Human Information Processing - Why and how we do what we do

Monkey see monkey do. Monkey see monkey ignore.

I’ve had a turbulent week. On Tuesday night, I was collaborating with several team members on two projects. For one of the projects, we had conducted an experiment some weeks ago and now had to analyze the data we got and submit a report about the entire process. Tasks of this nature are interesting but difficult. To put together a great submission, a lot of mental effort and time is often required. As we finalized the work, I explained I was tired af and just wanted to go to bed. My superhuman teammate offered to polish off the rest of the work and sent me off to bed (shout out to her!). Thankfully, we were able to proofread both projects several times before submitting, meeting the 11.59 pm deadline and having a well-deserved sleep. Hopefully, our grades show that our submissions have the quality we believe they have.

More importantly, I learnt some really cool stuff. It is remarkable how the three courses I am doing this semester have introduced me to new ways of looking at the world. I probably would not have been able to put these into words some months back but this was among my reasons to do a PhD - learn a lot of esoteric stuff about a field I like and apply it. I am gaining a deeper appreciation of things we often overlook and take for granted in our daily lives. I am now going to briefly explain some of the interesting concepts I have learnt so far.

“Human Information Processing”. This is one of the courses I am offering this semester - it is an interdisciplinary way of studying humans across engineering and psychology. Simply put, it is a way of studying our thoughts and behaviours as human beings. In a human information processing system, input/information is received and encoded, the information is operated upon, it is stored in the memory and then produced as output/human action. Typically, this process occurs every time we do or do not do something. For instance, you are on your to the supermarket in your Adidas slides, but you step out and it looks like it would rain (input). You see this with your eyes, feel it on your skin and hear it with your ears, go back into the house (processing), change into your water-resistant shoes and grab an umbrella in case of incasity (action). Some may decide not to go anymore, use a car while some will decide to risk it all without going back into the house. Different ways of processing information.

Various things motivate the ways we think/process information and act. There is distributed cognition which explains that thinking does not just occur in our heads. Cognition is distributed across people and is influenced by social interactions. This is evident in the world today and especially prevalent on social media. Ordinarily, we would frown at a man hitting a woman. As individuals and a society, there is a visceral reaction to such an occurrence. It is widely accepted that men should not hit women, even irrespective of the context. “A real man would have walked away.” However, someone tweets a meme of a man hitting a woman and adds a funny caption. The tweet gets tens of thousands of likes. Going through the comment section, the few people who try to speak against it are shouted down, called killjoys and spoilsports. According to the prevalent shared mental model - Yes, it is violent but it is also funny so do not be overly sensitive and laugh for God’s sake.

Another way people view the world is motivated reasoning. This view often manifests in the proliferation of stereotypes. We want to confirm what we already know or believe to be true. A young man named Stephen has always believed that working from 9 am to 5 pm is a form of slavery and that entrepreneurship is King. He seeks and is more attentive to information that confirms this bias. Perhaps, there is a news report that shows 9 to 5 workers have been owed salaries for months by the government. Stephen takes a screenshot and uploads it on his WhatsApp status with a “brilliant” caption to the acclaim and protests of his contacts. He is not interested in data that may show the commonest way to become a millionaire is to work for an employer, get promoted, save and invest aggressively. He also does not want to find out that 90% of startups fail. It does not fit into his way of looking at the world. Another example of motivated reasoning is most or all forms of discrimination… A person with a certain skin colour must behave a certain way or it's weird, etc. Basically, a way of eliminating open-mindedness and viewing the world through a thick biased lens.

These ways of thinking are often used by corporations to target their users. Essentially, they are marketing techniques for media companies, manufacturers, etc. It is worth reflecting whether your reaction to something is based on what goes on in your head or what you have been led to think. Sometimes, it is important to take a step back and ask ourselves why we are making this potentially life-changing decision to do something or to do nothing. What are our motivations for our decisions? Are we engaging in groupthink or are we considering all the facts in our specific scenarios? One thing is certain - Try to please everyone, and you will please no one. Also, we can try to be more conscious about our biases. That you’ve always thought a certain way does not mean you cannot pivot and see things differently! There are more interesting concepts I will love to share from my classes but that will have to happen in future posts. I have to call my mum now… :)

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My thought process before writing this week’s article:

To be honest, when I started this article, I was sleepy. I woke up early to read and write for a different project. Doesn’t help that Lawal reminded me of a great song I played a lot in my final year while we worked together on a competition - Up Again by Clean Bandit featuring Rae Morris. Songs I enjoy help me sleep. But I had an important call in a couple of hours with one of my amazing and reluctant mentors so I tried to write something to stay awake (Shoutout to you Nitya!). I thought of writing about my funny and troubling experience travelling from Lagos, Nigeria to Doha, Qatar :), another article on Nigerian Graduates After School, or stoicism and Viktor Frankl. In the end, I started writing about my experience working on school assignments this week and inspiration descended.

News from this week:

It was refreshing to give an impromptu speech to my undergraduate department during their annual yearly conference. In 2017, I was a fresh-eyed general secretary whose job roles included taking minutes and signing documents on behalf of the association. A couple of years later, I helped organize a conference and other events for the association. This week, I was called to speak. Grateful for the gradual year to year growth. Na so life dey be.

Extra:

Finally, shout out to Ororo for winning the Premier League Player of The Month on his first month back to the league. GOAT doing GOAT things. Siuuuuu.

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