

Illusion
of experience3: Shopping online? I am sure you have your
favourite shopping site – perhaps Amazon or Flipkart or Snapdeal etc. Grocery
shopping? You know where to go – your local shop or the Mall. One factor that
is influencing your decision is your past experience. Perhaps you trust your
experience more than anything else. And yet the memory of the experience may be
fooling you. I heard following story from a workshop participant, “I and my
wife visited China recently. The whole trip was great except on the last day I
forgot to wish my wife on her birthday. Now nobody talks about the China trip
at home.” Kahneman mentions that the memory of an experience follows the
Peak-End rule and duration neglect. We remember only the peak events and the
ending and we ignore the total duration of the experience. If the end is bad
then the memory of the experience is bad like the China trip even if most of
the trip was fun. This is an illusion of experience. Kahneman calls this the ‘tyranny of the remembering self’4. Whenever you shop or make any decision, you believe you are trying to
ensure a better future experience. However, what you are doing is trying to
ensure better anticipated memories.


Watch your step.
Image sources: Snapshots from the movies: Queen (2014), Tweleve angry men (1997), Behind enemy lines (2001).
Notes:
1. Kahneman
explains “Illusion of understanding” in chapter 19 (Thinking, fast and slow) which
has the same title.
2. WYSIATI
rule and the quote on “unlimited ability to ignore our ignorance” are from
chapter 19 page 201.
3. “Illusion
of experience” is explained in chapter 35 titled “Two selves”
4. “Tyranny
of the remembering self” is mentioned in chapter 35 page 381. Kahneman presents
this topic in the TED talk “The riddle of experience vs.
memory”
5. “Illusion
of truth” is a section in chapter 5 titled “Cognitive ease” and is on page 61.
6. While
we stopped our discussion, my wife (Gauri) ended up auditing a 20 lecture “Introduction
to Psychology” course (available
free on YouTube) the same year during the summer holidays. Last year we
took a courser course titled “Buddhism
and modern psychology” together. And she is now using “Thinking, fast and
slow” for teaching cognitive biases to grade 11 & 12 students in Theory of
Knowledge (TOK) class. Last year she became Head of the Dept for TOK. She
continues to teach Physics.
7. Associative
coherence is mentioned on page 64.
8. Kahneman
uses the term “cognitive minefield” on page 417.