Notices by Cat Hicks (grimalkina@mastodon.social), page 2

Oh and one more thought don't ever let yourself feel like you're somehow screwing up for going to yet another doctor. I felt like an IDIOT going to the EIGHTH doctor appointment and she was a complete angel and the first person to truly help me and literally the days before going to that appointment I was wondering if I should cancel it because it was just going to be dumping money down the drain for another miserable experience. Roll again roll again roll again roll again keep going if you can

me: so let's think about levers to change a policy--

very online ppl: ENSHITTIFICATION

me: uh, maybe...but also there are specific ways this--

very online ppl: ENSHITTIFICATION IT'S A CABAL

me: well idk it's also many interacting factors and if you look at how change has previously been made--

very online ppl: HOPELESS. LATE STAGE CAPITALISM. ENSHITTIFICATION. YOU'RE JUST TALKING ABOUT ENSHITTIFICATION

me: ok I'm trying to talk about a specific--

very online ppl: ENSHIT--

Now there are identifiable trends in cognition over the years but the truly well evidenced ones are almost always about SES and other types of effects that we know quite well (eg the less a society takes care of its children we will see that show up in their test scores etc)

But watch carefully for slippery chains of argument about any isolated cognitive capacity

This has been a methods PSA from your local psychologist 🫡

So you can have earlier work that lands at a population estimate like "oh, it seems like people's tight focus on a problem solving task fatigues by about ten minutes"

And then a later improvement in methods is like "we see signs of fatigue more like seven minutes"

And then the headline is: ALL BRAINS ARE MELTING WE ARE DOOMED

There are usually multiple slippery arguments being made when you see hype-fear about this though:

- they're often making leaps to all sorts of attention like sustained attention (measured in hours, like watching a movie), from the type of rigorous focus that we've always only measured in minutes

- but more importantly, often what's happening is we've just refined how we measure problem solving focus in those minute by minute methods

Here's a particularly funny methods thing that you can get fooled by that I was thinking about because of a piece on this controversy

It's really popular to claim "our attention spans are shrinking", and this can be supported by graphs showing people's capacity to attend during rigorous intellectual work dropping by minutes over the years

@davebauerart @glyph I have often felt talking about being a psychologist I've been treated with much more default respect and "yeah that matters" from people in trades than in knowledge work tbh

I think if your workplace makes you take a personality test you should have the legal right to make your workplace take a psychological environment health test

Psychologists have observed this effect across a surprisingly large number of domains: in motor movements (has a familiar learned sequence ever stymied you when the interface of a well-used tool changed?), in looking at how people study reading material, and in solving reasoning and experimentation puzzles (look up the "water pouring puzzle" which according to wikipedia I also found out are called a "Die Hard with a Vengeance puzzles"??? I need a Die Hard rewatch to confirm).

One of the possible drivers of this has been termed the Einstellung effect: "when the first idea that comes to mind, triggered by previous experience with similar situations, prevents alternatives being considered" (Bilalić et al., 2008). We repeat previously successful solutions, even when there's a more adaptable, successful solution waiting.

For example, in one set of studies, highly experienced chess players were given a series of problems that required a similar solution type. Next, they were presented with a problem that could be solved with either a suboptimal or less familiar but better solution. Most players failed to find the newer solution.

Findings like these have led some psychologists to argue that sometimes, highly reinforced solutions create "the inflexibility of expertise."

Sometimes, prior experience, and the strong associations it creates for our minds when a *new* problem shares the same context as old problems, can push our minds toward reaching for familiar, suboptimal solutions and ignoring better ones.

And experts can get hit quite deeply with this bias, even in their own problem-solving domains. The familiarity of old successful solutions can actually block us from recognizing novel, unexpected solutions.

I'm also thinking about how celebrating diverse problem-solving techniques could be one way to break through inflexible thinking. We should be really careful about defaulting to conformity on this. In fact, exposure to solutions that break our defaults is very likely one of the reasons supportive, safe collaboration is such a predictor of innovation outcomes for teams.

Cognitive effects like these are fascinating glimpses into the strategies our minds use, that are often adaptive, but can lead us toward accidentally foreclosing on solution spaces too soon. Thinking about this dynamic makes me think about the gift of the beginner's mind, and whether we value those who try to bring it to our workplaces.

It seems intuitive that the more experience you have solving problems in a given domain, the better you'll be at pushing the boundaries of the solution space and finding novel paths forward.

But did you know there's a paradox hidden inside of the benefits of all that "prior experience?"

I just want to be able to THINK ABOUT STUFF. I AM GOOD AT THINKING ABOUT STUFF AND I ALWAYS HAVE BEEN. I would just like a goddamn break for a MINUTE from all of the PROVE YOUR STATUS PROVE YOUR CREDIBILITY I'M MORE TECHNICAL THAN YOU bullshit

It would be cool to write something, ever, about an aspect of work seen as more scientifically technical (like my bit about eegs) and not have to wade through the infinite spawn of men replying to me to say they think psychology sucks and is useless/or I don't know about math (which is of course a version of the same)

The translation layers of society are so incredibly broken that even attempting to play a translation role at all, engaging in the active work of scicomm and advocacy and real-world applied engagement with communities, is viewed with unbelievable skepticism

You folks are so sweet haha this elicited a ridiculous amount of support! I had a really good time 😃😃 do scary things to connect to more people!!

Listen. I'm going to a meetup where I don't know anybody, to play board games. Just in case I die out of sheer social anxiety I want you to know how brave I'm being right now