Expectations affect perception. What you expect to see colors what you actually see. Teachers struggle with this reality when they grade papers. Grading math problems or multiple choice tests makes it easy to be objective. Grading essays, however, is more of a challenge. Finding the flaws in a student�s support for propositions the teacher does not share is easier than seeing them when the truth of the proposition seems more self-evident. Belief that the student understood but just expressed something a bit inartfully is more likely when past experience tells the teacher that the student usually understands. Apparently, figure skating and its judging shares these problems.

Figure skating, of course, is not alone. Other sports have similar problems. Day-Hay dived competitively long enough for me to learn that judging diving is more an art than a science. While most scores are fairly close within the judging panels, quite a bit of variance can occur. Even without that particular problem, reasonably regular attendance at diving meets inevitably produces proof that a slightly bad dive from a normally excellent diver likely will produce a higher score than a slightly bad dive from a normally average diver.

Most likely, the less time there is to see what one is looking for, the bigger the expectation problem becomes. Yet I�ve seen it operate in arenas removed from sport in which judges have plenty of time to examine what is being judged. Philatelic judging has similar problems and the judges there have much longer to look at a static product: the mounted exhibit. Nevertheless, the same exhibit entered in several different stamp shows and graded on the same criteria will receive different medals in different shows. (One competes against an �objective� standard and one�s self for medals in philately. Awards such as Youth Grand are the competitive aspects.) More to the point, exhibits from former Grand prize winners are more likely to score well even if the particular exhibit suffers from poor layout and other flaws* simply because one expects good exhibits from them.

All these people who compete in such things know deep down about the expectation problem. Most of them bemoan its unfairness---unless they are the ones who benefit from the enhanced expectations. Many work to try to reduce the problem but the problem is like having cockroaches in a New York City apartment. Elimination is not possible. The best one can hope for is some control.

I feel sorry for the Canadian pair skaters last night. Their performance clearly was superior. On performance alone, the gold medal should have been theirs.

And yet there is a lesson here. In life, what you do everyday does matter. What people see everyday does matter. What you do day in and day out counts. Perhaps there are times that it should matter less than what you do in a given hour but it rarely fails to matter at least a little.

So were they robbed? Yes---and I don�t know. If all that matters is last night then they should have won. If more than a single night matters then I don�t know. I don�t have enough information.

Hmm, no strong opinion. This must be a first. Not what you expected, eh?

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*Admittedly, I notice flaws in layout much more quickly than flaws in philatelic knowledge and other such but I occasionally catch those too.

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