How Far Do Our Expectations Influence Observations
How Far do our Expectations Influence Observations?
Our expectations have played a huge role in the observations we make within our daily lives, ranging from insignificant everyday things down to the last detail of a scientific experiment, even if we don’t realize it. The results that we desire and expect have influenced our observations to the extent that it is impossible to prove our observations correct without unbiased testimony from another person. This in turn, has caused us to observe only the outcomes we desire, neglecting results that do not match with other experimental data, and results that do not fit in with our common sense perceptions.
Most, if not all, of our observations, have been tampered with our expectations in some way. For example, if we see a sentence “He is in the the house”, we tend to miss the second “the” because it does not grammatically fit in with the sentence given, so our brains omit the second “the”, and our eyes are believed to see a correct sentence. This may be a good thing, because it allows our brain to rapidly sort between correct and wrong. However, such omission can also be considered negatively. For example, if we conduct a recheck of our English exam papers, missing out grammatical problems within our essays can prove to be fatal in the long run, deducting our marks because we failed to observe a mistake so obvious. The issue with expectations is that it is often misleading our observations, and some observations simply cannot have any room for error. Taking the supposed discovery of Vulcan for example, scientists within the 19th century have fooled themselves with fake observations, because they were expecting Vulcan to be orbiting, and therefore observed dots in their telescopes, even though there wasn’t. This could be caused by their constant expectations, or simply a dirty stain on telescope lens.
However, our expectations do not completely affect our observations we make. Other factors such as misuse of equipment
Our expectations have played a huge role in the observations we make within our daily lives, ranging from insignificant everyday things down to the last detail of a scientific experiment, even if we don’t realize it. The results that we desire and expect have influenced our observations to the extent that it is impossible to prove our observations correct without unbiased testimony from another person. This in turn, has caused us to observe only the outcomes we desire, neglecting results that do not match with other experimental data, and results that do not fit in with our common sense perceptions.
Most, if not all, of our observations, have been tampered with our expectations in some way. For example, if we see a sentence “He is in the the house”, we tend to miss the second “the” because it does not grammatically fit in with the sentence given, so our brains omit the second “the”, and our eyes are believed to see a correct sentence. This may be a good thing, because it allows our brain to rapidly sort between correct and wrong. However, such omission can also be considered negatively. For example, if we conduct a recheck of our English exam papers, missing out grammatical problems within our essays can prove to be fatal in the long run, deducting our marks because we failed to observe a mistake so obvious. The issue with expectations is that it is often misleading our observations, and some observations simply cannot have any room for error. Taking the supposed discovery of Vulcan for example, scientists within the 19th century have fooled themselves with fake observations, because they were expecting Vulcan to be orbiting, and therefore observed dots in their telescopes, even though there wasn’t. This could be caused by their constant expectations, or simply a dirty stain on telescope lens.
However, our expectations do not completely affect our observations we make. Other factors such as misuse of equipment