Biases, our brain and software development

Quick presentation about cognitive biases, classic psychological researches and quite new papers that displays how those biases might be impacting software developers.

1. Biases, our brain and software

2. Just in case, about me!

3. Today! Our brain is not what our brain thinks it is Cooking under pressure Monkey business Cognitive Biases and how this affect us daily

4. Is this correct?

5. Is this correct?

6. Perhaps this one?

7. Or this one? Computational Theory Of Mind

8. it is more complicated than that

9. Our brain is not what our brain thinks it is

10. Limited Working Memory: The brain's working memory can hold about 7±2 items at a time. Cognitive Load: The brain has a finite capacity for processing information. Attention Span: Human attention is limited and can be easily diverted. Cognitive Biases: The brain often relies on heuristics or mental shortcuts that can lead to cognitive biases. Memory Distortion: Human memory is not a perfect recording of events. Memories can be distorted by subsequent information, emotions, and the passage of time, leading to inaccurate recollections. Sleep and Cognitive Function: Sleep is crucial for brain function, including memory consolidation, problem-solving, and emotional regulation. Emotional Regulation: The brain's prefrontal cortex, which is responsible for higher-order thinking and emotional regulation, is not fully developed until the mid-20s. Stress and Cognition: Chronic stress can impair cognitive functions, including memory, attention, and decision-making. Sensory Processing Limits: The brain filters and interprets sensory information, but it can only process a fraction of the sensory input it receives.

11. Cooking under pressure

12. Peer Pressure (Solomon Ash) https://www.structural-learning.com/post/solomon-asch-theory Shock Experiment (Stanley Milgram) https://www.simplypsychology.org/milgram.html Stanford Prison Experiment (Philip Zimbardo) https://exhibits.stanford.edu/spe

13. Monkey business

14. Cognitive Biases

15. +200 Cognitive biases documented 4 Main Categories Information: filtering information. Meaning: connecting dots and filling in the gaps with what we think we know. Speed: making decisions based on new information. Memory: we can’t remember everything so we have to use it efficiently. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Cognitive_bias_codex_en.svg

16. A Tale from the Trenches: Cognitive Biases and Software Development https://www.computer.org/csdl/proceedings-article/icse/2020/712100a654/1pK5eMv5yUw

17. Reversal Biased Actions

18. Samples from the study