How good are we at predictions?

[brotherted]

I believe I have a good sense of who'll be ticklish before I've ever tickled them or discussed it. Do you guys think you can predict it too, or might we all be suffering from a confirmation bias, where we tend to remember the times we guessed right much better than the times we guessed wrong, leaving ourselves falsely convinced about what excellent predictors we are?

Sorry if this has been posted on before.

In general, I feel like people who seem to move and even talk in bursts or jerks of motion are much more likely to be ticklish. Conversely, there's a kind of earthy, smoother-moving type person who probably isn't ticklish. Short of conducting a national ticklish prediction study, can we even accurately assess this without confirmation bias?

 

[Etienne2021]

It's easy to predict that a person might be ticklish since the majority of people are ticklish, so you'll have a 9/10 chance of being correct. How ticklish, where they're most ticklish, and how they'll react to being tickled is something that can't be predicted, regardless of how they behave.

 

[brotherted]

With a percentage like 9 out of 10, I think you're defining ticklish differently than I am.
Sounds like my "ticklish" is what you would call "highly ticklish."

 

[LeatherRebell]

With a percentage like 9 out of 10, I think you're defining ticklish differently than I am.
Sounds like my "ticklish" is what you would call "highly ticklish."

Kinda sounds like you're defining 'ticklish' as differently from the actual definition of 'ticklish'.

 

[brotherted]

Kinda sounds like you're defining 'ticklish' as differently from the actual definition of 'ticklish'.

We don't need to bicker about it... but to you, someone who reacts with a mild, muted, in-between-type reaction, but a reaction nonetheless, you would consider ticklish?

Not me. For me, the girls that either have the minor reactions, or the reactions that may be clear enough for the first few seconds but then quickly dissipate, don't really cut it.