Control blindness: missing the purpose of behaviour

While there is considerable evidence that humans (and possibly other primates) understand behaviour in terms of inferences about its purpose, there is very little evidence regarding the accuracy of these inferences. The research described in this paper shows how perceptual control theory (PCT) can provide the "ground truth" for judging the accuracy of inferences about purpose. In this study, participants were asked to describe the purpose of the behaviour in a tracking task where the true purpose was to control the position of a knot connecting a pair of rubber bands. Most participants failed to correctly infer the purpose of this behaviour, instead inferring complex but non-existent purposes (such as “a kangaroo boxing”) based on the actions taken to keep the knot under control. Therefore, most of our participants experienced what we call ‘control blindness’. We discuss the implications of control blindness for psychological research clinical practice and public policy.