What you are missing is that it isn't the brain that does the information processing. The brain could be completely unbiased yet the reaction would still be biased because the eye itself encodes informati9n in a biased way (i.e. the retina decides which information gets to be sent to the brain, not the brain itself).
Well, if you read the study, the retina is making the decision which signal to code. So, in a sense the retina is "thinking", which is why this study is so important. This is by the way also expressed in statements by the universities where the research was conducted.
The question is if one can call the selective encoding the retina engages in "thinking". I would say no, I would call it filtering based on training.
My mind isn’t blown — it’s actually kind of comforting in a told-you-so kind of way. Or rather told-me-so. I’ve been an amateur student of biases for years. As such, I’ve been more than averagely aware of some of the sources of my systematic mistakes. And yet I continue to repeat them. I’ve long theorised that this is because biases are formed much deeper in our mental subsystems than the conscious top layer. Nice to be able to point to some proof! Thank you for highlighting it.
Well, remember that the act of seeing is a subconscious process in your brain. What makes this stuff fascinating is that the bias isn't even created in the brain...
Fascinating! I wonder if there is any connection to our tendency to look upward while trying to retrieve memories.
“When I try to remember or reflect, the (eye) movements in question, instead of being directed toward the periphery, seem to come from the periphery inward and feel like a sort of withdrawal from the outer world. As far as I can detect, these feelings are due to an actual rolling outward and upward of the eyeballs, such as I believe occurs in me in sleep, and is the exact opposite of their action in fixating a physical thing.” William James,The Principles of Psychology 1890.
This also reminds me of the research done on second languages and processing information , while using a second language, reduces emotional responses to stimuli: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33675396/
What you are missing is that it isn't the brain that does the information processing. The brain could be completely unbiased yet the reaction would still be biased because the eye itself encodes informati9n in a biased way (i.e. the retina decides which information gets to be sent to the brain, not the brain itself).
Well, if you read the study, the retina is making the decision which signal to code. So, in a sense the retina is "thinking", which is why this study is so important. This is by the way also expressed in statements by the universities where the research was conducted.
The question is if one can call the selective encoding the retina engages in "thinking". I would say no, I would call it filtering based on training.
My mind isn’t blown — it’s actually kind of comforting in a told-you-so kind of way. Or rather told-me-so. I’ve been an amateur student of biases for years. As such, I’ve been more than averagely aware of some of the sources of my systematic mistakes. And yet I continue to repeat them. I’ve long theorised that this is because biases are formed much deeper in our mental subsystems than the conscious top layer. Nice to be able to point to some proof! Thank you for highlighting it.
Well, remember that the act of seeing is a subconscious process in your brain. What makes this stuff fascinating is that the bias isn't even created in the brain...
The Duchess knew it in the 19th century already: Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. 😜
Fascinating! I wonder if there is any connection to our tendency to look upward while trying to retrieve memories.
“When I try to remember or reflect, the (eye) movements in question, instead of being directed toward the periphery, seem to come from the periphery inward and feel like a sort of withdrawal from the outer world. As far as I can detect, these feelings are due to an actual rolling outward and upward of the eyeballs, such as I believe occurs in me in sleep, and is the exact opposite of their action in fixating a physical thing.” William James,The Principles of Psychology 1890.
This also reminds me of the research done on second languages and processing information , while using a second language, reduces emotional responses to stimuli: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33675396/