Cognitive Biases

Cognitive Biases

Lately, I have been questioning why I do the things I do, how I make decisions, and why I react certain ways in social situations. My reactions to different circumstances come from processing what is going on around me by filtering it through my likes, dislikes, and previous experiences. This filtering process is when I become susceptible to cognitive bias. Cognitive biases are human's tendencies to make errors in judgment based on the way we perceive what is happening around us. These biases can affect decision-making, our ideas of probability, memory, and our behaviour.

Examples of cognitive biases that shocked me were change blindness, and the names of colours that were printed in different colours. The example of change blindness is interesting because it is hard to believe. Most people would expect their cognitive system to catch such a huge change in the situation. All the subjects in the experiment failed to notice the change. This proves that the filtering of what is going on around us is compromised when we are busy thinking or performing another task, such as giving directions. Change blindness is also interesting because it shows how our cognitive process can fail. So much of how we live relies on our perception and trusting how we perceive things. If we can't rely on our mind to notice changes in humans, how do we know if we ever perceive what is going around us correctly. It is hard to believe that cognitive bias exists, as it can go unnoticed in everyday life. The example of having the class read names of colours printed in inks that were a different colour than what the word meant really shows our mind's biases in action. When trying to perform this task, we all struggled to read the words because our minds had already perceived the colours rather than the words. This seemingly easy task is made difficult because of our cognitive biases.

I didn't believe that cognitive biases occurred so often, until I began to recognize them in my own life. I realized that I am quicker to spend, and will spend more money if it is in small denominations. Change and small bills weren't as valuable to me as large bills. I also frequently underestimate task completion times regardless of previous experience of doing these tasks. The realization of my biases makes me wonder how our world would be different if we were equipped with a system that was capable of perceiving correctly in each and every situation. The world would certainly become easier without cognitive biases. Court trials could become more dependant upon witness accounts, as witnessed would be able to accurately communicate what had happened, to who, at what time. I would be able to successfully manage my time, and complete all assigned tasks. We would eliminate stereotyping, and freethinking would arise without the bandwagon effect.

Cognitive biases are human's