How We Really Think

Watched a recording of the Horizon episode last night and I found it absolutely fascinating.

It started with a psychiatrist in New York city who observed that the taxi drivers would work short days on rainy days when fairs were plentiful and long days on sunny days when fairs were few and far between.  He realised that this behaviour is not logical.

Logically, a New York taxi driver would be better off working long a days on rainy days when fairs are plentiful, which would make them extra, and clocking off earlier on sunny days when fairs are hard to come by, which would save them fuel.

However, New York taxi drivers are apparently ruled by their quotas.  On rainy days they work short hours and clock off when they have made their quotas, instead of carrying on to make some extra money.  Whereas on sunny days they work really long hours because they don't want to make a loss of their quotas.  Logically, this does not work but apparently ninety nine per cent of taxi drivers do it in New York.

As the psychiatrist put it:

"If only one or two did it then it is a random happening.  When so many do it then it is a cognitive bias."

In this case it is 'loss adversion' bias.  We worry more about loss than celebrate about gain and as the tests he's come up with show, we are willing to risk more to avoid loss than we are willing to risk to gain.  What is more this even affects the professionals in the shock and shares market.  It was proving this that won the psychiatrist a Noble Prize.

However, what I found the most interesting was his discovery that the human brain has two methods or systems of thinking.  System One is the fast, instinctive, intuitive system that sees a shape and says 'that's a car', or hears something and says 'that's a dog' and goes 'two plus two is four'.  Fast, instinctive and intuitive.  And sometimes wrong.

Where as System Two is the slower, logical, rational system that can count backwards from a hundred in lots of seven, put a puzzle together and weigh up cause and effects.  However, this system is slow and takes a lot of energy.  An example of this is trying to walk and do the counting backwards.  The number of people that not only slow down but actually stop entirely is amazing.  You would think that counting backwards is fairly simple but it takes that much thought that it interferrs with co-ordination.

Because of this, the brain is lazy and uses System One for decisions that it should really use System Two for, such as deciding which days you are going to clock off earlier from your taxi job.

What is more these cognitive bias can actually blind you.  Take for instance the New York cop who chased a murder suspect passed two other officers beating another suspect and then pleaded that he hadn't seen them doing it.  He was prosecuted for preverting the course of duty because none of the jury could believe that he didn't see it.  However, the tests the psychiatrist has come up has proved that if you are concentrating on a moving object ahead of you then you can pass a fight happening not twenty feet from you and you will not see it.  He calls this attention bias.  I call it tunnel visioning because that is what it is called among the professionals that study Autism.

I was really surprised to find that something I thought of as an 'Autistic problem' is actually shared by the whole human race, it is just that we Autistics can take it to absolute extremes.

However, the research into these cognitive bias has given me an entirely new view upon many of the 'Autistic Problems' and some of our gifts.  Take, of instance, the gift that some Autistics have for numbers.  I'm wondering if the Autistics that can do the amazing Rain Man style sums have had the mathematical, logical area of their brain wired into the System One.  So they are using the fast, instinctive system to do things that neuro-typical people have to use System Two for, hence why they seem so amazing when it comes to numbers.

But in wiring the mathematical, logical area of the brain into System One, has it displaced the things that neuro-typical people have there?  Is this why Autistic people struggle so much with our social skills?  Are we using slow, logical System Two for something that typical people use System One for?

In short, is Temple Grandin absolutely right when she says that having Autism is like having all our brains wiring and programing all muddled up?  Are we running on System Two what is usually done on System One and stuff that is normally handled by System Two is being handled by System One?

Personally I'd say that they need to do a little more research into this because right now it is throwing up more questions than answers.  It is certainly something to think about.