On Being Absolutely Certain—and Wrong
On Being Absolutely Certain—and Wrong
While en route to present a seminar, I had to change planes in Denver. On arrival in Denver, I checked the departure monitor for my connecting flight. There it was, Gate B52 at 3:20 p.m. Just as I expected. It was a short flight on a tiny plane. I had taken many such flights from Denver and they had all departed from B gates numbered in the 50's.
Having time to kill, I wandered around, periodically rechecking the monitor in case of a gate change. Nope, still B52 at 3:20.
At 2:50, I moseyed to Gate B52. Strangely, the flight information wasn't yet posted. And no service agents were in sight. But I knew that flights on tiny planes often board right at departure time, so the service agents were surely on their way.
Finally, at 3:00, the flight information was posted. But wait a minute. It said: San Francisco, departing 4:15. What??? I checked the departure monitor again: it said B52 at 3:20. How could this be?
And now it was 3:10. Something was very wrong. Once more, I checked the departure monitor. And that's when I saw ...
My departure gate wasn't B52, it was A52! Up till now, the monitor had said B52. I'm absolutely positive. But now it said A52! And I was very far from A52, even at run-like-crazy speed.
To B or Not to B
Off I went, hurrying, scurrying and worrying, doing the airport slalom, swerving around people, veering this way and that, while setting a personal best for inter-terminal travel. 3:11 ... 3:12 ... 3:13 ...
Despite huffin' and puffin' regularly at the gym, I quickly became winded; of course, on the treadmill, I don't carry a laptop and carry-on bag. 3:14 ... 3:15 ... 3:16 ...
Reaching Gate A52 entailed racing through Concourse B, then rushing down two escalators, then awaiting the train to Concourse A (the 45-second wait was twice as long as Forever), then dashing up two escalators (each slower than the other), then speeding to the end of Concourse A. Whereupon I discovered that my gate wasn't just A52, it was A52, door H, downstairs and at the end of a long corridor.
It was 3:19. I gasped my way to door H. The plane was still there. It was 3:20 on the dot.
The "Believing Is Seeing" Syndrome
I had fallen victim to the "believing is seeing" syndrome. Once my heart rate slowed to a normal thumpety-thump and I reflected on the situation, I realized that when I first looked at the monitor, I saw what I expected to see, a B gate. Gate B52 fit my mental model of how things were -because that's how they'd been in the past. And once I "saw" B52, I kept seeing it each time I checked even when the facts were clearly otherwise.
Have you ever been so certain of what you believed to be the truth of a situation that you were blind - as I was - to the reality of the situation?
In preparation for future travels, I'm taking a remedial course in my ABCs.
Comments
#1 Submitted by on Mon, 08/23/2010 - 5:09pm.
Re: On Being Absolutely Certain - and Wrong
Opher, I appreciate your comments. Our ability to focus on what's important is critical in both everyday activities and in serious survival circumstances. Thanks for calling attention to the positive aspects of concentrating effectively and ignoring distractions. ~Naomi
#2 Submitted by on Mon, 08/23/2010 - 5:00pm.
Re: On Being Absolutely Certain - and Wrong
While I love this story and the comments about it, it is important to remember that ignoring distractions and being able to concentrate on what you think is important, is probably beneficial most of the time and that's probably why our brains are wired this way. You can see this in many other animals like cats, dogs, etc. and you can see how cats, for example, can swat a fly with their little paw much better than humans with their larger hand. We just have to be mindful of this aspect of our minds and train ourselves to watch out for this phenomenon and get out of our perception "rut" when we are stuck in it.
#3 Submitted by on Fri, 08/20/2010 - 7:19pm.
Re: On Being Absolutely Certain - and Wrong
Keith, *very* interesting. Thanks so much. I'd guess that in the case of the pilots, there was a strong element of trust involved -- trust that a critical procedure that they had been accustomed to having total control over would work as it was supposed to. But I suspect most of us could come up with situations where our mental model blocked our ability to see what was plainly there -- if we were lucky enough to come around to seeing the error of our ways. ~Naomi
#4 Submitted by on Fri, 08/20/2010 - 7:12pm.
Re: On Being Absolutely Certain - and Wrong
One of the first times people noticed this was in trialling automatic landing systems. Pilots would report that the landing system wasn't engaging. So the first thought was that it was, but the pilots weren't noticing. A large indicator light was fitted into the cockpits - pilots still reported that the system was not engaging. An "acknowledge" button was added - still pilots said it wasn't engaging. Finally (finally!) someone sat in the cockpit and watched what was happening. Pilots saw the light, hit the button, but still said the system had not engaged. Their mental model did not allow them to relinquish control, so it was important that there was nothing in the environment to contradict this. Their conscious minds refused to acknowledge the light, nor that they had hit the button.
#5 Submitted by on Wed, 08/11/2010 - 6:53pm.
Re: On Being Absolutely Certain - and Wrong
Hi Darrell, the gorilla videos are so fascinating, aren't they? I've watched them several times and I always have the mixed reaction of being certain I'd notice the gorilla -- at the same time recognizing I'd probably be as blind to it as everyone else.<br><br>The thing that amuses me about my own situation is that I wasn't distracted the way the people in the gorilla research were. I was staring right at the line on the departure monitor that gave the city, departure time and, um, the gate. But being as certain as I was that it would be a B gate in the 50s, I never noticed it listed an A gate, no matter how many times I looked.<br><br>But as you say: "The most interesting thing is, once someone points out what you are missing, it is virtually impossible to miss it again." I will never ever make this mistake again -- making room, I suspect, for many others. Alas. ~Naomi
#6 Submitted by on Wed, 08/11/2010 - 12:32am.
Re: On Being Absolutely Certain - and Wrong
Hi Naomi. Your post reminded me of a conversation I had with Michael Bolton (<a href="http://www.developsense.com/" rel="nofollow">www.developsense.com/</a>). He showed me a number of videos from VisCog Productions, including the invisible gorilla video. You can see them all at <a href="http://viscog.beckman.illinois.edu/djs_lab/demos.html" rel="nofollow">viscog.beckman.illinois.edu/djs_lab/demos.html</a>.<br><br>I don't know if Michael still uses this in demonstrations but he probably should.<br><br>They have a website devoted to the invisible gorilla video at <a href="http://theinvisiblegorilla.com/gorilla_experiment.html" rel="nofollow">theinvisiblegorilla.com/gorilla_experiment.html</a>.<br><br>The most interesting thing is, once someone points out what you are missing, it is virtually impossible to miss it again.<br><br>By the way, I ALWAYS make new employees proof read documents; it gets them up to speed on the products they'll be testing and they always seem to find grammatical or spelling mistakes in a document which have been there for years but no one else has noticed.<br>
#7 Submitted by on Sun, 08/08/2010 - 8:20pm.
Re: On Being Absolutely Certain - and Wrong
Hey Jon, thanks so much! I like your idea of "shrug and learn." Life is full of opportunities to do just that, and it's so much better than "curse and forget" -- or "curse and curse and curse some more and never forget."<br><br>In this particular situation, I not only didn't curse about it, I used it as the opening story in my seminar the next day. They loved it!<br><br>A lot of my writing is about my own goofs and glitches. I'm my own best case study. How lucky I am! :-) ~Naomi
#8 Submitted by on Sun, 08/08/2010 - 8:04pm.
Re: On Being Absolutely Certain - and Wrong
Thanks for this little gem, Naomi. Your post reminds us that the brain does things we need to understand, but ironically (and perhaps poetically), we can't know its eccentricities until we experience them. More importantly, when that happens (and we miss a flight because of it), we don't have to get attached to the outcome. We can shrug and learn. How do we do that? By remembering that everything in life could be a test to help us find out who we are. Although you pledge a course on ABC's in the future, I like that you chose to write about it as a transforming idea instead of cursing yourself. It tells me a lot about who you are.
#9 Submitted by on Fri, 08/06/2010 - 5:12pm.
Re: On Being Absolutely Certain - and Wrong
Ben, thanks for putting a name to it and providing the link. I've read a lot about the gorilla research described at that link and I find it so fascinating. A book recently came out based on this research: "The Invisible Gorilla: And Other Ways Our Intuitions Deceive Us" by Christopher Chabris and Daniel Simons. <br><br>In my case, I wasn't just blind to what was right in front of me, I repeatedly translated what was right in front of me to what I expected to see instead of what was right there, and then I interpreted all other data that said "Hey, something is wrong here!" to fit what I was certain I was seeing. Perhaps this too is part of the tester's Achilles heel. ~Naomi
#10 Submitted by on Fri, 08/06/2010 - 4:56pm.
Re: On Being Absolutely Certain - and Wrong
Another example of inattentional blindness - the tester's Achilles heel. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inattentional_blindness