Cognitive Trunneling

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Attention is a vital resource.  It requires skill to use attention to craft a life that we want even when faced with tough circumstances.

However, if not skillfully used, well the results can be disastrous.  One way in which this could happen is through cognitive tunneling.  In his book Smarter, Faster, Better, Charles Duhigg cited this as contributor to an I’ll fated flight - Flight 447.

The aircraft was a modern marvel of technology.  The autopilot was sophisticated and reliable.  The pilots were on yet another routine flight when the autopilot disengaged.

This was not alarming in itself.  On this particular flight the autopilot disengaged as it is designed to do when it lost signal from air speed sensors.  However, this event shook the pilots out of their reverie.  Unfortunately, they did not have the right mental models to deal with the situation.

The result was cognitive tunneling.  The mind in such situations latches to a course of actions without appraising the situation.  This in turn preempts clear thinking required to generate and evaluate multiple option.

Cognitive tunneling sealed the ill fate of that flight.

My takeaway is we need effective mental models if we want to recruit our attention as a powerful ally..


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