Quotes About Information

An essential design feature of the associative machine is that it represents only activated ideas. Information that is not retrieved (even unconsciously) from memory might as well not exist.

As expected, the effect of facial competence on voting is about three times larger for information-poor and TV-prone voters than for others who are better informed and watch less television.

we pay more attention to the content of messages than to information about their reliability

WYSIATI, which stands for what you see is all there is. System 1 is radically insensitive to both the quality and the quantity of the information that gives rise to impressions and intuitions.

We were forecasting based on the information in front of us—WYSIATI—but the chapters we wrote first were probably easier than others, and our commitment to the project was probably then at its peak. But the main problem was that we failed to allow for what Donald Rumsfeld famously called the "unknown unknowns.

WYSIATI—what you see is all there is.

Confidence is a feeling, which reflects the coherence of the information and the cognitive ease of processing it.

coherence of the information and the cognitive ease of processing it.

It is noteworthy, however, that we did not feel we needed information about other teams to make our guesses.

It explains why we can think fast, and how we are able to make sense of partial information in a complex world.

It is the consistency of the information that matters for a good story, not its completeness.

There is essentially no evidence of situations in which people do very poorly and models do very well with the same information.

Intuition adds value even in the justly derided selection interview, but only after a disciplined collection of objective information and disciplined scoring of separate traits.

proper way to elicit information from a group is not by starting with a public discussion but by confidentially collecting each person's judgment.

Meehl discovered that clinicians and other professionals are distressingly weak in what they often see as their unique strength: the ability to integrate information.

As expected, the effect of facial competence on voting is about three times larger for information-poor and TV-prone voters than for others who are better informed and watch less television. Evidently

which the experimental participant leaned her head on a chin-and-forehead rest and stared at a camera while listening to prerecorded information and answering questions on the recorded beats of a metronome. The beats triggered an infrared flash every second, causing a

people and firms reward the providers of dangerously misleading information more than they reward truth tellers.

The main obstacle is that subjective confidence is determined by the coherence of the story one has constructed, not by the quality and amount of the information that supports it.

You make many small decisions as you drive your car, absorb some information as you read the newspaper, and conduct routine exchanges of pleasantries with a spouse or a colleague, all with little effort and no strain. Just like a stroll.

An essential design feature of the associative machine is that it represents only activated ideas. Information that is not retrieved (even unconsciously) from memory might as well not exist. System 1 excels at constructing the best possible story that incorporates ideas currently activated, but it does not (cannot) allow for information it does not have.

high subjective confidence is not to be trusted as an indicator of accuracy (low confidence could be more informative).

It is the consistency of the information that matters for a good story, not its completeness. Indeed, you will often find that knowing little makes it easier to fit everything you know into a coherent pattern. WYSIATI

emotional information attracts attention quickly and automatically