This may be one more reason why thinking in terms of probability estimates—which, at least in my mind, are spatially represented and color-coded—is a good habit to get into.
This may be one more reason why thinking in terms of probability estimates—which, at least in my mind, are spatially represented and color-coded—is a good habit to get into.
Hey… how did you develop the whole color coded spacial representation thing? I tend to do that sort of visualization with computers but not in my brain. My brain just goes by feelings and intuition.
Hey… how did you develop the whole color coded spacial representation thing?
I’m not sure; my best guess is that it goes back to some childhood memory of letters/numbers represented in certain ways on various educational toys and the like.
In a similar manner, countries other than the U.S., and U.S. states, have associated colors in my mind, due I believe to a toy globe I had at a very young age. (Interestingly, however, I also have a memory of finding that globe again years later, and discovering that some of the colors were different from what I “remembered”!)
True. However, I think it’s possible for you to develop the ability to realize that something you said or thought is “something I seem to recall having heard somewhere”. It might be helpful to engage in contentious debate so that you internalize an expectation of, “oh hell, I’m going to get challenged on that and I’m not sure where I picked it up.”
In one study mentioned in the article, people thought that the information they remembered was from the CDC—they just forgot whether the information was true or false. The problem is not that just that we forget where we learned something, but that we forget that it is false.
That’s within my point. I was using synecdoche to refer to a larger category of possible problems for which I have no nice description. Maybe it would help if I added “and things of that sort”.
I bet you could train yourself to be good at remembering “I heard negative evidence against X (from whatever source)” properly, especially if X is something you’ve either got existing (properly remembered or summarized) evidence for/exist,or have connected to other claims. In other words, probably part of that effect is that the subjects don’t accurately understand or recall the sentence they read, and they think “that sounds familiar! wasn’t that what I just read from the CDC?”
An inability to remember the strength of some evidence you’ve heard is already crippling. Misremembering the polarity (whether it’s pulling you toward truth or untruth from your prior) is just a particularly bad instance.
What do people with this handicap actually do when they want to properly weigh evidence? Do they write it all down so they can review it (like people find a pros/cons list to be helpful)?
I often remember how some fact or event made me feel at the time. For instance, I’ll remember being moved by a film years later, but perhaps be quite fuzzy on even the broad strokes of the plot. I’d like to exploit this sort of memory in order to represent the direction+strength of evidence—to not remember being excited to read some study, but to remember its value.
Another technique that seems useful for uncertain (but interesting or important) claims that are updated over a long period of time is using fixed nametags (not much more complicated than the title of this excellent post ‘What data generated that thought?’), especially in writing or talking about it.
One reason not to read things that contain false statements is that it is hard for us to remember that what we read is false even if it explicitly labeled as false.
This may be one more reason why thinking in terms of probability estimates—which, at least in my mind, are spatially represented and color-coded—is a good habit to get into.
Hey… how did you develop the whole color coded spacial representation thing? I tend to do that sort of visualization with computers but not in my brain. My brain just goes by feelings and intuition.
I’m not sure; my best guess is that it goes back to some childhood memory of letters/numbers represented in certain ways on various educational toys and the like.
In a similar manner, countries other than the U.S., and U.S. states, have associated colors in my mind, due I believe to a toy globe I had at a very young age. (Interestingly, however, I also have a memory of finding that globe again years later, and discovering that some of the colors were different from what I “remembered”!)
True. However, I think it’s possible for you to develop the ability to realize that something you said or thought is “something I seem to recall having heard somewhere”. It might be helpful to engage in contentious debate so that you internalize an expectation of, “oh hell, I’m going to get challenged on that and I’m not sure where I picked it up.”
In one study mentioned in the article, people thought that the information they remembered was from the CDC—they just forgot whether the information was true or false. The problem is not that just that we forget where we learned something, but that we forget that it is false.
That’s within my point. I was using synecdoche to refer to a larger category of possible problems for which I have no nice description. Maybe it would help if I added “and things of that sort”.
I bet you could train yourself to be good at remembering “I heard negative evidence against X (from whatever source)” properly, especially if X is something you’ve either got existing (properly remembered or summarized) evidence for/exist,or have connected to other claims. In other words, probably part of that effect is that the subjects don’t accurately understand or recall the sentence they read, and they think “that sounds familiar! wasn’t that what I just read from the CDC?”
An inability to remember the strength of some evidence you’ve heard is already crippling. Misremembering the polarity (whether it’s pulling you toward truth or untruth from your prior) is just a particularly bad instance.
What do people with this handicap actually do when they want to properly weigh evidence? Do they write it all down so they can review it (like people find a pros/cons list to be helpful)?
I often remember how some fact or event made me feel at the time. For instance, I’ll remember being moved by a film years later, but perhaps be quite fuzzy on even the broad strokes of the plot. I’d like to exploit this sort of memory in order to represent the direction+strength of evidence—to not remember being excited to read some study, but to remember its value.
Another technique that seems useful for uncertain (but interesting or important) claims that are updated over a long period of time is using fixed nametags (not much more complicated than the title of this excellent post ‘What data generated that thought?’), especially in writing or talking about it.