Notes

Introduction

prone to collect too few observations : We had read a book that criticized
psychologists for using small samples, but did not explain their choices:
Jacob Cohen, Statistical Power Analysis for the Behavioral Sciences
(Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum, 1969).
question about words : I have slightly altered the original wording, which
referred to letters in the first and third position of words.
negative view of the mind : A prominent German psychologist has been
our most persistent critic. Gerd Gigerenzer, “How to Make Cognitive
Illusions Disappear,” European Review of Social Psychology 2 (1991):
83–115. Gerd Gigerenzer, “Personal Reflections on Theory and
Psychology,” Theory & Psychology 20 (2010): 733–43. Daniel Kahneman
and Amos Tversky, “On the Reality of Cognitive Illusions,” Psychological
Review 103 (1996): 582–91.
offered plausible alternatives : Some examples from many are Valerie F.
Reyna and Farrell J. Lloyd, “Physician Decision-Making and Cardiac Risk:
Effects of Knowledge, Risk Perception, Risk Tolerance and Fuzzy-
Processing,” Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied 12 (2006):
179–95. Nicholas Epley and Thomas Gilovich, “The Anchoring-and-
Adjustment Heuristic,” Psychological Science 17 (2006): 311–18. Norbert
Schwarz et al., “Ease of Retrieval of Information: Another Look at the
Availability Heuristic,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 61
(1991): 195–202. Elke U. Weber et al., “Asymmetric Discounting in
Intertemporal Choice,” Psychological Science 18 (2007): 516–23.
George F. Loewenstein et al., “Risk as Feelings,” Psychological Bulletin
127 (2001): 267–86.
Nobel Prize that I received : The prize awarded in economics is named
Bank of Sweden Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel. It
was first given in 1969. Some physical scientists were not pleased with the
addition of a Nobel Prize in social science, and the distinctive label of the
economics prize was a compromise.
prolonged practice : Herbert Simon and his students at Carnegie Mellon in
the 1980s set the foundations for our understanding of expertise. For an
excellent popular introduction to the subject, see Joshua Foer,