Mindsight?

[shanek]

I had my own experience with what is called "Mindsight" in the report in today's commentary. It was just a normal drive around Greensboro (where I was living at the time) and I was coming up on a perfectly ordinary traffic light, one that I had been up to a zillion times before.

Then, for no reason I could fathom, even though the light was perfectly green, I suddenly, as if by reflex, stomped my foot on the brake and screeched to a halt. Just when it registered to me that I was doing this for absolutely no reason, a car (the approach of which had been hidden by a building and a sign right next to it) went barrelling through the intersection with no regard whatsoever for the red light. Had I not stomped on the brake, I very likely would have been smashed.

This affected me for weeks. Why had I done that? Had I seen into the future, even if only by two seconds? I didn't exactly believe in precognition, but on the other hand I didn't have any other explanation for what had happened. It was, at the same time, an amazing and confusing experience.

Then, several weeks later, I was waiting at the red light at that same intersection, same lane, and the same direction and happened to watch a car pass through the other way. I just happened to notice at the time there was a tiny little sliver of a wedge between the sign and the building just big enough to see the top of the car as it went through. Finally, I had my explanation: I had seen, maybe peripherally, and without consciously comprehending it, the speeding car moving towards the intersection at a speed which would have made it impossible to stop. Had I not noticed that very subtle gap, I don't honestly know what I would think about that experience today.

[Brown]

I too have had many experiences in which I somehow perceived something, without consciously realizing that I had perceived it. It can be spooky.

On the other hand, there are a lot of things that I perceive every day without being immediately consciously aware of them. For example, I often first perceive that a word is misspelled on a subconscious level. The word just doesn't look right, and I know right away that it's misspelled. Moments later, on a conscious level, I can analyze what in particular is wrong with the word. This sort of thing doesn't seem spooky at all, because it's so familiar.

Some folks I know can analyze things like football plays and restaurant operations on a subconscious level. They are so familiar with these activities that they can spot immediately when something is amiss, but they would have a very hard time articulating how they knew something was wrong.

[Beanbag]

One of my functions is spotting counterfeit or fake versions of the watches made by the major international jewelry house I work for. The company's been in existance for over 100 years, which means there are a LOT of their watches in different forms and models, all of which eventually need repair and come home to be serviced. And many have been altered or modified by outside jewelers, who set stones in the case, alter the dials, etc.

Most of the time, it's pretty obvious what's genuine and what's faked. Modern fakes, while often externally nearly identical to the real thing, give up pretty easily when you open the case and check the movement. The difficulty comes when you're trying to authenticate a 30 to 50 year old piece, with the usual accumulation of wear and damage. In some cases, you just have to go with what you "feel." There are certain signatures in the style of the product that you expect, and some things just don't look right. It's similar to authenticating a work of art -- a genuine Rembrandt has a certain intangible look and feel. The term used in the art field is a Diviner, a person who looks at the item in question and passes on-the-spot judgement of the authenticity. They go with what rings true.

Regards;
Beanbag

[Wrath of the Swarm]

Fascinating. This is quite similar to, yet almost the perfect opposite of, change blindness.

Change Blindness is the general inability of people to locate a change in a presented image even when they know it's there. Considering how obvious the changes can seem in hindsight, it's remarkable how long it takes to notice them.

[edit] Oops, I was confused by a similarity in sound. 'Blindsight' is a completely different phenomenon. Pardons begged, etc.

[Suggestologist]

Originally posted by Wrath of the Swarm
Fascinating. This is quite similar to, yet almost the perfect opposite of, change blindness.

Both are the result of subconscious/unconscious/co-conscious/preconscious processing. In one case, it alerts consciousness (without offering details - like "tip-of-the-tongue" phenomena); and in another (where you might want it to make the alert) it doesn't alert consciousness.

Anyone read Seven Sins of Memory? I've read the article, not the book.

[BillyJoe]

BB,

Originally posted by Beanbag
....In some cases, you just have to go with what you "feel." There are certain signatures in the style of the product that you expect, and some things just don't look right. It's similar to authenticating a work of art -- a genuine Rembrandt has a certain intangible look and feel. The term used in the art field is a Diviner, a person who looks at the item in question and passes on-the-spot judgement of the authenticity. They go with what rings true. This bothers me a bit.

You are saying that a judgement is made intuitively. You do realize how prone to error intuitive feelings are don't you? If there is no basis for your intuition, then you are just as likely to be incorrect as correct. If there is a basis for your intuition, then you must be able to discern what that basis is. If you do discern the basis for your intuition, then you have approached the subject scientifically and hence your chances of making a correct judgement should be improved.

Or maybe you mean something else?

BJ

[DickK]

Originally posted by BillyJoe
BB,

This bothers me a bit.

You are saying that a judgement is made intuitively. You do realize how prone to error intuitive feelings are don't you? If there is no basis for your intuition, then you are just as likely to be incorrect as correct. If there is a basis for your intuition, then you must be able to discern what that basis is. If you do discern the basis for your intuition, then you have approached the subject scientifically and hence your chances of making a correct judgement should be improved.

Or maybe you mean something else?

BJ Yes, if beanbag will forgive me for poking my snout in, I think what he's alluding to here is the intractability of defining or decomposing expertise into a structure that is usable by someone else. Some years ago I was doing some AI work and was reading up on knowledge elicitation. This is a semi-formalism that seeks to describe how non-trivial expertise may be elicited from the expert.

What was apparent at the time is that there are classes of expertise that do not readily render themselves to fruitful analysis. One splendid example was a failed attempt to deconstruct the task of an expert wool grader. Pretty much every avenue of decomposition ended up with "Can't you just tell that the wool is better?" (or softer, hardier...etc).

What was also apparent is that some classes of expertise were actively damaged during any analysis. There was the case of the famous tennis player, who having deconstructed his own expertise sufficient to write a book on the subject, promptly lost his talent. Intriguing stuff. Judging art (or testing 50 year old watches for authenticity, under the conditions described by beanbag) seems to fall into this class of expertise, whereas, perhaps, defining a heuristic diagnostic tree for triage does not. In either case, insofar as we are human, evidence has played its part correctly, in my view.

edited, as usual, for spelling :(

[Jeff Corey]

Originally posted by Suggestologist
Both are the result of subconscious/unconscious/co-conscious/preconscious processing.
I am not aware of any operational definitions of these so-called processes. Can you offer some?

[Suggestologist]

Originally posted by Jeff Corey

I am not aware of any operational definitions of these so-called processes. Can you offer some?

The reason I offered four terms for the same thing is that if one says "unconscious" some people don't like the idea of "un"; if one says "subconscious" some people don't like the idea of it's "sub"ordination to consciousness, etc.

I'm not sure what you're looking for in a definition. But I'll offer a couple of examples:

In tip-of-the-tongue phenomena; one knows that one knows something (usually a word); but one cannot extract the details of the information involved from memory. Now, how could you know that you know without actually finding the information and matching it to the ongoing context (conscious processing) without internal (unconscious) processing?

Secondly, after one has learned to type fast, one no longer is aware of pressing individual keys on the keyboard. One can merely think a word and the word gets typed without even thinking about proper spelling. Obviously there are intermediary processes that don't come into conscious awareness.

[Jeff Corey]

What I'm looking for is a definition, not examples.

[Suggestologist]

Originally posted by Jeff Corey
What I'm looking for is a definition, not examples.

I need an example of the type of definition you are looking for.

[TheBoyPaj]

Originally posted by Suggestologist
I need an example of the type of definition you are looking for.

When used as adjectives to describe mental processes...

Unconscious:
Occurring in the absence of conscious awareness or thought: unconscious resentment; unconscious fears.
Without conscious control; involuntary or unintended: an unconscious mannerism.

Subconscious:
Not wholly conscious; partially or imperfectly conscious

(Both from Dictionary.com)


Something like that for the other two types would suffice, I expect.

[Suggestologist]

Originally posted by TheBoyPaj


When used as adjectives to describe mental processes...

Unconscious:
Occurring in the absence of conscious awareness or thought: unconscious resentment; unconscious fears.
Without conscious control; involuntary or unintended: an unconscious mannerism.

Subconscious:
Not wholly conscious; partially or imperfectly conscious

(Both from Dictionary.com)


Something like that for the other two types would suffice, I expect.


Well, I offered 4 labels for the same concept. I wasn't intending to offer 4 different concepts. To me, they are all labels for the same thing; or: slightly different aspects of the same thing.

[Jeff Corey]

An example of a fruitful definition:
"Learning" is a change in behavior due to experience. Operationally, an observable behavior is reliably measured and changes after contact with, say, some contingency of reinforcement.

[Suggestologist]

Originally posted by Jeff Corey
An example of a fruitful definition:
"Learning" is a change in behavior due to experience. Operationally, an observable behavior is reliably measured and changes after contact with, say, some contingency of reinforcement.

An unconcsious process is a change in internal representation or activation of an individual's mind/brain caused by external stimulus, internal body stimulus (e.g.; digestion, repiration, etc.), or another unconscious process. Further, if asked, a person will be unable to produce a report of the specifics of the steps in the change in activation, though they will respond behaviorally in ways that reflect the change.

"Mindsight" is a good example; though I don't understand why Randi thinks it's some new concept. Tip-of-the tongue is just as good an example.

[Beanbag]

Originally posted by BillyJoe
BB,

This bothers me a bit.

You are saying that a judgement is made intuitively. You do realize how prone to error intuitive feelings are don't you? If there is no basis for your intuition, then you are just as likely to be incorrect as correct. If there is a basis for your intuition, then you must be able to discern what that basis is. If you do discern the basis for your intuition, then you have approached the subject scientifically and hence your chances of making a correct judgement should be improved.

Or maybe you mean something else?

BJ

In most cases, there is no intuition when determining real versus counterfeit when dealing with high-grade watches. In some cases, you shake the CrackerJack crumbs off the watch, write down "not a genuine XXXXXXX watch", and send it back. The problem comes around when you get a watch that's a pastiche of genuine and "after market" components, a so-called frankenwatch. You have to determine how much is original, and at what percentage you draw the line and refuse to service it as a genuine article.

I work for a company that's been around for well over a hundred years and produced a LOT of watches, some of which were either one-only items or only four or five were ever made. Because they were not mass-produced, there is no record in the parts books. Probably the only record at all is in some musty book in Europe. You have to make a snap call for authenticity, so there are certain stylistic points to look for. You look for things that are consistant with the company's design philosophy, and check for things that look wrong. In a lot of cases, it comes down to a group consensus between three or four experienced watchmakers looking at the piece. Overriding this is the fact that labeling a genuine item as fake is considered a MUCH bigger sin than having an occaisional high-quality fraud slip past. You could say we find comfort in the fact that if we're wrong, then we're all wrong together -- it's harder to fire three watchmakers than just one.

The percentage of head-scratchers is maybe 1%; the rest are pretty blatant. I speak of watches because that's what I'm constantly dealing with.

The art world has similar problems. Witness the brouhaha around the khouros statue at the Getty Museum. Seasoned experts say it's a fake; an equally seasoned group of experts say it's genuine. The whole issue revolves around the fact that a similar fake had been seen in Switzerland, and that there are some stylistic inconsistancies with the Getty piece. Scientists haggle over whether the patina could be faked. Geologists say it would take thousands of years to produce the patina. Short of finding a "Made in India" sticker on the bottom, there isn't anything to go on except intuitions.

The stakes are higher in the art world. Dollar amounts and reputations are on the line. Try the book "False Impressions: The Hunt for Big-Time Art Fakes" by Thomas Hoving for some interesting reading. In it, he makes the point that in most cases, it comes down to a hunch or impression, and if you're lucky, you can dig up enough substantiating evidence to back your position.

Not to say that watches don't command high dollars as well -- one memorable day, I had four watches in front of me at the bench, total value in excess of five million dollars. Not a typical day, though. Average day has watches in the $2000 to $100,000 range. Try labeling one of them as a fake.

Through it all, I am acutely aware that I could be wrong. It's a statistical certainty that eventually one day I will declare something to be fake that is actually genuine. When that day comes, my boss will have shreds of my ass hanging from his teeth, I'll admit that I was wrong, and I'll go back to working as before, doing the best job that I can under the circumstances. BTW, my boss has made the same mistake. It goes with the territory.

Regards;
Beanbag

[Beanbag]

Originally posted by DickK
Yes, if beanbag will forgive me for poking my snout in, I think what he's alluding to here is the intractability of defining or decomposing expertise into a structure that is usable by someone else. Some years ago I was doing some AI work and was reading up on knowledge elicitation. This is a semi-formalism that seeks to describe how non-trivial expertise may be elicited from the expert.

What was apparent at the time is that there are classes of expertise that do not readily render themselves to fruitful analysis. One splendid example was a failed attempt to deconstruct the task of an expert wool grader. Pretty much every avenue of decomposition ended up with "Can't you just tell that the wool is better?" (or softer, hardier...etc).

What was also apparent is that some classes of expertise were actively damaged during any analysis. There was the case of the famous tennis player, who having deconstructed his own expertise sufficient to write a book on the subject, promptly lost his talent. Intriguing stuff. Judging art (or testing 50 year old watches for authenticity, under the conditions described by beanbag) seems to fall into this class of expertise, whereas, perhaps, defining a heuristic diagnostic tree for triage does not. In either case, insofar as we are human, evidence has played its part correctly, in my view.

edited, as usual, for spelling :(

There are some times that people just want the word from an expert, because then it becomes the expert's problem if they were wrong. Douglas Adam's "somebody else's problem" syndrome. The expert is the person who's willing to take the responsibility for their statement.

I'm in the process of training up a newly-hired watchmaker on our products. I know for a fact that he's finding the process frustrating because, while there are written policies concerning standard operating procedures, there are too many situations that override the SOP's. He comes up with the correct course of action according to what he knows, and I have to (gently) correct him because there's an unwritten rule that he doesn't know of that applies only to this particular situation. When I first started out, I was certain my boss would flip a coin behind my back to make up his mind. It's taken about five years, but I think I've got most of the exceptions discovered. Except for the new ones, of course.

Watchmaking is a very subjective field, as far as dealing with the customer goes. Actually fixing the watch is the easy part -- either it runs well, or it doesn't, and you have to make run well.

Regards;
Beanbag

[BillyJoe]

Beanbag,

Thanks for your lengthy explanation.
It seems to me that what you do is scientific. You home in on truth using the available evidence. Your use of the word "intuition" is different form mine. For me "intuition" is making a decision based purely on a "gut feeling" with no supporting evidence. Sure there are things in your brain that cause you to have this "gut feeling" but without nutting out what these things are, you really would have no idea whether you'll end up with excellence or excrement (pardon the pun).
I think we're talking semantics though.

BillyJoe.

[Beanbag]

Originally posted by BillyJoe
Beanbag,

Thanks for your lengthy explanation.
It seems to me that what you do is scientific. You home in on truth using the available evidence. Your use of the word "intuition" is different form mine. For me "intuition" is making a decision based purely on a "gut feeling" with no supporting evidence. Sure there are things in your brain that cause you to have this "gut feeling" but without nutting out what these things are, you really would have no idea whether you'll end up with excellence or excrement (pardon the pun).
I think we're talking semantics though.

BillyJoe.

It's simply a matter of playing the percentages. I have to at least be reasonably confident in my assessments.

Regards;
Beanbag

[Suggestologist]

I wonder if Randi realizes that accepting Mindsight is also an acceptance of the plausibility of subliminal messages?

[Jeff Corey]

Reading his commentary carefully, I believe not. He says that in his trade, he has learned to pick up subtle cues to see who is onto him. Learning to be more perceptive is nothing like having a 30 ms visual message be perceptable, and even more, to somehow mysteriously control your behavior.

[Suggestologist]

Originally posted by Jeff Corey
Reading his commentary carefully, I believe not. He says that in his trade, he has learned to pick up subtle cues to see who is onto him. Learning to be more perceptive is nothing like having a 30 ms visual message be perceptable, and even more, to somehow mysteriously control your behavior.

But think about it; mindsight is a response without conscious awareness of why you have responded. This is the same thing as subliminal messaging; the only difference seems to be that in naturalistic cases (such as stopping at an intersection before a speeding car can hit you) the message sender has no intent on sending the message. But the reception is at a subliminal level.

30ms visual messages may not be an effective modality for transmission of subliminal messages. Mindsight seems to show that there are modalities which can be effective.

[Jeff Corey]

Are you saying that subliminal messages, such as those found on commercially available tapes, actually work?

[Suggestologist]

Originally posted by Jeff Corey
Are you saying that subliminal messages, such as those found on commercially available tapes, actually work?

I'm saying that there is more reason to believe that some can work when you accept the phenomenon of "mindsight". I don't know if any available tapes work; but I'm pretty sure that some formulations can work.

[Jeff Corey]

Originally posted by Suggestologist


I'm saying that there is more reason to believe that some can work when you accept the phenomenon of "mindsight". I don't know if any available tapes work; but I'm pretty sure that some formulations can work.
Possibly your could name some, with appropriate references to the literaure.

[Wrath of the Swarm]

This might suggest that people are aware of subliminal messages, but not that they have any significant effect on their behavior.

[Jeff Corey]

Originally posted by Wrath of the Swarm
This might suggest that people are aware of subliminal messages, but not that they have any significant effect on their behavior.
Wait a msec, I thought you were some sort of experimental psychologist. "...Aware of subliminal messages"? Really? As far as I know, the 30+ years of research on this have demonstrated that:
The arbitrary concept of a limen, as defined by Weber and his posse, is actually more flexible than the 75% detection level.
For visual presentations, saccades may provide a partial hit in a random fashion.
The purposed effects of possibily subliminal presentation of "My mother hates me" vs, "My mother ate me" are hard to replicate in other than Sliverman's lab.
The effects, if any, are miniscule.


it's all bullsh*t

[Mercutio]

C'mon, Corey, that's just the experimental evidence! You also have to look at the clinical studies! Just do a search for the most common subliminally presented stimulus in psychoanalysis..."mommy and I are one"...


ok, I cannot any longer guarantee that this is the most common stimulus. 10 years ago, the last time I did this search, that phrase was far and away the most frequently used in the psychoanalytic literature.

Lest there is any question, I am complete agreement with Dr. Corey's final, subliminally presented conclusion.

[Jeff Corey]

Originally posted by Mercutio
C'mon, Corey, that's just the experimental evidence! You also have to look at the clinical studies! Just do a search for the most common subliminally presented stimulus in psychoanalysis..."mommy and I are one"...


ok, I cannot any longer guarantee that this is the most common stimulus. 10 years ago, the last time I did this search, that phrase was far and away the most frequently used in the psychoanalytic literature.

Lest there is any question, I am complete agreement with Dr. Corey's final, subliminally presented conclusion. bite me
Yeah, that was Silverman. Met him once,What a schmuch!
When I discuss this in class, I can't believe how many students have been told that this sh*T works by other teachers,
It's like shoveling that old greek's horse barns, it never ends.

[Soapy Sam]

Jeff I have no idea if any subliminal ads work. I am certain though that I have often found myself with some stupid jingle or word in my head that seems to have come from nowhere, and then been surprised to hear the same thing played on the radio or to see the same phrase on a hoarding near my home. I had taken it onboard unconsciously.

Subliminal in the sense of duration may well have no part in this, but I'm in no doubt that I often pick up ideas without being consciously aware of them at the time. Later, the meme maybe manages to grab my conscious attention long enough to be noticed and dismissed.

Because advertising is ubiquitous and designed to be pithy and memorable, some of these unconscious memories will be of advertising material.

Now what happens if it is NOT consciously noted and dismissed? Does it simply get forgotten at every level, or does it subtly bias my attitude to an advertised product or concept?

[BillyJoe]

I think there is a difference between supposed subliminal effects and mindsight. Subliminal messages are presented for a duration of milliseconds. This, apparently, is not enough time to register in the mind of the viewer either consciously or subconsciously, and is therefore ineffective. In mindsight, the whole scenario is presented in real time. It is not consciously registered but gains entrance to the mind via the subconscious.


BTW, what about mindsound?

You hear the last three strikes of the clock but somehow remember that there were another three before you started listening (You know it's six o'clock without looking at the clock even though you have consciously registered only the last three strikes).

BillyJoe

[Wrath of the Swarm]

The effects are minimal? No kidding.

Subliminally-presented stimuli have been shown to have a minor effect on elementary choices being made as they're shown. For example, asking someone to arbitrarily push either a red or blue button and flashing the word "blue" at them seems to make it slightly more likely that they'll pick the blue button.

But the effects vanish after less than a second.