Post by Oli Micklewright on Apr 25, 2016 3:42:57 GMT
People make decision every day and a lot of these decisions are made under uncertainty. For example, should we trust this person, which route shall we take or how shall we handle our upset friend. A heuristic is a mental shortcut or strategy that helps us make quick and efficient decision without having to spends lots of time researching and analyzing information. The following are a couple examples of heuristics. The availability Heuristic refers to how easy it is to bring something to mind, for example, if asked what percentage of crimes involve violence? A person is likely to response a high percentage since most crimes that are reported on the news and we hear about involve violence. Another example of a heuristic is the representative heuristic – this helps us make decisions by comparing information to our mental prototypes – for example, if an older woman was described as caring with a great love for children she would fit society’s representation of a grandmother and therefore could automatically be classified as a grandmother.
Do you think that the availability heuristic has different intensities in different societies? For example, is it more common in American culture to quickly identify a person to belonging to a particular group based on our previous interpretations?
Human Heuristics can lead to severe and systematic errors. For example, in the human eye, objects that are far away are seen less sharply than nearer objects. This rule leads to systematic errors in the estimation of distances. If visibility is poor, then contour of objects are blurred and distances are over estimated whereas when visibility is good distances are underestimated. People are not generally aware of the rules that govern their impressions – for example they are ignorant of the important role of blur in determining the perception of distance. However, it is possible for people to learn to make corrections and recognize situation where their impressions are likely to be biased.
Can you think of any example (maybe in the news) of heuristics and how they have led to systematic errors or misinterpretations?
It is also interesting to consider if there are other human heuristics that the human race has not yet discovered and how to realisation of these misinterpretations could impact our lives.
Do you think that the availability heuristic has different intensities in different societies? For example, is it more common in American culture to quickly identify a person to belonging to a particular group based on our previous interpretations?
Human Heuristics can lead to severe and systematic errors. For example, in the human eye, objects that are far away are seen less sharply than nearer objects. This rule leads to systematic errors in the estimation of distances. If visibility is poor, then contour of objects are blurred and distances are over estimated whereas when visibility is good distances are underestimated. People are not generally aware of the rules that govern their impressions – for example they are ignorant of the important role of blur in determining the perception of distance. However, it is possible for people to learn to make corrections and recognize situation where their impressions are likely to be biased.
Can you think of any example (maybe in the news) of heuristics and how they have led to systematic errors or misinterpretations?
It is also interesting to consider if there are other human heuristics that the human race has not yet discovered and how to realisation of these misinterpretations could impact our lives.
