Salmon fishing and how your brain gets biased

Last night I had a friend over for dinner. I made salmon (caught by me!) with a mango jalopeno salsa. It turned out a little spicier than I thought, for her taste anyway, which reminded me of an important lesson. What do you do when you eat something that sets your mouth on fire?

Everyone has their favorite remedy if they accidentally eat the hot pepper in the Chinese food. The scientific solution is to eat sugar. Sugar from the packet works fine, anything sweetened with actual glucose or even lactose works though (milk, ice cream, cheese). The reason is that on your tongue you have taste receptors that can detect 5 "flavors"-sweet, salt, bitter, sour, and umami (MSG, basically). Spiciness is not one of the cardinal flavors sensed by the taste buds, but is detected by the tongue. We can counteract spiciness with sweetness because the two tastes share a common co-receptor. By forcing the co-receptor to be used to taste something sweet, the painful, hot sensations can be diverted into pleasant, delicious sensations in the part of the brain that processes taste (the gustatory cortex). This is one of my favorite examples of why understanding how the brain works can improve your life. But I know you're all interested in how understanding your brain can improve your fantasy team, so let's get to it.

Should you draft Russell Wilson or Tom Brady? Should you drop a consistently low production Fred Jackson or a roller coaster Chris Givens to pick up the hot waiver wire option? Start Mark Ingram or Chris Ivory as your bye week fill in? Accept that unconventional trade offer? From draft day to championship victory your fantasy season comes down to decision after decision. Some you'll agonize over, some you'll barely think twice about. Some are routine, other quandaries arise only after adversity strikes your squad. Ultimately it's just the series of choices you make that determine whether you finish at the top or not and unfortunately, many of the decisions we make are inherently biased.

What is bias? It can be defined as a prejudice for or against something or someone, an inclination or leaning toward something, and a tendency or predilection toward or against something. We are presented with biased arguments and pitches all the time. It's usually willful--a salesperson who tells you only the positive features of the product and raves about the positive reviews it receives but neglects to point out customer complaints and clumsy design issues wants you to buy the thing. Presenting all the facts in an unbiased manner would compromise her sale. In the case of cognitive bias, your brain is doing a version of the slick sales pitch...but most of the time you're not even aware of it. You can read a lot more about cognitive biases in my book on the subject, and I'll cover them one by one throughout the season, as the opportunities for biased decision making present themselves. For today, I'll discuss how the brain is set up for cognitive biases to take root, grow, and sometimes cloud your seemingly logical judgment.

Your brain is composed of trillions of neurons that talk to each other via electrical and chemical signals at synapses. The pattern of which neurons are talking to which other neurons at any given millisecond determines what the output of the brain is. A certain pattern may lead to walking, another to smiling, yet another to grasping your coffee cup. Still other patterns, using different populations of neurons, signify emotions, memories, and ideas...essentially, all of your thoughts. The mammalian brain is set up in a very organized manner, so that there are very consistent connections between certain brain regions in everybody. But the brain is also very flexible, or plastic, allowing it to modify those connections based on our experiences. There are two main classes of neural activity patterns that could underlie and perpetuate cognitive biases. The first is a very strong connection, one where minimal activation yields maximal response. The second is a connection that directly activates the brain's reward circuitry.

First case: a very strong connection is established when the same neurons signal to each other over and over. Rehearsal leads to strong connections, repetition leads to strong connections, having the same thought over and over allows it to become ingrained. Once such a connection is established, the thought (or action-think about driving a car or typing) becomes automatic, effortless, almost without conscious awareness and intent. Some scientists think of it in terms of "new brain, old brain". The oldest, most evolutionarily conserved parts of our brains that are shared with birds, snakes, mice, etc. are often considered instinctual, emotional, reflexive, while the newest on the evolutionary scale, the neocortex, is responsible for our attention, memories, planning, strategizing, self-control, logic, and rational decisions. When we encounter something new, our "new" brain is dominant, paying attention, learning and practicing the new thought, idea, or activity. Gradually, as the same patterns of activity occur over and over, neurons comprising the "old" brain become involved, and the thought, feeling, or action becomes habit. We no longer need to think, concentrate, or try to do the task or think the thought. The response stems automatically from the stimulus.

Second case: if a stimulus triggers a neuronal activity pattern that ends up activating the reward circuit in the brain--triggering an area called the ventral tegmental area (VTA) to release more dopamine neurotransmitter--that stimulus may gain more traction in the brain than a neutral stimulus. The same is true for ideas, actions, thoughts that for some reason activate negative, pain processing areas of the brain. Rewards and punishments trigger mechanisms that allow the events that induce the pleasure or pain to be recalled and repeated or avoided, this is a major mechanism of learning and training as any parent or pet owner knows well. Once a thought or action triggers the reward centers, it's very hard to let go of it. When something has led to pleasure in the past, we are literally hard wired to expect it to bring pleasure in the future.

Getting back to sports, let's take an example from last night. Let's say you drafted Jordan Cameron as your back-up TE/Flex, in a league you care about. Personally, I don't draft leagues I care about until the last week; it's one of the few areas where I show restraint. If you did, drafting Cameron was in all likelihood a neutral decision. There were a lot of TE's in that range, he's one of them. Last nights 3/42/2 performance was outstanding, exceeding everyone's expectations, even those that were higher than average on him a month ago. You Cameron owners are thrilled-you got a gem late, everyone's biggest draft day wish. That makes you feel good about yourself, for picking him, as you absolutely should. Last week I told you that the pleasure you get from being right comes from the same place (the VTA) as the joys of food, sex, and alcohol. Now you've permanently connected Jordan Cameron and pleasure in your brain. You'll be tempted to start him week 1, particularly if Vernon Davis or Jason Witten (or whoever your TE1 is) are limited or average in their pre-season appearances. He will be linked to success in your mind all season because of last nights performance, although there probably won't be a lot of games where he scores 2 TDs. This is no knock on Cameron either, I hope he's effective and exciting to watch all year, I do. I just use him as an example of how your brain takes a fact-Jordan Cameron scored twice, links it to the pride and pleasure you feel for having selected him in your draft, and establishes the pattern of neural activity that allows you, even forces you, to believe that it is repeatable. In contrast, someone that didn't draft Cameron (yet) is super-impressed with the performance, but it carried no reward, so the brain merely filed it away as another fact of preseason. We're watching to see what happens, but we're open to the possibility of a zero catch outing next week. That's what bias does, it takes the neutral, impartial, rational thinking out of a decision. That is what we're going to try to avoid this year.