>> NARRATOR: Want to catch your brain making a mistake
in real-time?
Take a look at this checkerboard, created by vision scientist Edward Adelson.
The squares labeled “A” and “B” are exactly the same shade of gray.
Don’t believe me?
I don’t blame you.
I see them as different too.
But here’s the proof: simply connect the two with this gray bar, and voilà!
Suddenly, it’s obvious: A and B are identical.
Here’s the strange thing: remove the bar and the illusion comes back immediately, just
as strong as it was before.
We can do this again for the skeptics:
different shades of grey;
same shades of grey;
different;
same.
Our eyes can see that A and B are identical.
But our brains fall for it every time, no matter how often you debunk the illusion.
Why?
Professor Adelson points to two specific details:
First: contrast.
“A” looks darker because it’s surrounded by lighter-colored squares.The opposite is
true for “B.”
Second: Take a look at the soft edges of this darker section.
Our brains see this and think “Ah, it’s a shadow.”
We know that objects in shadows look darker than they actually are, so our brains compensate
for that by making us actually see “B” as lighter.
Something else to consider?
We all know what a checkerboard pattern looks like.
So we come into this illusion already expecting A and B to be different, and that could influence
what we see.
What about expectations we have about people?
Which face is darker?
The one on the left?
Or the one on the right?
Psychologists Daniel Levin and Mahzarin Banaji found that most people (including Mahzarin
herself!) see the Black face as darker than the White face, even though the two faces
are the exact same shade of gray.
Again, debunking the illusion is simple; here’s an idea from Dan:
>> DAN LEVIN: Just cover up the lower parts of the faces.
You’ll be left with two foreheads, and they’ll look exactly the same.
>> NARRATOR: The features of the face matter.
But in a second study, the researchers showed that you could create this illusion using
the same face.
People saw a racially ambiguous face labeled “Black” as darker than the same face labeled
“White.”
Did you?
Think about what this means: We see two faces.
They are identical.
But we’re so used to associating different races with different skin-tones that we misperceive
a simple physical reality.
All because of a single word.
That’s how powerful our expectations are.
Now, when it comes to judging the brightness of objects, the errors seem pretty harmless.
But research shows that we also see the exact same action as being less “bad” if the
perpetrator is attractive; we rate the same musician as more masterful if she’s described
as a “natural” rather than a “hard-worker.”
These illusions are more costly.
So what are things we can do to base our decisions in fact rather than fiction?
Think back to how we debunked illusions before: we needed to have the two tiles, the two faces
in front of us at the same time to really prove the truth.
So when you have multiple options in front of you (whether it’s job candidates or health
insurance plans), consider them side by side.
Not only does this let you test your intuitions, research shows that you’ll be more likely
to.
When people evaluate things together, they’re more likely to use the same specific benchmarks
to compare them.
Want something stronger?
If you want to avoid illusions altogether, try blinding.
We’ve talked about this technique before: when orchestras put a curtain between musicians
and judges during auditions and let the music do the talking, a new crop of players rose
to the top.
Sometimes we perceive more than what meets the eye.
But a few tweaks to the process can help outsmart your mind.