JULY -13th Newsletter

Cognitive Illusions 🤯

July 13, 2023

What are Cognitive Illusions?!

But first: Do you remember this famous optical illusion?

Hint: In the illusion above, the mouth of the older woman is - get this - the choker of a lady looking away with curly hair - woah. Right?

What is an illusion anyway? According to our dear friends @ the Encyclopedia Britannica: an illusion is “a misrepresentation of a “real” sensory stimulus —that is an interpretation that contradicts objective “reality” as defined by general agreement.” So an optical illusion is “something that tricks your eyes and makes you think you see something that is not really there, or see it differently from how it really is” (Cambridge Dictionary).

WHY do we experience these optical illusions? Well, researchers believe it’s an evolutionary adaptation that helps us make sense of the world given ambiguous or incomplete information - also to protect ourselves (note that this old woman pictured is actually called a “mother-in-law” so seeing her might remind you to call yours before she gets mad 😬).

What if we told you that there are cognitive illusions too? These are defined as “a common thinking error or thinking trap.” Famously, these are the patterns, heuristics or mental shortcuts that our brain takes to make sense of the world quickly, reduce cognitive load (or energy that we exert on a regular basis), and keep us alive. Our brains take information and extrapolate a set of things that *do not exist* based on experience, patterns, and the need to help everything fit into a mental bucket (unfortunately, it’s often a negative bucket).

Examples include 🔮:

1.Emotional Reasoning: “Jumping to incorrect conclusions based on your feelings”

Example: When receiving feedback - “I must be horrible at my job if my boss keeps giving me feedback on my executive presentations” (alternative: maybe they never expected you to get it perfectly done, just to get it started so you could discuss it together 🤓)

2.Fortune Telling: “Presuming to know the future”

Example: When you’re on a date: “I can’t believe they excused themselves to the bathroom within 10 minutes - they must be texting their friends for an SOS” (alternative: or they are coming from work and didn’t want to be late to skipped the loo to make the initial few minutes of your blind date less awkward😬)

3.Overgeneralizing: “Making overreaching assumptions when given a set of facts”

Example: When your colleague is late: “They don’t respect my time” (alternative: or they truly had an emergency call come through for a family member 🫣)

4.Shoulding: “Excessive self-criticism”

Example: When you want to start a new hobby but are too tired: “I am just not the person I used to be. If I was a more effective human, I should be able to start working on this business idea” (alternative: you just have too much going on to start something new or the project needs to be broken up into smaller pieces 😑)

While cognitive illusions are evolutionarily meaningful, they’re also not always meant to be trusted. Why? They’re illusions. Statistical predictions. Meant to be looked at… from different directions. Just like the photo above.

How do you catch these illusions, so they don’t rule your days, weeks and years?

With mental fitness 🧠💪🏼. Working on daily mental movements helps you catch these moments, and shift your perspective to think more productively each and every day.

Join us for a mental fitness sprint today!

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