Book Reading #39: Why We Make Mistakes

Reference Information
Title: Why We Make Mistakes
Author: Joseph T. Hallinan
Publisher: 2009 Crown Archetype

Chapter 0: Introduction
Summary
This chapter introduced errors and mistakes, even giving a definition (a mistake/error is a misunderstanding of the meaning/implication of something or a wrong action/statement preceding from faulty judgment). The author emphasizes that the world is not designed for how humans are wired, so the world around us actually encourages us to make mistakes. The reason that we make mistakes over and over again can be attributed to blaming the wrong thing or person for a mistake, and therefore not learning from it.

Discussion
Many of the facts and research presented regarding mistakes was very interesting. In particular, I found it interesting that right-handed people tend to orient towards the right, and that when you try to remember something, you should be in the same state that you learned it in (there was even a study done regarding learning while inebriated). It sounds like a lot of problems regarding the origin of mistakes comes from bad design of the things that we interact with daily.

Chapter 1: We Look But Don't Always See
Summary
This chapter described the particular error of looking at something and not seeing everything. The eye can only see a finite amount of data, and what is actually seen depends on the person (man/woman, right-handed/left-handed, novice/expert, and even that person's career or hobbies). Included in the topics discussed are the quiet-eye period, change blindness, movie mistakes, and the quitting threshold for noticing details.

Discussion  
This chapter was also very interesting, as it discussed how little people actually notice about the world around them. In particular, the idea that the details noticed depend entirely upon the person that is viewing seems interesting, as this means that every person views the world slightly differently, or at least notices different details about it.