Kind: captions
Language: en
for most of us thinking is at least
somewhat unpleasant we try to avoid it
where possible for example I ask these
guys how long does it take for the earth
to go around the Sun what you Reon
CA is it a 24 hours obviously a yes or
take this problem which has been given
to thousands of college students you go
into a toy store and there's a toy bat
and a toy ball together they cost
$110 and the bat costs a dollar more
than the ball how much does the ball
cost we're all wrong aren't we what's
the answer if you think about it for
just a second it's obvious that the ball
can't cost 10 cents because if it did
then the bat would cost $110 and the two
items together would cost $120 the
correct answer is 5 cents now the point
of these questions is not that they're
difficult any of these people could have
quickly checked their answer if they
wanted to the point is that they don't
check because thinking is uncomfortable
it takes
effort hey the Earth doesn't take one
day to get around the
Sun actually like a
ye now I think it would be easy to put
these mistakes down to stupidity and
believe that you being much smarter
could never fall into such traps but
then I think you'd be fooling yourself I
think these examples reveal blind spots
in all of our thinking due to the
fundamental way that our brains work now
one way of modeling how the brain
operates is as though there are two
systems at work psychologists call them
system one and system two but maybe it's
useful to think of them as characters so
let's call system one gun and system 2
Drew you are Drew he represents your
conscious thought the voice in your head
I am who you think you are he's the one
capable of following instructions he can
execute a series of steps if you're
asked to calculate 13 * 17 in your head
for example he's the one who has to do
it can I just use my calc no all right
um 17 Drew is lazy it takes effort to
get Drew to do anything and he is slow
but he's the careful one capable of
catching and fixing
mistakes 221 now meet system one gun he
is incredibly quick which he needs to be
since he's constantly processing copious
amounts of information coming in through
your senses he picks out the relevant
bits and discards the rest which is most
of it and he works automatically without
you drew being consciously aware of what
he is doing for example when you spot
some text he reads it before you can
even decide whether or not you want to
read it gun fills in the gaps for
example what does this say did you
notice that the H in the' and the a in
cat are actually the same symbol but you
had no trouble reading it because gun
made the correct automatic assumption so
although Drew is unaware of what gun is
doing it's gun's perceptions that become
the basis for your conscious thoughts
the way I like to think think of it uh
each of these characters is related to
one of your main memory structures Guns
automatic responses are made possible by
long-term memory the library of
experiences you've built up over your
lifetime in contrast Drew exists
entirely within working memory so he's
only capable of holding four or five
novel things in mind at a time this is
perhaps one of the best known findings
from psychology that our capacity to
hold and manipulate novel information is
incredibly limited like when trying to
remember a string of random numbers six
3 1
yes but we are able to overcome these
limitations if the information is
familiar to us for example let me give
you four random digits 7 1 0 two now
these would normally take up most of
your working memory capacity just to
remember but if you reverse them 2017
they are now just one thing the present
year the process of grouping things
together according to your prior
knowledge is called chunking and you can
actually hold four or five chunks in
working memory at once so the larger the
chunks the more information you can
actively manipulate at one time learning
is then the process of building more and
bigger chunks by storing and further
connecting information in long-term
memory essentially passing off tasks
from Drew to gun but in order for this
to happen drew first has to engage with
the information actively and effortfully
often multiple times for example when
you were first learning to tie your
shoelaces you probably recited a rhyme
to help you remember what to do next
using up all your working memory in the
process but after doing it over and over
and over again it gradually became
automatic that is Drew doesn't have to
think about it anymore because guns got
it musicians and Sport Stars refer to
this as muscle memory though of course
the memory is not in the muscles it's
still in the brain just controlled by
gun you can practice everything exactly
as it is and exactly as it's written um
but at just such a speed that you have
to think about and and know exactly
where you are and what you're singers
are doing and what it feels like slow
deliberate conscious practice repeated
often enough leads to
[Music]
this I'd bet 99% of the time what
appears to be superhuman ability comes
down to the incredible automation skills
of gun developed through the painstaking
deliberate practice of Drew what's
interesting is it's actually possible to
see how hard Drew is working just by
looking at someone try this task I'm
going to show you four digits I want you
to read them out loud and then after two
beats I want you to say each number back
on the beat but adding one to each digit
so as an example
7291 should be 8 3 0 2 this is called
the add one task and it forces Drew to
hold these digits in memory while making
manipulations to them now it's important
to say the numbers back on the beat try
this one
to make it harder you can try adding
three instead of one
ready now what you're unaware of is that
as you're completing this task your
pupils are dilating when Drew is hard at
work as he is in this task you have a
physiological response including
increased heart rate sweat production
and pupil dilation watch how the pupils
of these participants enlarge as they
perform the add one and add three tasks
4 3 9 7
2 5 4 0 8 three excellent nicely done
this requires a lot of thinking I know
that's the
point six 91
6 7 0 2 2 7 when this research was
originally carried out the researchers
made a surprising observation when the
participants were not engaged with the
task but were just chatting with the
experimenters their pupils didn't really
dilate at all this indicates that the
ad1 and AD three tasks are particularly
strenuous for system 2 and that most of
our day-to-day life is a stroll for Drew
with most tasks handled automatically by
gun just as we spend a lot of Our Lives
lounging around our brains spend most of
their time doing the mental equivalent
and I don't mean to make that sound like
a bad thing this is how our brains
evolve to make the best use of resources
for repetitive tasks we developed
automatic ways of doing things reserving
Drew's limited capacity for things that
really need our attention but in some
circumstances there can be Mix-Ups for
example I moved to Australia in 2004 and
one of the first things I learned was
that to turn the lights on you flick the
switch down my whole life growing up in
Canada gun had automated that up means
on so no matter how well I drew knew
that down was on in Australia I would
for years continually switch the lights
off when entering a room and on when
leaving when D learned to ride the
backwards bicycle with its steering
reversed it took months to overcome his
automated habit and once he had done
that he couldn't easily go back to
riding a normal bike understanding gun
and Drew also explains errors in the bat
and ball question it's gun who first
perceives the key pieces of information
that together the bat and ball cost $110
the bat costs a doll more than the ball
so the ball costs 10 cents 10 cents
immediately had an answer that he
blurted out automatically meanwhile Drew
without being consciously aware that the
answer came from gun endorsed the idea
without checking it after all the answer
sounded reasonable and Drew is lazy so
how do you get Drew to do more work well
researchers have found at least one way
when they gave out a clearly printed
test including the bat and ball question
to incoming college students 85% got at
least one wrong but when they printed
the test in a hardto read font with poor
contrast the error rate dropped to 35% a
harder to- read test resulted in more
correct answers and the explanation for
this is simple since gun can't quickly
jump to an answer he hands off the task
to Drew who then invests the required
mental effort to reason his way to the
correct answer when something is
confusing Drew Works harder and when
Drew Works harder you're more likely to
reach the right answer and remember the
experience this is something I think the
advertising industry knows about and is
using to its Advantage a few years ago
again in Australia I saw a giant
billboard that had just two letters on
it un there was no logo no indication of
what it was for and this seems to go
against all the basic principles of
advertising to show what the product
does how it's better than the
competition and use Clear branding and
maybe a jingle to make it memorable the
goal is usually to make the message as
easy to understand as possible so Drew
doesn't have to work very hard but if
you look at a lot of effective
advertising today it's changed to be
more confusing as the UN campaign rolled
out across Sydney I saw ads like this
one in bus shelters unexplained with un
there is no stress just unstress no
hassle just un hassle with un you can
undo what you did you can UND drive
through the car wash with the window
down or Unbreak dance in front of your
teenage son and his mates un makes life
relaxing and unreal un your life be
happy and live for now don't worry unw
worry can you guess what the ads were
for they're actually for insurance now
that advertising is everywhere gun is
skilled at filtering it out it's
automatic if I just saw another
Insurance ad I never would have given it
a second thought but something that
doesn't make sense that's something gun
can't deal with so he hands it off to
Drew this same realization has been
happening in education lectures which
have long been the dominant teaching
method are now on the decline like the
old form of advertising they're too easy
to tune out and often especially in
science lectures too many new pieces of
information are presented and that
exceeds Drew's capacity because he
doesn't have big enough chunks to break
the material into in place of lectures
universities are introducing workshops
peer instruction and formats where
students are forced to answer more
questions do more work than just listen
and take notes and this will undoubtedly
make Drew work harder which is good
because that's how learning happens but
a lot of students don't like it because
it requires more effort just as it's
hard to motivate someone to get off the
couch and exercise it's hard to get Drew
to give his full effort there's an
appeal to doing things you already know
for the musician to play the same
familiar songs that gun has already
automated that feel and sound good to
watch videos that give you the sensation
of understanding without actually
learning anything to always drive with
the GPS on so you never get lost but you
also never learn the way if you really
want to learn and get better at anything
have any chance of becoming an expert
you have to be willing to be
uncomfortable because thinking takes
effort it involves fighting through
confusion and for most of us that's at
least somewhat unpleasant