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April 18, 2009
Choice Blindness
Lars Hall and Petter Johansson report on an abnormally interesting series of studies on the extent to which we are experts concerning our own choices. Here's a snippet from their New Scientist piece.
. . . Experts might be forgiven for being wrong about the limits of their skills as experts, but could we be forgiven for being wrong about the limits of our skills as experts on ourselves?We have been trying to answer this question using techniques from magic performances. Rather than playing tricks with alternatives presented to participants, we surreptitiously altered the outcomes of their choices, and recorded how they react. For example, in an early study we showed our volunteers pairs of pictures of faces and asked them to choose the most attractive. In some trials, immediately after they made their choice, we asked people to explain the reasons behind their choices.
Unknown to them, we sometimes used a double-card magic trick to covertly exchange one face for the other so they ended up with the face they did not choose. Common sense dictates that all of us would notice such a big change in the outcome of a choice. But the result showed that in 75 per cent of the trials our participants were blind to the mismatch, even offering "reasons" for their "choice".
Hmmm. To properly evaluate this work one would need more detail than the story provides but I do believe that something like choice blindness happens more often then most of us would like to admit. Occasionally I am quite happy to defend what is really an arbitrary choice when challenged.
Choices of groceries and faces are one thing, but do our metaphysical commitments reflect choice blindness? Of course, most of us will answer, "No way!" At least, that's my answer and I'm sticking to it. Read the whole story at New Scientist and be sure to watch the video.
PS. Over my life I have met several very smart people who held strong opinions on various things but those opinions were subject to change without notice and without memory of their previous strongly held positions. I'm not sure this counts as choice blindness but it seems to be in the general neighborhood.
Posted by Duane Smith at April 18, 2009 1:59 PM | Read more on Science - General |
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