WFW - Confirmation Bias

By now, authors and publishers of sociology and psychology textbooks are bidding on the rights to that image from this weekend in Washington D.C.  with the group of boys from the Catholic high school and the Native American man drumming.  This is an ideal illustration of confirmation bias.  The image provokes strong reactions, that vary widely, and which are set deeply almost immediately. 

As video was made available that provided a context to the original image, it offered an opportunity for people to reconsider their original impression of the picture.  In the interest of full disclosure, this had a profound effect on my impression.  For many people, the impression they got from the first impression was set so deeply that the only effect of seeing the contextual video was to validate that first impression.  The presence of ‘MAGA’ hats on the heads of many of these boys, and the fact that they were in Washington to promote laws that would be more restrictive on did much to promote a division among those viewing the video.  An individual’s feelings about Donald Trump, or abortion rights could create a strong bias for or against these boys. 

The contextual video revealed the presence of a third group involved that were not seen in the original image.  A group called the Black Hebrew Israelites had been in a taunting confrontation with the boys from the Catholic school – and it appeared that the Native American group had placed themselves between these two groups.  Again, this move was subject to interpretation; was it intended as a peaceful intervention, or a heavy-handed assertion of power?  This then returns the viewer to the original image of the drummer, and the Catholic school kids.  Were they chanting along with the Native Americans in a respectful way, or making fun of them.  As the drummer and the young man in the center of the original image came close together, and each stood their ground, was this a case of intimidation, or a more innocent proximity … and if intimidation, who was initiating it? 

The reactions I read on social media were all over the map on interpretation of the body language, both in the original image, and in the surrounding context.  How do we interpret the young man’s facial expression?  Was it a smirk, or a more innocent neutral expression?  Can we know from outside?  What factors influenced his response, as well as the response of the Native American drummer?  Did each expect the other to back up?  Is there any reason either should have expected that of the other? 

WFW - Cycling and Pride

 CYCLING AND PRIDE

For a non-athlete like me, cycling should be something done for enjoyment, fitness, solitude, and self-improvement.  I’m not a racer, and thinking of an event competitively is a sure-fire recipe for false pride and humility. 

A few years back, I was treated by the universe to each of these in rapid succession.  Every couple years I ride the STP – an organized ride from Seattle to Portland.  It’s a fine ride, and though you share the event with ten thousand other riders, you still have a lot of time alone with your thoughts … thoughts that can run astray if you let them. 

So, I’m riding along, and see a pace line of about six skinnyboys … attired in matching US Postal Service spandex outfits from head to toe, each atop a matching US Postal Service Trek bicycle.  The US Postal Service team was led at that time by Lance Armstrong, and these guys seemed like they just might be admirers … if not acolytes.  Their pace line was so tight, and their cadence so perfectly matched, it was as though they were riding a twelve-wheeled tandem, rather than six independent bikes. 

What surprised me though was that I was gaining on them.  This made no sense.  I had to be 25 years older than them, probably had more body fat than all of them combined, and my twelve-year-old bike probably wasn’t worth much more than one of their spandex outfits.  I wasn’t racing them, or even speeding up (at least not consciously).  But I got to where I had to either slow down, or pass them as a group.  You see, there’s no way to pass just part of a pace line; there’s nowhere to pull back into the six inches between the rear wheel of one bike and the front wheel of the next.  So, I waited until there were no cars approaching from behind, pushed the pedals just a bit harder, and passed these guys one by one, until the pace line was behind me. 

As I continued along the ride, and the skinnyboys faded from view in my rearview mirror, I started to ponder the question about whether I had been underestimating my athletic ability.  Maybe it wasn’t too late to begin racing in the Master (a.k.a. ‘Older’) Class.  Maybe I might even end up on the cover of some bicycling magazine.  The thought was a pleasant distraction that I enjoyed for a while – probably aided by the fact that I wasn’t overtaken by a faster cyclist in the next half hour or so.  I never really took it seriously, but did breathe a little deeper, and a little prouder that day. 

Then, a couple weeks later, I was doing another ride – one that involved a great deal of hill climbing.  As I was huffing and puffing my way up one moderately challenging, fairly long hill, I noticed a rider in my mirror beginning to overtake me.  Each time I checked, the rider was closer.  Since we were climbing—and I still possessed that body fat I mentioned earlier—there was no way I was going to accelerate to avoid being overtaken.  When the rider finally caught up, it was not a pace line of athletic-looking skinnyboys at all, but a non-athletic-looking woman, at least my age or older, between whose flounderous thighs, a saddle had to be taken as an article of faith.  She slowed just enough as she passed to offer me some breezy advice about how I might improve my pedal efficiency if I didn’t throw my knees to the side every time my pedal reached the top. 

The advice was gratuitous, and stung just a little – maybe more than just a little.  But I smiled, graciously thanked her for the advice, and began reconsidering my fantasy about becoming a bicycle racer.  

Don’t worry about me and my feelings.  It’s been fifteen years now, and I’m over the indignity … really!  I am!     

WRW - Selective Memory

I don’t quite remember many of the events of my childhood – and often don’t remember things that have happened quite recently.  I often have to rely on the recollection of others who were there with me.  This has always puzzled me, and continues to. 

It’s not as if I don’t have a good memory.  I have an excellent memory for things external to my own existence – particularly objective facts.  In the study, and to a lesser degree, the practice of engineering, this type of memory served me well.  And I’m a dangerous competitor when watching Jeopardy – and can occasionally run entire categories.  And I am just flat dangerous with games like Trivial Pursuit.  But ask me where I went to breakfast yesterday, what I had, or who I was with, and I can often be hit-or-miss. 

My brothers and sisters know this well about me, and use it to their advantage when recounting occurrences from our childhood.  Sometimes they do this in fun, knowing I am somewhat hobbled in my ability to counter their version of events; and unfortunately, this is sometimes not so much in fun – and I am likewise not fully able to defend myself against accusations of an infraction they may say I committed forty-five years ago. 

This issue extends to names as well.  I’ve heard that for many people, their deepest fear is public speaking.  Not mine.  Though public speaking may tense me up a little, what terrifies me is introducing people to one another.  If I know I’m going to do that, I rehearse it, I memorize their names … even if I know them well, and I visualize pulling off the introduction correctly, and the incredible relief of not embarrassing myself, and (more importantly) not embarrassing somebody I know well, but whose name I forget when it matters most. 

I am candid about this with my friends.  Since I can’t be better than I am in this regard (though I continue to work on it), I at least mitigate the harm by forewarning people I care about, so that this may be an opportunity for humor, rather than humiliation. 

In my effort to understand this dichotomy between excellent trivia skills, and a poor memory for myself and those around me, I have wondered whether different types of memories are stored in different part of the brain.  Or is it a matter of focus?  Am I responding to early training, where I was praised and rewarded for intellectual prowess, but never spurred to develop these key skills that are such excellent social lubricants.  I don’t suppose I’ll even resolve the ‘nature or nurture’ question without an autopsy of my brain … and I’m not signing up, since I wouldn’t benefit from the new knowledge. 

WFW-Morning on Tumalo Mountain

Tumalo Mountain Morning

The packed snow squeaked beneath my snowshoes as I left my car and made my way across the parking lot to the place where I would step off the trail, and head uphill.  Soon the parking lot would be filled with the sights and two-stroke smells of snowmobiles off-loading and heading out.  But I would be oblivious to them.  Once in the woods, outside sounds are quickly muffled. 

As I stepped off the track, the squeaking sound was soon replaced with a nearly imperceptible whoosh of powder being displaced with each step.  Forty yards in, this was the only sound, other than my breath. 

The sky overhead was a study in pastel blues – translucent Caribbean to the east; fading to azure to the west.  I could see the sun kissing the icy treetops, but since my route began on the southwest slope of the mountain, I would be in the shade for at least the first hour of my walk. 

After a few minutes, I looked back to get my bearings.  Across the highway, I could see the chairlifts on Mount Bachelor begin to move; not holding any stylishly-clad butts for another hour or so – just cycling through so the operator could flip the seats down, and brush off the night’s accumulation of snow and ice.  The Sno-cats were on their last run; working their way down the mountain, leaving wide corduroy paths—ego-snow—which would lend the first skiers of the day a false sense of competence, before accumulating moguls and warming temperatures dashed those delusions.  

I could see each breath I exhaled, little puffy clouds of water vapor, crystalizing suspended in front of me.  The sense of aloneness was so profound, so welcome.  After two days of lift lines and rapid descents, a morning of measured steps, and silence was the elixir I needed.  An airliner passing above left puffy contrails in its wake, as it silently traversed the sky.  I paused for a moment to consider where it was heading, and the lives of the people on board, six miles high, traveling at nearly the speed of the silence we shared. 

The sun began to work its way down the nearby trees, slowly melting the ice that coated each branch, and hung from them in icicles.  Every so often a chunk of ice would break off and hit with a thud against a branch below, before falling silently into the snow.  As I continued, this percussion became more frequent – becoming like a percolator.  Finally, it was almost constant – like a thousand Chilean rainsticks.   It was other-worldly.  I looked around, and realized there was nobody else; the concert was just for me.  Then, as rapidly than it had built to its crescendo, the sounds became less and less frequent – more random, then finally not there at all. 

About the time the concert ended, I heard what sounded like a gunshot.  I spun to look in the direction of the sound, and saw powder still suspended from where a branch had broken off and fallen into the snow.  The tree stood within a grove of dead trees – many so desiccated that the water which nightly freezes is about all that holds that branch to the trunk.  Finally, when the ice thaws, the branch gives way, to the tune of a broken-bat single, and is no more.  The branch opposite looked like the left arm from an ancient crucifix.   

This thin forest of standing dead trees stood like ancient ghost-sentries – manning their posts in death as in life; the vanguard frontier our the losing battle against climate change; vicariously atoning for mankind’s sins against nature; bravely facing our longer, hotter summers, and decreasing precipitation; finally falling to those most relentless six-legged horsemen of the apocalypse – the pine bark beetles.