Understanding Data, Information, and Knowledge: The Psychology of Stupidity and Illusions

1. Scientific Inquiry SCI 105.020 The Psychology of Stupidity - I Something Out of Nothing

2. Data, Information, and Knowledge • Data • Also known as random data, raw data • Factual information (as measurements or statistics) used as a basis for reasoning, discussion, or calculation • Information • The communication or reception of knowledge or intelligence • Presented as a message to another individual • Knowledge • The fact or condition of knowing something with familiarity gained through experience or association • Presented as concepts, predicates, rules, etc

3. Examples • Let’s look at some data about a weather data set concerning whether a game is played under different weather conditions • The individual data entries, such as Outcast/Sunny, Humidity/High don’t mean anything by themselves • We can generate informative reports using these data: • Out of the 14 records, there are 6 with high humidity, 8 with normal humidity. • We can also discover some patterns • We are 85.7% confident that it will play when humidity is normal; 75% confident that it will play when humidity is normal and it’s cold

4. Illusions • Human cognitive mechanisms do have flaws • The Gateway Arch illusion (Gilovich, p17) • A similar optical illusion caused by two arches • Which one is bigger? • The Muller Lyer illusion • More illusions can be found at • www.coolopticalillusions.com • What’s more dangerous? • The illusions are so strong thatit is not eliminated simply byknowing the correct answer

5. Illusions on Random Events • Finding patterns out of our observations is the right way to discover new knowledge • But, be careful, overuse such strategies can also cause problem • Erroneous beliefs are hard to eliminate once they are formed • In this chapter, Gilovich emphasized on people’s erroneous intuitions about how random events should look

6. Nature Abhors a Vacuum • People are disposed to see order, pattern, and meaning in the world • Human nature abhors a lack of predictability and the absence of meaning • As a consequence, we tends to see order where there is none • We simply tend to see something out of nothing for no good reasons • Psychologists believe this is due to flaws in the cognitive machinery we use to comprehend the world

7. Misconception of Random Data • The dislike of randomness and seeking for order and patterns may leads to • Cluster illusion • The belief in a “hot hand” in basketball • The regression fallacy • The representative heuristic is a major contributor to these errors

8. Cluster Illusions • Erroneous human intuition about random events • A random event shouldn’t have any clusters at all • Rather, it should be perfectly evenly distributed • Coin-flipping exercise • First, make up a 20-flip sequence • Then, flip a coin 20 times • Compare • C2 test: • Can you reject the claim that the head-tail mix is evenly distributed?

9. Representative Heuristic • Read this paragraph and answer the question • Steve is very shy and withdrawn, invariably helpful, but with little interest in people or the world of reality. He has a need for order and a passion for detail. • Is Steve more likely to be salesperson or a librarian?

10. The Regression Fallacy • The Sports Illustrated jinx • Which is more effective: praise or punishment?