice tests and practice tests and more practice tests,’ the soon-to-be Binghamton fifth-grader said. ‘And then we do the real thing. We take a lot of tests.’ But does he learn from the tests? ‘Not really,’ Nicholas said.”

Are Nicholas’s insights related to Ms. Kim’s? I suspect so — as are numerous other phenomena that may be sapping a child’s natural inclination to exercise the imagination and be creative. These days, children are less likely to experience active, free and unstructured play and more likely to experience passive, guided and structured play. Just as a for instance, the Kaiser Family Foundation reports that “8-18 year-olds devote an average of 7 hours and 38 minutes to using entertainment media across a typical day” and that doesn’t count the 1 hour and 35 minutes they spend each day sending or receiving texts.

If Ms. Kim’s findings are accurate, the news is disturbing for the nation’s children and our future prosperity. Consider. Scholars have been tracking those administered the Torrence tests to see how well performance on the test predicted creative accomplishments in adulthood. The findings? “Those who came up with more good ideas on Torrance’s tasks grew up to be entrepreneurs, inventors, college presidents, authors, doctors, diplomats, and software developers. Jonathan Plucker of Indiana University recently reanalyzed Torrance’s data. The correlation to lifetime creative accomplishment was more than three times stronger for childhood creativity than childhood IQ.”

Obviously, the converse will prove true: the less creative our children, the fewer innovative and productive adults our nation will produce. But the situation is not dire. There is a clear antidote to this decline in the nation’s creativity. The intentional teaching of creativity will be the subject of the next blog post.

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Lebron’s Decision-making Fallacy

Friday, July 9th, 2010


I suppose that if you are regularly referred to as the “Chosen One” and the “Second Coming,” it’s understandable that you would anoint yourself the “King.” And then why not have an appropriately regal coronation on ESPN? Certainly, your subjects — prostrated and intoxicated by awe and wonder — will praise the wisdom of your decision-making.

Like Homer’s ancient heroes, Lebron James is driven by a deep desire to defeat mortality and to live perpetually as the greatest and most admired basketball player ever. And he was likely traveling that path, until his certainty bias washed out the road.

Outside of Miami, fan and media response to his narcissistic self-annointing has been nearly universally scathing. Just a few examples:

How did James miscalculate so egregiously? He was a victim of certainty bias.

Robert Burton, author of On Being Certain, has exposed the hazards of “believing you are right even when you’re not.” His central premise: “Despite how certainty feels, it is neither a conscious choice nor even a thought process. Certainty and similar states of ‘knowing what we know’ are sensations that feel like thoughts, but arise out of involuntary brain mechanisms that function independently of reason.”

In an October 2008 article in Scientific American entitled The Certainty Bias: A Potentially Dangerous Mental Flaw, Burton discusses how to avoid its pitfalls: “I don’t believe that we can avoid certainty bias, but we can mitigate its effect by becoming aware of how our mind assesses itself…I’ve taken strong exception to the popular notion that we can rely upon hunches and gut feelings as though they reflect the accuracy of a thought.

“My hope is the converse; we need to recognize that the feelings of certainty and conviction are involuntary mental sensations, not logical conclusions. Intuitions, gut feelings and hunches are neither right nor wrong but tentative ideas that must then be submitted to empirical testing. If such testing isn’t possible (such as in deciding whether or not to pull out of Iraq), then we must accept that any absolute stance is merely a personal vision, not a statement of fact.”

No one reading this blog has been deified. But like Lebron James, we are all susceptible to certainty bias. Good thinking requires that we be aware of and avoid its dangers. As Burton concludes: “Only in the absence of certainty can we have open-mindedness, mental flexibility and willingness to contemplate alternative ideas.”


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98% Of All Statistics Are False

Wednesday, June 23rd, 2010


- By guest blogger: Andrew Tait, Chief Technology Officer, Decision Mechanics Limited


Science News recently published a great article on the use and abuse of statistics.

Odds Are, It’s Wrong, by Tom Siegfried, highlights some of the problems associated with testing hypotheses using statistical methods. These problems are well known within the statistics community, with “hundreds” of papers having been written on the subject. As Siegfried pithily observes, “if you believe what you read in the scientific literature, you shouldn’t believe what you read in the scientific literature”.

Statistical analysis is often presented in support of decisions. It’s rarely challenged. Yes, it’s sometimes ignored if it contradicts the views of key stakeholders. But it’s rarely challenged. This, we would suggest, is a consequence of:

  • statistical analyses being considered to be objective; and
  • decision-makers not being confident enough to dig around in the details.

Combine the reluctance to challenge statistical analyses with their widespread abuse and you clearly have cause for concern.

The article points out that, even among scientists, statistical literacy leaves much to be desired. For example:

  • Statisical significance (e.g. p < 0.05) is often presented as a “black or white” binary concept. However, the use of 0.05 (…or 0.01…or 0.001) is completely arbitrary. In fact, with a p value of 0.05, there’s a 1 in 20 chance that the observed result is a fluke. Is that acceptable given the decision you have to make?
  • Statistical significance at the 0.05 level is commonly equated to 95% certainty that the result could not have occurred by chance. This isn’t the case. You can’t draw conclusions about the likelihood of the hypothesis being correct based on its statistical significance. The correct interpretation, given a p value of 0.05, is that there is only a 5% chance of getting the observed result if no real effect is present.
  • Studies also tend to equate statistical significance with practical significance. An example given in the article is that an expensive new drug may be statistically significantly better than an old one, but, if it only provides one new cure for every 1000 patients, that’s not of much practical use.

A final interesting observation made by Siegfried concerns random trials. Selecting groups at random provides no guarantee that they exhibit random traits with respect to the phenomenon of interest. Let’s say we walk out onto the street right now and select two groups of five professional strangers. How likely is it that both groups would express similar political views, for example? When discussing (as Siegfried does) drug trials, there are countless dimensions on which patients can vary.

Humorist Evan Esar was clearly onto something when he defined statistics as “the science of producing unreliable facts from reliable figures”…

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DC Teachers Approve Groundbreaking Contract

Monday, June 14th, 2010


Last week, Washington, DC teachers approved a groundbreaking contract by a stunning 80% to 20% margin. The contract is innovative by any number of criteria. In fact, it turns the standard teacher contract on its head.

In a Sunday, June 13, 2010 New York Daily News editorial, Washington, DC school chancellor Michelle Rhee summarized the list of creative contract provisions:

  • Pay for performance: “Paid for with private money, and voluntary for teachers,” the pay for performance system “recognizes and rewards our most highly effective teachers for their individual accomplishments in raising student achievement.”
  • Layoff provisions: “When a school undergoes a budget reduction and a layoff is necessary, that decision is made based on performance, not seniority.”
  • Teacher placement: “A teacher cannot be placed at a school unless the teacher and the school principal agree.” Teachers “who cannot find a ‘mutual consent placement’ … are moved out of the system.”
  • Elimination of tenure: Teachers rated as ‘ineffective’ are “immediately terminated from the system.” Those rated ‘minimally effective’ have their pay frozen and after two years are terminated.

According to Rhee, “in exchange for these reforms, teachers are receiving unprecedented levels of support, resources, professional development, voice in decision-making and pay – an increase of 20% over previous salary levels (with additional bonuses making it possible to make twice as much).”

Contract highlights are available from the Washington Teacher’s Union.


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Errors are Portals of Discovery

Sunday, May 16th, 2010


Errors are…the portals of discovery.

James Joyce, Ulysses

Fear to make a mistake, to fail, or to take a risk is perhaps the most
general and common emotional block in problem solving.

James L. Adams, Conceptual Blockbusting

_________

Years ago, my five-year-old son was assigned to paint a school bus. When he came home that day from kindergarten, he had his school bus, which he had painted blue. Sprawled over his painting were his teacher’s comments: School buses are yellow! In red ink, of course.

I found this interesting for two reasons. First, I wondered if the teacher was familiar with Pablo Picasso’s “blue period” — or with Jim Morrison, for that matter. More practically, I observed that the majority of school buses in our community are, indeed, blue. (See photo left.) Nonetheless, the teacher’s reprimand: School buses are yellow!

Yes, my son’s experience was extreme, but I suspect that most of us have had some similar experience growing up. We can all conjure up that painful memory of having offered an innovative solution or novel idea, only to be told that we were wrong or — worse — to be ridiculed or laughed at.

Consequently, we have been conditioned to seek the right answer and to expect a reward for it. The impacts of this conditioning are significant. We can become risk averse, prefer safe alternatives, reject novelty and sub-optimize.

Effective problem solving and decision-making requires that we embrace risk and accept the inevitable mistakes as learning opportunities. Our errors enrich us, opening portals through which we discover invigorating perspectives and flashes of insight. With each risk, we become more facile problem solvers, more dexterous decision-makers. We grow increasingly clever, agile and — if we keep at it long enough — wise.

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The Singularity Is Near

Monday, May 3rd, 2010


Think the pace of change is accelerating? Just wait, ’cause as the song says, You ain’t seen nothin yet.

Can you imagine a home computer having power equivalent to that of the human mind–or even more inexplicably–of all of humanity? According to Ray Kurzweil, such progress is likely to occur within your lifetime.

Kurzweil’s Law of Accelerating Returns is based partly on his analysis of the cost of computing power as measured in computations per second (cps) per $1000 of expense over a period of 98 years. According to Kurzweil’s projections, $1000 will buy computing power equivalent to

  • The Human Brain around the year 2023 (2 * 10^16 or 20 quadrillion cps).
  • The combined capacity of all of humanity around the year 2049 (2 * 10^26 or 200 million billion billion cps).

See Kurzweil’s graphic summary at right. His complete data table includes the 1919 IBM Tabulator (0.001064 cps/$1000), the 1951 Univac I (1.43 cps/$1000), the 1977 Apple II (26870 cps/$1000), and the 1998 Pentium II (133300000 cps/$1000), among others.

Yes, having the total computing capacity of all of humanity on your PC is really hard to conceive. More so are its effects. Sometime around 2045, Kurzweil predicts the arrival of the Singularity, “the period during which the pace of technological change will be so rapid, its impact so deep, that human life will be irreversibly transformed.” Among the impacts, Kurzweil predicts that we will

  • “Expand our minds through the merger of biological and non-biological intelligence.”
  • “Be able to reprogram our genes and metabolic processes to turn off disease and aging processes.”

So, we will be able to upload and download our minds and extend life. “Profound and disruptive transformations in human capability,” indeed!

Ray Kurzweil is no quack. On the contrary, he is widely regarded as one of the most accurate prognosticators of technological progress and innovation. No less than Bill Gates says that Kurzweil is the “best person I know at predicting the future of artificial intelligence.”

Yikes–according to WolframAlpha’s life expectancy calculator, I have more than a 20% chance of living to witness the Singularity. I guess I best strap in and hold on. I suggest you do, too!

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Open Your Feedback Loop

Monday, March 15th, 2010


Avoid defensiveness in receiving feedback. Defensiveness almost inevitably works against high quality problem solving. First, it blinds you to the problems in your problem solving. Second, it discourages others from offering feedback.

Robert Sternberg, The Triarchic Mind: A New Theory of Human Intelligence

_____

It’s the rare person who enjoys feedback. All of us are subject to human frailty. We are uncomfortable under the critical scrutiny of our colleagues, family members, friends — even ourselves. Criticism hurts. Who wants to suffer? We tend to keep our feedback loops closed.

But the habit of seeking and acting on feedback is essential to good thinking, effective problem solving and high performance. Edward DeBono‘s Plus, Minus, Interesting (PMI) is a structured method for providing feedback in a way that is psychologically safe for anyone receiving the feedback. It’s a very simple approach.

  • Pluses: First, seek positive feedback and list all the strengths of the idea or solution set.
  • Minuses: Second, list the all weaknesses.
  • Interesting: Third, complete this statement: “It would be interesting if…”

There are many advantages to PMI. Because it begins by listing all the pluses, PMI makes the feedback safe for the idea generator. Before criticism, there is affirmation. Not only does this step steel the idea generator for the criticism to come, but it indicates what’s at stake and could be lost by rejecting the idea or solution set.

Further, the listing of minuses now prepares for what Tim Hurson calls “generative judgment.” The identified weaknesses provoke additional creative thinking. “It would be interesting to see if…” leads to modifications or extensions that will exploit the pluses and mitigate or eliminate the minuses.

In this way, feedback does not kill ideas but enlivens them; it results not in the pain of rejection but the thrill of creation.

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Assumption Busting

Monday, March 1st, 2010


An idea that was useful at one time may no longer be useful today and yet the current idea has developed directly from that old and outmoded idea. It is historical continuity that maintains most assumptions — not repeated assessment of their validity.

–Edward DeBono, Lateral Thinking

____

W. E. Gordon, who died this week at his home in Ithaca, NY, designed and built the world’s largest radio telescope. The size of 26 football fields and nearly seven times larger than the next largest radio telescope, the Arecibo Observatory has been the source of great scientific discoveries, including proof that the gravity waves predicted by Einstein’s Theory of Relativity exist.

What was required for such a valuable innovation? Well, obviously, technical skill, creative thinking, persistence, and genius. The list could go on. However, according to his New York Times obituary, Dr. Gordon provided this insight: on the occasion of the Observatory’s 40th anniversary, he said that “he and his colleagues had not remotely grasped the challenges they faced. ‘Their saving grace,’ he suggested, ‘was that we were young enough that we didn’t know that we couldn’t do it.’”

In short, Dr. Gordon was not constrained by the governing assumptions of his day. Unshackled by their constraints, he was free to create what at the time was assumed to be impossible. Indeed, assumptions can act as a powerful constraint on our thinking. Consider the game of tether ball. Just as the pole and rope determine the distance and route the tether ball can travel, an assumption defines the universe of options available to solve any problem.

Creative problem solving and good decision-making often require assumption busting: identifying key assumptions, ruthlessly questioning their validity, generating new assumptions, and then asking “What if?” To complete the analogy, you need to dig up and move the pole; or even better: cut the rope and see where the ball sails.

While most of us are not on the cusp of an innovation on the scale of The Arecibo Observatory, we all face daily challenges. If you find yourself needing a breakthrough—at work, in a personal relationship, solving a technical challenge—identify your key assumptions. Challenge them. Find those that are no longer valid. Articulate new assumptions. And then seek your breakthrough among the fresh alternatives that emerge.

Photo courtesy of the NAIC – Arecibo Observatory, a facility of the NSF

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