Great book, shows a plethora tips and insights on the myth of experience in life, would highly recommend, Can't wait for more books from this author.

Argumentum Ad Verecundiam. This book had an excellent premise, but just a mediocre implementation. Soyer and Hogarth excel when showing how one's own experience can blind oneself in numerous areas and arenas, and suggest ways to overcome this blindness. But then fall to their own blindess in accepting and even appealing to the "authority" of "experts" in various topics - seeming to completely disregard that these very "experts" have the exact same problems with being hampered by their own experiences that Soyer and Hogarth are attempting to show us how to overcome in this book. Ultimately, they make a lot of good points, which is why the book gets as many stars as it does. That you have to wade through so much muck to get to all of them is why it *only* gets as many stars as it does. Still, absolutely something everyone should read, and thus recommended.

Very interesting book that makes you question the lessons that you take from different experiences in your life. Experience, Creativity, flow, brain approximations and many other things are looked at for a better experience of life. Many blind sides of externalities, design choices are shown.

I received a digital galley of this book from Net Galley in exchange for a fair review. “The Myth of Experience,” is a wise, well-written book that deftly analyzes how experience can give false assurance to how we perceive events and how we can make the wrong decisions based on a selective recollection of events. The authors do a brilliant job, in my opinion, organizing their book chapter-by-chapter on how experience can convey a deceptive message to individuals by telling too simplistic narratives, how it can conceal danger and impede satisfaction while also demonstrating how it can imperil important decisions by limiting creative potential and narrowing options. I also liked how the authors encouraged us to become “story skeptics” when we are being pitched to buy a product or endorse ideas that are selectively constructed and leave out information that may not be conducive to the idealized image the storyteller is trying to present.

The book has a nice mix of representative stories to explain how experience can be deceptive along with including other authors’ findings supporting their argument and how the reader can avoid falling into deceptive experience traps, especially in “wicked learning environments.” Wicked learning environments are complex, messy, and ambiguous such that “our experience is constantly subject to a variety of filter and distortions,” such that what we see is not all there is. In these situations we should ask two questions: First, “is there something important missing from my experience...if I hope to fully understand what is happening.” Second, “what irrelevant details ...(do) I need to ignore to avoid being distracted from what is happening.”

My favorite chapter was the one on experience and creativity. Slyer and Hogarth write, “experience can further limit our inventiveness by generating so-called competency traps,” such that we sometimes lose the mindset that allowed us to explore alternatives to pressing problems. As a result, we fall into habits , become fixed in our approach so that “core capabilities (turn) into core rigidities.” One of the more fascinating discussions in this book centered around “experience design,” which blends many disciplines like psychology, design, marketing and communication, among others to understand how we experience goods and services. Although beneficial in many instances, the authors highlight the perils of experience design if it leads us to make decisions solely among what outside influencers have planned. We can potentially become manipulated and the choices we make are based on the framework of others that lead us to make decisions that go against our best interests.

This smart, appealing book is filled with a lot of wise counsel and is engaging and clearly written. I highly recommend this book for readers who are looking to challenge themselves in making thoughtful decisions and how to know when they may be under the influence of experience design principles so they aren’t manipulated into making a decision that is not in their best interest.

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I really got excited when I read the title and the description. From personal experience and reading a lot of the same books as the authors, I share the notion completely that our experiences and world view often does not lead to the right and correct decisions. At the end of the chapters, they authors synthesize good conclusions that are understandable and agreeable.

How the authors get there though goes sometimes horribly wrong. In on chapter, they start with 'imagine being a Dinosaur 66 Million years ago' , in a chapter that deals with things that cannot be know. This is a poor choice for an example, as Dinosaurs are not intelligent beings. Intelligent beings could see this today coming, probably would address it in one way or another and prevent humanity from extinction.

In another example, they use Kodak and how they missed the boat on digital cameras. The actual story is bend so that it matches with the theme of the paragraph, while the actual business decision of Kodak was different (they wanted to protect the money they made from film).

Finally, in another chapter on things we do not know, they authors pick the food industry, as an example of what we do not know, and if we would, we may would do better choices. I think that this is very stereotypical, and pretty much any industry, any industrial human activity creates something despicable and harmful to our environment - and that point is neither made, nor really helpful.

Some minor things will be probably flushed out during editing, like the formulation "We (the authors)….". I think the books intend is great, the writing is good, just some of the stories are flawed.