Management Scientist

In the study of probability, one tends towards studying what is interesting and noteworthy. I recently got sidetracked and had an eye-opening experience learning how to think as an intelligence analyst.

Let me share what I went through with you. There is a tool in the intelligence community called Analysis of Competing Hypothesis (ACH). It is used to assist in making judgements by weighing alternative explainations and conclusions. Basically by taking hypothesis that contain both consistent and inconsistent data…classifying that data. And then rejecting those hypothesis which have too many inconsistent data points.

In learning how to use this tool, you have to devote some time to understanding the mental processes of analysts. Thinking analytically is a skill like fishing or piloting an aircraft. It can be taught, learned and can improve with practice. But it isn’t something one can just absorb in a classroom without actually doing it oneself.

So lets talk about the cognitive limitations that impact the analyst’s thinking. The concept of “bounded” or limited rationality was introduced in the past century. Because of limitations in human mental capacity, the mind cannot cope directly with the complexity of the world. And so we construct a mental model of reality and then work with that model. We behave rationally within the confines of the mental model. But the model is not always well adapted to the real world. The weaknesses from the limitations gleamed from overall psychological experiments are insights into the study of applicable international political behavior.

The process of perception links us to our environment and is critical to an accurate understanding of the world around us. Accurate intelligence analysis then requires good perception. But the problem is that research has shown that human perception demonstrates that the process has many flaws.

One flaw is that impressions resist change. Our mindsets will tend to be quick to form but resistant to change. As an analyst, our mindset predisposes us to think in certain ways. Take the image below for example.

This illustrates a principle by showing part of a longer series of subtly modified drawings that change unnoticeably from a man into a woman. The right hand drawing in the top row, when viewed along, has an equal chance of being perceived as a man or a woman. However when test subjects are shown the entire set one by one, their perception of this drawing above is biased accordingly to the which end of the series they started from.

Basically those who start by viewing a picture that is clearly a man are biased in favor of continuing to see a man long after an observer who has seen only a single picture recognizes that the man is now a woman. Of the same accord, subjects who start out seeing a woman are biased in continuing to see a woman.

This principle explains why gradual, evolutionary change often goes unnoticed. You can relate to it by recalling any experience where a fresh pair of eyes have helped you find something that you weren’t able to find. So the analyst needs to realize this tendency to assimilate new information to pre-existing images is greater when the information is incomplete or false confidence in an established view is in play.

As an analyst and a human, we find it difficult to look at the same information from different perspectives. A good example is in the drawing below.

You can test your own persistence of established images by looking at the image above. Young woman or old? Now take a look again and see if you can both visually and mentally reorganize the data to form a different image opposite from what you initially perceive. An analyst must look at data and reorganize it into multiple perspectives.

I hope that gave you a taste of being an analyst. More posts to come in this area (including ACH).