SPED102 Lecture Notes - Lecture 2: Mediumship, Subjective Validation, Randomness
8 May 2018
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SPED102 Lecture & Tutorial Questions
Week 2
II: Cognitive Biases 1
Examples of weird beliefs
• Beliefs that if true would overturn current scientific worldview
• Mediumship
• Telepathy
• Homeopathy
• Auras
• Graphology
Who believes weird things?
• All cultures, all societies
• Regardless of gender, education, etc.
• Dissociation, fantasy proneness, hypnotic-suggestibility
The role of cognition
• Our cognitive abilities consistently let us down
• We often see what we have not, etc.
Pareidolia
• Psychological phenomena whereby we perceive meaning in random stimuli
• All human beings feel the need to find meaning but beliefs will often find paranormal context
in random stimuli where non exists
• Similarly for conspiracy theorists - if you are looking for the evidence based on a certain
belief, then you will most certainly find it
• Evolutionary advantage of being sensitive to patterns - false positives present less risk than
false negatives
Led Zeppelin’s Stairway to Heaven
• You hear what you are primed to hear
The illusion of control
• False belief that we have control over random events (Langer 1975)
Misunderstanding relative and absolute risk
Poor understanding of probability
• Very common
• Cognitive biases
The concept of randomness
• Humans find the concept of randomness very hard to understand
• We find it almost impossible to fake randomness
• We find it very difficult to recognise random patterns of coin tosses
• “Hot streaks” or “runs” in sport - generally consistent with random distributions
• Randomness does not look random
Coincidence - chance or evidence of the paranormal?
• What are the chances of you having a dream which is prophetic (precognitive)?
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Document Summary
Examples of weird beliefs: beliefs that if true would overturn current scientific worldview, mediumship, telepathy, homeopathy, auras, graphology. Who believes weird things: all cultures, all societies, regardless of gender, education, etc, dissociation, fantasy proneness, hypnotic-suggestibility. The role of cognition: our cognitive abilities consistently let us down, we often see what we have not, etc. Led zeppelin"s stairway to heaven: you hear what you are primed to hear. The illusion of control: false belief that we have control over random events (langer 1975) Poor understanding of probability: very common, cognitive biases. Hot streaks or runs in sport - generally consistent with random distributions. In summary: we all suck at estimating probability, results in belief in telepathy, precognition, and psychic phenomena. Take home message: we cannot rely on our cognitive abilities - they constantly let us down. Explain the concept of pareidolia and how it relates to our ability to recognise randomness.
