The Representativeness Heuristic

In this video I describe another heuristic identified by the work of Amos Tversky and Daniel Kahneman. The representativeness heuristic is a shortcut that we use when attempting to estimate the odds of something being true, such as whether an interview profile came from a lawyer or an engineer. Rather than using relevant base rate information, participants showed a tendency … Read More

How Hearing Works: Parts of the Ear

In this video I explain the process of transduction for hearing in order to convert soundwaves into neural activity. I describe each of the parts of the ear and discuss how the movement of fluid in the basilar membrane triggers hair cells (stereocilia) which then send messages to the brain via the auditory nerve. I explain the difference between place … Read More

What is the Availability Heuristic?

In their first study of the availability heuristic, Tversky and Kahneman asked participants to estimate whether English had more words that started with the letter K or more words that had K as the third letter. What do you think? If you’re like most participants in their study, you might guess that there are more words that start with k … Read More