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from the it's-harder-to-reverse-engineer-someone-else's-work-than-the-new-stuff-we-just-came-up-with dept.
Here's Why Our Brains Solve Problems by Adding Things, Not Removing:
Have you ever noticed how we usually try and solve problems by adding more, rather than taking away? More meetings, more forms, more buttons, more shelves, more systems, more code, and so on. Now scientists think they might know the reason why.
A study of 1,585 people across 8 different experiments showed that our brains tend to default to addition rather than subtraction when it comes to finding solutions – in many cases, it seems we just don't consider the strategy of taking something away at all.
The researchers found that this preference for adding was noticeable in three scenarios in particular: when people were under higher cognitive load, when there was less time to consider the other options, and when volunteers didn't get a specific reminder that subtracting was an option.
"It happens in engineering design, which is my main interest," says engineer Leidy Klotz, from the University of Virginia. "But it also happens in writing, cooking, and everything else – just think about your own work and you will see it."
"The first thing that comes to our minds is, what can we add to make it better? Our paper shows we do this to our detriment, even when the only right answer is to subtract. Even with financial incentive, we still don't think to take away."
[...] "The more often people rely on additive strategies, the more cognitively accessible they become," says psychologist Gabrielle Adams, from the University of Virginia.
"Over time, the habit of looking for additive ideas may get stronger and stronger, and in the long run, we end up missing out on many opportunities to improve the world by subtraction."
The research has been published in Nature.
Journal Reference:
Gabrielle S. Adams, Benjamin A. Converse, Andrew H. Hales, et al. People systematically overlook subtractive changes, Nature (DOI: 10.1038/s41586-021-03380-y)
(Score: 2, Insightful) by hemocyanin on Monday April 12 2021, @03:36PM (1 child)
I'm bothered by headlines that promise too much. From TFA:
The findings are interesting and will probably help people step back and consider a wider array of solutions, but the findings are the what and all the why seems to be conjecture. Sort of like "This berry is poisonous, don't eat it." That's the what part, and it is extremely valuable information, but it is by no means the why. The TFA would have been great if the headline lost the first two words. As it stands, it promises far more than it delivers which is not a good way to build credibility with the reading public.
(Score: 2) by darkfeline on Monday April 12 2021, @08:39PM
I have an armchair hypothesis as to why. It's because our brains can only grow/learn by adding things, not removing. That's why addictions and habits never really go away; once you've built the neural pathways, they'll always be there even if you overpower it with a new habit.
Evolutionarily, the reason our brains only add things is because removing things is too difficult and way too easy to break "backward compatibility". It's the same reason the Linux kernel and Windows prioritized backward compatibility and are successful. Imagine (not) waking up one day and forgetting how to breathe because your brain trimmed a neural pathway that was an indirect dependency for the breathing feature.
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