[Music]
so it is my great fortune to be able to
study the human mind how do we think how
do we feel when it goes well we are
pleased but I am more interested in the
moments in which our minds make mistakes
when they make errors and we study what
is going on we have a chance to
understand ourselves and once we
understand ourselves to improve
ourselves to improve ourselves so that
we can be the people that we want to be
rather than the error-prone people that
we tend to be okay so we’re going to
start and today we are going to do
experiments so you will have to answer
and I will have to ask you questions
okay so let’s start with that
and the first thing that you’re going to
see is a very simple picture okay these
are two tables drawn by a very famous
psychologist by the name of Roger
Shepard and I want you to look at these
two tables and I want you to answer a
simple question do the two table
surfaces look the same to you or do they
look slightly different to you in other
words if I were to take the table on the
left and turn it around and put it on
the table on the right what the surfaces
fit perfectly or would they be different
what do you think different different
okay now Leonardo da Vinci when he
looked at this kind of picture he also
saw them to be different but he was so
much smarter than all of us that he knew
that they were the same okay so I’m
gonna show you what I mean by exactly
that and let us just do this and if we
can have the lights in the house down
please we can see and I’ll just show it
to you actually I’m just gonna go up
here do it from here
so for the young people in this room
this is called an overhead projector it
does very cool things like this which
your computer cannot do okay so let us
start with these two tables i dim the
light because I wanted you to feel how
Leonardo would have felt he had no
electricity so we’re gonna see how he
would have seen this image so we have
the table on the left the table on the
right if I’m correct then you should be
very surprised when you see this yeah
okay I I win many bets when I take this
okay I’m gonna do this sometimes people
are skeptical so I will do it again and
sometimes people are so silly that they
say please do it the other way so I will
now do it the other way and they are
indeed exactly the same all right so now
the magic show ends and now we get to
talk about the science so we can have
the lights on and I will whoops
turn this off I think I did okay and now
we talk about what this all means we
don’t have the time today to talk about
all the reasons why your brain made this
mistake all I can tell you today is that
it made this mistake because your brain
learned to get messages from your eye in
a very old world thousands and thousands
of years ago millions of years ago and
in that world the natural world was
always three-dimensional so your brain
learned to make some computations that
it is making even today even though you
know that this is not a 3d image this is
a two-dimensional image and your brain
can’t cope with that new world so what
does this mean for us because we’re not
just interested in tables we’re
interested in how human beings make
sense of each other and so I tell you
here at the case study of symphony
orchestras in the late 1970s American
symphony orchestras went through an
interesting change they decided that
maybe they were biased in the way in
which they were hearing music so they
did an experiment and the experiment is
very simple when they were selecting
musicians for their orchestra the
musician would play here on a stage in
some beautiful auditorium like this you
are the selectors but between you and me
there is a curtain you cannot see me and
I cannot see you I play and you the
judges must listen with your ears and
you must make a decision about the sound
of the music now in the late 1970s
American symphony orchestras were almost
entirely all-male all men except for the
harp player who would sit in the corner
and play a little instrument by herself
the Vienna Philharmonic I think is still
like that but once the curtain oh so
when you ask people why why is it the
case that there are so few women in
symphony orchestras they would say there
are no women musicians who are good
enough for our Orchestra once the
curtain dropped the case study shows
that the number of women who were
selected doubled they went up by 50%
okay so this is something quite
interesting that when you cannot see the
person more women are being selected and
often people write about this and say
isn’t it great that now more women are
being selected and by the way American
Symphony Orchestra still to this day do
all their auditioning blindly I argue
it’s not just that more women come into
Symphony Orchestra’s you might say who
cares who the players are but what I
would argue is that when you drop the
curtain
you are selecting better musicians
because your eyes are no longer biased
by the shape and form of the person you
are viewing and this is extremely
important to know because you can tell
yourself I do not wish to be biased I
will make the accurate decision based on
just the sound and what these data are
telling us is that well-intentioned
people okay with with every reason to
select the best musicians were not
selecting the best musicians and that I
think is an important enough lesson and
it goes back to the tables the two table
surfaces are the same the two players
male and female may be the same but our
eyes and our ears will not see them to
be the same and so we must outsmart our
minds we must do tricks around our minds
to make sure that we select objectively
and that we select the best so with that
let me tell you another kind of a bias
that you might find interesting and it
comes from the human face human faces
when you look at one you don’t just look
at the face in 200 milliseconds your
brain begins to think about the
character of the person is this somebody
I should trust is this somebody I should
not trust is this one smart is this one
a little bit not so smart our brain is
big making these decisions based on a
person’s face and of course as you know
the problem is that the face is not an
accurate indicator of what is inside the
person I mean I just ask you for a
second to maybe look at the face of
Pavarotti if you did not know that he
was Pavarotti would you let him into
your home at night I don’t think so I
think most of us if we look at people’s
faces we make wrong judgments about them
based on their face so I will show you a
lovely little experiment done by Alex
Todorov and he studies the human face
and what
I’m gonna show you in eight seconds is
that the face will change the eyes will
move out and the fouth will remain the
same and when that happens your brain
will begin to see that this man will
suddenly look smarter and smarter and
smarter and then when the eyes come
inward and the mouth bends a little bit
you will feel that this person is
becoming dumber and dumber and dumber in
front of your very eyes and I want you
to have this experience if you’re honest
with yourselves I think you will feel
this and I think it’s important for us
to know so let’s take a look I’ll tell
you what’s going on the eyes are moving
out and now look doesn’t this person
look like a robot a very smart person
and now take a look at what happens when
the eyes come closer a little dumb
pretty damn dumb by now now this is
absolutely crazy this should not be
happening but alex has shown in his
research that this affects how we make
decisions about who to vote for that we
look at faces and from that we make our
decisions about voting okay and maybe in
Italy and in the United States we should
think really hard about this right okay
I’m gonna give you a final little test
and you will have to participate and say
some words loudly to do this test you
will see some words and the words will
be very simple words there will be names
of men and names of women and you should
see very quickly that on the left are
all the names of men on the right are
all the names that are familiar names of
men and women you will also see named
words that capture the category of
career things that go on in the
workplace so words like leader manager
salario and then on the right side are
words that come from the world of our
home okay
and these Casas related words like
bambini and Cucina or all of these words
that we associate with the home so you
need to remember these kinds of words
and
in a little bit we will do the test and
the test is very simple you will see
words appear on the screen and based on
the instruction you simply have to say
left or right and to make this super
easy I have learned the Italian words
for left and right so you will say today
if the word goes to the left you will
simply say sinistra and if it goes to
the right you will simply say they stir
okay everybody got it but there are some
rules for this test you must go very
fast so taking one second to answer is
too slow you have to go faster than one
second okay if you go fast you will make
some mistakes that’s okay when you make
a mistake pick up the next item and go
again quickly as you can and definitely
do this loudly say sinistra and destra
loudly okay as if you’re an opera singer
in this in this room okay all right so
now we are going to open up the test and
I will tell you how it will work it is
very simple it is very easy and you will
have fun doing this okay so a word will
appear in the middle of the screen if it
is a man’s name you will say sinistra if
it is a woman’s name like Anna you will
say desta and you will do this fast and
you will do this loud and the computer
will measure how fast you are going okay
ready go
fantastic 700 is a very good score and
you got close to 700 so do not go slower
than 700 you can speed up and the number
can be in the 600’s but not 800 ok ready
now you see words that come from career
or home if the word is a word that comes
from this group curry era you will say
sinistra and if the word is from casa
you will say destra ready go fast nice
and loud go
fantastic
and now and now wait a moment
now if the name is a man’s name or if it
is a career word you will say sinistra
if it is a woman’s name or if it is a
house word you will say desta okay ready
everybody has it in mind men and career
gets a left female and home gets a right
ready
go fast and loud
excellent imagine this yes you should
clap for this one and now you have done
this so well that we do not do this one
we skip and now we switch yeah okay this
one is not the problem okay so let’s try
this now if it is a female name you will
say sinistra if it is a man’s name you
you will say destra ready this is easy
fast loud go
excellent
incredible very good and now for this
round if you see a female name or career
you must say sinistra if you see a man’s
name or a house word you should say
desta ready let me see how badly you do
on this one okay
ready go
[Applause]
okay you did very well but not as fast
as you went before okay so the important
thing about this test is to know that
the culture leaves its thumbprint on
your brain I have had a career my whole
life okay and I cannot do this fast
equally fast for some reason in my mind
mail and career go quickly together and
female and home go quickly together so I
want you to remember that the vast
majority of people in the world show
this bias even feminists show this bias
and men and women actually perform very
much the same on this test so this is
not a bias that only men hatch oh it is
both men and women and they show it
equally our point is that the thumbprint
of the culture left on your brain leads
you to make certain kinds of decisions
in the world that when you see somebody
that the association that they are meant
for the world life of work or meant for
a life at home enters into our decisions
but it does it very subtly and it does
it unconsciously and that’s something
that we ought to know because if we know
it maybe we can correct it right so once
we know this let me take us back and let
us come to the end of this little talk
today and I want to end with the words
of a Sufi poet from the 13th century
whose name is roomie and one of the
things that Rumi said about human beings
is this every one of us is a jackass and
in case it’s not clear I’m going to show
you what it means right every one of us
is an Essene oh but he said with the
wings of angels tacked onto us and I
believe yes we will make mistakes we
will be jackasses but what is it that
gives
these wings of angels and to a
modern-day scientists like myself the
wings of angels that we have come from
our conscious awareness conscious
awareness gets us into trouble but with
conscious awareness we can outsmart our
minds first we have to know that there
is a problem and then I think we’re good
enough that we’re gonna fix it in some
way you can go to a web site and take
many tests of this kind there at Harvard
University implicit harvard.edu you can
take tests to measure how much racial
bias you have how much gender bias
how much sexuality bias you have age
bias different countries there is a
website for Italy alone and once you
know what your bias is I hope that you
will go to a new place that we have just
created a way through podcasts and
through videos for you to learn how to
outsmart your mind and that you can find
very easily these days by going to
outsmarting human minds org and that is
a project to which I am greatly devoted
so I want to say thank you very much for
being such a great audience Thanks
[Applause]
[Music]
so it is my great fortune to be able to
study the human mind how do we think how
do we feel when it goes well we are
pleased but I am more interested in the
moments in which our minds make mistakes
when they make errors and we study what
is going on we have a chance to
understand ourselves and once we
understand ourselves to improve
ourselves to improve ourselves so that
we can be the people that we want to be
rather than the error-prone people that
we tend to be okay so we’re going to
start and today we are going to do
experiments so you will have to answer
and I will have to ask you questions
okay so let’s start with that
and the first thing that you’re going to
see is a very simple picture okay these
are two tables drawn by a very famous
psychologist by the name of Roger
Shepard and I want you to look at these
two tables and I want you to answer a
simple question do the two table
surfaces look the same to you or do they
look slightly different to you in other
words if I were to take the table on the
left and turn it around and put it on
the table on the right what the surfaces
fit perfectly or would they be different
what do you think different different
okay now Leonardo da Vinci when he
looked at this kind of picture he also
saw them to be different but he was so
much smarter than all of us that he knew
that they were the same okay so I’m
gonna show you what I mean by exactly
that and let us just do this and if we
can have the lights in the house down
please we can see and I’ll just show it
to you actually I’m just gonna go up
here do it from here
so for the young people in this room
this is called an overhead projector it
does very cool things like this which
your computer cannot do okay so let us
start with these two tables i dim the
light because I wanted you to feel how
Leonardo would have felt he had no
electricity so we’re gonna see how he
would have seen this image so we have
the table on the left the table on the
right if I’m correct then you should be
very surprised when you see this yeah
okay I I win many bets when I take this
okay I’m gonna do this sometimes people
are skeptical so I will do it again and
sometimes people are so silly that they
say please do it the other way so I will
now do it the other way and they are
indeed exactly the same all right so now
the magic show ends and now we get to
talk about the science so we can have
the lights on and I will whoops
turn this off I think I did okay and now
we talk about what this all means we
don’t have the time today to talk about
all the reasons why your brain made this
mistake all I can tell you today is that
it made this mistake because your brain
learned to get messages from your eye in
a very old world thousands and thousands
of years ago millions of years ago and
in that world the natural world was
always three-dimensional so your brain
learned to make some computations that
it is making even today even though you
know that this is not a 3d image this is
a two-dimensional image and your brain
can’t cope with that new world so what
does this mean for us because we’re not
just interested in tables we’re
interested in how human beings make
sense of each other and so I tell you
here at the case study of symphony
orchestras in the late 1970s American
symphony orchestras went through an
interesting change they decided that
maybe they were biased in the way in
which they were hearing music so they
did an experiment and the experiment is
very simple when they were selecting
musicians for their orchestra the
musician would play here on a stage in
some beautiful auditorium like this you
are the selectors but between you and me
there is a curtain you cannot see me and
I cannot see you I play and you the
judges must listen with your ears and
you must make a decision about the sound
of the music now in the late 1970s
American symphony orchestras were almost
entirely all-male all men except for the
harp player who would sit in the corner
and play a little instrument by herself
the Vienna Philharmonic I think is still
like that but once the curtain oh so
when you ask people why why is it the
case that there are so few women in
symphony orchestras they would say there
are no women musicians who are good
enough for our Orchestra once the
curtain dropped the case study shows
that the number of women who were
selected doubled they went up by 50%
okay so this is something quite
interesting that when you cannot see the
person more women are being selected and
often people write about this and say
isn’t it great that now more women are
being selected and by the way American
Symphony Orchestra still to this day do
all their auditioning blindly I argue
it’s not just that more women come into
Symphony Orchestra’s you might say who
cares who the players are but what I
would argue is that when you drop the
curtain
you are selecting better musicians
because your eyes are no longer biased
by the shape and form of the person you
are viewing and this is extremely
important to know because you can tell
yourself I do not wish to be biased I
will make the accurate decision based on
just the sound and what these data are
telling us is that well-intentioned
people okay with with every reason to
select the best musicians were not
selecting the best musicians and that I
think is an important enough lesson and
it goes back to the tables the two table
surfaces are the same the two players
male and female may be the same but our
eyes and our ears will not see them to
be the same and so we must outsmart our
minds we must do tricks around our minds
to make sure that we select objectively
and that we select the best so with that
let me tell you another kind of a bias
that you might find interesting and it
comes from the human face human faces
when you look at one you don’t just look
at the face in 200 milliseconds your
brain begins to think about the
character of the person is this somebody
I should trust is this somebody I should
not trust is this one smart is this one
a little bit not so smart our brain is
big making these decisions based on a
person’s face and of course as you know
the problem is that the face is not an
accurate indicator of what is inside the
person I mean I just ask you for a
second to maybe look at the face of
Pavarotti if you did not know that he
was Pavarotti would you let him into
your home at night I don’t think so I
think most of us if we look at people’s
faces we make wrong judgments about them
based on their face so I will show you a
lovely little experiment done by Alex
Todorov and he studies the human face
and what
I’m gonna show you in eight seconds is
that the face will change the eyes will
move out and the fouth will remain the
same and when that happens your brain
will begin to see that this man will
suddenly look smarter and smarter and
smarter and then when the eyes come
inward and the mouth bends a little bit
you will feel that this person is
becoming dumber and dumber and dumber in
front of your very eyes and I want you
to have this experience if you’re honest
with yourselves I think you will feel
this and I think it’s important for us
to know so let’s take a look I’ll tell
you what’s going on the eyes are moving
out and now look doesn’t this person
look like a robot a very smart person
and now take a look at what happens when
the eyes come closer a little dumb
pretty damn dumb by now now this is
absolutely crazy this should not be
happening but alex has shown in his
research that this affects how we make
decisions about who to vote for that we
look at faces and from that we make our
decisions about voting okay and maybe in
Italy and in the United States we should
think really hard about this right okay
I’m gonna give you a final little test
and you will have to participate and say
some words loudly to do this test you
will see some words and the words will
be very simple words there will be names
of men and names of women and you should
see very quickly that on the left are
all the names of men on the right are
all the names that are familiar names of
men and women you will also see named
words that capture the category of
career things that go on in the
workplace so words like leader manager
salario and then on the right side are
words that come from the world of our
home okay
and these Casas related words like
bambini and Cucina or all of these words
that we associate with the home so you
need to remember these kinds of words
and
in a little bit we will do the test and
the test is very simple you will see
words appear on the screen and based on
the instruction you simply have to say
left or right and to make this super
easy I have learned the Italian words
for left and right so you will say today
if the word goes to the left you will
simply say sinistra and if it goes to
the right you will simply say they stir
okay everybody got it but there are some
rules for this test you must go very
fast so taking one second to answer is
too slow you have to go faster than one
second okay if you go fast you will make
some mistakes that’s okay when you make
a mistake pick up the next item and go
again quickly as you can and definitely
do this loudly say sinistra and destra
loudly okay as if you’re an opera singer
in this in this room okay all right so
now we are going to open up the test and
I will tell you how it will work it is
very simple it is very easy and you will
have fun doing this okay so a word will
appear in the middle of the screen if it
is a man’s name you will say sinistra if
it is a woman’s name like Anna you will
say desta and you will do this fast and
you will do this loud and the computer
will measure how fast you are going okay
ready go
fantastic 700 is a very good score and
you got close to 700 so do not go slower
than 700 you can speed up and the number
can be in the 600’s but not 800 ok ready
now you see words that come from career
or home if the word is a word that comes
from this group curry era you will say
sinistra and if the word is from casa
you will say destra ready go fast nice
and loud go
fantastic
and now and now wait a moment
now if the name is a man’s name or if it
is a career word you will say sinistra
if it is a woman’s name or if it is a
house word you will say desta okay ready
everybody has it in mind men and career
gets a left female and home gets a right
ready
go fast and loud
excellent imagine this yes you should
clap for this one and now you have done
this so well that we do not do this one
we skip and now we switch yeah okay this
one is not the problem okay so let’s try
this now if it is a female name you will
say sinistra if it is a man’s name you
you will say destra ready this is easy
fast loud go
excellent
incredible very good and now for this
round if you see a female name or career
you must say sinistra if you see a man’s
name or a house word you should say
desta ready let me see how badly you do
on this one okay
ready go
[Applause]
okay you did very well but not as fast
as you went before okay so the important
thing about this test is to know that
the culture leaves its thumbprint on
your brain I have had a career my whole
life okay and I cannot do this fast
equally fast for some reason in my mind
mail and career go quickly together and
female and home go quickly together so I
want you to remember that the vast
majority of people in the world show
this bias even feminists show this bias
and men and women actually perform very
much the same on this test so this is
not a bias that only men hatch oh it is
both men and women and they show it
equally our point is that the thumbprint
of the culture left on your brain leads
you to make certain kinds of decisions
in the world that when you see somebody
that the association that they are meant
for the world life of work or meant for
a life at home enters into our decisions
but it does it very subtly and it does
it unconsciously and that’s something
that we ought to know because if we know
it maybe we can correct it right so once
we know this let me take us back and let
us come to the end of this little talk
today and I want to end with the words
of a Sufi poet from the 13th century
whose name is roomie and one of the
things that Rumi said about human beings
is this every one of us is a jackass and
in case it’s not clear I’m going to show
you what it means right every one of us
is an Essene oh but he said with the
wings of angels tacked onto us and I
believe yes we will make mistakes we
will be jackasses but what is it that
gives
these wings of angels and to a
modern-day scientists like myself the
wings of angels that we have come from
our conscious awareness conscious
awareness gets us into trouble but with
conscious awareness we can outsmart our
minds first we have to know that there
is a problem and then I think we’re good
enough that we’re gonna fix it in some
way you can go to a web site and take
many tests of this kind there at Harvard
University implicit harvard.edu you can
take tests to measure how much racial
bias you have how much gender bias
how much sexuality bias you have age
bias different countries there is a
website for Italy alone and once you
know what your bias is I hope that you
will go to a new place that we have just
created a way through podcasts and
through videos for you to learn how to
outsmart your mind and that you can find
very easily these days by going to
outsmarting human minds org and that is
a project to which I am greatly devoted
so I want to say thank you very much for
being such a great audience Thanks
[Applause]
[Music]
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