Sketchplanations

Explaining one thing a week in a sketch

Cognitive bias, heuristic, logical fallacy: hidden features of the mind - Sketchplanations

Cognitive bias, heuristic, logical fallacy: hidden features of the mind

These terms come around a bit, and I wanted to get them clear in my head so I understood the difference.

Cognitive bias

Cognitive biases are predictable patterns of thought and behaviour leading to incorrect conclusions. Things like anchoring, where we are predictably led astray by the presence of a previous number we have seen.

Heuristic

A heuristic is a mental shortcut to solve common problems. Things like social proof, how if others seem to like something that’s a shortcut for "we’ll probably like it."

Logical fallacy

A logical fallacy is a flaw in our reasoning, leading to a faulty argument. Things like the sunk cost fallacy, where we will sometimes make ourselves unhappy in the future because of something we’ve already done that we can’t change. The logical step would be to choose the path that would make you happiest in the future regardless of any sunk costs up to now. Turns out that’s hard.

HT: You are not so smart

Keep exploring

Survivorship Bias illustration: two analysts observe bullet damage, depicted by red dots, on a fighter plane returning from battle. They propose that heavier armour is added to all aircraft in the most hit areas of the plane. A third onlooker wonders whether this surviving plane tells a different story in that it returned because the most vulnerable areas weren't hit. Maybe heavier armour should be added to those areas?
The Barnum effect (also the Forer effect) illustrated by 3 people, each getting the same seemingly personalised personality test result and figuring it described them perfectly.
Feedback fear illustration: A poor soul goes through all sorts of internal doubts about what they might have done wrong and how they might have failed when someone gives a friendly suggestion to ask what others think
Birthday creep illustration: how does your birthday move each year illustrated by some people jumping a weekday timeline—1 day each year, 2 days around leap years
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