The very first time I was exposed to Human Factors as a summer student 35 years
ago, I asked one of the "experts" a question I thought sufficiently important
as a HF issue that it would be trivial for him to answer. He couldn't, and
I have not found an answer in the long period since. It has always nagged
at me, and for the first time I have a feeling of being in the neighbourhood
of a solution. But it still eludes me.
The question: What is happening when we do things that are clearly and in
retrospect obviously opposed to the result we want to achieve (in reference
to simple motor tasks)?
The situation happens often enough (to me, anyway). One tries to push a door
that one knows opens by pulling; in playing the piano one adds an unwanted
sharp to a note after noticing that one had missed the sharp wanted on an
earlier note; one opens an egg into the recycling bin and puts the shell
into the frying pan (don't laugh, I did that a couple of weeks ago); one
types a word quite different and opposite in meaning from the one that is
focussed in attention and that one intended to type; and on and on.
I have the feeling that the answer is related to the bomb in the hierarchy,
which seems to me to explain a lot of behaviour that has hitherto been
puzzling even within PCT. But I don't see the connections clearly. Does
anyone?
Martin
PS. I'm not talking about the higher-level self-opposition that is so
characteristic of the body politic. That seems mostly to be due to public
ignorance of the effects that will result from the means they vote for.