AdieuToLogic • last Tuesday at 3:07 AM

>> And if you immersed yourself in the writings of non-native English speakers for a significant amount of time, then a paper written by a native English speaker was presented without you knowing who the author was, would you look for the same kind of mistakes in it that you have been finding?

> I wouldn’t look for anything. As I’m reading a text, something in my brain would immediately go "this is probably written by a non native speaker" when coming across certain awkward turns of phrase.

The problem is that the more a person is looking for a pattern, the more they are likely to believe they have found an instance of one.

For example, if a police officer is regularly tasked with identifying drivers leaving bars who might be intoxicated, they will naturally use a form of "pattern recognition" to determine which vehicles to stop. Common indicators are a vehicle that is driving too slow or remains stationary after a traffic light turns green.

So what happens when a sober designated driver is tired and drives overly cautious?

What will the cop do if the designated driver falls asleep at a traffic light?

Would the cop testify along the lines of:

  I wasn't looking for anything.  As I observed the vehicle,
  something in my brain immediately said "this is probably
  a drunk driver" when coming across those driving patterns.

This is by definition a form of confirmation bias.