How To Reweight Particle Filter

20080813-filters

Whammo! You didn't run into that coming, did you?

Why is information technology that, despite all our planning, we sometimes go caught by surprise, totally unprepared, with our pants downward as information technology were? I mean, we're smart folks, right? How come sometimes we just don't see stuff coming?

The reply is, much of the time, that we don't see everything conspicuously because nosotros don't run across a lot of things at all. We process the raw stuff of experience through a diverseness of filters – and nosotros act on the "processed" data, not the globe as information technology is.

Those filters are engrained in us, oft from birth, and virtually of the time they help us to effectively function in our social and physical environments. For example, one very simple filter we have is how to isolate something interesting or of import from a cluttered background – think finding your keys among the mess at the lesser of your purse. Or identifying something good to eat – a ripe fruit, mayhap – among the unripe fruits, leaves, and branches of a tree.

That'southward a pretty basic filtering power (though the physiological mechanisms involved are quite circuitous) that humans everywhere rely on every day to survive, then information technology's a good thing. But there are many much more complex filters that nosotros pick upward equally function of our thinking repertoire, and as helpful as they might sometimes be, they tin also get us into a lot of trouble.

Here are some examples:

Language

Language is a powerful strength in shaping our behavior. Just ask a sanitation engineer! Employers take long recognized the way that chore titles can affect employee performance – which is why at that place are so few clerks then many assembly at your local retail mega-outlet.

But language can lead us astray, also. Consider this example fatigued from the annals of linguistics: a tanning factory discharges wastes, mostly animal thing, into a pond. The decomposing waste creates flammable gasses. A "pond", though, is not flammable, right? I mean, right?! A man is working near the swimming. Not taking any special precautions – why would you, side by side to a "pond"? – he ignites a blow-torch. A canvas of flame engulfs the pond and spreads to the nearby factory, destroying information technology.

The language nosotros use to depict people can strongly influence our behavior towards them. Feminists recognized this when they started insisting on terms like "police officer" rather than "policeman". Or consider this: numerous studies have shown that people with "indigenous-sounding" names are less probable to get task interviews equally similarly-qualified people with "white-sounding" names.

Gender

Gender is a powerful filter in every civilisation – although the behaviors it shapes tin can exist very dissimilar from culture to civilization. What is considered men'south work in one society – carrying heavy loads of bricks, for case – might be considered women's piece of work in another.

Gender leads us off-target when it leads us to look at a person's gender as an index of their abilities. For instance, in the US, it is common to hear people say things similar "men are stronger than women". This is not true. Some men are stronger than nigh women, a handful of men are stronger than all women, and nigh men are stronger than some women. But knowing someone'south gender does not tell y'all anything about how potent they are!

Assumptions about gender extend far beyond physical attributes. With few exceptions, women still are not promoted to meridian-level corporate positions, despite the number of qualified women in the business world. Men are assumed to have "leadership qualities" that women lack – and women'due south leadership qualities tend to exist dismissed as signs of "manliness" or "bitchiness".

Race and Ethnicity

What is true of gender is likewise true of race and ethnicity. Knowing someone's race or ethnicity tells us niggling about that detail person – yet we deed equally if information technology told us a lot. Here's an example: a black educatee of mine was defendant of plagiarism in another course when she handed in an excellent essay. This is a student that added immensely to every classroom give-and-take she took part in, and who wrote insightfully in every assignment she gave me (including "personal reflection" papers that cannot be plagiarized). The other professor did non have whatever examples of work that the student had allegedly copied from; information technology was just "too good". Race may not have been the just gene, but it was clearly a cistron; I've never had a white student of like quality face a similar accusation.

Here'south another example: Blackness and other minority athletes, performers, fifty-fifty military leaders and politicians are frequently described every bit "articulate", an describing word rarely applied to their white counterparts. People do not expect clear speech from non-white persons, and are surprised when they hear intelligent dialogue from blackness speakers.

Personal Experience

An old joke claims, "All Indians walk single file. At least, the one I saw did."

Personal experience is a powerful learning tool, but it can lead united states astray when nosotros make false assumptions based on generalizations from limited feel. Childhood experience can make for especially powerful filters, as they tend to be imbued with strong emotional resonance, merely any experience can lead us to wrong conclusions.

Examining Your Filters

What is insidious about all of these factors is that virtually of the time they role without the states fifty-fifty noticing them. We don't promote Republic of chad over Wilma because Chad's a human, but because he seems more "leaderly", considering he has that "certain something". And mayhap he does – or peradventure our invisible assumptions nigh gender brand weak signs of "sure somethingness" seem strong, while Wilma'south powerful "sure somethingness" is filtered out.

It's unlikely that you will catch your filters at work in your day-to-day life, but you lot can reflect on the style you accept interacted with other people and how you lot've handled various situations (possibly in a weekly review?). You may well be surprised to find that, in many cases, you tin't seem to put your finger on exactly why you lot acted the way you did – a sure sign of a filter at piece of work. Paying attention to those moments will bring you a long way towards replacing the stock of experience and received wisdom with filters that allow you lot to more accurately and effectively act.

I've listed only a handful of obvious filters here. What are your filters? How could you deal with them?