Have you ever used a zipper?
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The vast majority of zipper users -- skilled, successful zipper users! -- can't explain how a zipper works.
This is a charming, famous example that comes from cognitive science/psychology work on The Illusion of Explanatory Depth: "Most people feel they understand the world with far greater detail, coherence, and depth than they really do"
Rozenblit, L., & Keil, F. (2002). The misunderstood limits of folk science: An illusion of explanatory depth. Cognitive science, 26(5), 521-562.
In this study, the researchers asked about a range of stimuli, which in my humble opinion* are really fun to quiz yourself on. Can you explain:
- how a sewing machine works
- how a can opener works
- how a flush toilet operates
- how the heart pumps blood
- how piano keys make soundSome of these are far more elaborate, haha:
- how the aqualung regulates air-pressure
- how a transistor works*granted...I became a psychologist so maybe my sense of fun is warped
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The vast majority of zipper users -- skilled, successful zipper users! -- can't explain how a zipper works.
This is a charming, famous example that comes from cognitive science/psychology work on The Illusion of Explanatory Depth: "Most people feel they understand the world with far greater detail, coherence, and depth than they really do"
Rozenblit, L., & Keil, F. (2002). The misunderstood limits of folk science: An illusion of explanatory depth. Cognitive science, 26(5), 521-562.
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In this study, the researchers asked about a range of stimuli, which in my humble opinion* are really fun to quiz yourself on. Can you explain:
- how a sewing machine works
- how a can opener works
- how a flush toilet operates
- how the heart pumps blood
- how piano keys make soundSome of these are far more elaborate, haha:
- how the aqualung regulates air-pressure
- how a transistor works*granted...I became a psychologist so maybe my sense of fun is warped
The point isn't that we should expect everyone to get a deep mechanistic understanding of *everything*, but that there are LEVELS to how well we understand things
You can start to observe these levels by asking people to write detailed, step-by-step *causal explanations* of how the thing works
Here's an example
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In this study, the researchers asked about a range of stimuli, which in my humble opinion* are really fun to quiz yourself on. Can you explain:
- how a sewing machine works
- how a can opener works
- how a flush toilet operates
- how the heart pumps blood
- how piano keys make soundSome of these are far more elaborate, haha:
- how the aqualung regulates air-pressure
- how a transistor works*granted...I became a psychologist so maybe my sense of fun is warped
@grimalkina I guess my question would be why?
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The point isn't that we should expect everyone to get a deep mechanistic understanding of *everything*, but that there are LEVELS to how well we understand things
You can start to observe these levels by asking people to write detailed, step-by-step *causal explanations* of how the thing works
Here's an example
But the illusion is something you can puncture! People's perceptions and awareness of their own knowledge drop quite sharply once they go through this explicit kind of exercise. Forcing yourself to truly reason about cause can make you aware of connections you're just assuming without really understanding.
Psychologists, being curious people who absolutely cannot let it go once we find a method that makes people uncomfortable, have extended this
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But the illusion is something you can puncture! People's perceptions and awareness of their own knowledge drop quite sharply once they go through this explicit kind of exercise. Forcing yourself to truly reason about cause can make you aware of connections you're just assuming without really understanding.
Psychologists, being curious people who absolutely cannot let it go once we find a method that makes people uncomfortable, have extended this
Here's a paper that looks at illusions of understanding for *extreme political attitudes* about complex policies
here's the publication of record:
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0956797612464058here's a pdf link I found for it: https://ethz.ch/content/dam/ethz/special-interest/usys/ites/ecosystem-management-dam/documents/EducationDOC/EM_DOC/Fernbach%20et%20al%202013%20Political%20extremism%20is%20supported%20by%20an%20illusion%20of%20understanding.pdf
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Here's a paper that looks at illusions of understanding for *extreme political attitudes* about complex policies
here's the publication of record:
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0956797612464058here's a pdf link I found for it: https://ethz.ch/content/dam/ethz/special-interest/usys/ites/ecosystem-management-dam/documents/EducationDOC/EM_DOC/Fernbach%20et%20al%202013%20Political%20extremism%20is%20supported%20by%20an%20illusion%20of%20understanding.pdf
Researchers asked participants to rate their understanding of a political policy, then explain how the policies worked...interestingly, being pushed to produce *mechanistic* (causal) explanations for their views moderated those political views, while merely listing *reasons* for the views didn't
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In this study, the researchers asked about a range of stimuli, which in my humble opinion* are really fun to quiz yourself on. Can you explain:
- how a sewing machine works
- how a can opener works
- how a flush toilet operates
- how the heart pumps blood
- how piano keys make soundSome of these are far more elaborate, haha:
- how the aqualung regulates air-pressure
- how a transistor works*granted...I became a psychologist so maybe my sense of fun is warped
@grimalkina There used to be books you could buy about How Things Work; I loved that series
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But the illusion is something you can puncture! People's perceptions and awareness of their own knowledge drop quite sharply once they go through this explicit kind of exercise. Forcing yourself to truly reason about cause can make you aware of connections you're just assuming without really understanding.
Psychologists, being curious people who absolutely cannot let it go once we find a method that makes people uncomfortable, have extended this
@grimalkina This is how I ended up with an enduring Special Interest in tall ships. Innocently asking “how does a square rigger sail upwind at all?” turned into years of learning the next level of detail.
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In this study, the researchers asked about a range of stimuli, which in my humble opinion* are really fun to quiz yourself on. Can you explain:
- how a sewing machine works
- how a can opener works
- how a flush toilet operates
- how the heart pumps blood
- how piano keys make soundSome of these are far more elaborate, haha:
- how the aqualung regulates air-pressure
- how a transistor works*granted...I became a psychologist so maybe my sense of fun is warped
@grimalkina reading this post makes me feel like rabbithole georg because I have too many "yes"es
(or at least 'yes' enough that I might be fuzzy on the exact details but can explain the fundamental mechanisms) -
Researchers asked participants to rate their understanding of a political policy, then explain how the policies worked...interestingly, being pushed to produce *mechanistic* (causal) explanations for their views moderated those political views, while merely listing *reasons* for the views didn't
I take away a few implications from this evidence, which falls under the broad area of "metacognition" and belief formation.
- our minds are tremendously adaptive at learning to manipulate things around us, but perfect manipulation and even perfect outcome production isn't always a direct test of understanding. You can have a flawed mental model that still produces a reliable outcome. To study understanding, we need to go deeper.
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I take away a few implications from this evidence, which falls under the broad area of "metacognition" and belief formation.
- our minds are tremendously adaptive at learning to manipulate things around us, but perfect manipulation and even perfect outcome production isn't always a direct test of understanding. You can have a flawed mental model that still produces a reliable outcome. To study understanding, we need to go deeper.
- if you're interested in becoming an expert -- if you're a student, starting a career, or just picking up a hobby or skill, you might try asking yourself "what are the zippers here." Everyone can use a zipper, but few people can fix broken ones and design unimagined new ones. If you want to become one of those people in an area, find the zippers and learn their mechanisms.
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Have you ever used a zipper? Odds are you have. Are you pretty good at it? Odds are! You've probably successfully used a zipper many, many times. You probably can't even remember when and where you learned how to operate a zipper. If you're a good zipper user and we sat you down in a room and gave you ten zippered garments, you'd probably fluently and flawlessly be able to zip them up and down.
Now......can you explain how a zipper works?
Alternatively Interlocking "teeth" pushed together/opened up by the movement of a 3-dimensional wedge.
Discovered breaking numerous zippers over 7 decades … -
- if you're interested in becoming an expert -- if you're a student, starting a career, or just picking up a hobby or skill, you might try asking yourself "what are the zippers here." Everyone can use a zipper, but few people can fix broken ones and design unimagined new ones. If you want to become one of those people in an area, find the zippers and learn their mechanisms.
- Trying to encourage mechanism thinking can break through extremist belief patterns.
You might have heard "facts don't change minds, feelings do." Well, KIND OF. Facts, feelings and interpretations are actually all deeply intertwined in our processing of the world. It's tempting to think that our minds process and absorb the world like tape recorders. If I list a bunch of reasons why I support a policy, maybe that will convince someone. But dissecting their causal model might work much better.
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- Trying to encourage mechanism thinking can break through extremist belief patterns.
You might have heard "facts don't change minds, feelings do." Well, KIND OF. Facts, feelings and interpretations are actually all deeply intertwined in our processing of the world. It's tempting to think that our minds process and absorb the world like tape recorders. If I list a bunch of reasons why I support a policy, maybe that will convince someone. But dissecting their causal model might work much better.
Metacognition is something I highlight in my book. These are *learnable skills* and they are *very predictive* for real-world outcomes. People who cultivate habits of puncturing cognitive illusions form expertise, and make the people around them better thinkers too.
Amazing how much we can learn just from a little zipper!
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Metacognition is something I highlight in my book. These are *learnable skills* and they are *very predictive* for real-world outcomes. People who cultivate habits of puncturing cognitive illusions form expertise, and make the people around them better thinkers too.
Amazing how much we can learn just from a little zipper!
@grimalkina As a result of this thread I went on a binge learning about the history of zipper design.
I am now using graphite pencils to properly lubricate all of my zippers, thank you very much.
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@grimalkina I guess my question would be why?
@CStamp so first, they ask folks to rate how well they understand these things. *then* they asked them to explain how they worked with a causal structure. It's interesting not because of the random items, but because of the differences between what people thought vs the level of understanding they could actually show! So the "why" is "to understand our own minds and their cognitive illusions a little better"
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@grimalkina As a result of this thread I went on a binge learning about the history of zipper design.
I am now using graphite pencils to properly lubricate all of my zippers, thank you very much.
@sidereal TIL!!
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@grimalkina This is how I ended up with an enduring Special Interest in tall ships. Innocently asking “how does a square rigger sail upwind at all?” turned into years of learning the next level of detail.
@wlonk me with electricity infrastructure
