I was not aware of any memories of how it had been assembled the last time
Pretty big implicit assumption there. I am amazed at how much easier it is to do something the second time, with or without conscious memories. Frequently, when rereading a book that I have only read once before, years previously, I find that I can complete a sentence from memory before turning a page, even though I may not actually feel as if I “know what happens next”.
Maybe the most important way this applies here: you had already familiarized yourself with the format of the instruction sheet, what each picture represented, etc.
I’m not saying there’s no “too many cooks” effect, but I think the “seen before” effect is equally interesting, and perhaps even larger.
There was even an experiment on people with total (declarative) amnesia where they would teach them games, they’d forget having ever seeing the game, then they’d play it well.
From the top of the Wikipedia article on procedural memory:
Procedural memory is memory for how to do things. Procedural memory guides the processes we perform and most frequently resides below the level of conscious awareness.
There is no implicit assumption there. There is an explicit acknowledgement that that could have been an effect, and reasons why I don’t think the effect was large.
I’m not saying there’s no “too many cooks” effect, but I think the “seen before” effect is equally interesting, and perhaps even larger.
Could be. For instance, I did have the advantage this time of knowing that the instruction sheet proceeded from bottom to top rather than from top to bottom. But I still think this particular task would be solved quicker by one person, because most of the group’s time was spent communicating and debating and persuading and interfering with each other and asking who had what piece, and only a small amount of its time was spent actually moving pieces.
There is no implicit assumption there. There is an explicit acknowledgement that that could have been an effect, and reasons why I don’t think the effect was large.
I meant the assumption packed inside your “reasons why I don’t think the effect was large”, that unconscious memories would not have a large effect. In my experience, they very often do. Watching old episodes of DS9 (ones I don’t “remember”), I can almost always call out plot twists before my husband sees them. Am I just way better at spotting plot twists? Well, it’s possible, but I also watched the show a lot more when it was new.
But I still think this particular task would be solved quicker by one person, because most of the group’s time was spent communicating and debating and persuading and interfering with each other and asking who had what piece, and only a small amount of its time was spent actually moving pieces.
Yeah, you’re probably right. Anything that involves taking things in your hand and moving them around is just awful to do in a group. I can never watch someone trying to untie a knot without feeling like I could do it better, have you noticed this?
BTW, the parent comment (currently at +9) is getting more karma than it “deserves” because it offers an obvious criticism of the post and many people are going to upvote to signal agreement, and also because it was submitted while the post was still pretty new. If that kind of thing bothers you, feel free to downvote it until it’s at a more reasonable total. In particular, PhilGoetz should not take the karma total of the parent at face value if that makes him feel bad.
Edit: I am really pretty confused that this comment is now at −3 and the parent continues to accumulate more karma. Are you guys mad that I’m suggesting karma is influenced by anything but comment quality? Do I seem patronizing? Do people just not realize the same person wrote both comments?
Where’s the source of confusion? You make a useful, meaningful and relevant comment, and it’s upvoted because people like that sort of comment. You then make a useless and wanky comment obsessing about how other people use their votes, and we downvote it, because people don’t like that sort of comment.
Where’s the confusion? Two different comments, of different quality, receive different kind of votes.
I have in the past had exchanges that could have been a lot more useful without the karma, which leads to needless status posturing when people disagree. I was trying to kind of defuse that dynamic. Also, highly-upvoted critical comments hurt people’s feelings, and I don’t like hurt feelings. Sorry if I came off as wanky or obsessive.
I think probably the actual reason was that people like pedanterrific were using my self-reply as karma balance, though.
Once again, to make it crystal clear: Not everyone downvoted the second comment for “karma balance”. I downvoted it, even though I had NOT upvoted the first comment, and I did so explicitly NOT for karma balance. I downvoted the second comment in order to express my disapproval for the second comment, taken alone, by itself, independently, and I chose to do that without interest in or consideration of the karma points in any other comment, by you or anyone else.
And since I don’t accept instruction from people on how to vote for them, your suggestion to downvote the first comment, were also summarily ignored. I downvoted the comment I wanted to downvote, because I disapproved of it, not the one you were instructing me to downvote—and which I didn’t disapprove of.
I’m not sure whether I accomplished what I was trying to accomplish or not. I mean, the “Here, take some of my status” part obviously worked, just not quite how I was planning. Getting downvoted when I ask to get downvoted doesn’t exactly break my heart, either, of course. I seem to have provoked some hostility from a few people, which is rarely a goal I pursue, but I’d rather people be mad because I’m “telling them how to vote” than because a substantive disagreement is going poorly. I guess next time I’ll look for a less annoying way of doing it.
By the way, feel free to downvote or upvote this, and all my other comments, according to your judgment of their merits, or any other algorithm you wish to employ, including but not limited to: upvoting comments you agree with, downvoting comments you disagree with, downvoting all my comments, upvoting all my comments, alternately downvoting and upvoting my comments, upvoting only comments you disagree with in an interesting way, downvoting comments that give you the megrims, upvoting comments that use silly words, and changing the sign of all your votes at random intervals. The part of me I identify with cares about karma only to the degree it makes discourse better or worse, and tries to say worthwhile things regardless of point value. The rest of me can stand a good smacking around.
By the way, feel free to downvote or upvote this, and all my other comments, according to your judgment of their merits, or any other algorithm you wish to employ, including but not limited to: upvoting comments you agree with, downvoting comments you disagree with, downvoting all my comments, upvoting all my comments, alternately downvoting and upvoting my comments, upvoting only comments you disagree with in an interesting way, downvoting comments that give you the megrims, upvoting comments that use silly words, and changing the sign of all your votes at random intervals.
oh nooo, now I can’t do any of those things because I am sooo contrarian
One of those downvotes is mine—I agreed with the grandparent, but wasn’t going to upvote it until I read this one. I thought it would even out if I did both.
It doesn’t make me feel bad, just cynical. 16 points is a lot for repeating a point that the post already addressed in a way that makes it sound like the post didn’t address it.
Pretty big implicit assumption there. I am amazed at how much easier it is to do something the second time, with or without conscious memories. Frequently, when rereading a book that I have only read once before, years previously, I find that I can complete a sentence from memory before turning a page, even though I may not actually feel as if I “know what happens next”.
Maybe the most important way this applies here: you had already familiarized yourself with the format of the instruction sheet, what each picture represented, etc.
I’m not saying there’s no “too many cooks” effect, but I think the “seen before” effect is equally interesting, and perhaps even larger.
There was even an experiment on people with total (declarative) amnesia where they would teach them games, they’d forget having ever seeing the game, then they’d play it well.
From the top of the Wikipedia article on procedural memory:
There is no implicit assumption there. There is an explicit acknowledgement that that could have been an effect, and reasons why I don’t think the effect was large.
Could be. For instance, I did have the advantage this time of knowing that the instruction sheet proceeded from bottom to top rather than from top to bottom. But I still think this particular task would be solved quicker by one person, because most of the group’s time was spent communicating and debating and persuading and interfering with each other and asking who had what piece, and only a small amount of its time was spent actually moving pieces.
I meant the assumption packed inside your “reasons why I don’t think the effect was large”, that unconscious memories would not have a large effect. In my experience, they very often do. Watching old episodes of DS9 (ones I don’t “remember”), I can almost always call out plot twists before my husband sees them. Am I just way better at spotting plot twists? Well, it’s possible, but I also watched the show a lot more when it was new.
Yeah, you’re probably right. Anything that involves taking things in your hand and moving them around is just awful to do in a group. I can never watch someone trying to untie a knot without feeling like I could do it better, have you noticed this?
BTW, the parent comment (currently at +9) is getting more karma than it “deserves” because it offers an obvious criticism of the post and many people are going to upvote to signal agreement, and also because it was submitted while the post was still pretty new. If that kind of thing bothers you, feel free to downvote it until it’s at a more reasonable total. In particular, PhilGoetz should not take the karma total of the parent at face value if that makes him feel bad.
Edit: I am really pretty confused that this comment is now at −3 and the parent continues to accumulate more karma. Are you guys mad that I’m suggesting karma is influenced by anything but comment quality? Do I seem patronizing? Do people just not realize the same person wrote both comments?
Eh...whatever.
Where’s the source of confusion? You make a useful, meaningful and relevant comment, and it’s upvoted because people like that sort of comment. You then make a useless and wanky comment obsessing about how other people use their votes, and we downvote it, because people don’t like that sort of comment.
Where’s the confusion? Two different comments, of different quality, receive different kind of votes.
I have in the past had exchanges that could have been a lot more useful without the karma, which leads to needless status posturing when people disagree. I was trying to kind of defuse that dynamic. Also, highly-upvoted critical comments hurt people’s feelings, and I don’t like hurt feelings. Sorry if I came off as wanky or obsessive.
I think probably the actual reason was that people like pedanterrific were using my self-reply as karma balance, though.
Once again, to make it crystal clear: Not everyone downvoted the second comment for “karma balance”. I downvoted it, even though I had NOT upvoted the first comment, and I did so explicitly NOT for karma balance. I downvoted the second comment in order to express my disapproval for the second comment, taken alone, by itself, independently, and I chose to do that without interest in or consideration of the karma points in any other comment, by you or anyone else.
And since I don’t accept instruction from people on how to vote for them, your suggestion to downvote the first comment, were also summarily ignored. I downvoted the comment I wanted to downvote, because I disapproved of it, not the one you were instructing me to downvote—and which I didn’t disapprove of.
I, uh… yeah, you’ve made that perfectly clear.
I’m not sure whether I accomplished what I was trying to accomplish or not. I mean, the “Here, take some of my status” part obviously worked, just not quite how I was planning. Getting downvoted when I ask to get downvoted doesn’t exactly break my heart, either, of course. I seem to have provoked some hostility from a few people, which is rarely a goal I pursue, but I’d rather people be mad because I’m “telling them how to vote” than because a substantive disagreement is going poorly. I guess next time I’ll look for a less annoying way of doing it.
By the way, feel free to downvote or upvote this, and all my other comments, according to your judgment of their merits, or any other algorithm you wish to employ, including but not limited to: upvoting comments you agree with, downvoting comments you disagree with, downvoting all my comments, upvoting all my comments, alternately downvoting and upvoting my comments, upvoting only comments you disagree with in an interesting way, downvoting comments that give you the megrims, upvoting comments that use silly words, and changing the sign of all your votes at random intervals. The part of me I identify with cares about karma only to the degree it makes discourse better or worse, and tries to say worthwhile things regardless of point value. The rest of me can stand a good smacking around.
oh nooo, now I can’t do any of those things because I am sooo contrarian
One of those downvotes is mine—I agreed with the grandparent, but wasn’t going to upvote it until I read this one. I thought it would even out if I did both.
Welcome to the world of LessWrong karma.
It doesn’t make me feel bad, just cynical. 16 points is a lot for repeating a point that the post already addressed in a way that makes it sound like the post didn’t address it.