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Wow, there are now 194 listed Cognitive Biases. The number keeps growing. It is an awful sign for a scientific community when they are working on a theory tha

by toomim 7y ago

Wow, there are now 194 listed Cognitive Biases. The number keeps growing. It is an awful sign for a scientific community when they are working on a theory that includes 196 different exceptions and adjustments that have to be made in order to make a model fit the data. It means that your underlying model probably isn't right. This reminds me of when Astronomers thought the universe revolves around the Earth, rather than the Sun. The earth-centered theory made sense until we got better data, and then sometimes planets appeared to go backwards. Sometimes they appeared to swirl around a line. Sometimes there were swirls within the swirls, and sometimes swirls within those: https://invisible.college/attention/dissertation/retrogrades.png https://invisible.college/attention/dissertation/retrogrades... Astronomers had to account for this data with a complex set of retrograde motions and epicycles layered upon epicycles. These complexities only increased as telescopes and charting techniques improved, uncovering more distortions from in the idealized orbital lens. Take, for instance, the numerous parameterized gears required for an early Galilean planetary model: https://invisible.college/attention/dissertation/galileo2.jpg https://invisible.college/attention/dissertation/galileo2.jp... Only when Copernicus and Kepler put the sun in the center of the universe could the models be simplified. Suddenly, each planet's orbit fit a perfect elipse -- no epicycles, no retrograde motions. We can do the same thing for Economic theory, by moving the center of the utility function from the future to the present. Right now, Economics models humans as optimizing future outcomes. The modeled humans are focused on the future: they allocate infinite attention to computing the optimal action for the future. But real humans have scarce attention for computing the future. When they run out of attention, these 194 heuristics and biases display themselves in full effect. We solve this dilemma when we evaluate the utility function in the present, rather than the future. Instead of assuming humans have infinite attention, the utility function itself predicts how humans allocate their scarce attention. The new utility function evaluates the utility of attention itself. And it turns out that we can empirically measure this value of this utility function, by running controlled experiments online with 1,000s of participants, and paying them different amounts of money to attend to different tasks. This lets us measure how much utility people ascribe to paying attention to television shows, sexy pictures, video games, advertisements, iPhone screens, or reddit posts. We can measure it in pennies per second. This new model is a measurable Attention Economics: https://invisible.college/attention/dissertation.html https://invisible.college/attention/dissertation.html

raxxorrax 7y ago
> It means that your underlying model probably isn't right. Or you just overestimate the validity of the biases as defined. You probably have doubt yourself, otherwise the reference to astronomers wouldn't be here.
n4r9 7y ago
As I understand it cognitive biases aren't exceptions or adjustments to a model; they are observed phenomena. Any model of psychology or economics which purports to unify these phenomena must be able to explain/predict each bias individually. How does "attention economics" predict the planning fallacy?
- toomim 7y ago
  Cognitive biases are exceptions or adjustments to the rational model: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rational_choice_theory https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rational_choice_theory On the whole, the field of Behavioral Economics is a correction to the Rational Economic Model. Behavioral Economics says "people are rational, except for the ways in which they are biased." They call it "bounded" rationality. For instance, the planning fallacy is a correction to the idea that people will rationally predict how much time something will take. So we first estimate how long something might take, and then the planning fallacy teaches us to increase it to account for our bias. > Any model of psychology or economics which purports to unify these phenomena must be able to explain/predict each bias individually That's close to correct, but I'd like to distinguish explaining the bias vs. the data. The new theory should explain the data, not the biases in the old theory. Consider that Kepler's elliptical orbit theory didn't explain each individual planetary epicycle -- it didn't need to. Kepler's theory didn't need epicycles at all to explain the data. Likewise, Attention Economics doesn't need a "Planning Fallacy", because it doesn't assume humans are good planners. It rather looks at how people actually allocate their attention while planning. Consider that if people allocate more attention to their plans, they are likely to make better estimates. So how are they allocating their attention when planning? In the "planning fallacy" [1], Kahneman and Tversky envisage "that planners focus on the most optimistic scenario for the task, rather than using their full experience of how much time similar tasks require." I haven't run the experiments myself, but one could certainly test for this in an Attention Economic experiment, by seeing how much more attracted people are to focus on the most optimistic scenario for their task, rather than the pessimistic scenarios. And then we can learn why they focus on the optimistic scenario, by manipulating other variables until we see which ones lead people to consider optimistic vs. pessimistic scenarios when planning. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planning_fallacy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planning_fallacy

by toomim 7y ago

raxxorrax 7y ago

> It means that your underlying model probably isn't right. Or you just overestimate the validity of the biases as defined. You probably have doubt yourself, otherwise the reference to astronomers wouldn't be here.

n4r9 7y ago

As I understand it cognitive biases aren't exceptions or adjustments to a model; they are observed phenomena. Any model of psychology or economics which purports to unify these phenomena must be able to explain/predict each bias individually. How does "attention economics" predict the planning fallacy?

toomim 7y ago
Cognitive biases are exceptions or adjustments to the rational model: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rational_choice_theory https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rational_choice_theory On the whole, the field of Behavioral Economics is a correction to the Rational Economic Model. Behavioral Economics says "people are rational, except for the ways in which they are biased." They call it "bounded" rationality. For instance, the planning fallacy is a correction to the idea that people will rationally predict how much time something will take. So we first estimate how long something might take, and then the planning fallacy teaches us to increase it to account for our bias. > Any model of psychology or economics which purports to unify these phenomena must be able to explain/predict each bias individually That's close to correct, but I'd like to distinguish explaining the bias vs. the data. The new theory should explain the data, not the biases in the old theory. Consider that Kepler's elliptical orbit theory didn't explain each individual planetary epicycle -- it didn't need to. Kepler's theory didn't need epicycles at all to explain the data. Likewise, Attention Economics doesn't need a "Planning Fallacy", because it doesn't assume humans are good planners. It rather looks at how people actually allocate their attention while planning. Consider that if people allocate more attention to their plans, they are likely to make better estimates. So how are they allocating their attention when planning? In the "planning fallacy" [1], Kahneman and Tversky envisage "that planners focus on the most optimistic scenario for the task, rather than using their full experience of how much time similar tasks require." I haven't run the experiments myself, but one could certainly test for this in an Attention Economic experiment, by seeing how much more attracted people are to focus on the most optimistic scenario for their task, rather than the pessimistic scenarios. And then we can learn why they focus on the optimistic scenario, by manipulating other variables until we see which ones lead people to consider optimistic vs. pessimistic scenarios when planning. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planning_fallacy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planning_fallacy