Book Reading #41 - Why We Make Mistakes

Title:
Chapter 2: We All Search for Meaning (18 pages)
Chapter 3: We Connect the Dots (13 pages)

Reference:
Hallinan, Joseph.  Why We Make Mistakes.  Random House, Inc. New York.  2009

Summary:
Chapter 2: We All Search for Meaning

This chapter went through the things that we do and don't remember well.  It pointed out that names are not remembered very well at all, while faces are remembered well.  It points to meaning as the key to remembrance.  Names don't matter to us because they have little meaning to our lives.

Concerning names, we have slip-of-the-tongue mistakes - saying names that are not right when we may be thinking of something else.

The chapter points to mnemonics - making nonsense meaningful.  It gives the example of a runner who figured out he could make meaning out of numbers he saw while running by associating them with running times.

Faces become more meaningful to us when we take a higher critical view of the face.  If we make personal judgments of someone's face, we are more likely to remember it.

Chapter 3: We Connect the Dots

Hallinan says that the things that make us perceive things as we do are not only deep within us, but are automatic.  Concerning faces, people are inclined to pick a pretty face over an ugly face when voting for something.  With strippers, it was found that they make the most money when they are the most fertile.  This is interesting because men cannot consciously tell if a woman is fertile, but somehow, according to these findings, men can subconsciously.

With cost of things, people become more excited and experience a greater pleasure from the same items (wine) if they are priced higher.

In a similar way, in terms of color, dark things are perceived to be stronger and more aggressive while lighter things are weaker and less aggressive.

Studies over the past 70 years show that if we think about changing an answer on a test we should because that is often the better decision, yet we have a deep desire to keep our original answer.  We find responsibility in action greater than inaction, and if we change and get it wrong, we feel more guilty than had we kept our original answer and been wrong.

Discussion:
I have recently very much noticed that I not only have trouble placing names with faces when outside the normal context I see people, but also I simply have trouble remembering a face.  I took the face recognition expert's quote to heart of making personal judgments about a face.  I may try that to see if it helps any.

The fact that it pointed out how we often recognize pretty faces and do not recognize plain, dull, or ugly faces was very sad.

The idea of changing test answers is interesting because in preparing for the SAT myself in high school, I remember being taught to go with my first answer.