When you walk in the front door, you don't even notice the Hercules because your brain would not make sense of it.

It looks like a wall and it's painted like a battleship.

And you look up because you're looking at planes hanging

from the ceiling. And you notice there's a wing up there. But it doesn't look like a wing. It's

too big. Then you notice it's attached to that big gray behemoth in the middle of the room. And your brain starts the process and say, oh, that must be the spruce goose, the H4, the Hercules.

This is Bill Colpe, a volunteer tour guide at Evergreen Aviation and Space Museum in McMinnville, Oregon.

He's taking us in and around one of the world's

most ambitious and unusual-looking aircraft. A plane so large, it warps your sense of scale.

And so expensive, it warped the judgment of the man who built it. Howard Hughes, the famous

American aviator. In this episode of Choiceology, we explore a bias in judgment that arises because we so

desperately want to recover what we've already spent, whether it's money, effort, or time.

Even when that money, effort, or time is gone and irrecoverable, we'll explore how that desire can steer us in counterproductive directions.

I'm Dr. Katie Milkman, and this is Choiceology, an original podcast from Charles Schwab.

It's a show about the psychology and economics behind our decisions.

We bring you true and surprising stories about high-stakes choices,

and then we examine how these stories connect to the latest research in behavioral science.

We do it all to help you make better judgments and avoid costly mistakes.

In 1942, the Second World War was raging on,

and the Allies were struggling against the German submarines

in the Battle of the Atlantic.

There was a big chunk in the middle of the ocean

where there's no air cover at all.

...