Noise
Subtitle: A Flaw in Human Judgment
Publisher: Little, Brown Spark
Published: May 18, 2021
Place of publication: New York, USA
Language: eng
Format: hardcover
Number of pages: 454
Copyright date: 2021
Subjects: Noise; Electric circuits; Vacuum-tubes
First sentence: Imagine that four teams of friends have gone to a shooting arcade.
Description: A revolutionary exploration of how noise contributes to bad judgments, and how to control both noise and cognitive bias.

Imagine that two doctors in the same city give different diagnoses to identical patients - or that two judges in the same courthouse give markedly different sentences to people who have committed the same crime. Suppose that different interviewers at the same firm make different decisions about indistinguishable job applicants - or that when a company is handling customer complaints, the resolution depends on who happens to answer the phone. Now imagine that the same doctor, the same judge, the same interviewer, or the same customer service agent makes different decisions depending on whether it is morning or afternoon, or Monday rather than Wednesday. These are examples of noise: variability in judgments that should be identical.

In Noise, Daniel Kahneman, Olivier Sibony, and Cass R. Sunstein show the detrimental effects of noise in many fields, including medicine, law, economic forecasting, forensic science, bail, child protection, strategy, performance reviews, and personnel selection. Wherever there is judgment, there is noise. Yet, most of the time, individuals and organizations alike are unaware of it. They neglect noise. With a few simple remedies, people can reduce both noise and bias, and so make far better decisions.
Notes: Bibliographical footnotes.
Table of contents: title: Contents
pagenum: vii; title: Introduction: Two Kinds of Error
pagenum: 3; label: I
title: Finding Noise
pagenum: 11; label: 1
title: Crime and Noisy Punishment
pagenum: 13; label: 2
title: A Noisy Subsystem
pagenum: 23; label: 3
title: Singular Decisions
pagenum: 34; label: II
title: Your Mind Is a Measuring Instrument
pagenum: 39; label: 4
title: Matters of Judgment
pagenum: 43; label: 5
title: Measuring Error
pagenum: 55; label: 6
title: The Analysis of Noise
pagenum: 69; label: 7
title: Occasion Noise
pagenum: 79; label: 8
title: How Groups Amplify Noise
pagenum: 94; label: III
title: Noise in Predictive Judgments
pagenum: 107; label: 9
title: Judgments and Models
pagenum: 111; label: 10
title: Noiseless Rules
pagenum: 123; label: 11
title: Objective Ignorance
pagenum: 137; label: 12
title: The Valley of the Normal
pagenum: 148; label: IV
title: How Noise Happens
pagenum: 159; label: 13
title: Heuristics, Biases, and Noise
pagenum: 161; label: 14
title: The Matching Operation
pagenum: 176; label: 15
title: Scales
pagenum: 187; label: 16
title: Patterns
pagenum: 200; label: 17
title: The Sources of NOise
pagenum: 210; label: V
title: Improving Judgments
pagenum: 221; label: 18
title: Better Judges for Better Judgments
pagenum: 225; label: 19
title: Debiasing and Decision Hygiene
pagenum: 236; label: 20
title: Sequencing Information in Forensic Science
pagenum: 245; label: 21
title: Selection and Aggregation in Forecasting
pagenum: 259; label: 22
title: Guidelines in Medicine
pagenum: 273; label: 23
title: Defining the Scale in Performance Ratings
pagenum: 287; label: 24
title: Structure in Hiring
pagenum: 300; label: 25
title: The Mediating Assessments Protocol
pagenum: 312; label: VI
title: Optimal Noise
pagenum: 325; label: 26
title: TheCosts of Noise Reduction
pagenum: 329; label: 27
title: Dignity
pagenum: 339; label: 28
title: Rules of Standards?
pagenum: 350; title: Review and Conclusion: Taking Noise Seriously
pagenum: 361; title: Epilogue: A Less Noisy World
pagenum: 377; label: A
title: How to Conduct a Noise Audit
pagenum: 379; label: B
title: A Checklist for a Decision Observer
pagenum: 387; label: C
title: Correcting Predictions
pagenum: 391; title: Acknowledgments
pagenum: 397; title: Notes
pagenum: 399; title: Index
pagenum: 439