CrowdScience – Do multiple choice questions make us biased?

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Griffith, a CrowdScience listener in Ghana, is more than just a CrowdScience listener. He is also a listener of our sister show on the World Service, Unexpected Elements. But he noticed something funny. On the weekly Unexpected Items multiple choice quiz, the answer is almost always A. It is almost always a “B” or a “C”. Why is this? When we prepare a test, why do we hesitate to choose option A? His question leads presenter Alex Lathbridge on a journey into the mysterious depths of our brain, where he uncovers the cognitive biases that often trip us up in games of chance or probability. Your brain may be a wonderful machine when it comes to knowing how to make sense of the world, but sometimes, in the name of efficiency, it takes clever little shortcuts to answer. This practical approach to problem solving helps us manage an incredibly complex world. But sometimes, especially when it comes to mathematics, chance, and probability, it leads us in the wrong direction. With the help of mathematician Kate Yates from the University of Bath in the UK, and some old-fashioned sweets, Alex will discover how to win at games of chance. Alex also explores the world of gaming and gambling. Games of chance in which our intuition sometimes fails us and makes us choose unwisely. Rachel Crowson, professor of economics at the University of Minnesota, USA, explains how the human mind can work against us. But can knowing these human pitfalls help us win? Alex listens to Maria Konnikova, who turned her research on the psychology of poker into a successful gambling career. Can we really use mathematics to beat our brains and learn how to win more often? Presenter Alex Lathbridge, Producer Emily Knight, Editor Ben Mottley (Image: Close-up of multiple choice question. Image credit: BBC)

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