"THE PSYCHOLOGY OF BIRD IDENTIFICATION"

From the description of David Sibley's upcoming workshop at the ABA convention in April (the bold font is mine):

Bird identification is the central challenge of birding, and we all strive to improve our skills and to identify more birds, more quickly and more accurately. Countless references and tools suggest that the birder who wants to avoid misidentifications should learn more about the fine points of plumage, molt, variation and subspecies, etc. But the fact is that most mistakes involve glitches in perception. No amount of preparation can prevent us from blurting out “Snowy Owl!” when the time is right and we see a white milk jug on the salt-marsh. Our brains, and the very short-cuts that we use successfully (most of the time) to identify birds, are also the source of most misidentifications. This workshop will focus on the psychological aspects of bird identification - how we subconsciously use pattern-recognition, expectations, suggestion, and other clues - and how those methods can lead us to misidentify birds with complete confidence.