Boundary Extension is remembering more context around a scene than was actually present. It sits in the Cognition dimension (COG) of the Human Behavior Taxonomy™ as element HBT-COG-0109, within the Reasoning family. The core principle: remembering more context around a scene than was actually present. In incentive terms, it matters because it changes the payoff people perceive before they choose — which means it can be designed for, or exploited.
Scientific Definition
Remembering more context around a scene than was actually present.
Plain-English Definition
Remembering more context around a scene than was actually present.
Feynman Explanation
Memory is a generative model, not a recording.
Core Principle
Remembering more context around a scene than was actually present.
Mechanisms
Pending editorial review.
Remembering more context around a scene than was actually present.
Pending editorial review.
Pending editorial review.
Pending editorial review.
Pending editorial review.
Post-mortems get worse, not better, the further from the event.
Inputs (Triggers)
Pending editorial review.
Outputs (Behaviors)
Pending editorial review.
Behavioral Signature
Memory is a generative model, not a recording.
Examples
- Witnesses 'recall' details that weren't in the room.
- Post-mortems get worse, not better, the further from the event.
Pending editorial review.
Original analysis from The Incentives Lab — how this element behaves inside real payoff structures.
Why this element matters to incentive design
This element is common enough to feel like human nature and specific enough to be engineered around. The mechanism underneath it is straightforward: remembering more context around a scene than was actually present. You can recognize it in the field by its signature: memory is a generative model, not a recording. Every element in the Cognition dimension changes the perceived payoff of an action before the action happens, which is exactly where incentive design has leverage.
How it gets exploited
Left undesigned, post-mortems get worse, not better, the further from the event. It is amplified whenever post-mortems get worse, not better, the further from the event. Inside organizations that shows up as post-mortems get worse, not better, the further from the event. The pattern is the same one Goodhart's Law describes: the measurable proxy attracts the effort, and the purpose behind it quietly loses funding.
How the Lab designs around it
The redesign move is to capture decisions and observations in writing, in real time. Treat it as infrastructure. Once you can see it in your own system, most of the argument about culture resolves itself.
Famous Experiments
Pending editorial review.
Design Principles
- Capture decisions and observations in writing, in real time.
Measurement Approaches
Pending editorial review.
Evidence
Pending editorial review.
Pending editorial review.
The Perverse Incentive Lens™
How this behavior is exploited — and how to redesign around it.
- Capture decisions and observations in writing, in real time.
Pending editorial review.
Pending editorial review.
Interactive Mini Network
Click any neighbor to re-center the graph and follow the threads of connection.
Knowledge Graph Neighbors
Auto-linked to the rest of the Human Behavior Taxonomy by family, domain, dimension, and shared keywords.
Ignoring the size of a sample or population in our judgments.
Deriving general rules from specific examples; the leap from instance to concept.
The brain evolved to reason adaptively, not always truthfully, to reduce the cost of errors.
We solve problems by adding, even when subtracting would be better.
Assuming that if one option is true, another must be false, when both can be true.
Presuming a purposeful actor behind events that may have no actor at all.
What cannot be settled by experiment is not worth debating.
A finite set of well-defined instructions for solving a problem or performing a computation.
Every model simplifies reality; some are still useful.
Researchers favor conclusions aligned with their school, team, or sponsor.
Using personal stories or isolated examples instead of evidence.
Claiming something is true or better because most people believe it.
Where Boundary Extension is cited in the corpus
Essays, field guides, and diagnostics from The Incentives Lab that apply this element.
- EssayGoodhart's Law in the Real World
How measurable proxies capture judgment.
- EssayThe Perverse Incentives Hiding in Your KPIs
Cognitive shortcuts turned into scorecards.
- EssayAI Agents Inherit Your Incentives
How this element propagates into automated systems.
- CourseIncentives 101
The free ten-part primer on reading a payoff structure.
- ReferenceThe Periodic Table of Human Behavior
The full 1,267-element map this page belongs to.
Questions about Boundary Extension
- What is Boundary Extension?
- Boundary Extension is remembering more context around a scene than was actually present. It sits in the Cognition dimension (COG) of the Human Behavior Taxonomy™ as element HBT-COG-0109, within the Reasoning family. The core principle: remembering more context around a scene than was actually present. In incentive terms, it matters because it changes the payoff people perceive before they choose — which means it can be designed for, or exploited.
- What is an example of Boundary Extension?
- Post-mortems get worse, not better, the further from the event. The Incentives Lab catalogs everyday, organizational, and historical instances of this element on its Human Behavior Taxonomy™ page (HBT-COG-0109).
- How is Boundary Extension exploited?
- Post-mortems get worse, not better, the further from the event.
- How do you design around Boundary Extension?
- Capture decisions and observations in writing, in real time.
- Which behavioral dimension does Boundary Extension belong to?
- Boundary Extension is classified in the Cognition dimension (COG) of the Human Behavior Taxonomy™, family "Reasoning", class "Mental Model". Its permanent identifier is HBT-COG-0109 and its evidence grade is B.