Blink

http://www.gladwell.com/blink/

It talks about our unconcious decision making process. Somehow we have the ability to pick up, form an enormous amount of information, something that is essential to make the correct decision. In terms of sensor networks (ok, bear with me to talk about research in the personal blog), it is "compressed sensing" in the brain.

Interestingly, I picked up the book in a hurry from the airport bookstore, within a "blink". The decision was wise. I didn't have that much time to read more and had to decide to buy or not to buy (it is not a cheap book, $30 including tax, amazon charges only $12 though). It certainly made my second flight from chicago to long island much better than the first half (during which I was reviewing papers. how un-fun is that?!)

I didn't know much about psychology. This book illustrates by a few examples that psychology is such an interesting field. It is experimental, like physics and chemistry etc. The consequence is simply fascinating. Think about it. One can just observe a few seconds of conversation between a couple, and then predict with 90% correctness whether they will remain married after 15 years. There are only four major parameters, or 1 most important parameter -- contempt -- that decides whether two persons in a marriage will eventually split or not. To computer scientist, this notion isn't surprising. It is data-mining, or regression analysis to statistician. Psychologiests call it think slicing. The surprising thing is that our brain, somehow, within seconds or miliseconds, can finish the whole data mining process (or l_1 minimization in compressed sensing) and come up with a (often wise) decision.

To researchers, we often say that someone has the "sense". Maybe this is it! The sense comes from what we have learned in the past research experience and our appreciation of beauty, which somehow gets compressed and processed in a part of the brain so that when there is something similar, our sense catches it and bingo -- the click happens.

The first half of the book is very interesting. The last few chapters become boring. It is a book like "freakonomics". It brings you revolutional ideas, accompanied with funny examples.