Psychology of Intelligence Analysis

Psychology of Intelligence Analysis

UPDATED: Book cover and pages reformatted by the Editor for a better reading experience!<br /><br />Author’s Preface<br />This volume pulls together and republishes, with some editing,<br />updating, and additions, articles written during 1978–86 for internal<br />use within the CIA Directorate of Intelligence. Four of the articles also<br />appeared in the Intelligence Community journal Studies in Intelligence<br />during that time frame. The information is relatively timeless and still<br />relevant to the never-ending quest for better analysis.<br /><br />The articles are based on reviewing cognitive psychology literature<br />concerning how people process information to make judgments on incomplete<br />and ambiguous information. I selected the experiments and<br />findings that seem most relevant to intelligence analysis and most in need<br />of communication to intelligence analysts. I then translated the technical<br />reports into language that intelligence analysts can understand and<br />interpreted the relevance of these findings to the problems intelligence<br />analysts face.<br /><br />The result is a compromise that may not be wholly satisfactory to<br />either research psychologists or intelligence analysts. Cognitive psychologists<br />and decision analysts may complain of oversimplification, while<br />the non-psychologist reader may have to absorb some new terminology.<br />Unfortunately, mental processes are so complex that discussion of them<br />does require some specialized vocabulary. Intelligence analysts who have<br />read and thought seriously about the nature of their craft should have<br />no difficulty with this book. Those who are plowing virgin ground may<br />require serious effort.<br /><br />I wish to thank all those who contributed comments and suggestions<br />on the draft of this book: Jack Davis (who also wrote the Introduction);<br />four former Directorate of Intelligence (DI) analysts whose names cannot<br />be cited here; my current colleague, Prof. Theodore Sarbin; and my editor<br />at the CIA’s Center for the Study of Intelligence, Hank Appelbaum.<br />All made many substantive and editorial suggestions that helped greatly<br />to make this a better book.<br />—Richards J. Heuer, Jr.