The Curse of Knowledge
The “curse of knowledge” means that once you’ve become an expert in a particular subject, it’s hard to imagine not knowing what you do.
In a 1990 experiment, Elizabeth Newton gave one set of people, called “tappers,” a list of commonly known songs from which to choose. Their task was to rap their knuckles on a tabletop to the rhythm of the chosen tune as they thought about it in their heads. A second set of people, called “listeners,” were asked to name the songs.
Before the experiment began, the tappers were asked how often they believed that the listeners would name the songs correctly. On average, tappers expected listeners to get it right about half the time. In the end, however, listeners guessed only 3 of 120 songs tapped out, or 2.5%.
“Innovative Minds Don’t Think Alike,” by Janet Rae-Dupree