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Half the Story

A short story arrives a line at a time. Say what you make of it, and how sure you are, before you have heard it all.

Story 0/6 Score 0
Half the Story

Alex is intelligent…

Story seen1 of 4 lines
How sure–

What do you make of it so far?

How sure are you?

How much of the story do you need?

  • A short story arrives a line at a time.
  • After each line, pick what you make of it so far, or Too soon to say, and how sure you are: Hunch, Fairly sure or Certain.
  • Points come at the end of each story. Being sure of a view that holds up scores well. Being certain of one the story overturns costs the most.

The stories are made up for this game. Scores stay in your browser: nothing is sent anywhere.

Why a game about half a story?

Our minds make a confident story out of whatever they have, even when it is only part of the picture. The psychologist Daniel Kahneman called this WYSIATI: What You See Is All There Is. The feeling of being sure comes from how well the story hangs together, not from how much of it we have seen.

Two of the stories here come from a classic study by the psychologist Solomon Asch, which Kahneman describes: the same six words about a person, in a different order. Zooming-out does not mean never forming a view. It means holding it lightly until you have seen more.

More Zoom-Out games The WYSIATI Zoom-Out