Not so long ago, I experienced a stretch of time when I awoke seemingly every morning at the same time, 7:47. No alarm, no real reason. Just awoke at 7:47. Strange. A little creepy, but I didn’t think too much of it. Circadian rhythm and the like. However, I also began to take note that it seemed as though I would look at the clock in the evenings as well, and, you guessed it, 7:47. Again, no real reason. Just seemed like I was looking at the clock and, bam! 7:47.

I mentioned it in passing during a conversation with my niece. Her response, which was a bit surprising to me, was, “Oh my God, that happens to me, too!” Different time of the day, but same phenomenon.

We both didn’t think much of it beyond agreeing it was weird and teasing each other about it, but not delving much into researching it or trying to explain it, but it turns out, others have. There is a scientific term for it—selective perception. The human psyche perceives certain information more intently, while completely blocking out other information. Our brains like to find attractive, even exciting, patterns. Two “causes” of selective perception include priming and framing, which are said to tempt us unconsciously to perform certain actions over and over again without recognizing what has triggered us to do so.

Psychology dives even deeper into the subject with what is called Cognitive Bias, “a systematic thought process caused by the tendency of the human brain to simplify information processing through a filter of personal experience and preferences. The filtering process is a coping mechanism that enables the brain to prioritize and process large amounts of information quickly.”

Horror movies are quite good at capitalizing on this. I recall a film not too long ago that told the story of a young woman, starting a new job in a new city with the purchase of a new home. Looking forward to her new life, she slowly but surely starts waking out of a deep sleep at 3 a.m. every night, followed as slowly and as surely by strange occurrences in the house. As she investigates these strange happenings, she discovers the house was the site of a rather grisly death of a woman a long time ago, at exactly three o’clock in the morning.

 You would think that seeing this movie would have sent me under my bed (again), but by the time I saw the film, I was familiar with cognitive bias and selective perception. For now, under the bed remains the domain of my pets.

It is a bit like how we ascribe a bit less mysticism to how web sites and apps seem to know what we are thinking now that we know about the sophisticated algorithms that are used to track and understand our online behavior.

It’s like the GI Joe cartoons used to say, “Knowing is half the battle!”

The same can be said for bias in measurement uncertainty. As Genevieve Diesing writes in this month’s 101 article, “Regression analysis is easy to misuse, ‘or to ignore certain features that don’t particularly sit on that curve,’ resulting in incorrect answers, warned Terry Stransky, senior geologist, Terracon. This is a natural result of bias, which we all have, he said.”

So, check out Diesing’s article, “Measurement Uncertainty 101: Automation, Bias and Advanced Management,” and everything else we have to offer in this month’s Quality.

Enjoy and thanks for reading!