In this episode of Psychology and Stuff, Dr. Alison Jane Martingano sits down with Dr. Jason Harman, an Associate Professor of Psychology and Human Factors at Michigan Technological University, to explore how we learn from experience when making decisions.

They discuss how memory, frequency, and feedback shape our choices over time, why early experiences can have such a lasting impact, and how rare events can sometimes mislead our decision-making. The conversation also dives into real-world applications, including police training, risk-taking, and how people make split-second judgments.

Dr. Harman also shares his work on gamified personality assessment, using interactive storytelling and game-like environments to measure behavior in new ways.

Listen in to learn more about how our past experiences shape the decisions we make—and why changing those patterns can be harder than we think.