behaviour and intelligence

behaviour and intelligence

how not to analyse data – by yourself

“Back in the late 1970's, the US government commissioned a study to look at effective group decision making. In the study, they asked 30 military experts to study intelligence data and try to construct the enemy's troop movements.

“Each expert analyzed the data and compiled a report. The commission then "scored" each report on how well it reported the actual troop movements. They found that the average military expert only got 7 out of a 100 elements correct.

“Each expert then reviewed all of the other experts' reports and rewrote their initial assessment. The average accuracy for these revised reports was 79 out of a 100.

“What was different between the first report and the second? The experts didn't have any new information. All they had were the perspectives of the other experts. When they added those perspectives to their own, their accuracy increased ten-fold.”

email email_abelard [at] abelard.org

© abelard, 2004, 20 may


all rights reserved

the address for this document is https://www.abelard.org/news/behaviour040520.asp

variable words
prints as 1 A4 pages (on my printer and set-up)