Hot hands: You gotta believe!

The NBA playoffs are heating up (and The Heat are at 1 to freakin’ 3 which, in my book, is an awful bet but what do I know?) and sports fans everywhere start hearing about the “hot hands” phenomenon. Who’s “hot?” What player can carry his team to the championship? Who’s playing way above the norm at this critical time of the year?

This topic actually pops up everywhere. Hockey goalies seem unbeatable – they just know where the puck is heading and stop anything thrown at them. Quarterbacks are on fire – pass after pass finds down-field receivers clean in stride. But it’s in basketball that the effect is most prominent. It’s tough to miss those moments where a player can seemingly do no wrong. He’s in a state of grace, on fire, cannot miss. He’s draining 22 footers like they were layups, nailing ‘em from the corners, all net from the top of the key.

Are these moments real? That is, real in the sense that when they occur they are mathematically or metaphysically special? I’m not trying to split hairs; this is a serious question. When an all-pro quarterback seems to be in that ‘zone’ is he really in a zone or is this just the kind of performance we expect to see on a statistically determinable basis? When a guy drains 7 of 8 from downtown is this something special, something transcendental or merely an event that will pop up with predictable frequency?

People who play sports or follow them with any passion swear these effects are real. Basketball coaches issue instructions: “Get Joey the ball; he’s got the ‘hot hand’.” Baseball managers manipulate their lineups to get the guy with the ‘hot bat’ an extra turn at the plate. Golfers enter extra tournaments when they think that they’re ‘striking the ball’ good. Poker pros play more hours or enter more events when they’re ‘running good.’ But is there really a hot hands phenomenon? Are bats really hot? Do poker players really run good? Maybe. Then again, maybe not.

The psychologist Amos Tversky took a look at this issue some years back. He reasoned that if Joey really had a hot hand, then we should see a statistically aberrant performance, one where he made more shots with more regularity than his norm. So Tversky analyzed every shot taken by several dozen NBA basketball players over a full year looking for evidence of a hot hands effect. He found little. Players got ‘hot’ about as often as a random number generator got ‘hot.’

If Joey’s a 42% shooter, we expect to see runs of shots made and shots missed – and we can calculate just how long they should be, distributed over the full year. If another player makes 47% of his shots we should see a different pattern but one consistent with his level of skill. And this is what Tversky found. Sure, there were occasions where Joey hit nine in a row and seemed to be ablaze for an entire half. But these rushes happened about as often as we would expect given that Joey is, overall, a good player who makes a tad better than forty percent of his shots from the floor. So, no hot hands.

Other psychologists did similar analyses in a host of sports and found pretty much the same thing. Quarterbacks got hot about as often as their long term statistics suggest they should. Sure an all-pro like Tom Brady seems to have the hot hand more often than a journeyman backup but, statistically speaking, he should.

But as usually happens in science, when a topic is interesting people do deeper analyses. Follow-up studies suggested that there might be something that Tversky missed. Long runs of baskets or completed passes or shutouts in hockey were occurring more often than one might expect, statistically speaking. But, and here’s the fun part, it wasn’t clear what was causing them. It’s difficult, if not impossible, to tease apart a real hot hands moment from the belief that others have that one is occurring because the latter can produce the former.

If Joey seems to be on fire and if his team mates believe he’s got the hot hand, their behavior changes. They start setting effective picks, trapping opponents allowing him to get free, passing to him in optimal spots on the court. The likelihood of Joey continuing to make shots goes up and his stats defy expectations.

Do we want to conclude that Joey really had a hot hand or that everyone else, by virtue of their beliefs, changed how they play so that it looked like he did? If the hot hands effect is real it’s likely based on a conspiracy of beliefs of the participants.

I like Miami but not at 1-3, no matter how ‘hot’ LeBron is….

Counterpoint II: On Dalla's latest riposte on religion

Let’s be clear, Nolan. I’m not trying to defend religion’s track record nor its often destructive role in society. I’m coming to this debate as a social scientist trying to understand religion’s ubiquity, its role in society, its resistance to attack and, as noted, the gradual shift in religiosity that is emerging in some quarters. That said, let me get to the points enumerated in your blog today.

1. Noting that mass-murderers like Stalin or Hitler had links to or sympathy with particular religions doesn’t gain you much (as npc notes in his/her comment). Because religion is virtually universal it would be surprising to find a leader who didn’t have such. More important are the reasons and justifications for the slaughter. Stalin did not claim he was doing God’s work.

Better, I think, to distinguish between regimes whose brutality is founded in religion and take to the battlefield for their deity from those motivated by ideology, ethnic hatred, racism and power. Religion doesn’t have a great record but we shouldn’t paint with too broad a brush.

2. With regard to whether theologically based therapies work better than secular ones, I’m an empiricist. If we can find ways to deal with these populations without spirituality, I’m all for it. I’m pleased to see the study showing secular therapy was as successful as spiritual. Like you, I await follow up studies.

This topic has long interested me. I used to teach a course on the paranormal and took a very critical line. Students often asked me why I didn’t utterly condemn practices like astrology. The answer is that they play a positive role in many lives. A good astrologer can be a therapist. There are parts of society where even admitting that you could use psychotherapy is dangerous and going to see one next to impossible. These folks get help from all sorts of believers in the paranormal, including of course, ministers, rabbis and priests.

3. Religion’s universality isn’t a surprise. I don’t believe I ever said that. The interesting part is discovering the perceptual, cognitive and social factors responsible for its ubiquity. You cite awe and bewilderment at events beyond the grasp of early humans. This played a role but the social scientist in me notes that we still need to understand how humans induce causality and project causal roles onto unseen agents.

I do understand, Nolan. Sometimes what folks in my field do feels like ripping the petals off a rose to try to learn why it’s beautiful. We do … but we still appreciate the beauty.

4. On communication: Professor Dalla, I think you’ve spotted something in the role communication in the increasing acceptance of secular thought and argument. But I think you’re overplaying your hand. Recent work examining the growth of atheism identifies several trends, the most important appears to be “high levels of existential security, strong and stable governments with social safety nets.” Advances in communication are helpful but their impact will interact with culture.

This point is, I think, critical. I don’t see anti-theological arguments as persuasive unless there are serious social changes. Where we see non-theist cultures emerging are precisely those in which there are universal health care systems, solid safety nets, strong gun controls, clean water and air, strong support of science and education. These are where secularism will triumph. Fear, uncertainty and lack of control over one’s life pushes people toward religion. There are good reasons why it is in Scandinavia that we see the strongest move away from theism to secularism.

You said: “The industrialized world is probably just a generation or two away from a majority of people identifying themselves as agnostics, which is to say having no religious faith at all.” I can only hope you’re right.

You also said: “… this type of discussion 300 years ago could have subjected us to burning at the stake” – again, you’re right but I suspect they’d have roasted you first.

5. I note you are a supporter of science. I stand behind you applauding. Heck, I spent a half-century “doing” this stuff! There is no doubt that the growth of science continuously nibbles away at ignorant belief. But it also creates backlash. It’s not uncommon to find strong religious convictions hand-in-hand with rabid anti-scientific attitudes. The battle won’t be won easily.

6. Finally the good Professor Dalla returns to evolution and, alas, commits a classic logical fallacy. He notes that other characteristics displayed by humans also show universality. He seizes on intoxicants (one can speculate why….). He could just as easily and perhaps more persuasively picked, altruism, violence, territoriality, selfishness, sexual mating patterns or any of many traits that appear in virtually all cultures. So what. Merely noting that several things share an evolutionary basis doesn’t mean that they will share specific features. Religion’s evolutionary roots are obvious and important because if we want to move toward a secular world we’ll get there faster if we understand the foundations of belief. It’ll work better than ranting against religion and listing all the bad things done in the name of various deities.

I look forward to Professor Dalla’s next post (here) explaining where I have wandered off the path.

Comments on Nolan Dalla's rant on religion -- we can't forget evolution. Go to http://www.nolandalla.com/ to read it.

What follows is a commentary on a long and passionate blog entry by my old friend Nolan Dalla. This is the next in what we hope will become a series of point-counterpoint on religion, society, morality and all that cool stuff. Feel free to join in.

Okay Nolan, I’m about to bore you to tears … can’t help myself. It’s the ol’ perfesser in me…. Of course, what follows doesn’t negate anything you said in your blogs. It’s just a different framework for viewing religion. Try it on …. see if it fits. The central idea is that this atheism thing that you find attractive is not about to become dominant. Not by any stretch of the imagination, not till the world has undergone significant changes.

The psychology of religion is a hot topic these days. It no longer focuses on the old lines about moral codes or the social impact of authoritarian hierarchies or whatthefuckever…. Those approaches couldn’t explain the universality, the fact that every society ever encountered has some form of religion. Universality is a red flag to a social or biological scientist, it suggests that there is something very deep here.

The approach that’s beginning to make sense goes back to very basic, primitive, biological mechanisms that have ancient roots. This theory makes it clear that for us Homo saps, religion is natural and easy and the reasons are found in evolutionary theory. Note: many of these arguments come from the work of a friend, Ara Norenzayan at the University of British Columbia. Go here to take a look at what he’s up to these days. 

It isn’t that religion per se is embedded in our DNA. What’s encoded in our genes are ancient, primitive, perceptual tendencies and more recently evolved social schemas and these form the foundation for religious belief systems. Let’s talk a walk through time.

It starts with a very old mechanism, “agency detection” or the capacity to realize that there is something “out there.” If you’re a prey species you better be able to detect predators; if you’re a predator you need the same system to detect prey. Importantly, you want to make mistakes but they have to be “false positives.” You’re far better off overdetecting agents out there than under – for reasons screamingly obvious. Every species has some version of this mechanism and every one has developed the “hypersensitive” strategy.

Now, as eons spun by and brains grew, earlier forms of us started getting smart. We began to “detect” agents in symbolic forms; we saw them in clouds, heard them in the rustling of the wind in the trees, caught them out of the corner of an eye in the movements of the heavens, on burnt toast.

As cognitive functions matured the capacity to understand causality kicked. Events, our ancestors realized, have causes. We learned that we can make things and make things happen. When things occurred outside our ken, where we could not understand or find the causes (fires, death, food, famine), our agency detectors kicked in again. Now these beings were in the clouds, the earth, water, the movements of the heavens.

The final step was the establishment of social systems as families were bound together into larger groups, then into tribes and villages. This “socialness” allowed (indeed invited) the emergence of leaders, priests and shamans, authorities and, most important of all, rituals that cemented the system.

Those who did not conform were ostracized, socially condemned, not because they were heretics (that’s just an excuse) but because they threatened the fabric of the social system itself – which may help understand why atheists are the single most distrusted and hated group in the country, maybe the world.

You said it’s not natural to believe in Jesus or Angels, that these notions have to be planted. This is true but we are biologically predisposed to make it very easy to plant them and watch them take root. Even in authoritarian secular states like China and North Korea (and the old Soviet Union), it turned out to be impossible to eradicate religion. In North Korea the Juche movement is turning into a religion in which the Kim family become gods with hints of immortality and rituals are developing that have all the hallmarks of a religion.

You’re also right that since the Enlightenment there has been a drift toward secularism but it isn’t as fast or as successful as you’re making it out to be — and it tends to be concentrated in places like Northern Europe with stable cultures and, importantly, governments with well-established support systems. As Ara’s research shows, stability and support allow science to flourish and make myth and superstition less attractive. A couple of years back there was a study of two South Pacific islands whose economies are based on fishing. The ones who fished in lagoons had relatively few religious beliefs and essentially none concerning their commercial activities. Those that fished in the open seas had deeper religious beliefs, especially about fishing.

You noted that we (collectively) are more enlightened, less burdened with ritual and more progressive than ever. This is true but the shift is mainly due to the success of science and the growing acceptance of the scientific method for it’s been giving people a better sense of how those “agents” actually work. FWIW, the cohort that has the lowest proportion of believers is the National Academy of Science. It’s somewhere around 5% compared with some 70% of the population — many of whom regard scientists as “heretics” (see above….).

The truth is that it’s hard to become an atheist and, interestingly, many atheists are members of groups of like-minded non-believers. Buddhism, which started as a philosophy stripped of the features and belief systems of religions, has morphed into one. The vast majority of the world’s Buddhists now treat Siddartha as a god. The Chinese did the same with Confucious. Scientology began with L. Ron Hubbard creating an (admittedly crazy) self-help program and it too became a cult-like religious movement in which Hubbard’s writings are treated like Christians treat the bible or Mormons the insane scribblings of Joseph Smith.

The atheists, the Buddhists, the North Koreans still need the social bonding, the connectedness and the emotional and intellectual support. They’re embedded in millions of years of evolutionary pressure.

Personally I think that the very idea of a supreme being is idiotic, ontologically ridiculous. But I don’t use the label “atheist” because the label has been co-opted to reflect a belief-system, one that insists there is no God (and, for example, criticizes people who write “God” rather than “god”). And, as nutty as this sounds, several atheistic groups have applied to the IRS for tax-free status as a religion. For me, it’s just not relevant. I don’t believe in God in the same way that I don’t believe in purple unicorns.

Slamming religion for its myriad ills and evil deeds won’t work either. No matter how many horrible and ugly things we can trace to organized religion, you have to acknowledge the powerful role it plays in people’s lives. It is the embracing of religion that gets life-long criminals to reform; it’s the glue that holds AA and other groups of “recoverers” together. Nothing else works as well. It is belief in the supernatural that gets people through their desperate lives. It wouldn’t work to strip away this crutch. It is the defining feature for who they are.

And, of course, horrible acts can be carried out without a God. Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot slaughtered millions under secular banners. This tendency too is deeply embedded in our genes.

The angry atheists like Dawkins, Hitchins and my old friend Daniel Dennett often miss these points, particularly the ones that link religions with evolutionary mechanisms.

Done now …. looking forward to the riposte on http://www.nolandalla.com/

Poker tells: It's in the arms, not the face -- maybe

There’s a good bit of fuss being made in the poker world over a study published in the prestigious journal Psychological Science by Michael Slepian and colleagues at Stanford University. They found that information in a player’s arms and hands was more reliable in assessing the strength of a player’s hand than what could be picked up from their face. Slepian’s findings are intriguing (go here for more on Slepian and his research) but need to be seen in the context of an on-going, live poker game. 

Slepian had people view short snippets of videos (less than 2 seconds) from the 2009 WSOP and had them judge the strength of the hands the players were holding. Some saw just the face, some the entire body above the table and others just the arms and hands. Participants seeing just the face were unable to judge the strength of the held hand. In fact, they were worse than chance – not by a lot but enough to suggest that players at this level can use facial expressions deceptively. Participants who saw the full upper body were at chance in estimating hand-strength. But, fascinatingly, participants who only saw the hands and arms were significantly better at judging hand-strength. Importantly, even participants who had no experience with poker could do this. The correlations weren’t huge (.07 where 1.0 is a perfect correlation) but they were statistically reliable.

The obvious question is what are people picking up here? What’s the tell? Slepian went back and did another study this time asking participants to judge, not hand-strength, but how confident they thought the player was and, on other occasions, to judge how steady their arms movements seemed. Asking people to look at assumed confidence improved their ability to judge hand-strength considerably (the correlation was .15). Asking them to estimate how smooth the arm movements were produced a dramatic increase in accuracy (correlation jumped to .27).

The lesson seems simple: try to judge how smooth the motions of your opponents are when they push chips into the pot. Don’t worry about their face. Don’t try to judge levels of stress or nervousness. Just examine the raw physical movements and look for smooth versus jerky or hesitant movements.

But, take care. As always, in poker things are more complex than they first appear. These video clips were from experienced players and they were very short. It’s not obvious that the average Joe or Jane playing $1 - $2 at your local poker room will display these patterns of facial expression and arm movements. It’s also unclear whether reliable facial information can be picked up if one looks at how expressions change (or not) over time. Experienced players often stare at an opponent’s face, not for two seconds, but for extended periods of time. And, of course, these results don’t tell us what the data would be like if expert poker players were the participants. It is possible that top professionals could pick up information in the videos that novices couldn’t.

Nevertheless, I applaud Slepian and colleagues for this study. The more we look at the game the more we’re going to learn about it and the folks who play it.

A drink with Vicky

Ricky: “Well I’ll be damned, it’s Vicky G. Vicky. How are you?”

Vicky: “Hmm….”

Ricky: “Vicky? It’s been what, at least a year, maybe two?”

Vicky: “Hmmmm….”

Ricky: “The Tango Club, right? Heck of a night. Hey, can I get you the next one?”

Vicky: “Huh?”

Ricky: “Next one, next drink.”

Vicky: “Hmmm….”

Ricky: “It’s kinda neat seeing you again.”

Vicky: “Not really.”

Ricky: “What?”

Vicky: “I said ‘No, not really’.”

Ricky: “You said what? Not really what?”

Vicky: “Not really neat seeing you again, Ricky.”

Ricky: “I’m confused. Why not?”

Vicky: “’Cause I’m not talking to you.”

Ricky: “Hello?”

Vicky: “I don’t talk to you.”

Ricky: “Well, obviously that’s not true.”

Vicky: “Hmmm….”

Ricky: “You don’t talk to me?”

Vicky: “Nope, not since then I don’t.”

Ricky: “Not since when? What when? And why?”

Vicky: “That night, Tango Club.”

Ricky: “Yeah, okay, Tango.”

Vicky: “Right. Tango.”

Ricky: “But why?”

Vicky: “You don’t remember?”

Ricky: “I do not. I am confused.”

Vicky: “I’m not.”

Ricky: “What happened?”

Vicky: “You don’t remember, do you?”

Ricky: “No, I don’t.”

Vicky: “Hmm…. Well, I don’t talk to you anymore. Not since then.”

Ricky: “Vicky?”

Vicky: “Yes?”

Ricky: “I’m thinkin’ I, like maybe blew it that evening? Like I maybe pissed you off?”

Vicky: “You did.”

Ricky: “If you tell me what I did it might help.”

Vicky: “You don’t remember?”

Ricky: “No, I don’t. We have established that.”

Vicky: “I can’t believe it.”

Ricky: “But I don’t. I just don’t.”

Vicky: “Forget it then.”

Ricky: “Forget? How can I forget what I don’t remember?”

Vicky: “Hmmm….”

Ricky: “Listen, if I hurt you …..”

Vicky: “Hmmmm.…”

Ricky: “Oh, fuck this. Do you want an apology?”

Vicky: “No.”

Ricky: “Why not?”

Vicky: “Because it won’t be one.”

Ricky: “Why not?”

Vicky: “Because you don’t know what you’d be apologizing for. It won’t count.”

Ricky: “Well then, what do you want me to do?”

Vicky: “Forget it.”

Ricky: “Okay, forgotten, not remembered. Same shit. You want a drink?”

Vicky: “No. Not from you. I don’t talk to you.”

Ricky: “Vicky.”

Vicky: “What?”

Ricky: “You don’t remember either, do you.”

Vicky: “Hmmmm….”

Ricky: “Do you?”

Vicky: “No.”

Ricky: “Why …”

Vicky: “Why I’m not talking to you?”

Ricky: “Yeah, and what I did.”

Vicky: “Right. What …”

Ricky: “And why you’re not talking to me.”

Vicky: “Yeah. I don’t know. I just remember I’m really, really pissed at you.”

Ricky: “For like, what, two years?”

Vicky: “Yes.”

Ricky: “But you don’t know why.”

Vicky: “Nope. But it still hurts.”

Ricky: “Kind of off-pissing, isn’t it?”

Vicky: “What? You?”

Ricky: “No, not me. Not remembering.”

Vicky: “Yeah.”

Ricky: “Are you talking to me?”

Vicky: “Obviously.”

Ricky: “Dinner?”

Vicky: “Sure, let’s go. But don’t let it happen again.”