How can you be sure: The Invisible Gorilla

The Invisible Gorilla and Other Ways Our Intuition Deceives Us by Christopher Chabris and Daniel Simons
Harper
Pp. 242

If you were watching a basketball game on television and a person walked onto the court in a gorilla suit, you’d notice, wouldn’t you? Even if you were concentrating on counting the number of passes executed by one of the teams? Apparently not. In a now-famous survey conducted in 1999 by Christopher Chabris and Daniel Simons, half of the subjects didn’t ‘see’ the gorilla, although 75% swore they would have seen it if it had been there. The fact that it was, and they didn’t, has led the two experimenters to investigate the human limits of concentration and assumption of knowledge and ability.

It’s not good news for anyone who talks on a mobile phone (hands free or otherwise) while driving. We only have a limited amount of attention, and if we split its focus, then we are not able to perform either task to full competence.

The book is subtitled ‘And other ways our intuition deceives us’, and these ways are many and varied. Generally we think we are smarter than we are, and the less ability we have, the more confidence we have in it. This illusion of confidence extends to others, as we are more likely to trust someone who expresses absolute certainty, than one who consults their colleagues and considers their opinion. 

This illusion of confidence ties in to the illusion of knowledge, by which we think we know more about a subject than we do. We understand many things on a superficial level, but not at greater depth, because we don’t have to. We may all think we know how a bicycle, a zipper or a toilet works, and this comprehension carries us through life quite adequately. But do we really know how such things operate? Try explaining it in detail and, unless you have had to fix one, you will probably soon come unstuck.

We are also under the illusion that technology is all-powerful. This is evident in examples of people blindly following sat-nav directions until they end up hundreds of miles from where they intended, or in the sea. “Technology can help us to overcome the limits on our abilities, but only if we recognise that any technological aid will have limits too. If we misunderstand the limits of the technology, these aids can actually make us less likely to notice what is around us.”

Part of this confidence trick is the use of ‘neurobabble’, in which scientific terminology is used to lend dubious theories the ring of authenticity. We have long been seduced by talk of the brain’s functioning power, and the myth that we only use 10% of its capacity is commanding. There is a widely-held belief that listening to Mozart makes us more intelligent, and although we like to think we could get smarter by doing nothing, there is no scientific basis for this illusion of potential.

And then there is the illusion of causality: people tend to find the link that suits them, even if there were other factors which have a more influential bearing on the incident, hence conspiracy theories. Because we can relate to the personal rather than the general, we are far more likely to believe an isolated anecdote from a person we know than banks of statistics.

The Invisible Gorilla suggests that we are constantly being duped – often by ourselves – and asks us to question our emotional responses. It’s not so much that everything we know is wrong, as that we don’t know nearly as much as we think we do.

Friday Five: Mornington Peninsula Beaches

It's beautiful down here. Don't just take my word for it, though. Here are some beaches:

5 Fabulous Beaches on the Mornington Peninsula

Beach huts near Rye

Cape Schank

Sorrento

Fisherman's Beach

Point Nepean

Friday Five: Season Launch

Before anyone races to point it out, I know that there are six rather than the usual weekly five, but that's just the way it it goes. Canberra Repertory Society have announced the plays they will be producing for the next season, and I'd like to hear your thoughts. I was on the committee that helped to select the plays, so please don't be too hurtful in your comments.

One factor I would point out is that this is a sub-committee, which recommends a number of plays (15 in this case) to a committee, who decide upon the final plays - nothing is one person's opinion, and I'm sure we all know how committees work. I think each play is a good choice individually. 

6 plays in Canberra Rep's 2016-2017 Season:

1. Uncle Vanya - Anton Chekov (28 April - 14 May)
2. Witness for the Prosecution - Agatha Christie (16 June - 2 July)
3. Macbeth - William Shakespeare (4 - 20 August)
4. She Stoops to Conquer - Oliver Goldsmith (22 September - 8 October)
5. Noises Off - Michael Frayn (17 November - 3 December)
6. Wait until Dark - Frederick Knott (23 February - 11 March)

Let it Rain: The Wife Drought

The Wife Drought by Annabel Crabb

(Ebury Press)

Pp. 255

Annabel Crabb is a political commentator, an author, journalist and television show host. She examines the position of women in the workforce, the inequality of wages, and the perception of parenting in this book, subtitled, ‘Why women need wives, and men need lives’. While she makes some interesting points, all of her examples are drawn from politicians, TV presenters, writers and journalists. The debate is, therefore, heavily skewed towards middle-class professions, making it not really typical of real life for most people.

There is no question that women earn less than men on average, but the reasons for this are less clear. Often women don’t get the higher-paid jobs because they don’t have the experience – but how will they ever gain the experience if they aren’t given the job? Part of the problem is perception. Because there are currently more men in higher-paid positions, the trend is likely to continue. Another part of the problem is that the emergent workforce doesn’t see it as a problem at all, because it isn’t for them. Yet.

Firstly, there is marriage; secondly (in this model, at least), there are children. Each stage makes a difference to a person’s income and status. Until relatively recently (October 1966), legislation forbad married women from working in the public sector. Although things have changed, they are still fairly regressive in the upper echelons of the pay scales. Of the 1192 senior executives (half male; half female) who responded to a ‘Leaders in a Global Economy’ survey, three-quarters of the men had a wife or spouse who didn’t work. Three-quarters of the women had a husband who worked full-time. “The men got wives, in other words. And the women didn’t.”

Having a wife is considered an asset for a worker. Employers tend to see men with wives as more reliable, and remunerate them accordingly. “Marriage, for men, means being paid more money. The phenomenon known as ‘the marriage premium’ is recorded in many countries, and in Australia married men earn on average about 15 per cent more than unmarried ones.”

Stage two: children. “What proportion of nuclear families has a dad who works full-time, and a mum who doesn’t? Sixty per cent. What proportion has a mum who works full-time, with a male ‘wife’? Three per cent.” On the whole, due to earning capacity and public perception, it is the man who goes to work and the woman who remains at home. After all, “A mother who works is a ‘working mother’. A father who works is just a normal guy.” Crabb argues that this situation must change so that men leaving work to look after children has to become considered as normal as women doing it.

Part of the alpha-male culture which needs to change is that currently the man has to be seen to be the major breadwinner. In this corporate world, men are expected to get to the office early and leave late, and are told that weekends are for families. This isn’t the point of this book, but what about people who work in retail/hospitality – any job that isn’t a Monday-Friday; when are they meant to spend time with their family?

The book is well-argued with many statistics, but it is pretty narrow in its focus. Early on, Crabb states that she is going to boil all the arguments down into two simple and broad categories – ‘Men are awful’ and ‘Women are hopeless’ – and then address them. She proceeds to do so, but only those in a particular demographic, which (while pertinent to anyone working in politics), lessens the general nature of the argument.

Friday Five: Hair Histrionics

Last week I coloured my hair (with the help of friends). It is now red. It's taken several days to get used to it, and although I still get a bit of a shock when I see my reflection, I like it. Yes, it's different and a break from my previous look, which I've always tried to keep along the lines of 'natural' and 'subtle', but it's still me. 

I haven't changed at all, obviously, but you would think I have somehow become less human/ sensitive on account of it. While many people tell me they love it (after they have told me I've changed the colour, as if I might not have noticed) I have been amazed by the highly personal, and not exactly diplomatic comments of others.

5 Things people have said to me about my new hair colour:

1. Wow, that's brave.
2. Do you like it? Really? What does your husband think?
3. What made you do that?
4. Don't you think you should try a different shade?
5. That can't be good for you.

So for the record, yes, I do like it. So does Him Outdoors. And that's really all that matters, as far as I'm concerned. And also, so does Niece Niamh, who sent me a text saying, "It looks very good on you." And she's the expert.

Norman Lindsay: Gallery at Faulconbridge

While we were in the Blue Mountains, we went to the Norman Lindsay Gallery at Faulconbridge - the artist's former home. Norman Lindsay (1879 - 1969) is most known for illustrating the Aussie children's classic, The Magic Pudding, but he also painted watercolours, sketched cartoons and made models of ships. The gallery contains many of these.

We were taken on a very lacklustre tour in which the guide didn't seem particularly interested. Lindsay married Catherine (Kate) Agatha Parkinson in 1900, and she operated his heavy and cumbersome printing equipment, encouraged and supported his career, and bore him three sons (Jack: 1900; Raymond: 1903; Philip: 1906). In typical male artist fashion, however, Lindsay began an affair with Rose Soady, who began modelling for him in 1902. By the time he left for London in 1909, Rose had supplanted his wife, and joined him there in 1910. He divorced Kate in 1918 and married Rose in 1920.

The gardens are full of sculptures and fountains featuring suggestive nudes and lewd fawns. None of the women in his artwork look particularly attractive. All of them seem ugly, crudely sexual and aggressively predatory. I didn't really like them, although I appreciated his talent, but Him Outdoors was distinctly unimpressed.

These nudes were highly controversial in their time; when Soady took sixteen crates of his art to the U.S. in 1940 to protect them from the war, they were impounded when the train they were travelling on caught fire, and subsequently burned as pornographic material. He also wrote several books which were banned by the censors, and caused a stir when he wrote such an enduring popular children's book.

In 1994 Sam Neill played a fictionalised version of Lindsay in John Duigan's Sirens, set and filmed mainly at Lindsay's Faulconbridge home. I saw the film at the time and knew nothing of the artist - I thought it was just a sexist piece of soft porn featuring a lot of dripping wet women (including Elle MacPherson in her  film debut) in lakes being leched at by some pervy old bloke. No further comment.

Friday Five: The Mesmeric Magic of Crowds

Following on from last week's Friday Five, I've been thinking about the mesmeric influence of dancing in a club; of the wonderful vibe experienced at a rave. A lot has been written about the brutality of the mob; about how being part of a crowd can make a person lose their individuality and behave in an ugly and anti-social manner. At this point some sort of reference is made to riots, hooliganism and/or the French Revolution. But I think that sometimes crowds can have a beatific influence, and their collective nature can be a force for good. And please stop waving your phone/tablet about and ruining it for everyone else. Aren't you capable of remembering stuff?

5 Times it's good to be part of a crowd:

1. Music/ dancing - as discussed. Of course one can dance with oneself, but the experience is a lot different if there are 'twenty thousand people standing in a field'
2. Theatre/film/sport - A live audience is a wonderful thing. The shared emotion makes a film even more memorable - watching Silence of the Lambs in a cinema where the code of conduct was impeccably observed and everybody jumped at the same instant was unforgettable
3. Battle - That speech of Henry V wouldn't have been so inspiring if no band of brothers were there to listen
4. Church/vigil - Whatever your belief or religion, if you share it publicly with others through song, prayer, or silence, the feeling of togetherness is indescribable
5. Rally/ threat - There is power in a union: The people united will never be defeated