The Workings of a Zebra Mind

...and human minds in general.

In my cover identity as a student and teacher of the workings of the human body, I’ve made a study of how we see and make sense of the world.  The truth is:  Our brains lie to us.

It’s not their fault.  They do their best.  Our senses give them limited information and our anatomy limits their processing ability, and they have to instantly construct a complete world view anyway.  To do this, they’ve got to make some stuff up and take some shortcuts.  How they do this and what kinds of problems it can cause has been especially interesting to my zebra persona.  Here’s a “Big Three” of known flaws and how they show up in derby:

“All you see is all there is”:  We tend to make decisions based on the most available information, regardless of it’s the only necessary information. Yes coach, I did see that jammer’s toe tag outside and back in.  But it’s not a cut if the other foot was still straddling.  Neither one of us could see her second foot (that downed blocker is not transparent) but from where the leg is it might have been a straddle.  No call.

Effects of attention.  Watch this video:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vJG698U2Mvo
Was that a high block?  Possibly.  But the jammer was trying to sneak by on the outside line on the curve, and I took the high probability problem spot and watched feet and hips.  I’ve had a somewhat harried head ref tell me “Remember to watch Everything!” and it’s a goal I’ll continue to work towards; but my brain doesn’t wanna.  

“We see what we want to see”:  Humans love to be right.  One of the best ways to feel you were right is to focus on information that supports our views and overlook information that challenges it.  So we do that.  I recently sat with an off-duty zebra who was watching his love’s team play.  Under his breath, he accurately reported every call he saw.  He identified the same calls as I did against his love’s opponents – and none of them that I saw against his love’s team.

Do I suffer from these flaws?  Of course.  I’m human, and I have a human brain (naysayers to the contrary).  What to do about them?

1)   Know they exist and undermine their power.  I’ve worked with the zeeb who saw
only his love’s opponents’ flaws; during a bout when he’s got his game face on he calls points and penalties with beautiful fairness.  That’s a triumph of forcing his
attention on the action, not on what he wants to see.

Intentional approaches – such as remembering to scan head to toe even if track cuts are the most likely problem right this second – can keep us out of mental traps.  I intentionally run through the phases (Did I see initiation, action, impact?)before the whistle’s blown.  It slows me down half a second, but helps assure I didn’t fall for ‘what you see is all there is’.

I avoid learning biasing information (what the score is, which player has a history     of free-roaming elbows) as much as possible.  If I don’t have expectations, my brain will have to rely on actual sensory information instead.

2)  Have ‘no skin in the game’.  One big advantage I have is that the team I really care
about most, I skate (not ref) for.  I almost always like both teams at bouts I ref, or am inclined to like them.  I really don’t care a fig who wins.   That takes the wind out of the ‘see what you want to see’ effect.  Too bad the people yelling at the refs
don’t have this advantage…

3)  Keep in mind that Everybody in this game has a human mind.  Therefore, each and every one of us is prone to these errors.  We know you’re awesome, we love you, you Are special, but this means you too.  So retain a healthy lack of complete confidence in your own perceptions, please.