Knowing stuff makes it hard to imagine what it's like not to know stuff. In 1990 Elizabeth Newton carried out an experiment assigning participants to the role of either 'tapper' or 'listener'. Tappers had to tap out a tune and predict the likelihood of the listener guessing the tune correctly. Tappers were much more confident that listeners would guess correctly than was actually the case.

1. The curse of knowledge
Knowing stuff makes it hard to imagine what it’s like not to know stuff

2. Participants in this experiment were assigned to the
role of either ‘tapper’ or ‘listener’
Tappers were presented with a list of 25 well known
songs and asked to pick a song and tap out its
rhythm to a listener

3. ‘Tapper’
I’ll go for ‘Happy
Birthday to You’
Which song
would you like?

4. The listener’s role was to guess the title of
the song being tapped

5. ‘Listener’
Um…

6. Before the listeners guessed the name of the song,
tappers were asked to predict the chances of the
listener guessing correctly

7. I think there’s a 50%
chance he’ll get it right
It’s
pretty obvious
isn’t it?!

8. ‘Bohemian Rhapsody?!’

9. The listener’s role is difficult – they guessed the
correct song only 2.5% of the time
But the tappers predicted the listeners would get
it right 50% of the time

10. The tappers couldn’t believe how hard the listeners
found it to pick up the tune – they could easily hear it in
their own heads
It is impossible for tappers to ‘un-know’ the song and
therefore very hard for them to imagine what it’s like to
be a listener that can only hear the taps

11. Conclusions
1. Tappers were suffering from the Curse of Knowledge – once
we know something it is hard for us to imagine what it is like
not to know it
2. In this state we find it difficult to share our knowledge as it’s
hard to re-create our listeners state of mind for ourselves

12. Reference
Overconfidence in the Communication of Intent: Heard and Unheard Melodies
Ph.D. Diss., Stanford University, 1990
Elizabeth Newton