Capture as it happens - Memory fades, protecting our world view, and forcing cause and effect
In this post I talked about capturing experiences (content) as it happens. This way we record raw truths, because as time passes cognitive biases start creeping in…that’s just how we are.
In the post I referred to retrospective coherence/hindsight bias, and the fundamental attribution error. Basically we have a limited ability to look at sequences of facts without weaving an explanation into them…better known as the narrative fallacy.
This post is about our memory bias. I’m simply listing examples that describe how our memory fades, our biases involved in remembering, and biases in protecting our mental view. Related to this is how recalling what happens in an accurate way may be distorted by group dynamics, but I’ll list those links another day.
Hopefully this gives a new view on why using something like a blog to capture something as it happens is essential. Whether you have a lessons learned program or plan one in the future doesn’t matter, what matters is you are capturing experiences right now; do what you like with them later on. If you wait till later on, there will be too much cause and effect explanations, and basically distortions of the truth…which aint gonna help you in the future.
The links below confirm some of Snowden’s KM Principles:
We only know what we know when we need to know it
Human knowledge is deeply contextual and requires stimulus for recallThe way we know things is not the way we report we know things
Asked to describe how they made a decision after the event they will tend to provide a more structured process oriented approach which does not match reality…read more.
Understanding in retrospect won’t predict same outcomes in new context
…there are other contexts which are characterised as ‘complex’ in which state ‘cause and effect’ relationships cannot be predicted as many things are affecting many things.
Cognitive dissonance is an uncomfortable feeling caused by holding conflicting ideas simultaneously. The theory of cognitive dissonance proposes that people have a motivational drive to reduce dissonance. They do this by changing their attitudes, beliefs, and actions. Dissonance is also reduced by justifying, blaming, and denying. It is one of the most influential and extensively studied theories in social psychology.
Stories are mental representations that provide order from the chaos (at an expense)
Desperate to find order in the chaos and to infer cause and effect, the left hemisphere—in a module Gazzaniga dubs “the interpreter”—tries to fit everything into a coherent story
How does the brain “decide” what to keep and what to dump?
…the brain evaluates information based on future expectations. After a good night’s sleep, we remember information better when we know it will be useful in the future
…people have a natural tendency to rationalise what happens to them. When something bad happens we initially feel unhappy but immediately start searching for the underlying reasons. Once when we’ve decided on the cause(s) of this bad event, we start to feel better
Your facts will do no good against my motivated reasoning
…our preexisting beliefs, far more than any new facts, can skew our thoughts
Motivated reasoning and confirmation bias
Accordingly, reasoning should display a confirmation bias: it should be more likely to find arguments that support our point of view or rebut those that we oppose. Short (but emphatic) answer: it does, and very much so
The persuasion of confirmation bias
…confirmation bias, for instance, may mislead us about what’s true and real, by letting examples that support our view monopolize our memory and perception
The point is that people’s acceptance of scientific points often has more to do with its resonance with their political views than with any real examination of the data.
…they simply discount the expertise associated with any opinion they’d rather not hear
Influence using a context that doesn’t trigger a defensive reaction
…cold hard facts and scientific evidence seldom change the minds of those who already hold a strong opinion…make sure to present it to them in a context that doesn’t trigger a defensive, emotional reaction.
Persistence of false knowledge
One of the biggest problems is the persistence of false knowledge - and just how difficult it can be to persuade people that they are wrong (or even to admit to yourself that you are wrong). People have an amazing ability to force-fit new facts into a pre-existing model, and if they don’t fit, to ignore them completely.
Seek patterns first, then data
When people look at raw data, they see it from the context of a specific perspective; when they look at the wider pattern then they gain perspective and appreciation of opportunities not previously present.
…we tend to believe the past glories were the result of our actions, while past disgraces were someone else’s fault
New experiences don’t fall on a blank slate; we don’t merely record the things we see around us ‘as they are’ (if such a thing exists). Everything we do, have done to us, think or experience, is affected by past thoughts and things that have already happened to us. As a result we can’t help but put our own personal spin on our memories
…we tend to believe the past glories were the result of our actions, while past disgraces were someone else’s fault
Cues are clearly important to retrieving memories. The smell of varnish might remind us of the day we spent canoeing in the rain, lost in solitary thought.
…what we recall is affected by our current emotional state, our motivations and so on
Misattributing the source of memories…people regularly say they read something in the newspaper, when actually a friend told them or they saw it in an advert
Misattributing an imagined event to reality…how easily our memory can transform fantasy into reality
Unintentional plagiarism…when we attribute an idea or memory to ourselves that really belongs to someone else
Memory is like a journal: selective, incomplete, and subject to interpretation
…if we’ve learned anything over decades of research into the properties of memory, it’s this: memories are idiosyncratic, they change, and the way we stored them to begin with will affect the way we will remember them later on.
…even when you saw an event, and you remember it pretty well, if everyone around you says they saw something different you’ll often change your mind to conform to the group’s collective opinion.
bit.ly/Ag4eIn - Justifies the Chinese proverb “The palest ink is better than the strongest memory”. Via @johnt
Memory isn’t etched in neural stone. It’s a creative process, sketched in sand
In other words, because seeing the ball fly off implied that the kicker (or other protagonist) had struck the ball, the participants tended to invent a memory for having seen that causal action happen, even when they hadn’t. This memory distortion happened within seconds, sometimes as soon as a second after the relevant part of the video had been seen.
