heuristic 復習
Whether or not the world really is getting worse, the nature of news will make us think that it is …
The nature of news is likely to distort people’s view of the world because of a mental bug that the psychologists Amos Tversky and Daniel Kahneman called the Availability heuristic: people estimate the probability of an event or the frequency of a kind of thing by the ease with which instances come to mind. In many walks of life this is a serviceable rule of thumb. But whenever a memory turns up high in the result list of the mind’s search engine for reasons other than frequency―because it is recent, vivid, gory, distinctive, or upsetting―people will overestimate how likely it is in the world. (Skip the rest)
今回取り上げる語は、heuristic / hjʊrístɪk / です。心理、教育などに関連深い語になります。
まず意味を確認します。Cambridge Dictionaryをみると、“(of a method of teaching) allowing students to learn by discovering things themselves and learning from their own experiences rather than by telling them things” とあり、OEDには “Enabling a person to discover or learn something for themselves” と定義されていました。また、『ウィズダム英和辞典』(三省堂)をみると、「学習者自身で発見させる、経験による」とあります。
次に語源を確認します。OEDをみると、 “Early 19th century: formed irregularly from Greek heuriskein ‘find’.” とありました。
今回の記事にある “availability heuristic” は心理学用語であり、また “heuristic learning” で S.Bruner が提唱した「発見学習」を指します。各語の内容等は各自確認してみてください。(OkaUchi)
