Do you ever get that feeling in your gut that something is the right or wrong decision-
But you don’t know why? Our intuition is often deemed as mysticism or linked with telepathy
and premonitions, but is there a science behind it? Should you trust your intuition?
Understanding something immediately without conscious reasoning is less about seeing into
the future and more to do with pattern recognition. If I showed you this layout of an actual chess
game for 5 seconds, could you reproduce it? Studies show that most chess novices can recreate
25% of it, but chess masters do it with 95% accuracy. However, if the task is repeated
with the pieces in completely random positions, both the novices and masters only recall 25%.
The masters don’t have photographic memory - they simply use their knowledge and intuition,
based on patterns they have seen over years of practice!
Our brain processes information through both slow and fast thinking. For example, this
math problem with cause a stress response, and your brain will kick into slow thinking
to solve it. But this picture involves fast thinking; understanding the emotion of sadness
is an immediate brain response. And this fast thinking is where intuition lies.
In a similar study on the Japanese board game Shogi, participants were asked to solve a
checkmate move within one second. With no time for conscious analysis, brain scans showed
no activation of the cortex in expert Shogi players, the part of the brain responsible
for conscious thought. Instead, the basal ganglia, which is linked to habit formation
and automatic behaviours was triggered.
Interestingly, when it comes to complex decisions like buying a house, while many believe careful
thought with a pro’s and con’s list is best, one study actually found that participants
made better choices when they went with their snap decision. It turns out we often only
take into account a subset of relevant information which can lead to us weighing the importance
of each attribute inaccurately. The study also found that those who trusted their gut
were more satisfied with their decisions in the long run than those who thought through
the process carefully. However, when making simple purchases like what toothpaste to buy
- where variables are not as complex - the study found intentional thought and research
to be helpful.
Think you can identify the sound of your own voice? Surprisingly, after listening to a
recording of many voices in succession, including their own, 75% of participants in a study
made a mistake recognizing their own voice. But the most fascinating part is that their
skin conductance was also measured, and these levels went much higher when their own voice
came on - even though they didn’t consciously recognize their voice, suggesting they had
ignored their intuition which knew the correct answer first.
This same phenomenon was shown in a card game that uses 4 decks of cards. The participants
would select a card from any pile which would either be good or bad. Without them knowing
at first, decks A&B had more bad cards, while C&D had more good cards. After choosing 10
cards, the participants had no idea what was happening, but by 50 cards most would suspect
that some decks were better than others. Finally after 80 cards, they could articulate that
decks A&B were bad and C&D were good. But again, even before they knew it consciously,
their skin conductance levels would rise as early as the first 10 cards in response to
reaching for pile A&B. Their skin was already making unconscious signals about the right
choice before their conscious mind did. Of course, their skin didn’t KNOW the correct
answer, but their unconscious mind began understanding patterns before their conscious mind had.
So is following your intuition always the route to go? Not in cases of empathy, it turns
out. A study involving over 900 participants found that when it came to accurately interpreting
and understanding the feelings of others, systematic thinking or carefully analyzing
the information available before making a decision was more successful than going with
what feels right.
Relying on our past experiences is essentially how our intuition is formed and it has helped
our ancestors determine friend from foe. However we were given two systems of thinking - fast
and slow, and we recommend that it’s best to follow them both.
Special thanks to audible for supporting this episode to give you a free 30 day trial at
audible.com/asap. This week we wanted to recommend the book “Algorithms to live by” which
is a really interesting look at how computer algorithms can be applied to your everyday
life! You can get a free 30 day trial at audible.com/asap and choose from a massive selection! We love
them as they are great when you’re on the go.
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