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CrowdScience listener Griffith in Ghana is not JUST a CrowdScience listener. He also listens to our sister show on the World Service, Unexpected Elements. But he noticed something funny. In Unexpected Elements’ weekly multiple-choice quiz, the answer is almost NEVER “one.” It’s almost always ‘b’ or ‘c’. Why is this? Why are we so reluctant to choose option ‘a’ when we set up the quiz? His question leads host Alex Lathbridge on a journey into the dark depths of our brains, where he discovers the cognitive biases that so often trip us up in games of chance, or probability. Your brain may be a great machine when it comes to figuring out how to make sense of the world, but sometimes, in the name of efficiency, it takes clever little shortcuts to find the answer. This pragmatic approach to problem solving helps us manage an incredibly complicated world. But occasionally, especially when it comes to math, chance and probability, it leads us in the wrong direction. With the help of mathematician Kit Yates from the University of Bath in Britain, and some rather stale sweets, Alex will discover how to win at games of chance. Alex also explores the world of gaming and gambling. Games of chance where our intuition sometimes fails us and makes us choose unwisely. Rachel Croson, professor of economics at the University of Minnesota, US, tells us how the human brain can work against us. But can knowing those human pitfalls help us win? Alex hears from Maria Konnikova, who turned her research into the psychology of poker into a successful gambling career. Can we really use math to beat our brains and learn to win more often? Presenter Alex Lathbridge Producer Emily Knight Editor Ben Motley (Photo: Close-up of multiple choice questions. Credit: BBC)
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