Bias in action: I practice my singing by doing voice recordings with my phone and then listening to them for feedback. (2 years and going, the improvement has been tremendous, I went from ashamed to somewhat proud of my singing voice.) I've been noticing myself physically clench up while listening to pieces of particularly... uncertain quality. It's a state of muscle tension that tends to accompany a mental state of defensiveness about my performance. As if I'm exerting effort in an attempt to squeeze every drop of appreciation from my perception. I certainly don't mean to get so insecure about it that I have to dupe myself into liking what I hear, but it happens outside of my control.
I notice this most of the time, and reminding myself to relax muscularly usually helps with perceiving the quality of my practice more accurately.
Does anyone else get this in various other contexts?
How do you measure accuracy separately?
This is the public group rationality diary for August 30th - September 12th, 2015. It's a place to record and chat about it if you have done, or are actively doing, things like:
Established a useful new habit
Obtained new evidence that made you change your mind about some belief
Decided to behave in a different way in some set of situations
Optimized some part of a common routine or cached behavior
Consciously changed your emotions or affect with respect to something
Consciously pursued new valuable information about something that could make a big difference in your life
Learned something new about your beliefs, behavior, or life that surprised you
Tried doing any of the above and failed
Or anything else interesting which you want to share, so that other people can think about it, and perhaps be inspired to take action themselves. Try to include enough details so that everyone can use each other's experiences to learn about what tends to work out, and what doesn't tend to work out.
Archive of previous rationality diaries