Re: Expertise, etcetera
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Ran across an interesting article just now on this. Please note I am just adding this to the discussion, not using it as justification one way or the other. I do not have a PhD, have often toyed with getting one (in organizational psych) and have opinions on both sides of the issue. Real-world fact though is that PhDs give credibility and accreditation to outside observers, whatever we may think from closer in. Here- You Know More Than You Know | Wired Science | Wired.com FIrst paragraph: " There’s a fascinating new paper in Psychological Science by the Dutch psychologist Ap Dijksterhuis on the virtues of unconscious thought when it comes to predicting the outcome of soccer matches. It turns out that the conscious brain – that rational voice in your head deliberating over the alternatives – gets in the way of expertise. Although we tend to think of experts as being weighted down by information, their intelligence dependent on a vast set of explicit knowledge, this experiment suggests that successful experts don’t consciously access these facts. When they evaluate a situation, they don’t systematically compare all the available soccer teams or analyze the relevant players. They don’t rely on elaborate spreadsheets or athletic statistics or long lists of pros and cons. Instead, Dijksterhuis’ study suggests that the best experts naturally depend on their unconscious mind, on that subterranean warehouse of feelings, hunches and instincts...." .... ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org |
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This was a well known phenomenon for Knowledge Engineers (when
expert systems were more visible in the mid '80s). There were
several anecdotes: one was about the best performing pilots that
went to Top Gun school and losing their edge because they had to
repeatedly verbalize their knowledge to students. The best
performance came from 'compiled knowledge' which is intrinsically
inexpressible.
It's nice to see some research put flesh on anecdotal bones. Thanks Robert C On 10/12/10 1:56 PM, Victoria Hughes wrote:
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In reply to this post by Victoria Hughes
Victoria Hughes wrote:
... Instead, Dijksterhuis’ study suggests that the best > experts naturally depend on their unconscious mind, on that > subterranean warehouse of feelings, hunches and instincts...." I know that's how I've always worked. I look at a system (people, processes, technology) and I understand it - I don't diagram it, I don't analyze it, I just find out about it and out pops how it works (and how it will react to stimuli). That helps a lot when figuring out how to stimulate the system into failure or into doing what I want it to do (not necessarily what the owners want it to do). -- Ray Parks [hidden email] Consilient Heuristician Voice: 505-844-4024 ATA Department Mobile: 505-238-9359 http://www.sandia.gov/scada Fax: 505-844-9641 http://www.sandia.gov/idart Pager:505-951-6084 ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org |
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Ahhhh. That's talent.
Nick -----Original Message----- From: [hidden email] [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Raymond Parks Sent: Tuesday, October 12, 2010 2:46 PM To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Expertise, etcetera Victoria Hughes wrote: ... Instead, Dijksterhuis' study suggests that the best > experts naturally depend on their unconscious mind, on that > subterranean warehouse of feelings, hunches and instincts...." I know that's how I've always worked. I look at a system (people, processes, technology) and I understand it - I don't diagram it, I don't analyze it, I just find out about it and out pops how it works (and how it will react to stimuli). That helps a lot when figuring out how to stimulate the system into failure or into doing what I want it to do (not necessarily what the owners want it to do). -- Ray Parks [hidden email] Consilient Heuristician Voice: 505-844-4024 ATA Department Mobile: 505-238-9359 http://www.sandia.gov/scada Fax: 505-844-9641 http://www.sandia.gov/idart Pager:505-951-6084 ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org |
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I realize that, with this crowd I'm probably stating the obvious ... but for those who haven't read it, this is exactly what Gladwell's book Blink is about.
-Ted
On Tue, Oct 12, 2010 at 7:48 PM, Nicholas Thompson <[hidden email]> wrote: Ahhhh. That's talent. -- Ted Carmichael, Ph.D. Complex Systems Institute Department of Software and Information Systems College of Computing and Informatics 310-A Woodward Hall UNC Charlotte Charlotte, NC 28223
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Ted Carmichael wrote:
> I realize that, with this crowd I'm probably stating the obvious ... > but for those who haven't read it, this is exactly what Gladwell's > book Blink is about. And Dan Arielly's book _Predictably_Irrational_ is about the problems with instinctive decision-making. Or is it about the problems with trying to use rational decision-making instead of instinctive? -- Ray Parks [hidden email] Consilient Heuristician Voice: 505-844-4024 ATA Department Mobile: 505-238-9359 http://www.sandia.gov/scada Fax: 505-844-9641 http://www.sandia.gov/idart Pager:505-951-6084 ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org |
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And Jonah Lehrer's book How We Decide looks at both styles of decision making, in several settings (hot shot firefighters, high-stakes poker players, etc) and what's happening in the brain and in conscious awareness at those times. Lehrer speaking at the Commonwealth Club:FORA.tv - Jonah Lehrer: How We Decide
On Oct 13, 2010, at 10:46 AM, Raymond Parks wrote:
----------------------------------- Tory Hughes Tory Hughes website Tory Hughes facebook ------------------------------------ ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org |
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Victoria Hughes wrote:
> (hot shot firefighters, high-stakes poker players, etc) That reminds me of some work done here at Sandia concerning human decision-making under stressful conditions. Chris Forsyte (no longer here) created a model based on a real incident in the PG 1.0 of a special operations team being discovered by a civilian from a nearby village before they had accomplished their mission behind enemy lines. His behavioral decision-making model (as opposed to rational decision-making models) showed that lots of trivial and, apparently, irrelevant factors make the difference between shoot and no-shoot (i.e. kill the civilian and continue the mission or leave the civilian and abort the mission). Factors such as sleep-deprivation, fatigue, hunger, and others seem to make people decide upon radically different actions during crises. -- Ray Parks [hidden email] Consilient Heuristician Voice: 505-844-4024 ATA Department Mobile: 505-238-9359 http://www.sandia.gov/scada Fax: 505-844-9641 http://www.sandia.gov/idart Pager:505-951-6084 ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org |
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In reply to this post by Ted Carmichael
Mark Quirk has described the development of both metacognition and intuition in his book:http://books.google.com/books?id=sQ1w92YAoFUC&printsec=frontcover&dq=metacognition+intuition+medical&source=bl&ots=byf-cTo832&sig=xF2F0KEgujBulubTeaKp3PCOfgg&hl=en&ei=JQq2TN-zOpCmnQf59o1q&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=4&ved=0CCAQ6AEwAw#v=onepage&q&f=false
We tend to forget that intuition is a developed skill. Russ#3 On Oct 13, 2010, at 10:55 AM, Ted Carmichael wrote: I realize that, with this crowd I'm probably stating the obvious ... but for those who haven't read it, this is exactly what Gladwell's book Blink is about. ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org |
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In reply to this post by Victoria Hughes
Merle Lefkoff wrote:
Forgive me for blithely skipping from the "mind" to the "brain". Our brains decide and predict based on a complex dynamic between the "emotional brain" ( in our limbic system), and what I call the "trained brain". The training results from the neurotransmitter dopamine which is constantly registering our trials and errors. Our brains incorporate an analysis of our past mistakes, and we become more "expert" the more self-aware we are about these mistakes (remember: our brains amplify the experience from the negative feedback loops). And so the "subterranean warehouse" is not just hunch and instinct, it includes a whole lot of rational analysis based on how well--and recently--we've predicted in the past. Even so-called "experts" are hard-wired for "loss aversion". They are likely to form their predictions based on how recently they predicted wrongly and NOT on the statistics they've studied. And so, the older you get and the more you make mistakes and the more you get hit upside-the-head and actually LEARN from your mistakes, the more "expert" you become. Yea! (And you don't need a Ph.D.) Merle Victoria Hughes wrote: > Ran across an interesting article just now on this. Please note I am > just adding this to the discussion, not using it as justification one > way or the other. I do not have a PhD, have often toyed with getting > one (in organizational psych) and have opinions on both sides of the > issue. Real-world fact though is that PhDs give credibility and > accreditation to outside observers, whatever we may think from closer in. > > Here- > > You Know More Than You Know | Wired Science | Wired.com > > FIrst paragraph: > > " There’s a fascinating new paper in Psychological Science by the > Dutch psychologist Ap Dijksterhuis on the virtues of unconscious > thought when it comes to predicting the outcome of soccer matches. It > turns out that the conscious brain – that rational voice in your head > deliberating over the alternatives – gets in the way of expertise. > Although we tend to think of experts as being weighted down by > information, their intelligence dependent on a vast set of explicit > knowledge, this experiment suggests that successful experts don’t > consciously access these facts. When they evaluate a situation, they > don’t systematically compare all the available soccer teams or analyze > the relevant players. They don’t rely on elaborate spreadsheets or > athletic statistics or long lists of pros and cons. Instead, > Dijksterhuis’ study suggests that the best experts naturally depend on > their unconscious mind, on that subterranean warehouse of feelings, > hunches and instincts...." > > .... > > > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------ > > ============================================================ > FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv > Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College > lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org |
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John L. Lewis said something like:
It ill behooves one, who has supped at Academia's table, and who has been sheltered in Academia's house, to curse with equal fervor and fine impartiality both Academia and its adversaries, when they become locked in deadly embrace. I was going to send this to the list, but I feared you might take too hard. Basically, I love the quote and will use it anytime I get the chance. Those old timey labor leaders sure knew how to sling words around. Nick -----Original Message----- From: [hidden email] [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Merle Lefkoff Sent: Wednesday, October 13, 2010 2:53 PM To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Expertise, etcetera Merle Lefkoff wrote: Forgive me for blithely skipping from the "mind" to the "brain". Our brains decide and predict based on a complex dynamic between the "emotional brain" ( in our limbic system), and what I call the "trained brain". The training results from the neurotransmitter dopamine which is constantly registering our trials and errors. Our brains incorporate an analysis of our past mistakes, and we become more "expert" the more self-aware we are about these mistakes (remember: our brains amplify the experience from the negative feedback loops). And so the "subterranean warehouse" is not just hunch and instinct, it includes a whole lot of rational analysis based on how well--and recently--we've predicted in the past. Even so-called "experts" are hard-wired for "loss aversion". They are likely to form their predictions based on how recently they predicted wrongly and NOT on the statistics they've studied. And so, the older you get and the more you make mistakes and the more you get hit upside-the-head and actually LEARN from your mistakes, the more "expert" you become. Yea! (And you don't need a Ph.D.) Merle Victoria Hughes wrote: > Ran across an interesting article just now on this. Please note I am > just adding this to the discussion, not using it as justification one > way or the other. I do not have a PhD, have often toyed with getting > one (in organizational psych) and have opinions on both sides of the > issue. Real-world fact though is that PhDs give credibility and > accreditation to outside observers, whatever we may think from closer in. > > Here- > > You Know More Than You Know | Wired Science | Wired.com > > FIrst paragraph: > > " There's a fascinating new paper in Psychological Science by the > Dutch psychologist Ap Dijksterhuis on the virtues of unconscious > thought when it comes to predicting the outcome of soccer matches. It > turns out that the conscious brain - that rational voice in your head > deliberating over the alternatives - gets in the way of expertise. > Although we tend to think of experts as being weighted down by > information, their intelligence dependent on a vast set of explicit > knowledge, this experiment suggests that successful experts don't > consciously access these facts. When they evaluate a situation, they > don't systematically compare all the available soccer teams or analyze > the relevant players. They don't rely on elaborate spreadsheets or > athletic statistics or long lists of pros and cons. Instead, > Dijksterhuis' study suggests that the best experts naturally depend on > their unconscious mind, on that subterranean warehouse of feelings, > hunches and instincts...." > > .... > > > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > -- > > ============================================================ > FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe > at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at > http://www.friam.org ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org |
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In reply to this post by Merle Lefkoff
Here's another pertinent book, reviewed in brief by Nature today. So experts, minds brimming with facts, are more likely to choke.
Choke: What the Secrets of the Brain Reveal About Getting It Right When You Have To Sian Beilock Free Press 304 pp. $26 (2010) When the pressure's on, we've all 'choked' — hit the wrong note, flunked an exam or messed up an interview. Cognitive psychologist Sian Beilock explains why. Describing how memory works, she shows that experts whose minds brim with facts are more likely to freeze than novices. Social stereotyping also leads us to underperform. Beilock's solutions for big occasions are simple: reaffirm your self-worth, write away your worries and keep practising. If the worst happens, pause and refocus.
-- rec -- ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org |
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In reply to this post by Robert J. Cordingley
It is a bit unfortunate that the experiment involved predicting soccer game outcomes. I recall that there was an octupus the had a perfect prediction record during the last world cup.
davew
On Tue, 12 Oct 2010 14:26 -0600, "Robert J. Cordingley" <[hidden email]> wrote:
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On 13 Oct 2010 at 16:26, Prof David West wrote:
> It is a bit unfortunate that the experiment involved predicting > soccer game outcomes. I recall that there was an octupus the had > a perfect prediction record during the last world cup. Well, as Walt Kelly had his characters point out, once, "To be forewarned is to be forearmed, and to be forearmed is to be half an octopus." It would seem to follow that to be an entire octupus is to be doubly forewarned, and that's close enough to procognition for government work. ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org |
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In reply to this post by Merle Lefkoff
On Wed, Oct 13, 2010 at 4:53 PM, Merle Lefkoff <[hidden email]> wrote: Merle Lefkoff wrote: Well, the point in Gladwell's book was that a LOT of learning and experience is built up, so that predictions or assessments, etc., become immediate, knee-jerk reactions. The processes that inform such decisions occur below the level of consciousness, but nevertheless require years of study.
So it's not just statistics that are studied, but rather thousands and thousands of instances of learning that are remembered, and thus aggregated below conscious awareness. Even though the process of training one's brain for many different examples requires conscious thought and reflection, the end result becomes a reflexive action.
-Ted ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org |
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In reply to this post by Merle Lefkoff
It's strange that when Gladwell says this stuff, it sounds attractive, but
when a behaviorist says the same thing people think it sounds crazy:
"Intelligent" behavior is not caused by "thinking", but rather it is simply attunement of the body to the correct environmental variables. There is nothing "built up" about it, quite the opposite, it is pared down and simplified. It is "selective attention", in terms purely of one's behavior being dependent upon only the essential aspects of what is going on around you. This shouldn't lead us to think the mind even more wonderful, but rather to question the usefulness of mind-talk and mind-focused-learning in the first place. Sigh, Eric On Wed, Oct 13, 2010 06:50 PM, Ted Carmichael <[hidden email]> wrote:
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In reply to this post by lrudolph
Iowa Electronic Markets http://tippie.uiowa.edu/iem/index.cfm
Best formal example I know of where collective judgment is being collected and evaluated publicly. Key to it is (IMO) the real investment in one's opinions. In most cases (e.g. Polls) there is no motivation to be serious rather than (sometimes) frivolous or hopeful or ... - Steve > On 13 Oct 2010 at 16:26, Prof David West wrote: > >> It is a bit unfortunate that the experiment involved predicting >> soccer game outcomes. I recall that there was an octupus the had >> a perfect prediction record during the last world cup. > Well, as Walt Kelly had his characters point out, > once, "To be forewarned is to be forearmed, and > to be forearmed is to be half an octopus." > > It would seem to follow that to be an entire > octupus is to be doubly forewarned, and that's > close enough to procognition for government work. > > ============================================================ > FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv > Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College > lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org |
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The traditions that resonate for me are abstract, impersonal, transhuman,
universal, infinitely vast -- more or less in order of my lifestream, science, Huxley, Zen, the Seth material, Sufism, Goldsmith, ACIM, Time, Space and Knowledge (Tarthang Tulku), Ramana and Poonjaji, Advaita, Tolle, nonduality, Dzogchen, Taoism -- so I don't focus on my personality story -- that's not what I naturally seek to share -- some may desire a comprehensible personality to deal with, tangible and feelingfull and lively -- as "Room For All", I'll be keen to see what my mild Asperger's syndrome comes up with for them -- for the more each apparently uniquely individualized a "mind stream" seems to be, the richer the creative communion within single infinite unity... I accept all of your power. I let you all the way in -- into every level and aspect of my being, for spontaneously creative contact, communication, cooperation, collaboration, communion, union, accepting guidance, help, inspiration, healing, transformation, forgiving all forms, for our unlimited peace, pleasure, understanding, and service in sharing with all for All, forever transcending all previous concepts, identities, stories, and realities... Rich ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org |
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In reply to this post by Eric Charles
Well ... by "built up" I mean the collecting of examples. Yes, each example is part novel and part pattern. So I do get what you are saying, in regards to how these specific examples allow a sort of mental pruning, down to the essential aspects.
In Blink, Gladwell uses the example of an art expert who is able to see - immediately - that a particular statue is fake. The expert's judgement is immediate, without even articulating - at first - exactly why he knows it is fake. But he has crafted this expertise over time, with thoughtful and particular study of many, many examples of real and fake statues.
What's wonderful about this is that many of the rules remain unarticulated. The brain somehow manages to piece together many of these patterns - these 'essential' aspects - unconsciously. But it still requires intense study, and foreknowledge of what is real and what is fake. By giving years of study to these particular examples, the art expert is allocating more of his brain to record all the patterns he needs.
This is very similar to how, for example, a blind person has more expert hearing or touch. It's not that your ears are magically better because you are blind, or your fingers more sensitive to touch for reading braille. The blind simply devote more time and study to interpreting these particular patterns of touch and sound ... more brain area for processing a greater number of patterns in this realm than a sighted person would use.
Then eventually, a blind person can read while hardly aware of the individual dots felt by his fingers. Perhaps it would be better to say these skills are "developed" rather than "built up." But they do, I believe, require a larger chunk of mental space, to accommodate the larger number of specific patterns that are remembered in the domain of expertise.
For myself, I can assure you the amount of space in my brain dedicated to statues is much smaller. It's pretty much restricted to "Yes, that's a statue." -Ted
On Wed, Oct 13, 2010 at 9:47 PM, ERIC P. CHARLES <[hidden email]> wrote:
-- Ted Carmichael, Ph.D. Complex Systems Institute Department of Software and Information Systems
College of Computing and Informatics 310-A Woodward Hall UNC Charlotte Charlotte, NC 28223
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In reply to this post by Eric Charles
Again, I suggest the evidence is exactly the opposite!
You assert that the art expert needs lots of mental space to fill with his "experiences" of past real and fake statues. I suggest that he needs less and less mental space the more expert he gets (and that this is typically what we mean by "expertise"). He specifically pays attention to less factors in making his "intuitive" judgments, because he only paying attention to the factors that will give him an answer, rather than all the distracting non-insightful factors he paid attention to when new at his job. This suggests he could have been taught to tell reals from fakes without every knowing what he was looking at, and even without the trainer knowing what he was looking at. (Studies show, for example, that novice chess players pay the most attention to the pieces, while expert chess players pay the most attention to a specific class of empty spaces. I've seen advise in chess books that might lead you to this state, but never one that gave explicit instruction to do so.) It is not amazing that such abilities are unarticulated, we should expect them to be. Being able to do something AND articulate what you are doing is more complex, not more basic, than being able to do something without being able to explain it. Having a brain that only pays attention to the important things should require less "space", but more "specialization" than having a brain that pays attention to everything. Your brain is NOT like a harddrive on which anything can be written. Your brain is more like a custom made processor, that dynamically adapts its structure, and likes to minimize power usage. To connect this with the other thread, and Rich's eloquent statement, the transcendent person is LESS complicated than the average person. They have let go of unnecessary complications. When you "accept everyone" and "let them all the way in" you are actually doing LESS than an average person, who judges and discriminates each person, and must regulate exactly how much to let each one in. Though the process of development in each of these cases may be complex, the result is surely more elegant and simple than the starting point. Eric On Thu, Oct 14, 2010 02:58 AM, Ted Carmichael <[hidden email]> wrote: Eric Charles Professional Student and Assistant Professor of Psychology Penn State University Altoona, PA 16601 ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org |
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