Intuitions are quick and convincing, and often get the job done. But not always, and when they’re wrong, we need to know about it.
Tag: <span>fluency</span>
Metacognition is often described as ‘thinking about thinking.’ It’s about monitoring and controlling your mental processes. When you’re learning something, if you ask yourself questions like “how well do I understand this?” or “will I…
A psychologist, designer, and behavioural economist walk into a lab, and out comes a font for remembering more of what you read.
Coloured words can cause us some problems
Sometimes the role of design is to be invisible. Not literally, but in that it should be so easy to process that instinct alone can guide people. Everything should be so clear and obvious that…
Is it good to think you’re better than you are? By most accounts, confidence is a positive characteristic. It convinces people to trust you, motivates you towards big goals, and is for the most part…
There are two ways you can judge something as true or false: do the work and figure it out for yourself, or let your gut tell you. Putting in the effort to examine an argument…
Simplicity is now something we expect from design. Everything should be clear, obvious, intuitive—in other words, we should not have to think very hard. For the most part, this is a good thing. We don’t want…
There are many decisions we make in split seconds. Decisions that require no cognitive effort, no thought, no awareness. Where does the observation that you like this piece of music come from? How long did…
What makes someone confident? Belief. The belief that they can do what it is they’re being asked to, belief that the answer they’ve calculated is correct, or, belief that the answer that just popped into…