Talk:Thin-slicing

Hi, I think that the section that mentions James Bugental is either missing a citation or has the wrong citation because I did not see the name Bugental in the citation that is currently listed. So you many want to take a look at that. 10outta10 (talk) 02:57, 23 November 2015 (UTC)

- Citation fixed now. Thanks for pointing it out! — Preceding unsigned comment added by Fy 05341 (talk • contribs) 06:27, 28 November 2015 (UTC)

Sorry i don't know how to format this, but this sentence:

"The art sculptures were able to immediately analyze the situation and realize the fallibly of sculptural."

should probably be cleaned up

Drop a sentence about priming
I deleted the following sentence, because it wasn't about thin slices as a perceptual phenomenon. Although Ambady is a prominent researcher doing research on thin slices, the research I decided wasn't about this topic & therefore didn't fit into the article.

"Thin-slicing also produces distinct biological and sociocultural effects. In one of Nalini Ambady's experiments, she reminded the female Asian students about their gender or their ethnicity before they took a math test. There are many prevailing social stereotypes that suggest women are not good at math and Asians are good at math. Her study showed that subtly cueing students' gender or ethnic identities affects their performance. The individuals whose ethnicity was cued scored higher than the control group, who in turn scored higher than the students whose gender was cued.[1]" — Preceding unsigned comment added by Robertekraut (talk • contribs) 15:02, 9 October 2015 (UTC)

Proposed Editing Plan
Hello world. We are two students editing this article as a school assignment (and we are doing it with all our hearts). This link leads to the sandbox of our editing plan. It is still at a very primitive stage, so please tell us what do you think about it. We welcome all kinds of feedbacks and suggestions. —Preceding undated comment added 06:24, 12 October 2015 (UTC)

Regarding John Gottman
''Another example in this book explored the work of John Gottman, a well-known marital expert. Gladwell describes how within an hour of observing a couple, Gottman can gather with 95% accuracy if the couple will be together within 15 years. Gottman's accuracy goes down to 90% if he observes the couples for 15 minutes, supporting the phenomenon of thin-slicing. ''

This paragraph appears to misrepresent the nature of Gottman's analysis, and I believe that it should be revised as well as sourced properly. The wiki page for Gottman rather presents Gottman's work as an a posteriori data analysis of interviews with couples whose outcomes are already known. Ie; a regression to weigh the correlation of various factors. This is in no way a prediction of whether a couple will "be together" in the future, but a speculative analysis of factors from the past.

If there is a source in which Gottman makes the claim above, or even in which Gladwell (misleadingly) characterizes Gottman's work as the above, then it should be sourced. Otherwise, this section needs rewriting.

98.102.79.214 (talk) 19:11, 25 September 2017 (UTC)


 * Agreed. I could not find any other source (and I don't have the book in question) to support this idea,  Further, it seems like something else is wrong.  If he observes the couples for 15 minutes (instead on an hour) and his accuracy drops to 90% (instead of 95) then it does not support thin-slicing.  I suggest we delete the example. Rikhawk (talk) 05:04, 6 May 2022 (UTC)

Where is the evidence for this?
"Judgments based on thin-slicing can be as accurate, or even more accurate, than judgments based on much more information." Really? Where is the evidence to support this? I would have thought that thin-slice judgments, because they are not based on a rational fully-informed consideration of all the evidence, are more likely to be inaccurate rather than the reverse. A small slice of information may often give a misleading impression about the whole. Thin-slice judgments may be more expedient or more practicable, because there often isn't time to consider much more information, but that doesn't make such a superficially-based judgment more accurate to me.

(I suppose, on a technical view, the use of the word "can" expresses ability or capable of being - so that thin-slicing may be said to be capable of being accurate or more accurate, as anything is "capable" of being just about anything else. However this does not mean that it usually or often *is* accurate/more accurate; indeed probably the reverse according to my 'common sense'.  The substantive suggestion from the sentence is that thin-slice judgements usually or often are accurate or more accurate, but this has not been proven here to my satisfaction and the gist of the sentence in this article doesn't seem to be substantiated.  No reference to try to support it is included.  I would be inclined to delete it; however, giving the benefit of any doubt, I've decided not to mess with it and to instead add this to the talk page.)

(aspaa) 20:57, 22 October 2018 (UTC)

EDIT: Sorry, I've read the information contained under "Overview" now, and this article appears to be written from the perspective of the non-autistic world. I am someone who is on the autism spectrum, hence explaining why I went into all the detail I did in the section I added above. It's now clear to me that thin-slicing is "accurate" in the sense of the non-autistic's accurate, in other words not accurate. (Not accurate enough for the person on the autism spectrum who is annoyingly almost always right and accurate - but, for non-autistic people, slight inaccuracy, that is inaccuracy and not accuracy, is good enough to be thought to be "accurate" when it is not - then again, I am also accurate to a fault.) "Thin-slicing refers to observing a small selection of an interaction, usually less than 5 minutes, and being able to accurately draw conclusions about the emotions and attitudes of the people interacting." In other words, non-autistic people are able to accurately draw conclusions about the emotions and attitudes of those interacting, *when they are not autistic people*. "...Because thin-slice perception and judgment is sufficiently effective...". However, to me, it's not effective at all. It is a misjudgement and it is *ineffective*, about people who have autism. "...to some extent validly..." In other words, *invalidly*, about autistic people. It's clear that thin-slicing, based on such superficial information, is able to work, precisely because of the superficial nature that seems to me to characterise non-autistic people. Later on the article - "None of these explanations are believed to universally encompass the true reason of why thin-slicing is successful...". This sentence is, to this pedant, inaccurate - however it is probably good enough for most non-autistic people who seem not to be overly concerned with accuracy. I would say thin-slicing is *unsuccessful*, as regards perceptions of autistic people (and this appears to me to be supported by research such as that referred to here: https://www.tameri.com/wordpress/autisticme/2018/01/13/autistics-make-others-uncomfortable-instantly/). If the sentence was accurate, it would say "None of these explanations are believed to universally encompass the true reason of why thin-slicing is successful as regards non-autistic people...". (aspaa) 21:30, 22 October 2018 (UTC)