Rob's Blog

I’m not stupid…
09th Jul 2007 17:07

Something I came to understand doing Artificial Intelligence modules is that the human brain is very clever. Take for instance the way we organise repetitive daily tasks in our heads; such as the simple act of locking a car door and taking the keys with you when you leave. After a few years of driving it's now something that I do totally automatically. So how is that all labelled in my head? (Bear with me, this blog really does have a point). I'm very certain about the use of my car key (to unlock, lock, and start my car). I'm fairly certain I could pick it out of a large pile of other people's car keys (I know fairly accurately what it looks like and how it feel's to hold). I also (in theory) could tell you exactly where my car key was (whether it was in the ignition, in the door, in my pocket, or in the house for example). Based on those points it'd be easy to imagine that my car key is labelled in my brain with a fairly comprehensive description. But if such as simple task contained all that detail my brain would get full very quickly, and I'd have to think a lot every time I locked the car. So one hypothesis is that my brain takes clever shortcuts. Instead, I think my car key routine actually contains lot's of very simple assumptions and tactile or audible checkpoints. For example; if the car is running the key must be in the ignition, therefore it should not be in the door. I can check this by listening for the sound of a running engine. Or; if I'm walking away from the car, I must have just locked it so the key should be in my pocket. I can check this my tapping my pocket to feel the outline of my keys. I (and I'm getting to the point here) only had one vehicle key so "my black key" is the only description I ever needed. But on Friday night I accidentally left my car keys sticking out of the car door over night, with the door unlocked. Whoops. That little blip in my routine would have certainly resulted in my car being stolen if we didn't live in such a little village. So what went wrong? Well, I took the Motorbike to Taekwondo and stopped the bike beside my car to get my sunglasses out of the glove box. Because of all the shortcuts my brain was taking I heard the Motorbike engine running when I shut the car door so my brain just assumed that I must have my keys with me. Case closed, I drove away and didn't think twice about it. My automatic routine just hadn't yet encountered the additional variable that I now have two vehicle keys (on seperate keyrings by necessity) and two engines. Clever stuff hey? So you see, when I left my car keys in the door over night I wasn't being stupid. My brain was actually being very clever ;)