text:
Chapter 2 Cognitive Science

2.1 Thinking Fast and Slow [Daniel Kahneman]

[知识点“理性人”：把人的决策行为看作遵循理性，遵循效用最大化。]

[知识点“行为经济学”：将行为分析理论与经济运行规律、心理学与经济科学有机结合起来，不再认为人是完全理性的，而是受到各种各样偏见、误差、情绪和心理的影响。]

1. 大脑究竟是如何运作的？
2. 直觉系统是如何欺骗我们的？欺骗我们的三大直觉漏洞
3. 如何避免被直觉的漏洞所欺骗？

1、大脑的运作是双核系统，有快与慢两种系统模式。

2、误区：主导决策和判断的主角是系统2？

3、系统1和系统2的运作机制

1. 直觉漏洞一：简单联想

1. 直觉漏洞二：易得性判断

1. 直觉漏洞三：因果联系

1. 解决方案很简单，即在关键时候让系统二介入来处理。

1. 两个实用方法

Part One: Two Systems

Hui: 作者Daniel Kahneman因为前景理论（prospect theory）获得诺贝尔奖，主要研究人们在不确定的情况下做出决策。他是研究之前推荐的这几本书中提到的所有认知偏差的鼻祖。对人类决策感兴趣的小伙伴不能不读这本书。

2.1.1 Ch1 The characters of the story

Hui: 自我控制需要能量，系统2使用过度会消耗过多的能量而无法自控。区分在什么事情上使用系统2非常重要。

2.1.3 Ch3 The lazy controller

• 自我控制和仔细思考会抢夺努力的有限预算。大多数人保持连贯的思维或时不时积极思考都需要自我控制力。（实验：看不见的大猩猩）
• 心流：一种将大脑注意力毫不费力集中起来的状态，这种状态可以使人忘却时间的概念，忘掉自己，也忘掉自身问题。心流状态下，集中注意力关注吸引人的事并不要求自我控制（这时系统1接管）。
• 人若既有认知任务在手，又同时受到诱惑的影响，就容易屈从于诱惑，更有可能作出自私的选择，会用带有性别歧视的字眼，并在社交场合作出肤浅的评判。喝几杯酒，或者一夜没睡会产生同样的结果。过度关注自己完成一项任务的结果，就会给其短时记忆增加毫无意义的思想负担，进而影响其整体表现。
• Ego depletion: 如果你必须强迫自己去做某件事，而此时这件事又面临一个新的挑战，你就会很不情愿或是根本无法自我控制。如果有强大动力抑制Ego depletion，是可以做到的。
• 神经系统消耗的葡萄糖比身体其他部位消耗的都要多。我们可以通过吃甜食来补充自我控制的消耗。
• 聪明不仅是指推理能力，也指在记忆中搜寻相关信息和在必要时调动注意力的能力。

2.1.4 Ch4 The associative machine

• 系统1编了一个故事，系统2相信了这个故事。
• Bananas Vomit
• 思维影响行动：想到老的概念，行动会变慢。
• 行动影响思维：“我让自己微笑，这样做我也的确感觉好多了！”

2.1.5 Ch5 Cognitive ease

• 反复的体验、清楚的示范、预知的想法、好心情会带来认知放松
• 认知放松会带来熟悉感，真实感，好感，不费力感
• 熟悉了，就会喜欢（曝光效应）
• 认知放松会导致系统2变得更懒，更容易被骗。
• 于是，通过不断重复，人们分不清熟悉感和真相。（营销的大技能）

2.1.6 Ch6 Norms, surprises and causes

• 系统1负责维护常态下的思维模式：从第一次的惊喜到第二次的习以为常。当事态发展不符合常态，会趋向于进行因果上的解释，虽然有时候只是强加因果（简的钱包是怎么丢的呢? Page 59）

2.1.7 Ch7 A machine for jumping to conclusions

• 不信任和质疑是系统2的工作，但是系统2很懒，累了的时候就更加懒，所以容易因为联想机制带来的“确认偏误”而产生偏见（山姆友好吗 vs 山姆是不是很不友好）
• 光环效应，看你顺眼，就看你做什么都顺眼（“她对这个人的管理技能一无所知。之所以对他印象很好，是因为曾经听他作过一次精彩的报告。”）
• 群体的智慧的前提是，群体的观察需要独立以排除系统性偏差。（“在讨论之前大家先独自考虑一下这个问题，这样可以避免观点的相互干扰，这样更利于集思广益。”）
• 眼见为实（WYSIATI——“What you see is all there is”）：判决时候，听了一方的陈述，觉得很赞成，听了双方意见，反而整个人都不好了- -。（“他们并不想了解更多信息，因为那样可能会破坏整个故事情节。他们更愿意相信眼见即为事实。”）

2.1.8 Ch8 How judgement happen

• 系统1足够通过一瞥以判定某人的吸引力（看照片预测竞选胜出者准确率高达70%）
• 系统1擅长估算，能够快速一瞥以得到一段线段长度的均值，而不能马上得到总长度。
• 系统1通过与强度等级进行联想匹配来进行快速的比较
• 系统1偏爱思维的发散，用一个简单的问题来替换到当前回答的较为复杂的问题（后面还会提到）

2.1.9 Ch9 Answering an easier question

• 替代指的是系统1遇到复杂问题（目标问题）时候，用简单问题（启发性问题）来绕开原问题的“偷懒”做法。（“别人问我们的问题是这位候选人是否会成功，但我们要回答的问题似乎是她是否能成功应对采访。咱们还是别顾左右而言他了。” ）
• 立体启发法：近大远小
• 情感启发式：因为喜欢，所以认同（感觉类似上文提到的光环效应）。样例：“他喜欢这个项目，因此他认为该项目投入少、回报高。这是情感启发式的一个典型案例。”

Part Two: Heuristics and biases

2.1.10 Ch10 The law of small numbers

• 系统1能够自动且毫不费力地给事件之间建立因果联系，即使不存在因果关系，它依然会这样认为
• 系统1不擅长处理“纯统计学”——因为数字可以改变概率，但是不能直接改变结果的发生（受过统计学训练的人能够一定程度上客服这个问题，但是不可能完全克服，所以完全理性的经济人是不存在的）
• 系统1不擅长质疑，如果一个信息没有因为太离谱而被否认掉，那么它就会启动联想效应，系统1就会把其中的因果串联起来，并且忽略掉那些不明确的信息（往往是统计数字，样本是30还是300往往被忽略），而导致了严重的偏见。
• 对随机事件做出因果解释，必然是错的（经典案例，“根本不存在投篮顺手的球员”）
• 关于大数法则：
• 大样本比小样本更精确
• 小样本比大样本产生极端结果的概率大
• 上面两句话是同一个意思

2.1.11 Ch11 Anchors

• 典型案例：幸运轮盘+非洲比例
• 锚定效应跟系统1和系统2都有关系，前者是启动效应，后者是调整不足。
• 暗示（启动效应）：144岁的甘地
• 系统2的失误——调整不足：下高速了进入城市街道，虽然减速了，但是速度依然还是很快。被投诉音乐声音太大，根据要求调节到了自己认为合适的音量，但是对于他人来说，依然很吵。
• 容易被利用：抬高售价以制造高锚定，法官判决的锚定系数有50%，限购以拉动消费 (Black peal example in Predictable Irrational)
• 对抗方法，看到可能带有锚定效应的数字，主动激活系统2，“有意地为对方着想” Page 108 “给判决设定上限” Page 108

2.1.12 Ch12 The science of avaliability

• 是一种替代：实际需要估测的是某一范畴的大小或者某一事件的发生频率，却很容易转变成了衡量自己想到相关实例的轻松程度。
• 以下因素容易导致我们使用可得性启发法
• 自己注意的突出事件，比如娱乐圈丑闻
• 大事件，飞机失事
• 亲身经历 > 别人的事，生动图片鲜活例子 > 统计数据
• 意识到自己的偏见有助于夫妻和睦和团队融洽——认识到自己的贡献没有想象中大，对方的贡献没有想象中小
• 可得性偏见影响我们对自己或者他人的看法：“那些列举了12件事的人认为和只列举了6件事的人相比，自己不够果断。而且，列举出自己表现不够果断的12件事的那些受试者最终却认为自己非常果断！如果无法轻松地想起懦弱的事例，你可能就会说自己一点也不懦弱。自我评估是由事件呈现在脑海中的轻松度来衡量的。轻松地想起某件事的体验比想起事情的数量更重要。”
• 可得性偏见主要是由系统1产生，系统2的参与能够降低其偏见，而且过度自信也容易导致偏见（“这位执行总裁连续多次成功，因此失败不会轻易在她的脑海中出现。可得性偏见使得她过于自信。”）

2.1.14 Ch14 Tom W’s specialty

• 典型性(stereotype)会让我们忽略了事情的基础比率（base rate, Prior probability in Bayes），事例：汤姆的专业是什么？
• 用典型性来判断概率有着重要的优点——比乱猜一气要精确，不过它有两宗罪：
• 过于喜爱预测不可能发生（低基础比率）的事件。（在纽约地铁上读纽约时报的是博士还是没有大学文凭的人？）
• 对证据的质量不够敏感——眼见为实（“对人冷淡，缺乏同情心”等主观性描述通常不可信 Page 134）
• 使用贝叶斯法则能够约束直觉：“例如，如果你相信有3%的研究生是被计算机科学专业录取的（基础比率），你还相信汤姆是该领域研究生的可能性是其他领域的4倍，贝叶斯定理就会认为，你必须相信汤姆是计算机科学家的概率是11%。此外，如果基础比率是80%，那你眼中的新概率就应该是94.1%，以此类推。” $11%=\frac{80% \times 3%}{80% \times 3%+20% \times 97%}$ Calculate 94.1 similarly.
• “草坪修整得很好，接待员看起来很能干，家具也十分抢眼，但这并不意味着这是一家经营状况良好的公司。我希望董事会不要依照典型性启示作出判断。”
• “这家新成立的企业看起来好像不会倒闭，但是这个行业的成功基础比率非常之低。我们又怎么能知道这家企业就是个特例（一定能成功）呢？”
• “他们一直在重复犯同样的错误：用并不充分的证据来预测罕见的事件。当证据不充分时，我们应该以基础比率作为判断依据。”
• “我知道这份报告绝对是具有毁灭性意义的，也许它的证据十分确凿，但我们凭什么相信呢？我们必须在做计划时保持一定的怀疑态度才行。”

2.1.16 Ch16 Cause trump statistics

• 在出租车司机的例子中，当人们不知道怎么运用基础比率（统计学信息）时候，就会忽略它。如果故意突出基础比率并且形成了思维定式的时候，人们反而会“正确”地使用基础比率。
• 统计学基础比率普遍受到轻视，当人们手头有于该事件相关的具体信息是，有时还会完全忽略这一比率。
• 因果关系基础比率被视为个别事件的信息，人们很容易将这一比率与其他具体事件的信息结合起来考虑问题
• “我们并没有自己想的那样乐于助人”里面，说明了教学时候“令人惊讶的统计学事实”被学生忽略掉（“默默地将自己，以及他们的朋友和熟人，排除在外”）而学不到东西，学生惊讶于个体案例时，反而能够学到知识。

2.1.17 Ch17 Regression to the mean

• 之前表现很差，那么之后的表现很有可能会进步，之前表现得很好，那么之后的表现很有可能会变差。这是回归平均值现象，是一种（因为运气而带来的）随机的波动，但是同样人们依然爱使用因果对其进行解释（飞行员）
• 相关性和回归平均值是从不同视角对于同一个概念做出的阐释：只要两个数值之间的相关度不高，就会出现回归平均值的情况。例子：“聪明的- 女人常常会嫁给不如他们聪明的男人”的原因之一是“夫妻二人的智商之间的相关性并不是绝对的”。
• 回归平均值虽然正确，但也无聊，人们依然趋向于使用因果性来解释事件具有很强的偏见。
• 回归效应能够用来解释现象，却无法找到原因
• 用因果性来解释回归效应，都是不对的，因为回归效应带有随机性。

2.1.18 Ch18 Taming intuitive predictions

• 问题：“朱莉现在是一名州立大学4年级的学生。她4岁就能流畅地进行阅读。她的平均绩点（GPA）是多少？” 对于上述类型的问题，人们解答的时候通常会用到替代和强度匹配，最后的结果就是偏离了平均值（也可以说是忽略了基础比率）
• How to get unbiased estimated:
2. Determine the GPA that matches your impression of the evidence.
3. Estimate the correlation between your evidence and GPA.
4. If the correlation is .30, move 30% of the distance from the average to the matching GPA The apprach to prediction is general. You can apply it whenever you need to predict a quantitative variable. The approach builds on your intuition, but it moderates it, regresses it toward the mean.
• 都包含一种基准线预测，如果你对手头这个案例的情况一无所知，便会作出这种预测。在绝对的情况下，这个基准线是基础比率；在有数字的情况下，这个基准线就是相关结果的平均值。
• 都包含一种直觉预测，无论是可能性或是平均绩点，这种预测会将呈现在大脑中的数值通通表达出来。
• 在上述两种情况中，你的目的都是要作出一种预测，这种预测可在基础比率和直觉性反应之间充当媒介。在没有什么有价值的信息的情况下，你会坚守基准线。在其他极端情况下，你还会坚守自己最初的预测。当然，只有在对支持自己最初预测的证据进行过严格验证之后，你才会信心十足地坚持那个预测。在大多数情况下，你会发现自己有理由怀疑自己的直觉判断和真理之间的关联其实并不完美，而你最终会给出介于两者之间的判断。第三部分 过度自信与决策错误 总结归纳

Part Three: Overconfidence

2.1.19 Ch19 The illusion of understanding

• Narrative fallacy: (The Black Swan) Flawed stories of the past shape our views of the world and our expectations for the future due to our continuous attempt to make sense of the world. The explanatory stories that people find compelling are simple; are concrete rather than abstract; assign a larger role to talent, stupidity, and intentions than to luck [吸引人们眼球需要的是一个通俗的好故事。夸张了个人的天资，忽略了运气成分。]; and focus on a few striking events that happened rather than on the countless events that failed to happen. Any recent salient event is a candidate to become the kernel of a causal narrative.
• 光环效应带来的错觉：希特勒怎么会喜欢狗和小鸡呢？
• 眼见为实：最大程度忽略自己的无知，根据可得信息构建不错的故事，然后相信它。
• 后见之明：如果一个事件发生了，人们会夸大自己之前预测的可能性；如果一个事件没有发生，人们会说自己之前也觉得不太可能发生。（“我早知道了。。。”）

2.1.20 Ch20 The illusion of validity

• Illusion of Validity
• 一种替代问题的典型实例：“我们的预测是完全不能回归的，我们仅仅根据非常薄弱的证据就推测失败或者大获全胜，没有给自己留一点余地”
• Subjective confidence in a judgment is not a reasoned evaluation of the probability that this judgment is correct. Confidence is a feeling, which reflects the coherence of the information and the cognitive ease of processing it. It is wise to take admissions of uncertainty seriously, but declarations of high confidence mainly tell you that an individual has constructed a coherent story in his mind, not necessarily that the story is true.
• We knew as a general fact that our predictions were little better than random guesses, but we continued to feel and act as if each of our specific predictions was valid.
• Illusion of stock-picking skill
• “金融专家也是在仔细研读每份晚报之后才对当天的大事做出令人信服的解释的”
• What support the illusion of skill and validity?
• Professional culture
• People can maintain an unshakable faith in any proposition when they are sustained by a community of like-minded beievers.
• “我可是很努力才成为专家的啊，我的预测怎么可能还比不上瞎猜的猴子呢？”（因为猴子能够平均无偏地对待每种可能）
• “问题不在于这些专家是否训练有素，而在于他们的世界是否可预测的”

• Lessons:
1. Errors of prediction are inevitable because the world is unpredictable
2. High subjective confidence is not to be trusted as an indicator of accuracy

2.1.21 Ch21 Intuitions vs. Formulas

• Each of these domains entails a significant degree of uncertainty and unpredictability. We describe them as “low-validity environments”. In every case, the accuracy of experts was matched or exceeded by a simple algorithm. [当一个领域有很强的不确定性和不可预见性，也就是“有效性低的环境”时，公式运算比人工判断往往会更加有效]
• Medical: longevity of cancer patients; length of hospital stays; diagnosis of cardiac disease; susceptibility of babies to sudden infant death syndrome
• Economic: prospects of success for new businesses; evaluation of credit risks by banks; future career satisfaction of workers
• Government agency: assessments of the suitability of foster parents; odds of recidivism among juvenile offenders; likelihood of other forms of violent behavior
• Others: evaluation of scientific presentations; winners of football games; future prices of Bordeaux wine

Why? 1. Experts try to be clever, think outside the box, and consider complex combinations of features in making their predictions. Complexity may work in the odd case, but more often than not it reduces validity. 1. Humans are incorrigibly inconsistent in making summary judgements of complex information. When asked to evaluate the same information twice, they frequently give different answers.

• To maximize predictive accuracy, final decisions should be left to formulas, especially in low-validity environments.

• The aversion to algorithms making decisions that affect humans is rooted in the strong preference that many people have for the natural over the synthetic or artificial…The prejudice against algorithms is magnified when the decisions are consequential…for most people, the cause of a mistake matters. [人们更多的是关注因果，公式的因果解释往往比不上直觉的因果解释。]

2.1.22 Ch22 Expert Intuition: When can we trust it?

• 专家型什么时候是可信的？
• When both of the conditions are satisfied, intuitions are likely to be skilled [环境有规律可循时，直觉才可信。]:
1. An environment that is sufficiently regular to be predictable [一个可预测、有足够规律可循的环境]
2. An opportunity to learn these regularities through prolonged practice [一次通过长期训练学习这些规律的机会]
• Differnt environments;
1. Regular: chess, bridge, poker
2. Zero-validity: stick, politics
3. Worse than irregular: learn wrong lessons from experience [ex. Lewis Thomas, physician in early 19C, typhoid(伤寒)， palpate the patient’s tongue]

• People’s confidence in a belief was traced to two related impressions: cognitive ease and coherence. We are confident when the story we tell ourselves comes easily to mind, with no contradiction and no competing scenario. But ease and coherence do not guarantees that a belief held with confidence is true. The associative machine is set to suppress doubt and to evoke ideas and information that are compatible with the currently dominant story.

• Our conclusion was that for the most part it is possible to distinguish intuitions that are likely to be valid from those that are likely to be bogus. If the environment is sufficiently regular and if the judge has had a chance to learn its regularities, the associative machinery will recognize situations and generate quick and accurate predictions and decisions. you can trust someone’s intuitions if these conditions are met.

2.1.23 Ch23 The Outside View

• Inside view: we focus on our specific circumstances and searched for evidence in our own experiences. We fail to allow for “unknown unknowns”. There are many ways for any plan to fail, and although most of them are too improbable to be anticipated, the likelihood that something will go go wrong in a big project is high.

• Planning fallacy: overly optimistic forecasts of the outcome [Contractors of kitchen renovations and of weapon systems readily admit that they routinely make most of their profit on additions to the original plan.]

The prevalent tendency to underweight or ignore distributional information is perhaps the major source of error in forecasting. Planners should therefore make every effort to frame the forecasting problem so as to facilitate utilizing all the distributional in formation that is available. [Bent Flyvbjerg, Danish planning expert]

• The cure to the planning fallacy: using such distributional information from other ventures similar to that being forecasted [i.e taking an “outside view”], also known as: Reference class forecasting

The practices recommended for overcoming base-rate neglect: 1. Identify an appropriate reference class 2. Obtain the statistics of the reference class. Use the statistics to generate a baseline prediction. 3. Use specific information about the case to adjust the baseline prediction, if there are particular reasons to expect the optimistic bias to be more or less pronounced in this project than in others of the same type

2.1.24 Ch24 The Engine of Capitalism

• The planning fallacy is only one of the manifestations of a pervasive optimistic bias. Most of us view the world as more benign than it really is, our own attributes as more favorable than they truly are, and the goals we adopt as more achievable than they are likely to be. We also tend to exaggerate our ability to forecast the future, which fosters optimistic overconfidence. The optimistic bias may well be the most significant of the cognitive biases. It can be both a blessing and a risk.

• An optimistic attitude is largely inherited, and it is part of a general disposition for well-being, which may also include a preference for seeing the bright side of everything.

• Optimistic individuals play a disproportionate role in shaping our lives.

• Hypothesis: the people who have the greatest influence on the lives of others are likely to be optimistic and overconfident, and to take more risks than they realize.

Part Four: Choices

Question: What rules govern people’s choices between different simple gambles and between gambles and sure things?

2.1.25 Ch25 Bernoulli’s error

• We are not Econs but Humans
• To a psychologist, it is self-evident that people are neither fully rational nor completely selfish, and that their tastes are anything but stable. Their view of the world is limited by the information that is available at a given moment.
• 经济人(Econs) vs人类(Humans)：前者是理性且自私的，倾向性没有发生变化。而后者拥有系统1。
• Expected utility theory was not intended as a psychological model; it was a logic of choice, based on elementary rules (axioms) of rationality. (期待效用理论：假设了人类是完全理性的，是根据自己（或者纯概率上）的期待来进行选择。)
• Psychophysics was founded and named by the German psychologist and mystic Gustav Fechner [1801-1887]. Fechner was obsessed with the relation of mind and matter. On one side there is a physical quantity that can vary, such as the energy of a light, the frequency of a tone, or an amount of money. On the other side there is a subjective experience of brightness, pitch, or value. Mysteriously, variations of the physical quantity cause variations in the intensity of quality of the subjective experience. Fechner’s project was to find the psychological laws that relate the subjective quantity in the observer’s mind to the objective quantity in the material.
• Bernoulli proposed that the diminishing marginal value of wealth is what explains risk aversion – the common preference that people generally show for a sure thing over a favorable gamble of equal or slightly higher expected value. Bernoulli’s insight was that a decision maker with diminishing marginal utility for wealth will be risk averse. [伯努利的财富效用理论：认为人们的选择不是基于金钱价值，而是心理价值——即“效用”，而财富和效用之间是对数关系的亦即，财富的边际价值递减现象,穷人买保险，富人卖保险]
• Theory-induced blindness: once you have accepted a theory and used it as a tool in your thinking, it is extraordinarily difficult to notice its flaws.
• This theory is seriously wrong because it ignores the fact that utility depends on the history of one’s wealth, not only on present wealth. [但伯努利的理论还有缺陷——忽略了参考值带来的的效应。]

2.2 What intelligence tests miss

Key words: human rationality, judgement under uncertainty

The press release for Dan and Amos’ work on how humans make choices and assess probabilities:

the analysis of human judgment and decision-making by cognitive psychologists … how human judgment may take heuristic shortcuts that systematically depart from basic principles of probability. His work has inspired a new generation of researchers in economics and finance to enrich economic theory using in sights from cognitive psychology into intrinsic human motivation.

• Being rational means acting to achieve one’s own life goals using the best means possible.

Hui: the definition of being rational is not clear: 1) it is hard to know what should be our life goals and setting such goals require rational thinking 2) “using the best means” is not well defined at all.

1.生动的就是对的。人是故事的动物，画面更容易触发我们鲜活的情感反应。当注意力被吸引到生动的个案后，认知吝啬鬼常常会把整体概率这回事抛在脑后。 【案例】有两种疾病A和B，疾病A的死亡率是24.14%，疾病B会让一万人中的1286人死亡。请问，哪种疾病更加危险？多数人将疾病B的危险等级评定成高于疾病A。也就是说，多数人认为，12.86%的危险度，比24.14%更高。 每一万人中有1286人死亡，这句话会唤起一个鲜活的画面，比起冷冰冰的数字，这个画面可鲜活多了。因此，它也更容易触发人们的情感反应，让人印象深刻，于是把真实准确的数据抛在脑后。

2.别人给什么，你就要什么。完全顺着对方给定的思路框架思考。 【案例】购物时，你是怎么讨价还价的？我们假设一件衣服标价1200元，然后，你会以1200为基础，往下砍到一个可以接受又不太过分的价格，大概会在800到1000的范围内。 这就是——“别人给什么，你就用什么”。在这个过程中，商家利用了我们的认知吝啬倾向，通过标定一个远远超出实际价格的数字，给我们一个最触手可及的思考框架。

3.相信自己总是对的。 【案例】飞利浦曾有一款DVD遥控器上，出现了52个按键，看得人眼花缭乱，想要找到一个对应的键，夸张点说就像在大海捞针。这位设计师自己知道怎么操作那52个按键，“并且坚信别人会和他一样想使用复杂的遥控器”。 因为换位思考非常耗费认知资源，出于进化本能，人的天性是以自我为中心的，这与智商高低无关，你我也不能完全幸免。

1. “假设这件事不是真的，还有什么别的可能？”

2.“这在概率上有没有错？”

3.“这是一个病毒心智程序吗？”

1. 它是否可能对你产生生理伤害？是的话，坚决说NO；
2. 妨碍了目标选择的多样性吗？是的话，NO；
3. 它是否真实反映世界？相信你也不愿意因为星座运势被判有罪吧？
4. 它拒绝对自身进行评估？NO。如果它不可证伪，比如神秘主义，或者验证真伪的代价太高，比如人为设置“违背规则就会死去”的戒令，或者拒绝或抵抗其他心智程序，都是可质疑的理由。

2.3 The Optimism Bias [Tali Sharot]

Hui: 作者Tali Sharot提出其实人类的大脑习惯于乐观的看待事物，这种乐观有利于人类生存，比如我们有着“优势错觉”。我们信心十足地认为自己比一般人更有趣，更有魅力，更友好，更成功。当人问起时，我们表面不会承认，但是内心却对自己的判断笃信不疑。作者指出大部分人都过度乐观（抑郁症患者除外），而那些我们认为悲观的人同样过度乐观，只是偏离程度低些。书中同样谈到了之前推荐的几本书中提到的一些认知偏差，如聚焦错觉，享乐适应，控制错觉等等。

2.3.1 Illusions of the Human Brain

• During spatial disorientation, also known as vertigo, a pilot is unable to detect the position of the aircraft relative to the ground. [空间定向障碍，又称“晕眩”，飞行员无法正确判断飞机对地面的位置。]

• During a rapid deceleration, a pilot sometimes feels the plane is facing downward. To rectify this illusion, the pilot may then pull up the nose of the plane, which often leads the aircraft to fall into a catastrophic spin known as the “graveyard spin”. [在急剧减速时，飞行员有时会觉得飞机正机头向下飞行。为了纠正这一错觉，飞行员可能会拉升机头，这常常会导致飞机灾难地旋转，也叫做“死亡螺旋”。]

• The human brain’s navigational system has evolved to detect our movement on earth, not in the sky. It calculates our position by comparing signals from the inner ear (which has tubes of liquid that shift when we move) to the fixed sensation of gravity that points down to the center of the earth. [人类大脑进化后的导航系统适用于地面上的行动，而非空中。它通过比较内耳中的信号（内耳里的小管含有液体，会随着我们的行动而变化），可以判断我们相对指向地心的重力感受。]

• Our brain interprets irregular signals, such as angular accelerations or centrifugal force, as the normal force of gravity.[一个人的大脑会把不合常规的信号（例如角加速度或离心力）]

• Like our navigation system, our visual system was developed to interpret the world it would encounter most frequently. To do so, it developed some shortcuts, some assumptions about the world, which it uses to function. These allow our brain to work efficiently in almost all situations. However it does leave room for errors when those assumptions are not met.[和导航系统一样，视觉系统发展到企图识别熟悉的万事万物。为了做到这一点，视觉系统发展出了一条捷径，那就是先入为主的假设这个世界是什么样的，然后基于这一点展开工作。这让大脑在几乎所有的情况下都能有效运作。]

• Thatcher illusion, as it was first demonstrated in 1980 on a photo of former British prime minister Margaret Thatcher.

• To get along in this world, we need to remember and distinguish thousands of faces. Luckily, most of us do so with ease, thanks to the part of the brain known as the Fusiform Face Area (FFA), which is located in a region of the brain called the fusiform gyrus. The FFA is the part of our visual system that allows us to recognize that a face is a face, and to distinguish between the many faces we encounter on a daily basis. Without a functioning FFA, we may all become prosopagnosic, which means we will be face-blind. People who suffer from lesions to their fusiform gyrus have difficulty identifying faces and may even be unable to recognize their own face.

• Humans are very good at perceiving the emotional state of others. We do so unconsciously all the time. [人类很擅长察言观色，我们毫无意识地重复这一技能。]

• We can do so for familiar faces, faces we have not previously encountered, faces from our own culture or a foreign one, because emotional expressions are universal. [所有人体现情绪的表情是一样的] The capability to convey and detect emotion is critical to our existence. [表现和体察情绪的能力对我们的生存至关重要。]

• The brain is used to detect upright faces and expressions. It processes the parts of the face in unison, as this is the most efficient way to do so. In other words, rather than identifying each part separately, the brain processed the face and its expression as a whole. [大脑习惯观察端正的面孔和表情，并且能同时分辨脸庞的各个部分，因为这是最有效率的方式。大脑并不是逐一区分，而是把脸庞和表情当作整体进行处理。]

• As in most illusion, learning of the illusion and its roots does not erase the illusion….Cognitive illusion, rather than sensory ones, are much harder to accept. As in any complex system, the brain has built-in defects. These defects are overpowering; we live with them every day without being aware of them. We rarely doubt that our perception is accurate reflection of the world, when, in fact, our brains can often provide us with a distorted sense of reality.

• This illusion is known as the superiority illusion (or the superiority bias). We are quite confident that we are more interesting, attractive, friendly, and successful than the average person. We are quite confident that we are more interesting, attractive, friendly, and successful than the average person. We may not admit it openly when questioned, but we have a strong sense that this is correct. [这种错觉称为“优势错觉”。我们信心十足地认为自己比一般人更有趣，更有魅力，更友好，更成功。当人问起时，我们表面不会承认，但是内心却对自己的判断笃信不疑。]

• While we do not recognize our own biases, we can often detect biases in others.[我们并不知道这是自己的错觉，不过虽然我们意识不到自己的偏见，但却能发现别人的偏见。]

• Most of us believe we are superior in many ways to other individuals. This means we see ourselves as better, not everyone else as better. Therefore, (a) we all have a slightly different views the world, and (b) we are able to detect cognitive illusions, such as the superiority illusion, in others. Because we can identify these illusion and biases in others but not in ourselves, we conclude that we are less susceptible to bias than most other people. In essence, this means we hold the illusion that we are immune to illusions. This is the irony of cognitive illusions. Our tendency to perceive ourselves as less susceptible to bias than the rest of the human race was termed the bias blind spot by the psychologist Emily Pronin of Princeton University. [大多数人相信自己在很多方面比其他人优秀，这意味着我们认为自己优于别人。这揭示了1）我们对世界的看法会稍有不同；2）我们还能够发现他人的认知错觉，如优势错觉。因为我们能够分辨出别人的错觉和偏见，却发现不了自己的，所以我们认定自己比大多数人更少出现错觉和偏见。我们实际上有这样的错觉，并对这样的错觉是免疫的。这正是认知错觉的讽刺之处。我们自认为比别人有更少的偏见，这称为“偏向盲点”。]

• People tend to judge the extent of other people’s bias according to their behavior but judge their own biases according to their internal feelings, thoughts, and motivations.[大家根据别人的行为来判断其偏见程度，却根据内心感受，想法和动机来判断自己的偏见。] Scalia seems to have experienced an introspection illusion. An introspection illusion is the strong sense people have that they can directly access the processes underlying their mental states. Most mental processes, however, are largely unavailable for conscious interpretation. The catch is that people are unaware of their unawareness.[内省错觉是指人们的一种强烈感觉，认为自己能够了解决定心理状态的心理过程。大多数心理过程是无法用理性解释的，潜在的不利因素是大家不知道自己的无知。]

• We can unknowingly create verbal rationalizations for preferences and intentions that we do not actually possess.[我们会无意识地口头解释未曾有过的偏好和动机。] Often, we are wasting valuable time. Studies show that thinking too much can lead to suboptimal judgments.

• Our capacity to envision a different time and place is critical for our survival. It allows us to plan ahead, greatly increasing our odds of sticking around this planet. It motivates us to save food and resources for a time when we expect them to be less available. It enables us to endure hard work in the present in anticipation of a future reward, or to search for an appropriate long-term partner. Our voyage is hardly limited to the recent past and future. It can expand to a time before and after out own existence. This allows us to forecast how our current behavior may influence future generations. [畅想不同的时空对我们的生存至关重要，让我们能够未雨绸缪，大大提高我们在这个星球的生存机会。这种能力促使我们储备食物和资源，应对可能出现的短缺。这种能力让我们能够承受眼前的工作压力，因为内心期待着未来的犒赏，或者也会让我们去寻找一个合适的长期合作伙伴。这种能力会超越我们自身存在的时段，让我们能够预见当下的行为怎样影响后世。]

• Are we the only ones with a capacity for prospection? Do we share this ability with other species? … Certain animal behaviors, such as storing food or seasonal migration, do not necessarily involve an understanding of future need. These tendencies can simply reflect an evolved genetic predisposition. [储备食物或者季节性迁徙，并不一定是考虑未来的需求。这些行为只不过体现了进化后的遗传易感性。]

2.3.2 The Evolution of Prospection

• Mental time travel—going back and forth through time and space in one’s mind—may be the most extraordinary of human talents. It is also one that seems necessary for optimism. If we are unable to imagine ourselves in the future, we may not be able to be positive about our prospects, either. [思想上的时间旅行，让思维穿梭于时间和空间，这可能是人类最卓越的才能。对于乐观而言，这个才能必不可少。如果我们无法想象未来的自己，或许也就无法想象美好的前景。]

• The posterior part of the cabdrivers’ hippocampi was larger than average. The hippocampus (there is one on each side of the brain) is a region that is crucial for memory. The posterior bit is particularly important for spatial memory. [出租车司机大脑海马体的后部比一般人大。海马体是有关记忆的重要区域，对空间记忆来说尤其重要。]

• The term mental time travel was first coined by the Canadian psychologist Endel Tulving to refer to our capacity for revisiting the past and imaging the future. K.C had suffered damage to his frontal and temporal lobes [大脑额叶和颞叶都遭到了损伤], including a lesion in his hippocampus. Two decades laters, Eleanor Maguire examined amnesiac patients with brain damage confined to their hippocampi. She found that those patients, just like K.C,. were not able to construct detailed images of future scenarios. Without working hippocampi, the patients appeared to be stuck in time— unable to revisit the past or mentally explore the future.

• The vital difference in the level of sophistication of future thinking between humans and birds lies in our frontal lobes [额叶]…The rapid development of human frontal lobes allowed for the ability to make tools, find novel solutions to old problems, plan steps that would make goals more achievable, see far into the future, and possess self-awareness. [额叶的快速发展，让人类能够制作工具，能够为旧问题寻找新的解决方式，能够制定步骤实现目标，能够用长远眼光看待未来，能够有自知之明。]

• The only way conscious mental time travel could have been selected for over the course of evolution is if it had merged at the same time as false beliefs. In other words,** an ability to imagine the future had to develop side by side with positive biases. The knowledge of death had to emerge at the same time as its irrational denial.** [在进化过程中，思维时光穿梭的能力想要发展，必须满足一个条件才行，那就是这种能力必须和错误的信念共存。换句话说，想象未来的能力必须与乐观偏见并驾齐驱。对死亡的认识必须与不理智的否认态度同时出现。]

• Optimism does not exist without at least an elementary ability to consider the future, as optimism is by definition a positive belief about what is yet to come, and without optimism, prospection would be devastating. [如果缺少思考未来的基本能力，乐观将不复存在，因为从定义上讲，乐观就是对尚未发生的事情持积极态度；而如果没有乐观，展望未来的能力就会毁灭一切。]

• The term self-fulfilling prophecy was coined by the sociologist Robert Merton in 1948… Self-fulfilling prophecy is, in the beginning, a false definition of the situation evoking a new behavior which makes the originally false conception come true. [“自证预言” 一词由社会学家罗伯特.默顿在1948年首次提出。自证预言指一开始对形势的错误见解激发的行为，而这一行为却让原本错误的见解成真。]

• Pygmalion effect, after George Bernard Shaw’s play. Shaw’s Pygmalion is a classic makeover tale— the story of a professor who transforms a working-class girl into an upper-class lady. [“皮格马利翁”效应一词源于萧伯纳的戏剧《皮格马利翁》，讲述一个教授把工人阶级的女孩改造成了上流社会的贵妇。]

• In real life, however, educators, as well as the rest of us, hold relatively stable preconceptions that are, in general, not based on real evidence. Teachers have been shown to form predictions regarding new students’ achievements based on race, gender, ethnicity, socio-economic level, and even physical attractiveness. This can be dangerous. Expectations are likely to influence a child’s performance, ultimately altering his future. In fact, the Pygmalion effect is thought to be a significant factor in producing and maintaining gender and racial gaps in IQ testing, GPAs, and college success. [在现实生活中，教育者会和其他人一样持有一定的成见，而这些看法往往不是由真实的证据得出的。研究显示，老师会根据新学生的种族、性别、民族、社会阶层，甚至外貌形成预期。这么做很危险。预期可能会影响孩子的表现，最后改变他们的未来。皮格马利翁效应是导致智商测试、学业平均成绩、大学成就中性别和种族差异的重要因素。]

Hui: 怎么衡量哪个因素重要？

• When individuals are reminded of their membership in a group (such as gender or race), the stereotype associated with that group is more likely to influence their behavior.

• What Sara Bengtsson’s study shows, as well as Jane Elliott’s field experiment, is that the influence of stereotypes is surprisingly fluid. New expectations can rapidly take over old ones quickly substituting one behavior for another. This fluidity is encouraging. It means that with guided intervention, we may be able to reverse the negative effects of stereotypes on an individual’s performance.[成见具有惊人的灵活性。新的预期可以很快取代旧的，迅速用一种行为替代另一种。这种灵活性无疑是鼓舞人心的，意味着只要采取加以指导的干预，我们或许可以扭转成见对个人表现带来的负面影响。]

• When neurons in a specific part of the brain are active, their consumption of oxygen is increased. In response, blood flow will be enhanced to that region, supplying hemoglobin. This leads to local changes in the concentration of deoxyhemoglobin and oxyhemoglobin, which alters the MRI (Magnetic Resonance Imaging) signal that is recorded by the scanner. [大脑某个具体不稳的神经元活动时，耗氧量就会上升。相应区域的血液流量也会增大，提供血红蛋白。这改变了该区域脱氧血红蛋白和氧合血红蛋白的浓度，改变了扫描仪器记录下来的磁共振成像信号。]

• The frontal cortex is a large area of the brain and includes anatomically and functionally distinct subregions. It is the most recently developed part of the brain, and it is not found in animals at the lower end of the evolutionary scale. [额叶皮质时大脑中很大的区域，包括了结构和功能迥然不同的分区，是大脑最后才得以进化的部分，而位于进化链低端的动物甚至没有这个部位。]

• The frontal cortex has enlarged disproportionately in human evolution relative to the rest of the brain. Its physical development is the main reason why we have a relatively larger brain than most other animals. The frontal lobes are critical for functions that are uniquely human, such as language and theory of mind. Theory of mind is our ability to think about what other people are thinking. [相比于大脑的其它部分，额叶皮质在进化过程中发展得有些不成比例。额叶皮质体积变大也是人类大脑比其它多数动物更大的主要原因。]

• The frontal lobes are critical for functions that are uniquely human, such as language and theory of mind. Theory of mind is our ability to think about what other people are thinking. …Frontal lobes are involved in executive functions. Executive functions are those that enable us to identify future goals and recognize the actions that will move us toward achieving those goals. The ability to predict which behaviors will lead to which outcomes, differentiate desired outcomes from unwanted outcomes and promote actions that lead to the sought-after (追求，探索) results.

• When the brain doesn’t get what it expects, it frantically tries to figure out what went awry. The signal in the frontal cortex may have been modulating attention…The importance of this signal is that it can facilitate learning. As learning from errors is critical for directing our behavior toward optimal functioning, enhanced attention to errors would lead to better performance on the next trial.

• Defensive pessimism: holding low expectations will protect us from disappointment

• Why would a bleak outlook result in such tragic deaths? It seems that a pessimistic outlook promoted risk-taking behavior because the pessimists believed they did not have much to lose. Optimists envision a glorious future and are reluctant to disappear into oblivion.

2.3.3 When Private Optimism Meets Public Despair

• The people’s urgent need for good news most likely drove positive expectations well above the baseline. It is during hard times that people rely on optimism the most.

• Jonsthan Haidt, a psychologist at the University of Virginia who studies the feeling of elevation, describes such instances as erasing cynicism and generating hope and optimism. According to Haidt, such occurrences stimulate the vague nerve [迷走神经], which triggers the release of oxytocin. The vague nerve is one of the twelve cranial nerves. Its course starts in the brain stem [脑干], which is an evolutionarily old part of the brain that plays a key role in regulating vital functions. The nerve extends all the way from the brain stem through the neck to the chest and abdomen. It conveys sensory information to the brain that reflects the body’s internal state, as well as sends information from the brain to the rest of the body. Oxytocin is produced in the hypothalamus [下丘脑] and stored in the pituitary [垂体], which is situated just beneath the hypothalamus and secretes hormones. When triggered, oxytocin is discharged into the bloodstream, and it also binds to receptors in the brain, particularly in regions involved in emotional and social processing. High levels of oxytocin reduce our uncertainty about social stimuli [stimulus的复数].

• Amygdala [杏仁核] engages in processing social signals, especially ambiguous ones.

• Reduced social stress and uncertainty, along with an increase in approach behavior, should enhance trust among individuals. [社交压力和不确定性减少，亲近行为增多，这些会加强人与人之间的信任。]

• Why do we see such a disconnect? Why is it that people continually underestimate their own risks while overestimating the severity of the situation for the rest of society? People tend to feel more optimistic about things they believe they can control.

Hui: 这就是哪些公司高层对公司未来总是那么乐观的原因么？与其说有远见，不如说是局内人的偏见，控制的幻觉。好的一方面是，可能他们不是在撒谎忽悠，他们真心积极向上。但是形式不会因为不经过分析的主观积极就有改善，那要如何纠正这样的偏差呢？数据分析。

• There is one additional factor that comes into play—the power of relativity. Our brain plays a little trick that boosts positive illusions. Not only do people hold optimism bias about their personal future; in addition, they hold a pessimistic bias about everyone else’s.

2.3.4 The Unexpected Ingredient for Well-being

• Studies show that just taking care of a plant is positively related to well-being.

• What else is related to happiness? According to the survey, of you hold a PhD, go to church (or another religious center), and play sports, you are seven times more likely to be happy-go-lucky than someone who does not have a PhD, never goes to church, and shuns physical activity.

• The notion that raising children is negatively related to happiness was supported by a study conducted by Daniel Kahneman. Kahneman (prospect theory: how people make decision under uncertainty). What really matters is when, and how often, we feel irritated, anxious, satisfied. Our happiness is thus not affected to a large extent by reflecting on our lives, but by the flood of feelings that are constantly generated within us. However, most of questionnaires of subjective well-being ask us to reflect and assess our general satisfaction with life rather than our daily experienced happiness…The consistent conclusion across studies that children do not necessarily bring us joy conflicts with conventional wisdom in a striking manner. Why do individuals insist and often strongly believe, that their happiness is rooted in the existence of their offsprings? One explanation is that happiness, whether experienced or reflected, is not necessarily the most significant factor for the continuation of humankind. Passing on our genes, on the other hand, is.

• A higher income may indeed influence reflected satisfaction with life without significantly enhancing our experienced happiness.

• Focusing illusion: exaggerated importance we attribute to specific aspects of our lives when we are asked about them.

• The importance of relative wealth to our well-being explains counterintuitive findings in the literature, such as why an increase in a nation’s GDP over time is not accompanied by in increase in general subjective well-being. While the country may be getting wealthier, the individual’s relative economic status remains the same, and thus happiness stays constant. Relativity is a crucial aspect of human psychology. Consider the way we perceive our physical environment. The extent of change that needs to occur in the sat of our surroundings in order for us to notice a difference is dependent on preliminary states… Therefore the more you have the more you need to increase your wealth in order to even notice a difference that would affect your happiness.

• Andrew Yonelinas, a psychologist renowned for his dual-process theory of recognition: memory retrieval includes two distinct processed familiarity and recollection. These two memory processes have been shown to be functionally and neuro-anatomically distinct. They rely on different brain regions within the medial part of the temporal lobes.[两个记忆过程（熟悉感和回忆）在功能和神经解剖方面都有不同。两者依赖大脑额叶中部的不同区域。] While a region called the hippocampus [海马体] is crucial for recollection but not for familiarity, the adjacent perirhinal cortex [鼻周皮层] signals familiarity. Amnesiacs [健忘症患者] who have sustained damage to the hippocampus but whose surrounding cortex is intact usually suffer impaired recollection, but they know when something is familiar. They may know they have met you before, but they will have no memory of the episodic context of the encounter.

• Having extremely vivid memories of past emotional experiences and only weak memories of past everyday events means we maintain a biased perception of the past. The two other principal factors that lead us to mis-predict what will make us happy are the same ones that make us mis-predict what will devastate us:
1. our tendency to underestimate our rapid adaptation to almost any new circumstance;
2. when we think about how a higher income, more vacation time, or better health will affect our happiness, we tend to focus on that one factor and disregard everything else which will stay the same. [聚焦幻觉]
• While severely depressed patients are pessimistic, mildly depressed people are actually pretty good at predicting what may happen to them in the near future—a phenomenon known as depressive realism. [抑郁现实主义]

• The optimism bias is crucial ingredient for keeping us happy. When people perceive the future accurately, when they are well aware that none of the things people assume will make them happy is likely to have any lasting significance on their well-being, when they take off their rose-tinted glasses and see things more clearly, them become depressed—clinically depressed.

Hui: We need to keep the optimism bias to be happy?? Why can’t we just accept who we are?

2.3.5 When things go wrong: depression, interpretation, and genes

• The notion of optimistic and pessimistic explanatory styles was put forward by the psychologist Martin Seligman. He came up “learned helplessness”.

• The most commonly prescribed antidepressants are drugs that enhance the function of the neurotransmitter serotonin. A neurotransmitter is a chemical that enables communication between neurons in the brain…The majority of antidepressants, such as Prozac, are selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs)…gene coding for serotonin function predicts a person’s likelihood of suffering depression.

• The amygdala is a structure deep in the brain that processes emotional stimuli. It is also involved in generating physiological responses to these stimuli. Amygdala activity is regulated by parts of the frontal cortex, in particular the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC). In individuals with a short allele of the serotonin-transporter gene, there is reduced connectivity between the ACC and the amygdala. This means that the two structures are not as good at communicating with each other. [杏仁核是大脑深处处理情绪刺激的结构，同时人对刺激的心理反应也少不了它。额叶皮层的一部分负责管理杏仁核的活动，尤其是ACC。如果一个人的serotonin-transporter gene等位基因是短的，那么前扣带皮层ACC和杏仁核的关联性就会降低，也就是说这两个结构的沟通能力就没那么好。]

Hui: 有几个专业名词反复出现[单词]，serotonin——5-羟色胺，allele——等位基因，amygdala——杏仁核，anterior cingulate cortex——前扣带皮层，frontal cortex——额叶皮层

• This is known as fear extinction—the process of learning that something that was previously threatening no longer is. Fear extinction involves the regulation of amygdala activity by the ACC. As the connectivity between these structures is relatively impaired in carries of the short allele, these individuals will be less capable of extinguishing their fear. They will be more likely to maintain high levels of anxiety and be prone to depression and other mood disorders. [“恐惧消退”指的是明白以前具有威胁性的事情不再构成威胁这一过程。恐惧消退需要前扣带皮层管理杏仁核的活动。由于等位基因较短的人这两个结构的联系有所削弱，这样的人就很难驱散自己的恐惧。因此他们更可能保持高度紧张核焦虑，并且容易出现抑郁核其它情绪紊乱的状况。]

• hippocampus (which has an important role in memory) and the striatum (which is involved in motor function, reward processing, and generating expectations of pleasure and pain), as well as other brain regions I focus on to a lesser degree, such as the thalamus and the habitual.

Hui: 这里几个专业名词[单词] hippocampus——海马体——记忆，striatum——纹状体——运动、奖赏、快乐痛苦的预期，amygdala——杏仁核，thalamus——丘脑，habitual.——缰核

2.3.6 The Value of Anticipation and the Cost of Dread

• When it comes to adverse events, most of us choose to get it over with as soon as possible. The reason is simple: We want to avoid the dread that comes with anticipating pain. Instead of spending out time worrying and fearing, we would rather face the pain immediately and be done with it. [一旦遇到糟糕的事情，大多数人都会选择尽快搞定。原因很简单：我们不想因为未来的痛苦而畏惧。]

• The pain matrix is a network of brain regions that are associated with processing different aspects of the pain experience. This network includes the somatosensory cortex, which responds to the physical aspects of pain, as well as areas thought to respond to emotional processing, such as the amygdala and rostral anterior cingulate. [疼痛矩阵是大脑中处理不同疼痛体验的有关区域网络。这个网络包括躯体感觉皮质(somatosensory cortex)，它会对身体疼痛作出反应，另外还包括对情感作出反应的区域，比如杏仁核与前扣带皮质(rostral anterior cingulate)]

• Anticipation seemed to mimic the actual experience of pain. Dreaders also had greater activity in areas thought to modulate attention to pain, which suggests that dread enhanced attention to the physical aspects of the expected pain. If anticipating an adverse event activates areas of the brain that normally process the physical experience of pain, it is hardly surprising that anticipating a painful event has a negative effect on our well-being similar to that of actually experiencing it. [期待过程似乎模拟了真实的疼痛感。在恐惧时，大脑中调节疼痛注意力区域的活动也增强了，这说明恐惧感能够提升对身体疼痛的注意力。如果期待消极事件也能激发处理身体疼痛的大脑区域，那么期待痛苦的事件就和经历这件事类似，会对我们的快乐造成负面影响。]…In a like manner, anticipation of a pleasurable event seems to activate neural systems that are also engaged while actually experiencing the enjoyable event. For example, a study showed that when people imagine a future vacation, the striatum [纹状体]—a brain region that responds to actual rewards, such as food, sex, and money [这块大脑区域也会对实际奖赏作出反应，比如食物、性和钱]— is activated.

• Temporal discounting: the tendency to value the present more than the future…drives us to consume goods as soon as possible and delay pain until sometime in the unforeseeable future. This is not only because we tend to value the here and now more than the there and later but also because we perceive the future as uncertain.

• Economists assume that people with high discounting rates are impulsive. These individuals are thought not to be concerned about the future as much as they should be. They don’t have savings, and they might indulge in unhealthy practices such as drinking and smoking, which carry penalties in the future…temporal discounting is partially due to people’s belief that gains will be followed by more gains and that losses will somehow be avoidable in the future.

2.3.7 Why do things seem better after we choose them?

• Free-choice paradigm: Our tendency to reevaluate out options once we formulate a decision is a powerful one. After making a difficult choice between two equally valued options, people subsequently value the selected alternative more strongly than they initially had, and the discarded one less so. Jack Brehm first discovered this phenomenon in 1956.

• Experiment on amnesiacs: In 2001, a group of Harvard psychologists set out to examine whether amnesiacs/æm’ni:ziæk/ show changes in preferences after making decisions, even though they cannot remember which option they have chosen. The amnesiac patients had suffered hippocampus damage, which prevented them from being able to form new memories. The hippocampus is a brain structure in the medial temporal lobe that is important for the formation and consolidation of memories that can be consciously retrieved………..(The result indicated) we do not need to consciously remember that we made a choice in order for that choice to change our preference. This give clues to Brehm’s phenomenon:

1. We don’t need our hippocampi for our choices to change our preferences.
2. The process relies on brain structures that are evolutionarily old.

Our data revealed that the change was observed in the same part of the brain that responds to rewards such as food, love, or money—the caudate nucleus [尾状核]. The caudate nucleus, a cluster of nerve cells deep in the brain, is part of a larger structure, the striatum [纹状体]. The caudate has been shown to process rewards and signal the expectation of them.

Why decisions alter preference? According to Cognitive Dissonance Theory, having to make a choice between two similarly desirable alternatives triggers psychological discomfort. This is because the decision conflicts with the desirable aspects of the rejected alternative, and with the undesirable aspects of the selected alternative. By evaluating the options post choice, in a way that is consistent with your decision, reduces psychological tension.

Neurons in the caudate that are sensitive to dopamine signal the predicted value of different options. By tapping into these signals, we can learn about the choices that people are likely to make at a later time.

2.3.8 How emotion changes our past?

• In the word of the “god-father” of experimental psychology, William James, “An impression may be so exciting emotionally almost to leave a scar upon the cerebral tissue.”

• Talarico and Rubin reached very similar conclusions to those arrived at by Neisser more than a decade earlier: Flashbulb memories are not more accurate than “regular” memories, but they certainly seem so.

• For people who were there—staring at the towers falling and at the victims jumping to their deaths—memories of those experiences were qualitatively different from memories of other past memorable events. In contrast, for individuals who learned of the towers falling via the Internet or TV, their memories, although vivid, were not very different from memories of a summer internship or a move to a new city. [和之前Talarico & Rubin的结论不同]

• Studies in animals show that the amygdala is especially important for expressing fear, as well as for learning about dangerous stimuli….The amygdala modifies the storage of memories both directly, by projecting to other brain structures involved in the consolidation of memories, such as the nearby hippocampus, and indirectly, via stress hormones that enhance memory consolidation.

• Para-hippocampal cortex is thought to be involved in processing and recognizing details of a visual scene. Psychologists have previously discovered that when we view an emotional event, our attention is focused on the central arousing aspects of the event (such as the towers collapsing) at the expense of peripheral details (such as the people standing next to us). The outcome is poor encoding of peripheral details, which results in less involvement of the posterior para-hippocampal cortex during encoding and retrieval of memories. If neurons of the para-hippocampal are less active when arousing incidents are recollected and neurons of the amygdala are more active, this may explain why when we recall shocking events, we remember the central emotional details and our feelings at the time but cannot always provide accurate details about out surroundings.

• It is critical to understand precisely which details of emotional events are remembered better than those of mundane events, and which are remembered less well. while we still do not have clear answers, we do know that when it comes to the most arousing events of our lives, our confidence in our memories is not a reliable indication of how accurate they are. This has important implications for the legal system, especially regarding the validity of eyewitness testimony, which can often be inaccurate without any bad intention on the part of the witnesses……The function of memory is to be able to use past experiences to guide future thoughts and actions……Believing that we can use a negative past experience to learn and do better in the future may, in fact, fuel optimism. Optimistic people are not necessarily those with a positively biased view of the past; neither are they the ones holding a positively biased view of the present. They are the ones who see the future thorough rose-tinted glasses despite all the disappointing experiences they have had.

2.3.9 How the Brain Turns Lead into Gold?

• Although we dread hardship, such as divorce, unemployment, or sickness, believing that we will never get over them, we are usually wrong. People tend to bounce back to normal levels of well-being surprisingly fast following almost any misfortune.

• The trick the brain plays once it encounters the unbearable is to quickly find the silver lining. This is an adaptive way of viewing adversities, as it drives us to shun hardships, to keep away from danger, and to take care of ourselves….In order to continue functioning, we quickly need to reevaluate our circumstances and reverse our evaluation of the situation that has befallen us so that we can carry on with our lives.

• Ignoring the elements that would remain unchanged and focusing only on those that would change results in a mismatch between our predictions of how we would feel and how we actually end up feeling. Not only do we fail to take into account things that stay the same; we also fail to appreciate our remarkable ability to adapt to new circumstances. The human brain is an extremely flexible and adaptive piece of machinery.

• The mind does better than simply adjust itself to new situations. In order to fully adapt, it creates new capabilities to compensate for those that have been lost.

• rACC (前扣带回皮质喙部) and then ventral medial prefrontal cortex (腹内侧前额皮层) were responsible for inhibiting the fear response that was generated by the amygdala. The amygdala is critical for producing fear reactions to a conditioned stimulus due to learned associations. When the stimulus is no longer a valid sign of danger, the fear response will be switched off, and the rACC is key in that process.

• Our aspiration to achieve positive outcomes and avoid negative ones is so robust that it alters they way we visually perceive our surroundings…..People are more likely to perceive their environment inaccurately, finding it less intimidating.

2.3.10 A dark side to optimism?

• In a series of studies, Neil Weinstain (he coined the term optimism bias) showed that people believe they are less likely than average to suffer misfortunes (such as being fired from a job, being diagnosed with lung cancer, developing a drinking problem)……We truly think our children will grow up to be healthy and successful. And when standing at the altar or civil registry desk, we expect to be blissfully married for the rest of our lives. And yet, half of us are wrong. The decree nice is so common that in the words of Oscar Wilde, “the world has grown suspicious of anything that looks like a happily married life.”……Remarriage, as Samuel Johnson described it, is “the triumph of hope over experience”.

Operation Barbarrossa, Hitler expected a rapid triumph in the fight against the Soviet Union, huge economic cost

• Moderate optimists worked longer hours, expected to retire later in life, saved more (with longer planning horizons), and smoked less than all other individuals. Extreme optimists worked fewer hours, saved less, and smoked more.

• From investment choices to productivity, optimism turned out to be a crucial factor. Moderate optimism correlated with sensible decisions, while extreme optimism correlated with seemingly irrational decisions. As in almost everything in life, moderation seemed to be key.

2.3.11 From prediction to perception to action

• The first argument this book makes is relatively simple: Most of us are optimistic. Although good things may transpire, on average our expectations exceed future outcomes. We are not necessarily aware of our bias. Like other illusions of the human brain, the optimism bias is not easily accessible for introspection. ……Research shows that most of us spend less time mulling over negative outcomes than we do over positive ones, and when we do contemplate defeat and heartache, we tend to consider how those can be avoided.

• It is tempting to speculate that optimism was selected for during evolution precisely because positive expectations enhance the probability of survival.……Yet with all the good that optimistic illusions have to offer, there are relatively small biases of different individuals will combine to create a much larger illusion, which can lead to disaster (the credit crunch of 2008). Each investor, homeowner, banker, and economic regulator expected slightly better profits than were realistically warranted. On its own, each bias would not have created huge losses. However, when bubble, which when it burst, generated large losses for many individuals.

2.4 Art of Thinking Clearly [Rolf Dobelli,清醒思考的艺术]

1. 幸存偏差：由于日常生活中更容易看到成功而非失败，使得人们高估成功的希望（创业）
2. 游泳选手的身材错觉：混淆选择标准与结果（模特因为漂亮才选来拍化妆品广告，而非因为用了这些产品才漂亮）
3. 过度自信效应：1）不存在不够自信效应；2）男性更加严重；3）悲观者只是高估幅度少些。
4. 从众心理
5. 纠缠沉没成本：all pay auction的困局
6. 互惠偏误：互惠古来有之，是出色的生存智慧。没有互惠人类早灭绝了。但注意不要被互惠道德绑架。
7. 确认偏误：所有思维错误之父……过滤与我们观点相矛盾的信息。宗教和哲学信念是杰出的例子。
8. 权威偏误：对权威批判性越强，你就越自由。
9. 对比效应/框架效应/锚定效应：这几个都类似
10. 现成偏误：依据现成的例子来想象世界。某种东西反复出现我们的大脑就很容易重新提取（接受）它，尽管不一定是真的。
11. 事后诸葛亮(Hindsight Bias)
12. 司机的知识：播音员是话筒不是专家。芒格认为知识有两种：1）真知识，来自那些投入大量时间和思考获得知识的人们；2）司机的知识，装的好像知道的人，他们会模仿别人的表演，也可能有动听的声音或具有说服力的形象。但他们传播的知识是空洞的，他们高谈阔论地挥霍华丽词汇。企业越大，人们越期望它的CEO具有表演才能——交际能力。
13. 控制错觉：你对你生活的控制比你以为的要少。(电梯上的安慰按钮。公司温度控制的按钮。)
14. 激励过敏：激励机制能够解释90%的个人或者组织行为。
1. 一旦有激励加入游戏或改变了激励，人们就会迅速而剧烈地改变自己的行为
2. 人们是对激励做出反应，而非激励背后的目的（1947悬赏羊皮纸手稿，为了增加数量而将手稿撕碎；19世纪，中国悬赏征购恐龙骨，恐龙骨被敲碎。）
15. Regression to Mean: if you are doing bad, chances are your performance will regress to the mean and not because of any marked improvement; [回归均值：避免错误归因，恢复正常可能只是回归均值在起作用]
16. 公地悲剧：凡好处归个人而成本由集体承担的地方就潜伏着公地悲剧。在小范围群体里，道德的制裁至今有效，因为人们相互认识，如果有人只考虑自己的好处，滥用公共利益，就会被发觉，并遭到最严厉的惩罚——失去名誉。但在一个匿名社会里道德就没那么管用了。解决方法有两个：1）私有化；2）加强管理。
17. 结果偏误：100万只猴子在股市投机，20年后有1只猴子每次都赚钱，媒体会阐述其“成功原理”。不要完全用结果判断决定，结果差并不意味着决定不对，反之亦然。
18. 选择的悖论：在无限选择的年代，适合自己的局部最优选择更好。
1. 选择范围太大会导致无所适从
2. 选择范围太大会导致更糟决定
3. 选择范围太大会导致不满
19. 讨喜偏误：我们会觉得一个人讨喜，若此人 1）颜值高；2）和我们相似；3）喜欢我们。不要被一时感情冲昏头脑。
20. 禀赋效应：我们对自己拥有的东西估值更高。让我们放弃要比让我们囤积难。这解释了我们为什么会在房子里堆满废物，也说明了为什么邮票、手表或者艺术品收藏者很少交换出售藏品。禀赋效应不仅神话了我们已有的财产，甚至神话了可能会拥有的财产。在拍卖中有“赢家的诅咒”：拍卖的赢家反而是经济上的输家，因为他出价过高。……结论：勿过于执著于某物，理解来去无常。

Hui: 这让我想起focusing illusion

1. 奇迹：小概率事件可以发生，不要过度解释。
2. 团体迷思：一群智慧的人做出愚蠢的决定，因为每个人都误以为自己的意见是正确的共识，从而作出他们每个人在正常情况下都会拒绝的决定。这是从众心理的一种特殊情况。（Pig bay evation）
3. 忽视概率偏误：我们对一件事的强度做出反应而非概率，我们缺少对概率的直觉理解。（一定会遭受电击，和有50%／20%／10%／5%的概率会遭到电击，两种情况下受试者一样紧张。预期电击强度增大时，两组紧张感同时增大。概率降为0才会有不同。）我们不能区分理解风险。
4. 零风险偏误：我们只信任0风险。我们常愿意投资过多的钱，就为了彻底消除微小的剩余风险。（俄罗斯轮盘赌：共可装6发子弹，假设装有4发，发愿意付多少钱拿走2发？假设装有2发，你愿意付多少钱将这2发都拿走？）……结论：学会怀着“没有什么是绝对安全的”想法生活——无论你的积蓄，健康，婚姻，友谊。满足于至少有东西让你保持相对稳定并体验自身快乐。研究表明，无论是中百万彩票还是半身瘫痪都不会长期改变你的满意度。不管发生什么，快乐的人照样快乐，不快乐的人总是不快乐。
5. 稀少性谬误：物以稀为贵
6. 忽视基本概率：创业的成功率就是那么低，无论你多努力，多聪明，你都更可能失败。意识到基本概率。
7. 赌徒谬误：连续出现红球，下一个更可能是黑球么？注意是否是独立事件。现实生活中的事件大多数有相互联系。

Hui:总觉得这个和均值回归有冲突啊

8. 锚定效应（Anchor effect）

Hui: 这个简直家喻户晓。之后在Predictable Irrational会讲到。

9. 归纳法（induction）：generalize results from small sample.我们自欺欺人。很少生病的人觉得自己不会死。连续几个季度利润增长CEO觉得自己不可缺少。人类一直成功因此我们可以征服未来的挑战（只有那些幸存到现在的物种才能这么说。）以我们存在的事实来说明将来我们也会存在，是一个严重的思维错误——估计是最严重的
10. 损失规避：人们害怕失去某种东西的想法要比获得某种同等价值的东西的想法强烈。我们无法改变：恶比善更有影响力。我们对不利的东西反应要比对有利东西反应敏感。一张凶恶的脸要比一张友善的脸更容易引起我们注意。恶行要比善行更永久地留存在我们的记忆里。当然也有例外：事关我们自己的时候。
11. 社会性倦怠：责任扩散，个人效率无法直接看到，导致尸位素餐，群体效率下降（都指望别人嘛： ））。这是一种我们让自己亏欠所有人的欺骗形式。这一欺骗大多不是故意的，而是不知不觉的发生的。为什么不完全懈怠？因为0效率会引起注意——继而会带来后果，如被逐出群体或损坏名誉，我们能细腻地感觉到，懈怠到什么程度不会被看出来。出于同样的原因，团队有甘冒比个人更大风险的倾向。人们称这一效应为风险分摊。可以通过尽量彰显个人效率来缓和团队的弊病。
12. 指数增长
13. 赢家的诅咒：拍卖的赢家大多是事实上的输家。1）一种货物的真实价值是不确定的。出价方越多，报价过高的概率就越大。2）我们想排挤竞争对手。
14. 基本特征谬误：系统性地高估人的影响，在解释某些东西时低估情境因素。领导才能对经济成功的影响程度要远远小于普遍的经济形势和行业的影响力。在一个存在危机的行业里，首席执行官们常被撤换。…..极度关注他人源自我们过去的进化史，隶属于一个群体是生存所必需的，被排斥意味着死亡。繁殖、自卫和狩猎，大多是个体做不到的。我们需要别人协助。特立独行的人早就从基因池里消失了。因此我们才会这样过度地关注人。我们将90%的精力都用来关注人，只用10%的精力关注情境。不管戏剧多么让我们着迷，舞台上的人绝非孤立的，他们的表演离不开一个个情境。你若真想理解正在表演的戏剧，就请你不要只注重表演者，而是多关注他们的表演或舞蹈。
15. 错误归因
16. 光环效应
17. 替代途径：风险从来不是一眼就能看到的。因此，请你时刻考虑你有什么样的替代途径。比起你通过无惊险的平凡途径获得的成功，别拿通过冒险的替代途径获得的成功太当真。蒙田怎么说来着：“我的生命充满不幸——这些不幸大多没有发生。”
18. 预测错觉：什么可以预测，什么不可以预测？一件事情越复杂，时间跨度越长，其未来的发展变化就越多。
19. 关联谬误：大脑的系统1会自动把线索连起来编故事。
20. 框架效应：同样的内容，换个不同的说法，效果不同。
21. 行动偏误：为什么不行动光等待是中痛苦？源自远古基因。在一个狩猎采野果的环境中，行动比思考价值大得多。在古时，闪电式反应关乎生死存亡，思考则可能会致命。如果情况不明，不要采取任何行动，直到你能更好地分析形势，你要克制自己。
22. 不作为偏误：其出现在无论放弃还是行动都会带来损害地地方。在这种情况下大多数人都会选择放弃，因为这样引起地损害主观看来更无害。“如果你不是答案地一部分，就是问题地一部分[1968欧洲学生运动口号]”
23. 自利偏误（self-serving bias）：成功归于自己，失败归于外因。
24. 享乐适应：
1. 请避免很长时间也不会习惯地负面效应，如交通，噪音，慢性疲劳等。
2. 对物质的东西只期待短期效果，例如汽车，房屋，分红等。
3. 持续正面效应主要与你如何利用时间有关。设法让自己得到尽可能多的自由时间和自主权。请你做最爱做的事情——哪怕你要付出部分收入。请为友谊投资。
25. 自我选择偏误：当我们本身是样品的一部分时，我们必须注意，不要掉进一种以自我选择偏误著称的思维错误陷阱中。
26. 联想偏误：影响我们决定的质量。我们倾向于不喜欢送坏消息的人（Shoot the Messenger Syndrome）
27. 新手的运气：如果你长期比其他人成功，你可以认为自己的才华可能起作用，但绝不能过于自信、自满。参与的人越多，出于纯粹运气长期成功的概率越大，也许你就是这个某人。
28. 认知失调(Cognitive Dissonance)：酸狐狸
29. 双曲贴现：一个决定离现在越近，我们的“情感利息”就越多。这是及时享乐对我们的控制，我们过去动物性的残留。动物不愿意为在将来得到更多的奖励而放弃今天的奖励。

2.5 Bad Arguments — Logical Fallacies

Hui: 这本短小的书对常见的逻辑谬误（Art of Thinking Clearly）进行了清晰直观的解释，比如straw man fallacy，the slippery slope argument，ad hominem attack等。

• Argument from Consequences: speaking for or against the truth of a statement by appealing to the consequences it would have if true (or false)

If God does not exist, then everything is permitted. (Dostoevsky)

• Straw Man: intentionally caricature a person’s argument with the aim of attaching the caricature rather than the actual argument.

My opponent is trying to convince you that we evolved from chimpanzees who were swinging from trees, a truly ludicrous claim

• Appeal to Irrelevant Authority: appeal to the feeling that others are more knowledgeable

Appeal to ancient wisdom, in which a belief is assumed to be true just because it originated some time ago. “We do not get enough sleep nowadays. Just a few centuries ago, people used to sleep for nine hours a night.”

• Equivocation: exploits the ambiguity of language by changing the meaning of a word during the course of an argument and using the different meanings to support an ill-founded conclusion.

How can you be against faith when you take leaps of faith all the time: making investments, trusting friends, and even getting engaged?

• False Dilemma: an argument that presents a limited set of two possible categories and assumes that everything in the scope of the dicussion must be an element of that set.

In the war on fanaticism, there are no sidelines; you are either with us or with the fanatics

• Not A Cause for A Cause: assumes a cause for an event where there is no evidence that one exists.

The recent earthquake was because we disobeyed the king

• Appeal to Fear: plays on the fears of an audience by imagining a scary future that would be of their making if some proposition were accepted without solid evidence

I ask all employees to vote for my chosen candidate in the upcoming election. If the other candidate wins, he will raise taxes and many of you will lose your jobs.

• Hasty Generalization: forms a conclusion from a sample that is either too small or too special to be representative

• Appeal to Ignorance: assumes a proposition to be ture simply because there is no evidence proving that it is false

It is impossible to imagine that we actually landed a man on the moon, therefore it never happened

• No True Scotsman: comes up after someone has made a general claim about a group of things and then been presented with evidence challenging that claim. Rather than revising their position or contesting the evidence, they dodge the challenge by arbitrarily redefining the criteria for membership in that group.

“Programmers have no social skills.” “But John is programmer, and he is not socially awkward at all.” “Yes, but John isn’t a true programmer.”

• Genetic Fallacy: an argument is either devalued or defended solely because of its origins

Of course he supports the union workers on strike; he is from the same village

• Guilt by Association: discredit an argument for proposing an idea that is shared by some socially demonized individual or group.

My opponent is calling for a healthcare system that would resemble that of socialist countries. Clearly that would be unacceptable.

• Affirming the Consequent: takes this form: if A then C; hence A. The error lies in assuming that because the consequent is true, the antecedent must also be true

People who go to college are successful. John is successful, hence he must have gone to college.

• Appeal to Hypocrisy: involves countering someone’s argument by pointing out that it conflicts with his or her own past actions or statements

A panelist objected to a protest in London against corporate greed because of the protesters’ apparent hypocrisy, pointing out that while they professed to be against capitalism, they continued to use smartphones and buy coffee.

• Slippery Slope: attempts to discredit a proposition by arguing that its acceptance will undoubtedly lead to a sequence of events, one or more of which are undesirable.

We shouldn’t allow people uncontrolled access to the internet. The next thing you know they will be frequenting pronographic websites, and soon enough, our entir moral fabric will disintegrate and we will be reduced to animals

• Appeal to the Bandwagon: uses the fact that many people believe in something as evidence that it must be true.

Most people in Galileo’s day believed that the sun and the planets orbited around Earth, so Galileo faced ridicule for his support of the Copernican model.

• Ad-hominem ([æd’hɔminem]针对个人): attacks a person rather than the argument he or she is making, with the intention of diverting the discussion and discrediting their argument.

You’re not a historian; why don’t you stick to your own field?

• Circular Reasoning: (aka begging the question ) assumes the conclusion in one or more of the premisses. A conclusion is either blatantly used as a premiss, or more often, it is reworded to appear as though it is a different proposition.

You’re utterly wrong because you’re not making any sense.

• Composition and Division: becasue the parts of a whole have a particular attribute, the whole must have that attribute also.

Each module in this software system has been subjected to a set of unit tests and passed them all. Therefore, when the modules are integrated, the software system will not violate any of the invariants verified by those unit tests.

Some Definitions:

• Proposition: A statement that is either true or false, but not both
• Argument: A set of propositions aimed at persuading through reasoning. In an argument, a subset of propositions, called premises , provides support for some other propositions called conclusions .
• Formal fallacy: An error in reasoning that is illogical because its structure is faulty. The fallacy can be spotted just by analyzing the argument’s form, without needing to evaluate its content.
• Informal fallacy: An error in reasoning that is illogical due to its content and context rather than its form. The error ought to be a commonly invoked one to be considered an informal fallacy.
• Deductive Argument: An argument in which if the premises are true, then the conclusion must be true. The conclusion is said to follow with logical necessity from the premises.

All men are mortal. Socrates is a man. Therefore, Socrates is mortal.

• valid: A deductive argument is valid if its conclusion does in fact follow logically from its premises. Otherwise, it is said to be in valid. The descriptors “valid” and “invalid” apply only to arguments and not to propositions.
• sound: A deductive argument is sound if it is valid and its premises are true. If either of those conditions does not hold, then the argument is unsound. Truth is determined by looking at whether the argument’s premises and conclusions are in accordance with facts in the real world.

• Inductive Argument: An argument in which if the premises are true, then it is probable that the conclusion will also be true. The conclusion does not follow from the premises with logical necessity, but rather with probability. Inductive arguments usually proceed from specific instances to the general.

Every time we measure the speed of light in a vacuum, it is $$3\times 10^8 m/s$$. Therefore, the speed of light in a vacuum is a universal constant.

• Strong: An inductive argument is strong, if its premises are true then it is highly probable that its conclusion is also true. Otherwise, if it is improbable that its conclusion it true, then it is said to be weak. Because they rely on probability, inductive arguments are not truth-preserving; it is never the case that a true conclusion must follow from true premises.
• cogent: An inductive argument is cogent if it is strong and the premises are actually true—that is, in accordance with facts. Otherwise, it is said to be uncogent.

2.6 Predictable Irrational

• Goal: what makes you and people around you tick?

behavior economics, judgment and decision making (JDM) Generalized Axiom of Revealed Preference (GARF)

We are irrational Our irrationality is predictable

2.6.1 The fallacy of supply and demand

James Assael, Salvador Assael (peark king, James’ son), black pearl from black-lipped oysters, put them in the window of Harry Winston’s store on Fifth Avenue, Tahitian black pearls glowed

Mark Twain in Tom Sawyer: “Tom had discovered a great law of human action, namely, that in order to make a man covet a thing, it is only necessary to make the thing difficult to attain.”

• Anchor effect: last two digits of social security number, how much would you pay for the product?
• Anchor effect witll exist for long time even we set new anchor later, we will still be affected by the origional anchor. (anchors in the experiment: 10 v.s. 90, 50, 90 v.s.10 )
• Assael anchored his pearls to the finest gems in the world and the prices followed forever

Mark Twain: 英国一些阔绰的绅士夏季每天驾着四套马车沿大路跑上二三十英里,因为这样做可以花掉不少钱;可如果付钱雇他们驾车载客,消遣变成了 工作,他们是不愿干的。

1. 但是如我们的实验所证明，消费者的购买意愿可以很容易地被操纵，也就是说消费者实际上并不能很好地把握自己的偏好以及他们愿意为不同商品和体验付出的价格。
2. 传统经济学架构假设供需独立，上面提到的锚定效应暗示它们是相互依存的。在现实世界中，锚来自厂家的建议零售价格、广告价格、促销、产品推荐等因素——所有这一切都来自供给方。

2.6.2 The cost of free

• 免费使人拿一大堆不要的东西？为什么？多数交易都有有利的一面和不利的一面,但免费使我们忘记了不 利的一面。免费给我们造成一种情绪冲动,让我们误认为免费物品大大高于它的真正价值。为什么?我认为是由于人类本能地惧怕损失。免费的真正诱惑力是与这种惧怕心理联系在一 起的。我们选择某一免费的物品不会有显而易见的损失。但是假如我们选择的物品是不免费 的,那就有会有风险,可能做出错误决定,可能蒙受损失。于是,如果让我们选择,我们就尽量朝免费的方向去找。
• 我们同时生活在两个不同的世界里——其中一个世界由社会规范主导,另一个则由市场规范来制定法则。
• 日托所罚金案例： 一旦社会规范与市场规范发生碰撞,社会规范就会退出。换言之,社会规范很难重建。一旦这朵盛开的玫瑰从枝头落下——一旦社会规范被市 场规范打败——它很难发挥任何效力。
• 强调雇佣关系中社会性的一面所能营造出的亲善氛围。社会规范(例如共同创业的兴奋)强于市场规范(例如薪金随晋升而增加)时,员工能为公司(特 别是那些刚起步的公司)创造的价值的确令人瞩目。如果企业开始从社会规范角度思考,实际上,它们会认识到社会规范可以建立忠诚,更重要的是,它使人们自我发展,达到如今企业的要求:实行弹性工作制,关心公司,并且积 极参与公司事务。这正是社会性关系带来的。……多一些社会规范,少一些市场规范,我们的生活会变得更惬意,更有创造力,更充实,而且更有乐趣。

Hui: 这和《经济学通识》中提倡的让市场决定一切的观点相反。

2.6.3 Procrastination and Self-control

• Procrastination:无法延迟满足导致的结果
• Experiment:
• 12 weeks, require 3 papers
• Plan 1: Set deadline for the 3 papers yourself by the end of this week. If you miss the deadline, you will get 1% off your final score for each day you miss.
• Plan 2: everyone will have the same deadline which is the end of the semester
• Plan 3: The professor set deadlines to be week4, week8 and week12
• Result: Plan3 > Plan1 > Plan2

2.6.4 The Price of Proprietorship

Hui: 这就是之间《清醒思考的艺术》中讲的禀赋效应：我们对自己拥有的东西估值更高

• 为什么多种选择使我们迷失主要目标？
• 例子：项羽破釜沉舟，饿死在草堆间的驴
• 知道这些可预测的非理性并不保证你做出理性的选择。依旧在各种选择中纠结。
• 为什么期待什么就会得到什么?
• 可口可乐凭什么战胜了百事可乐?
• 为什么球迷不承认自己拥护的球队犯规?为什么会产生这么多暴力冲突?是历史、民族、政治方面的原因,还是 我们本性中就存在某些非理性的东西,鼓励我们对抗,引导我们对同一事件,根据自己的立 场而采取完全不同的观察角度呢?

• 为什么加了醋的啤酒贴上“特酿”标签就会大受欢迎?人们的预期是否影响他们对后来 事物的观点——说得更具体一点,酒吧的客人对某种啤酒的预期是否能形成他们对啤酒口 味的评判标准。

2.6.6 Good or Evil

• 有关《圣经》十诫的实验给我印象最深的是那些十条中只能记得一两条的学生和那些十条差不多全记得的 都会受到影响。这就是说鼓励人们诚实的并不是十诫的条文本身,而是出于对某种道德准则的深思。

• 英文“职业”一词来源于拉丁文“professus”,意思是“为公众认可”。高级职业很久 以前起源于宗教后来又传播、扩大到了医学和法律方面。据说,掌握了秘不外传的高深知识 的人,不仅仅垄断了该知识的应用,同时还负有明智地、诚实地使用该种知识的责任。

• 我们擅长于把自己细微的不诚实想法和做法合理化,所以我们 通常很难清楚地确定非金钱事物对作弊的影响
• 只要有机会,人们就会作弊。但奇怪的是我们多数人对此并无察觉。当偷取的是非货币，无形的物品时，不会有道德负担，比如网络盗窃通话时间。

• 点酒顺序对点的酒有影响，大家都想点和之前人不同的。那些注重表现自己独特性的人们更可能点别人没点过的酒,以此来证明自己确实与众不同。人们选择食品和饮料时好像有两个目标:或者给自己带来最大享受,或者在朋友心目中炫耀自己某 些正面的人格特质。 说到底,人们,特别是那些独特需求旺盛的人们,可能牺牲个人需求去换取名声需求。 在标新立异不被视为正面人格特质的文化背景下,人们在大庭广众之下点菜点酒时,有可能表现与群体的归属感,着意刻画与别人选择一致的印象。我们在香港做的实验证明,事实果真如此。在香港,人们常常也不喜欢在公开场合当众点的酒菜,而是喜欢自己私下点的。但是这些参与者点酒点菜时,都跟着群体中的头一个照葫芦画瓢——这样他们就同样犯了使他们后悔的错误。

2.6.7 Free Lunch: an behavior economics explanation

• 传统经济学假定我们都是理性的——我们了解与决定一切有关的信息,我们能够计算所面 临的各种选择的价值,我们能够正确权衡每一种选择中错综复杂的因素,我们对事物的认知 不会遇到阻碍。

• 免费午餐的基本概念就在这里——让有关各方都能获益,做到“共赢”。要注意的是, 这些免费午餐并不一定是没有成本(使用自我控制信用卡和实施“明天多储蓄”不可避免牵 涉到成本)。但只要这些机制换来的利益大于成本,我们应该把它们当做免费午餐——给各 方都带来净效益的机制。

2.6.8 Summary

1. 我们的知觉和决策环境是通过眼、耳、味觉和触觉, 还有主宰一切思想的大脑,经过过滤才形成的。等到我们对信息作了理解和消化,它已经不 一定是现实的真实反映了。相反,它只是我们对现实的诠释,而它就是我们形成决策的基础。 从本质上来说,我们被自然赋予的工具所限制,我们决策的方式又受限于这些工具的质量与 精确程度。
2. 尽管非理性司空见惯,但并不是说我们都不可救药了。一旦我们明 白了自己的错误决定会发生在什么时间,起源自什么地方,就可以提高警惕,强制自己从不 同角度、用不同方式重新考虑这些决定,或者用科技手段来克服与生俱来的缺点。企业决策 者们也可以在这些方面改变他们的思维方式,考虑怎样制定政策,设计产品,创造免费午餐。

2.7 The paradox of choice [选择的悖论, Barry Schwartz]

Hui:作者Barry Schwartz主要讨论的悖论是：更多的选择和自由并不能带来更大的幸福。那些总是想要做出最优选择的人可能拥有更大的世俗眼中的成功，但那些满足于“足够好”的选择的人更快乐。其中涉及到人们做出选择时受到的锚定效应，框架效应，易得性偏差等的影响。在身份的焦虑中，阿兰.德波顿也有提到更多的自由其实也是产生焦虑的原因之一。

2.7.1 自由的重担

• 大名鼎鼎的政治哲学家Isaiah Berlin提出一个重要观点，他把自由划分为消极自由（negative liberty）和积极自由（positive liberty）。消极自由是一种“不做”（liberty from）的自由，人们有免受他人强制的自由，不按他人意愿来做事的自由。而积极自由是一种“去做”（liberty to）的自由，做自己生活的主人，让自己的生活变得更有意义、更有分量。

• 如果人类是理性的，那么增加选项就会让社会更美好。那些在意自己有没有选择权的人会从中获益，而那些不在乎选择权的人可以自觉忽略这些多余的选项。这种观点在理论上很有说服力，不过在现实中却行不通。

• 选择过多不仅使人们做决定的过程更艰难，因而感到更沮丧，还会让最终被选中的“幸运儿”魅力大减，导致满足感更低。

• 在这个缺乏监督的时代，如果你持续使用某个产品而不考虑其他选择，结果可能是，你将会长期支付更高昂的价格来买一样的服务。

2.7.2 是什么在操控你的行为

• peak-end-rule: 我们对过去体验的记忆由两种因素决定，事情达到极限（最好或最坏）时我们的感受，以及事情结束后我们的感受。

• 逻辑和记忆的鸿沟说明，我们实际上没有想象中那么了解自己。

• availability heuristic: 人们的判断推理过程常常受到可获得的记忆的影响，倾向于认为容易想起的事件比不容易想起的事件更常见。

• framing effect: 同一个问题的两种逻辑意义相似的说法会导致不同的决策判断，当消费者认为某一价格带来的是“损失”而非“收益”时，他们对价格就非常敏感。

• 当决定自己的收益时，人们倾向于规避风险，都有风险厌恶症。而当人们面对损失时，一个个都变得极具冒险精神，都是寻求风险的冒险家。

• psychological accounts：人的头脑中存在一种心理账户，会讲现实中客观等价的支出或收益在心理上划分到不同的账户中，做出不同的决策。

• law of diminish marginal utility：当人们连续消费同一种物品或服务时，其总效用虽然在增加，但边际效应，既每单位物品或服务带来的效用增加量却在递减。

• endowment effect: 人们更愿意持有自己已经拥有的东西，而不愿意用它交换另一个可能更好的替代物。

• 即便只需要考虑有限几个选项，人们也就容易犯错。而随着选择的数量和复杂度的上升，人们犯错的可能性就会不断增大。没有人有时间和精力对每个选项仔细琢磨、全面推敲，随着需要做的决定和选择的数量越来越大，决策难度会大大增加。

• 选项越多，付出越多，犯错就会让人更痛苦。选项增加会产生3个相互关联的不幸后果：
1. 需要付出更多努力来做选择；
2. 犯错的可能性更大
3. 犯错会造成更大的负面影响
• 满足者最终会为很不错的选择感到满意，而最大化者追求的是绝对的最佳选择。我相信最大化者追求的目标正是导致他们不满的根源，尤其是在一个方方面面选择都多如牛毛的社会。虽然最大化者总是朝着“最好”努力，但几乎永远无法对最终的选择感到满意，因此，最大化者可能更容易成功，但满足者更容易幸福。
1. 最大化者对好事的感觉没满足者那么强烈，对坏事的应对能力也没有满足者那么强。
2. 坏事发生后，最大化者要经历较长的时间才能恢复。
3. 最大化者比满足者花更多的时间深思熟虑。
• 所谓的最佳选择根本不存在。

2.7.3 行为经济学背后的心理奥秘

• learned helplessness: 当人或者动物接连不断地遭受挫折，就会丧失控制感，感到自己对一切都无能为力，陷入一种无助的心理状态。

• 可以毫不夸张地说，我们最基本的幸福感在很大程度上正是基于我们对环境的控制能力，以及是否知道自己拥有这种能力。

1. 随着选择和控制的体验越发广泛而深入，人们对选择和控制的期望也在增加。对控制的渴望和期待也总是跑在现实的前面，无论有多大的自由都无法完全满足。
2. 更多的选择并不意味着更多的控制。当选择增加到某个临界点时，我们反而会感到无力应对。

• 要在选择自由与承诺忠诚之间获得平衡简直是不可能的任务。… 那些热爱选择和行动自由的人就应该远离错综复杂的关系；那些看重稳定和忠诚的人就应该努力追求它。

• 如果“限制”可以接纳有限的自由，“自由”也可以受到一定的“限制”，人们就会逐渐变聪明，懂得衡量什么才是适度的限制。

• “需要”和“喜欢”其实是由两个完全不同的大脑系统掌管的，两个系统之间可以写作，但大部分时间是单独运作的。

• 最终决定决策质量的是人们做选择时的主观感受。如果选项数目多到会让主观满意度降低，我们的感觉往往更加糟糕。

• 消极情绪导致注意力范围缩小，无法全面考虑影响选择的各个因素。相反，心情越好，思维就越灵活，能考虑到更多的可能性。

• 如果选项增加，被拒选项的优点就会强化，导致最终选定的选项带来的满意度降低。

• 考虑机会成本时作出明智选择的必经之路。

• 最容易说出来的原因并不一定是真正重要的。但是话一旦说出口，它的重要性就会陡然增加。

• 想说明分析过后再做决定很容易犯错。随着选择数目的增加，做决定时要做的价值判断也增多了。尽管千方百计挤出的理由可能让你的决定在当下显得十分正确，但长远看来没什么特别大的好处。

• 作出重大选择之所以困难，可能就是因为它们时不可逆转的。婚姻没有退货保证，职业亦然。任何改变都意味着巨大的代价——时间、经历、情感和金钱。

• postdecision regret V.S. anticipated regret: 决定后懊悔是做了某个决定后，因为结果不理想而产生的后悔。预期性懊悔是指做选择之前，因为预计到结果不好或者还有更好的选择而感到后悔。

• omission bias: 人们更容易接受由于自己的忽略或不作为导致的损失，而不愿意接受自己的行为导致的同等损失。

2.8 [随机漫步的傻瓜，Taleb, Nassim Nicholas]

“存活着偏差”也叫“墓地理论”，我们通常只关注那些显而易见的样本，却常常忽视那些没有机会出现的样本。

1. 避免路径依赖

1. 学会屏蔽噪音

2.9 Black Swan [黑天鹅, Taleb, Nassim Nicholas]

2.9.1 Prologue

• The inability to predict outliers implies the inability to predict the course of history.

• I disagree with the followers of Marx and Adam Smith: the reason free markets work is because they allow people to be lucky, thanks to aggressive trial and error, not by giving rewards or “incentives” for skill.

Hui: what doesn’t allow people to be lucky?

• We do not spontaneously learn that we don’t learn what we don’t learn.

Hui: Similar as “we don’t know that we don’t know”.

• We humans are not just a superficial race (this may be curable to some extent); we are a very unfair one.

• Platonicity is what makes us think that we understand more than we actually do.

Hui: what you know << what you think you know (I agree). Even I so clearly know that I AM STUPID, still what I know << what I think I know……I wish I could learn more. The feeling of ignorance bothered me so much but now I consider it as my life-time friend. Because I don’t see any hope I can not being ignorant, I think it is a better idea just be friend with it. My goal now change to be less ignorant today than yesterday.

Part One: How we seek validation

1. 平均斯坦的世界：虽然事情也是不确定的，但是这些事件里，每个单独事件的不确定性结果，对总体的影响并不大。
2. 极端斯坦的世界：任何一个单一个体，都有可能对整体结果产生颠覆性的影响。本书提到的黑天鹅事件，就大量发生在极端斯坦的世界里，一个极端结果的出现能够极大地改变这个世界的结果。

• 在平均斯坦里工作：不会一夜暴富，但风险非常小，特别稳定。比如医生
• 在极端斯坦里工作：容易一夜暴富，也容易瞬间失去一切，风险特别大。比如股票交易员。

2.9.2 The apprenticeship of an empirical skeptic

apprenticeship /ə’prɛntɪʃɪp /

• The human mind suffers from 3 ailments as it comes into contact with history (triplet of opacity):
1. the illusion of understanding, or how everyone thinks he knows what is going on in a world that is more complicated (or random) than they realize [了解世界的幻觉]

Hui: 我们以为我们生活的世界比它实际上更加可理解，可解释，可预测。

2. the retrospective distortion, or how we can assess matters only after the fact, as if they were in a rearview mirror (history seems clearer and more organized in history books than in empirical reality) [马后炮偏差]

Hui: 我们太容易马后炮了。很多发生过的事情尽管当时感觉很疯狂，但是回过头看就没有那么疯狂。我们总能够将历史事件通过某种因果关系串联起来。作者认为这种事后合理性在表面上降低了事件的稀有性，并使事件看上去具有可理解性。之后作者提出：“历史不会爬行，只会跳跃[History does not crawl, it jumps]”。 作者认为我们的头脑是超强解释机器，介乎可以从任何事物中分析出道理，还不愿意接受不可预测的事实。“Our minds are wonderful explanation machines, capable of making sense out of almost anything, capable of mounting explanations for all manner of phenomena, and generally incapable of accepting the idea of unpredictability”

3. the overvaluation of factual information and the handicap of authoritative and learned people, particularly when they create categories—when they “Platonify” [高估事实实际信息的价值]

Hui: The retrospective distortion reminds me a quote from Mark Twain: “Get your facts first, then you can distort them as you please.” : )

Hui: 我们倾向于简化事物，难以避免叙述谬误，这点我同意。但这无法改变？这是一个物种的局限。因为我们的脑子能够处理的信息非常有限。假设我们接受这种现状，那么下一个问题就是，该怎么办？我目前的答案是：首先需要认识到这一点。不可避免无知是一回事，对自己无知的无知是另外一回事。我们需要意识到很多事情我们不知道，这听起来好像没有任何新意，谁不知道世界很大未知很多，知道是一回事，理解是另外一回事。很多概念看上去相似，实际上有本质的区别，这些区别的影响很大，但却难以察觉，理解它们需要时间，努力和勇气。认识到这一点之后，我们需要最大限度的探明有哪些事情是我们不知道，哪些我们无法估计，哪些我们无法控制，这样我们对自己的叙述在多大程度上简化了真相会有更好的了解，虽然我们永远无法完美估计自己的无知，但我们可以不断的加深自己的认识。这会帮助我们避免很多因为过于天真的认为简化版的故事就是事实而导致的灾难。

• History and societies do not crawl. They make jumps. They go from fracture to fracture, with a few vibrations in between…These kinds of discontinuities in the chronology of events did not make the historian’s profession too easy: the studious examination of the past in the greatest of detail does not teach you much about the mind of History; it only gives you the illusion of understanding it….We are just a great machine for looking backward, and that humans are great at self-delusion.

Hui: 作者指出历史不是连续的而是跳跃的，而人类的解释性思维将这些事件自行用因果关系连接起来，造成了理解历史的幻觉。作者使用了黎凡特（Levant）基督教传播的例子。罗马编年史学家（chronicler）对基督教在这一区域的传播的历史记录有断层。

• Of the millions of small facts that prevail before an event occurs, only a few will turn out to be relevant later to your understanding of what happened. Because your memory is limited and filtered, you will be inclined to remember those data that subsequently match the facts [在一个历史事件发生之前存在无数个事实，其中只有很少一部分会在后来你对历史事件的理解中有帮助。因为你的记忆有限且是被过滤的，所以你会倾向于记住那些事后看来与事实相符的信息。]

• Categorizing always produces reduction in true complexity. It is a manifestation of the Black Swan generator … It drives us to a misunderstanding of the fabric of the world…My idea is that not only are some scientific results useless in real life, because they underestimate the impact of the highly improbable (or lead us to ignore it), but that many of them may be actually creating Black Swans.

Hui: 作者认为分类简化了事物（就是柏拉图化platonicity），这个过程主观忽略了不确定性，某种程度上促进了黑天鹅事件的产生。我觉得这样最多只能说使我们在黑天鹅事件面前更加脆弱，而你无法确定什么事情“促进”黑天鹅事件的发生，因为这种事件根据定义本来就是不可预测的，发生只是概率问题而无法追溯原因。作者批判很多科学研究，说这些结果的广泛传播应用促使了黑天鹅事件的发生。我很怀疑这一点。并不是说作者的批判没有道理，科学研究建立在一些现实生活很难满足的假设条件之上，对于一些科学研究应用的价值是否有人们想的那么大，确实是个疑问。但黑天鹅事件的本身好比是在我们控制的维度之外，它能够影响我们，但我们却无法影响它。所以我赞同作者指责一些科学结果“推动”黑天鹅事件。即使作者所指责的这些所谓错误的科学结果的应用全部停止，意外还是会发生，只不过是被新的意外取代。talk is cheap! 这是我工作近3年最大的感受。3年前的自己批评很多的事情，但没有意识到自己其实也想不出更好的解决方法。

• To be genuinely empirical is to reflect reality as faithfully as possible; to be honorable implies not fearing the appearance and consequence of being outlandish.

Hui: During application, it is necessary to be empirical. The author has very good points. However I wish he could have criticized others in a softer way. The next sentence after this one is not nice… I recalled the times when I said hard words to others, when I was too sharp without considering others feeling. I felt bad about myself. Please remember you are not perfect and bear with each other when you have to (I just say to myself).

2.9.3 Extremistan and Mediocristan

Hui: 这章原来的名字是：The speculator[投机家] and prostitute，挺无厘头的，还是Extremistan and Mediocristan好些。什么导致了引爆点（tipping point）？

• Beaware the scalable! A scalable profession is good only if you are successful; they are more competitive, produce monstrous inequalities, and are far more random, with huge disparities between efforts and rewards….There are two categories of professions:
1. driven by the mediocre, the average and the middle-of-the-road. The mediocre is collectively consequent.
2. has either giants or dwarves——a very small number of giants and a huge number of dwarves [收入具有突破性的职业只有在你成功的时候对你是最好的。这样的职业竞争更激烈，导致更大的不平均，不确定性，在努力和回报之间存在巨大差异。…有一种分类是受中庸、平均和中间路线驱使的，其中中庸力量整体而言具有很大影响。在另一种分类中，要么是巨人，要么是侏儒，更精确地说，是非常少的巨人和大量的侏儒。]
• America is currently far more creative than these nations of museumgoers and equation solvers. It is also far more tolerant of bottom-up tinkering and undirected trial and error. And globalization has allowed the United States to specialize in the creative aspect of things, the production of concepts and ideas, that is, the scalable part of the products and increasingly, by exporting jobs, separate the less scalable components and assign them to those happy to be paid by hours.

• The supreme law of Mediocristan: When your sample is large, no single instance will significantly change the aggregate or the total.
• Extremistan: inequalities are such that one single observation can disproportionately impact the aggregate or the total

2.9.9 The ludic fallacy: the uncertainty of the nerd

Part Two: We just can’t predict

1. 是过度寻找因果关系。

（《思考，快与慢》中提到，大脑特别喜欢寻找因果关系，这跟大脑储存信息的方式有关系。通过寻找因果关系，大脑能够达到对信息“简化分类”的目的，这样才可以储存海量的信息。）

1. 用经验来推测未来

1. 历史上虽然有很多黑天鹅，但是我们看不到。

2.9.13 What do you do if you can’t predict?

Part Three: Those gray swans of extremistan

2.9.18 The uncertainty of the phony

Part Four: The end

2.11 The Smarter Screen [Shlomo Benartzi]

Surprising ways to influence and improve online behavior

2.11.1 Introduction to the mental screen

Some key words: inattention blindness, neuro-economists, cognitive taxes, shortage of attention

• Focus on the mental, not the physical, screen
• Factor in the attention environment
• Use information compression techniques
• Incorporate attention filters

Human attention has become the sweet crude oil for the 21st century. Wealth is generated by those who control attention.

• Money chases scarcity
• Exorbitant commission of OTAs
• Apple is the most valuable company in the world according to its market capitalization

• It doesn’t matter how much data you throw up onto the screen—we can notice only about 4 bits of it. The rest is noise. Wasted pixels.

Experiment: 7 digits (63% chose the cake) v.s. 2 digits (41% chose the cake)

a shortage of cognitive resources can also help explain the poor decision making of those living in poverty. Studies show that people of lower socioeconomic status are less likely to adhere to drug regimens, less likely to slow up on time or keep an appointment, less focused at work, and worse at financial planning. While conventional explanations focus on a lack of education as the root cause, the scientist focus on “the mental processes required by poverty.” They argue that being poor is an all-consuming condition and that a “preoccupation with pressing budgetary concerns” leaves people with fewer attentional resources to make long-term plans. “Poverty Impedes Cognitive Function

• If a few extra numbers are enough to sway us to choose chocolate cake, then how are we affected by a world in which our screens are always alerting us to new emails and texts and hyperlinks? ……psychologist found that simply having an unread e-mail in your inbox is so distracting that it reduces your effective IQ score by roughly 10 points.

Inattention blindness occurs when the amount of information streaming into the brain exceeds our ability to process it.

A study by neuro-economists: consumers making food choices under a heavy “cognitive load” were far more likely to choose items that were easy to perceive, even if they conflicted with their actual food preference.

Possible solutions:

1. Compression: although we could pay attention to only a few bits of information at any given moment, we were also capable of chunking those bits together. Chunking was typically a by-product of experience. Accelerating chunking process is possible. [use visual instead of words]
2. Leave information out: always try to strip away everything but the essential

Experiment: UCLA, give women smartphones capable of tracking movement and pinging them with health-related questions, healthier life Author’s opinion: technology can help at the margins and reduce the magnitude of some very costly societal problems (properly take medication, quit smoking, prevent drunk driving, etc.)

A/B testing: sometimes lead to significant insights, even if the changes themselves are relatively simple.

Hui: how people design the change to test?

There is nothing inherently scary about scarcity. One of the basic premises of economics is that scarcity is an inevitable by-product of progress. As Adam Smith pointed out in The Wealth of Nations:

nature might be able to satisfy the wants of brutes and animals, but human beings seek constant improvement, which leads to recurring shortages.

2.11.2 Function Follows Form

Key words: subliminal priming

• Maximize visceral beauty
• When in doubt, err on the side of simplicity

Fast aesthetics: we seem to render verdicts about the appeal of a website very quickly. These verdicts stay the same even when we have given far more time. We know that we like before we even know what we are looking at.

Assumption: screens exaggerate fast verdicts generated by the unconscious brain. It makes us more impulsive and reactive.

Finding: online clicks don’t last for long. 55% visitors spend less than 15s reading an article.

Insight: the average Web visitor isn’t carefully assessing the content — they are just reacting to their first impression, making a quick decision to engage or look away…… We have traded away depth for speed.

Modeling beauty: the most relevant aesthetic features are colorfulness and visual complexity

Demographics impact aesthetic preference:

1. 40, more visually complicated web, text-heavy and featured many distinct text groups, less saturated colors

2. young, sites with saturated color and larger images

Look of trust: aesthetics affect perceptions of usability prettier cell phone

In the age of screen, there is nothing superficial about beauty

2.11.3 Display Biases

• Optimize the use of hot spots
• Avoid cold spots
• Consider cultural differences in hotspot location
• Factor in the horizontal bias
• Sometimes zoom out, not it

2.11.4 New Mirror

• Calibrate the amount of feedback
• Use just-in-time education
• Leverage the fresh start effect
• Make us feel the feedback
• Use carrots (and not sticks) whenever possible
• Be aware of social media conformity effects
• Take screen anonymity into account
• Empower feedback with an action plan

2.11.5 Desirable difficulty

• Consider ugly fonts (and other forms of visual disfluency)
• Use cognitive disfluency to slow the mind down
• Calibrate disfluency to fit your site’s goals

Exp:

• A: Laptop note-taking more likely to take - “verbatim” notes on the lecture.
• B: Hand notes were forced to summarize the content
• B engaged with the material at a deeper level.

Need to consider the demand for cognitive ease (complete a transaction, make a quick purchase) v.s. benefits of desirable difficulty (learning and memory)

2.11.6 Digital tailoring

• Use personalized visuals and videos
• Tailor the timing of messages
• Tailor the menus to each individual
• Offer more than one Web site
• Remember: too much personalization can backfire

2.11.7 Choice opportunity

• Offer a manageable consideration set
• Personalize categories
• Incorporate choice tournaments
• Manage regret with choice closure
• Maximize satisfaction, not clicks

2.11.8 Thinking apps

• Set the right information environment
• Offer thinking tools

2.15 Mind Wide Open [心思大开]

• 大脑是人类文明的开始，所以文明是大脑生物学的分支。

• 我们的行为受到内在分泌化学物质的影响，我们感受到的情绪其实是身体中生理和化学物质的总和。

• 大脑中充满了零和游戏，一项卓越的能力往往要以另一项低下的能力为代价。

• 千百万年来，我们进化出一个中央神经系统，它会记录创伤事件的细节，并在再次遇到这个细节时送出系统警报。这套神经回路帮助我们的祖先在自然界生存下来，并将他们的基因遗传下去。

• 快乐的情绪可以使前额叶变得活跃，悲伤的情绪则使其活跃性降低，所以在心情不好时，大脑的联想能力会降低。

• 有良好监控注意力的人经常可以把一些我们平常会关注的信息关掉，使其不对自己造成干扰。

• 要思考，需要忘掉一些差异，去抽取异同。如果执迷于细节，就看不见整体。

• 大脑并非像旧式的台式电脑一样有一个中央处理器，它是很多个次系统的组合，这些次系统又被称为“模块”，它们各有各的专长，相互竞争……大脑是一个生态系统，模块之间既竞争又合作，这是一个弱肉强食的地方。

• 大脑经常表现出情绪一致性，当处于某个情绪状态时，它很自动地勾起许多与此情绪相似的过去回忆……人们偏向于寻找与目前情绪状态相似的回忆，而不是平衡外界的刺激。

• 我们越了解本性（先天），我们越能改进自己（后天）。

【案例】

【案例】

⒈人类的优势在于我们是唯一研究自己和其他事物，并且在研究的过程中产生知识，完好无损地传播开来的物种；我们能改变自己，用戴眼镜、植入和手术等方式弥补自己的缺陷，从而改变自然选择的规律；我们彻底改变自己所在的环境，使我们能在任何地方居住；我们使用工具制造工具，使工具变得更强大，能解决更多更困难的问题；我们不断寻找更复杂的问题的解决方案，这让我们自己的能力也随之增长；我们创造描述知识的方法，让后人学习知识时不再需要直接的演示—这些都使我们变得特别。虽然所有需要的认知能力都不是人类独有的，我们应用这些认知能力的复杂性和灵活性显然是其他任何物种难以望其项背的。

1. 我进行了一项名为“你了解你的大脑吗”的调查，其中一个问题是“我们仅使用了大脑的10%”，60%接受过大学教育的里约本地人的答案为“是”，我对此感到非常震惊。我在流行科学杂志甚至宣传片中都看到过这个易使人上当的描述，但是从没预料到它在公众的意识中如此根深蒂固——而且这个说法还是虚构的。我们在任何时候都需要使用整个脑子，我们学习和进步，成就伟大的事业，甚至在睡觉时都使用了100%的脑子，只是使用的方式不同。

2. 我们已经到达这个位置，我们中只有极少的人主宰了现在的技术。谁知道怎么融化和加工金属？更不用说用它来从头制造一辆汽车、一部手机或者一台电脑。能自称科学家甚至不等于我知道怎么制作一支简单的铅笔。当今技术中的很多不再掌握于一个个体。我们夸口从古希腊以来走了很长的路—但是我们不再同时是建筑学、生物学和理学专家。这就是为什么科学（知识）和技术（工艺）必须被小心地栽培、记录和传授给下一代。拥有令人瞩目的大脑皮层神经元数量从而能达到令人瞩目的成就是不够的：我们站立于前人的肩膀之上，并且现在我们这一物种的成就作为一个整体远远超过任何一个个体。人类很久以来就超越了个人。它自强化地匹配了我们大脑皮层中惊人数量的神经元促成的技术发明和文化传播，后者又将我们的性能成形为能力，并让我们成为人——无论情况好还是坏。

2.17 Spark

The revolutionary new science of exercise and the brain

2.17.1 A case study

Physical activity sparks biological changes that encourage brain cells to bind to one another.

Exercise provides an unparalleled stimulus, creating an environment in which the brain is ready, willing and able to learn. Aerobic activity has a dramatic effect on adaptation, regulating systems that might be out of balance and optimizing those that are not.

The ability to stop and consider a response, to use the experience of a wrong choice as a guide in making the next decision, relates to executive function, which is controlled by the prefrontal cortex.

2.17.2 Learning: grow your brain cells

Exercise influences learning at the cellular level, improving the brain’s potential to log in and process new information.

The brain is flexible, or plastic … The more you use it, the stronger and more flexible it becomes.

The brain is made up of one hundred billion neurons of various types that chat with one another by way of hundreds of different chemicals, to govern our every thought and action … The junction between cell branches is the synapse.


text:
# A sufficient condition for order isomorphism of posets?

Let $\mathfrak{A}$ be a poset. For $a, b \in \mathfrak{A}$ we will denote $a \not\asymp b$ if only if there are a non-least element $c$ such that $c \leqslant a \wedge c \leqslant b$.

Let $\mathfrak{A}$, $\mathfrak{B}$ are posets. I call a pointfree funcoid a pair $\left( \alpha ; \beta \right)$ of functions $\alpha : \mathfrak{A} \rightarrow \mathfrak{B}$, $\beta : \mathfrak{B} \rightarrow \mathfrak{A}$ such that $$\forall x \in \mathfrak{A}, y \in \mathfrak{B}: \left( y \not\asymp^{\mathfrak{B}} \alpha \left( x \right) \Leftrightarrow x \not\asymp^{\mathfrak{A}} \beta \left( y \right) \right) .$$

Conjecture If $\left( \alpha ; \beta \right)$ is a pointfree funcoid and $\alpha$ is a bijection $\mathfrak{A} \rightarrow \mathfrak{B}$, then $\alpha$ is an order isomorphism $\mathfrak{A} \rightarrow \mathfrak{B}$.

A weaker conjecture:

Conjecture If $\left( \alpha ; \beta \right)$ is a pointfree funcoid and $\alpha$ is a bijection $\mathfrak{A} \rightarrow \mathfrak{B}$ and $\beta$ is a bijection $\mathfrak{B} \rightarrow \mathfrak{A}$, then $\alpha$ is an order isomorphism $\mathfrak{A} \rightarrow \mathfrak{B}$.

If these conjectures are false, what additional conditions we may add to make them true? (Maybe, these are true for lattices? distributive lattices?)

-

Both conjectures are false for infinite posets. Take for instance any bijections of sets $\alpha,\beta$ ($\beta=\alpha^{-1}$ works fine) between $\mathbb{Z}$ and $\mathbb{Q}$. Because for all $m,n\in\mathbb{Z}$ and for all $r,s\in\mathbb{Q}$ we always have $m\asymp n$ and $r\asymp s$, there is really no condition imposed on $\alpha$ and $\beta$, but neither can be an order isomorphism.

Maybe the answer is affirmative if you look at finite posets.

-

Let $\mathfrak{A}$ is a poset, let $\star a=\{ x\in\mathfrak{A} | x\not\asymp a \}$.

I will call a poset $\mathfrak{A}$ separable when $\star a=\star b \Leftrightarrow a=b$ for every $a,b\in\mathfrak{A}$.

Theorem Let $\left( \alpha ; \beta \right)$ is a pointfree funcoid from a separable poset $\mathfrak{A}$ to a separable poset $\mathfrak{B}$. If $\alpha$ is an injection, then $\alpha$ is an order embedding $\mathfrak{A} \rightarrow \mathfrak{B}$.

Proof Suppose $x \geqslant y$ but $\alpha (x) \ngeqslant \alpha (y)$.

Then by separability of $\mathfrak{B}$ there exist $z \not\asymp \alpha (y)$ such that $z \asymp \alpha (x)$.

Thus $\beta (z) \asymp x$ and $\beta (z) \not\asymp y$ what is impossible for $x \geqslant y$. $\Box$

Corollary Let $\left( \alpha ; \beta \right)$ is a pointfree funcoid from a separable poset $\mathfrak{A}$ to a separable poset $\mathfrak{B}$. If $\alpha$ is a bijection $\mathfrak{A} \rightarrow \mathfrak{B}$, then $\alpha$ is an order isomorphism $\mathfrak{A} \rightarrow \mathfrak{B}$.

-
Err, both posets $\mathfrak{A}$ and $\mathfrak{B}$ need to be separable. Corrected. –  porton Jun 20 '12 at 17:40

format: plain


text:
# Given $f\in L^1(\mathbb{R})$ with $\|f\|_1<\infty$ and $g_n=\sqrt{n/2\pi}e^{-nx^2/2},f_n=g_n\ast f$, show that $\lim\|f_n-f\|_1=0$

Given $f$ a Lebesgue integrable function on $\mathbb{R}$ with finite $L^1$-norm, I am asked to show that $\lim_{n\to\infty} \|f_n - f\|_1 = 0$, where $f_n = f \ast g_n$ and $g_n = \sqrt{\frac{n}{2\pi}}e^{-nx^2/2}$.

A first thought was to use that $\int_\mathbb{R}\int_\mathbb{R} f\ast g = (\int_\mathbb{R} f)(\int_\mathbb{R} g)$, but am unable to manipulate the integrand into a form where that property of convolution is useful:

\begin{align} \|f_n - f\|_1 &= \int_\mathbb{R} |f_n(x) - f(x)| \, dx \\ &= \int_\mathbb{R} \bigg| \left( \int_\mathbb{R} g_n(x - y) f(y) \, dy \right) - f(x) \bigg| \, dx \end{align}

I do know that for each $n$, $\|g_n\|_1 = 1$ (it is a normalized Gaussian integral). On the other hand, $\lim_{n\to\infty} g_n(x) = 0$ for all $x \in \mathbb{R} \setminus \{0\}$; since both $f$ and $g_n$ are integrable, the inner integral on the last line above would go to zero by the Lebesgue dominated convergence theorem, wouldn't it? But that would give $\lim\|f-f_n\|_1 = \|f\|_1$.

It feels as though I am approaching this problem from the wrong direction and am unsure of how to proceed.

• When you know what your result is called, it is usually not so hard to find a proof of it. Unfortunately this result itself does not have a standard name, but it is associated to two important terms: "approximate identity" and "mollifier". Knowing that, I googled and found numerous results, including andromeda.rutgers.edu/~loftin/ra1fal10/mollifier.pdf. These notes essentially prove a generalization of your result as Theorem 3 (stated on page 5). – Ian Apr 21 '15 at 4:18
• All that is left to do after their result is to show that if $f_n$ converges uniformly on compact subsets to $f \in L^1$ then $f_n$ converges in the sense of $L^1$ to $f$. But this is not too difficult; you find compact $K$ so that $\| f_n\|_{L^1(K^c)}$ is small independent of $n$ (Royden and Fitzpatrick call the ability to do this tightness) and then you take $n$ large enough that $\| f_n - f \|_K$ is small. – Ian Apr 21 '15 at 4:23
• But $g_n$ is not compactly supported and hence it is not a mollifier, as per the definition in your link. – user233107 Apr 21 '15 at 4:47
• You're right. I think that just means you need an additional approximation: $\| f_n - f \| = \| f_n - f_{n,m} + f_{n,m} - f \| \leq \| f_n - f_{n,m} \| + \| f_{n,m} - f \|$, where $f_{n,m}$ is supported in $[-m,m]$. – Ian Apr 21 '15 at 5:08
• Then we lose that $\int_\mathbb{R} g_n(x) \, dx = 1$, i.e., $\int_{-m}^m g_n(x) \, dx \neq 1$ for all $m \in \mathbb{R}$. – user233107 Apr 21 '15 at 5:12


text:
# Weird servo mechanism

I want to use a servo taken by a radio-controlled car. However, I found out that wheels' rotation (front wheels) is not performed by a servo, but from a motor to move the wheels and a mechanism for control, into a steering box.

Specifically, there are 2 wires (red/black) that connect controller board with a motor. Motor communicates with a set of gears.

Control (this is the part I can't figure out) is performed by 4 wires, that end up to a simple circuit. Depending on which wire transfers electrical current, it's conductive area has current too. Set of gears that motor communicates with, connects to this circuit with 4 metallic cyclic endpoints.

Does anyone know how exactly control is performed? Is important to decode the operating mode, as I intend to use mechanism for another implementation.

• Looks like a contact-/conduction-based encoder to me. – Ignacio Vazquez-Abrams Nov 7 '13 at 7:13

Looks like a gray code rotary encoder. There is a nice tutorial here of a two output version. Good to wrap your head around.

You've got four outputs, so it's a four bit gray encoder. There are some truth tables of those outputs here and shown below.

But, now that you know what you're looking for you'll find a plethora of information. It'll make your head spin...

• I 'm trying to figure out the way motor and control mechanism communicate. If I 'm correct, each time I send a signal for control, I apply power to motor too, which power has effect until the 4-bit condition isn't true. – dempap Nov 7 '13 at 9:34
• I think supply pins are those that end up to the motor. Motor communicates with the 4 metallic cyclic endpoints through a set of gears (if motor spins, these 4 spikes spin and consequently servo horn also. I admit I can't understand how motor and control interconnect. Let's assume I want to rotate horn. I have to power on the motor and send the appropriate signal, through the 4 wires, am I write? (new image has been added) – dempap Nov 7 '13 at 20:46
• @dempap Not quite. The motor is powered separately, and will spin as long as you tell it to. The four wires are there to detect the location of the servo horn. Because this is a four bit encoder you have 16 positions you can detect (4^2). Check the diagram above, it decodes the output values from the four wires into a position in the range of rotation, for the diagram, that's 360 degrees. Measure the values, then check the diagram, there is only one spot out of the 16 that matches that combination; now you know where the servo is positioned. – Samuel Nov 7 '13 at 22:24
• With this in mind, the 4 wires are working as a type of feedback. I can't send a signal through them, I just receive via their output values, the servo horn position. – dempap Nov 8 '13 at 14:04
• @dempap That is correct. – Samuel Nov 8 '13 at 17:58

I'm playing with one of these too.

2 wires for the DC motor. Reverse polarity to change direction.

4 wires for the encoder, giving you 5x unique positions.

1. Far left (A connected to D and B connected to C)
2. Left (A connected to D)
3. Middle (no connections)
4. Right (B connected to D)
5. Far right (B connected to D and A connected to C)

I came up with this method for reading the position. There is probably a more efficient method, but this worked for me.

1. Connect A,B,C,D to digital pins.
2. Setup A,B as input with pull-down (so they read LOW when floating).
3. Setup C,D as output.
4. loop()
5. Set C=LOW and D=HIGH
6. Read A and B (as A1,B1)
7. Set C=HIGH and D=LOW
8. Read A and B (as A2,B2)
A1    A2    B1    B2    Position
HIGH  LOW   LOW   HIGH  1 Far left
HIGH  LOW   LOW   LOW   2 Left
LOW   LOW   LOW   LOW   3 Middle
LOW   LOW   HIGH  LOW   4 Right
LOW   HIGH  HIGH  LOW   5 Far right

To use this motor for steering my RC car, I am using a mini L298N H-bridge module. DC in for the motor and IN1 and IN2 to control speed and direction.

Use PWM to adjust DC motor speed and brake once at positions 1, 3 or 5.

IN1   IN2   Mode
PWM   LOW   Rotate left / backwards
LOW   PWM   Rotate right / forwards
LOW   LOW   Off
HIGH  HIGH  Brake