It seems that people are focused a lot on the visualization as a tool for removing biases, rather than as a tool for mapping biases. Indeed, visualizations can have value as a summary tool rather than as a way to logically constrain thinking.
Some examples of such visualizations:
scatter plots to summarize a pattern
visualizations that use dots to convey the scale of a number intuitively (e.g. 1 person = 1 square, etc)
In these kinds of visualizations, you get a different way to look at the problem which may appeal to a different sense. I can already see value in this as a way to summarize biased thought.
That said, I do agree with the comments about perhaps tuning the diagram to provide a bit more constraints. Going off of abramdemski’s comment above, I think perhaps coloring or changing the lines by the type of reasoning that is happening would be useful. For instance, in your examples, you could have the attributes of “future prediction” for the planning fallacy example or something like “attribute inference” for the Bayesian inference example and maybe undistributed example. By disambiguating between these types in your diagram, you can add rules about the necessary input to correct a biased inference. A “future prediction” line without the “outside view” box would be highly suspect.
I think my comments about it being helpful in working through biases led people to think I intended these primarily as active problem-solving devices. Of course you can’t just draw a diagram with a jog in it and then say “Aha! That was a bias!” If anything, I think (particularly in more complex cases) the visuals could help make biases more tangible, almost as a kind of mnemonic device to internalize in the same way that you might create a diagram to help you study for a test. I would like to make the diagrams more robust to serve as a visual vocabulary for the types of ideas discussed on this site, and your comments on distinguishing types of biases visually are helpful and much appreciated. Would love to hear your thoughts on my latest post in response to this.
It seems that people are focused a lot on the visualization as a tool for removing biases, rather than as a tool for mapping biases. Indeed, visualizations can have value as a summary tool rather than as a way to logically constrain thinking.
Some examples of such visualizations:
scatter plots to summarize a pattern
visualizations that use dots to convey the scale of a number intuitively (e.g. 1 person = 1 square, etc)
In these kinds of visualizations, you get a different way to look at the problem which may appeal to a different sense. I can already see value in this as a way to summarize biased thought.
That said, I do agree with the comments about perhaps tuning the diagram to provide a bit more constraints. Going off of abramdemski’s comment above, I think perhaps coloring or changing the lines by the type of reasoning that is happening would be useful. For instance, in your examples, you could have the attributes of “future prediction” for the planning fallacy example or something like “attribute inference” for the Bayesian inference example and maybe undistributed example. By disambiguating between these types in your diagram, you can add rules about the necessary input to correct a biased inference. A “future prediction” line without the “outside view” box would be highly suspect.
I think my comments about it being helpful in working through biases led people to think I intended these primarily as active problem-solving devices. Of course you can’t just draw a diagram with a jog in it and then say “Aha! That was a bias!” If anything, I think (particularly in more complex cases) the visuals could help make biases more tangible, almost as a kind of mnemonic device to internalize in the same way that you might create a diagram to help you study for a test. I would like to make the diagrams more robust to serve as a visual vocabulary for the types of ideas discussed on this site, and your comments on distinguishing types of biases visually are helpful and much appreciated. Would love to hear your thoughts on my latest post in response to this.