Intuition -- How It Can Lead Us Astray, with Dr. Christopher Chabris

Welcome to Amy Alkon's HumanLab: The Science Between Us, a weekly show with the luminaries of behavioral science.

We like to believe our decisions are rationally driven and make sense. But constantly, our perception and decision-making are clouded by illusions we aren't even aware we have. Some of these include illusions of accuracy in our attention, memory, confidence, and knowledge. These illusions can lead us to make costly - and even deadly - errors.

The good news is, by understanding what these illusions are and how we fall prey to them, we can avoid doing it (or do it far less), make more rationally-based decisions, and live smarter overall.

To help us do that, my guest tonight, psychologist and researcher Dr. Christopher Chabris is half of the team (with psychologist and researcher Dan Simons) who did the famous and hilarious "invisible gorilla experiment." It's also the title of their fascinating book, "The Invisible Gorilla: How Our Intuitions Deceive Us."

Tonight, we'll be discussing this experiment and others, why we're so convinced we're perceiving situations correctly when we're doing anything but, and how we can stop and live like the rational animals we believe we are.

Join me and all my fascinating guests every Sunday (at our new half-hour time), 7-7:30 p.m. Pacific Time, 10-10:30 p.m. Eastern Time, at blogtalkradio.com/amyalkon or subscribe on iTunes or Stitcher.

Please support the show by buying my "science-help" book on the PROCESS of living with confidence, "Unf*ckology: A Field Guide to Living with Guts and Confidence."