Look at the two lines above and ignore the chevron – arrow shapes connected to them. Which is longer? Take a moment to be sure.

Okay, now measure them. Which is longer? So now you KNOW which is longer, right?

Neither. They are the same. This is a famous optical illusion that you have doubtless seen before. So you REALLY know they are the same. But … how do they feel? What does your gut tell you? What do your eyes tell you and make you feel EVEN THOUGH YOU KNOW they are the same?

If you did not have a ruler to use, you would KNOW that the lower one is obviously longer and make your decsions accordingly.

Just like there are optical illusions, there are cognitive illusions that color our decision-making. This is the sort of thing we search for when we work on a project.

We target the maddening contradictions and then we apply what we learn in a world where people make decisions based on WYSIATI. I’ll talk about that in the next blog.