Cognitive Bias in Action

Did you know what you see influences what you hear?

No?

I didn’t either, until Wednesday night when I attended an Aviation Safety evening run by the General Aviation Safety Council (GASCo).

Its called the McGurk effect and apart from the actual demonstration we had of this phenomenon, the most fascinating thing I found was that even when you know about it and are looking for it, it doesn’t change what you hear!

As part of the evening we were shown a video of a man saying “Ba Ba Ba” over again with the focus on his mouth. The sound remains identical and then the visual switches to him making a mouth shape for “Far Far Far” – incredibly this is then what you hear, despite the two sounds being exactly the same.

What you see influences what you hear.

The mind is an incredibly complex organ and this is just one example of how much we still have to learn about how we work. It also shows how cognitive biases we have can affect us, and consequently our decision making.

The evening was well attended at the Samlesbury Aerodrome Canberra Club with pilots from all backgrounds in the audience and Attitude Airsports and The Bay Flying Club were particularly well represented. As with all the previous GASCo events I’ve attended it was interactive, with audience participation encouraged by the use of voting handsets for various questions throughout the evening. This always make for a much more engaging event and allows you to position your perspective within the context of the views of the wider group.

There was a wide variety of topics covered, apart from cognitive bias, including planning, threat and error management, resilience, managing partial power loss and finally electronic conspicuity. As ever, the underlying ethos is to use the evening to challenge yourself on some of these topics and this is a great way of encouraging attendance as the focus is not on being judgemental, but on encouraging better and safer flying.

Caro Gough-Cooper is a very knowledgeable speaker on all of the above subjects and kept the audience well engaged throughout. And finally, I should mention that this free to attend event was organised by Richard Hine and sponsored by Pooleys – without either of whom it would never have happened.

These events are run regularly up and down the country and if you get the chance to attend one, I highly recommend that you do. You will definitely learn something about flying, and you might even learn something about you!