MatthaeusWeinhardt

Intuition in the Brain - Integration of Value

Background: Two systems

It is now broadly accepted that humans have two systems for making judgments and decisions: the explicit (or deliberative) system, which operates slowly and requires effortful consideration of all alternatives, and the implicit (or intuitive) system, which operates quickly and effortlessly.^[1]

Much research looking at implicit and explicit judgments has focused on documenting the existence of these two ways of thinking. One classic paradigm is the Stroop Task [1], in which participants are shown color words that are printed in an ink color that is different from the word itself -- for instance, the word "red" printed in blue ink. They are then asked either to read the word or to name the ink color. People have more difficulty and take longer to respond when asked to name the ink color than when asked to read the word, because reading words is a very automatic process for adults, while naming the ink color in this case requires conscious effort. For instance, if you read the word "red" printed in blue ink and have to quickly name the ink color, you have to suppress the automatic tendency to just read the word in order to consciously pay attention to the ink color and name just that. This task clearly demonstrates that people have two modes of thinking -- a faster and more automatic one, and a slower but possibly more accurate one.^[2]

Broadly speaking, the explicit (deliberative) system is slow and effortful, operates in conscious awareness, is thought to be more "cognitive," operates in conscious awareness, and can be flexibly applied. A good example would be making a list of pros and cons. In order to be useful, such a list requires time to carefully list arguments on both sides, evaluate their relative weight, and reach a conclusion. However, such a method is flexible and can be applied to almost any topic.

By contrast, the implicit (intuitive) system is fast and effortless, requires no conscious awareness, is thought to be more "affective" (involving emotions), and requires experience in a specific domain to be accurate in that domain. Consider the following quote by Green Bay Packers Quarterback Aaron Rodgers:

“When you're throwing the football, you're not thinking about your drop or your release point or the trajectory or where your feet are...you have to be quick and decisive. That's a play we've worked on for years. Years…I've thrown that ball to Greg, that same exact ball, 100 times in practice. Same exact route. So when I break the huddle, that's what's flashing in my mind. I've completed this throw in my mind 1,000 times before the ball even leaves my hand.”

This anecdotal example illustrates that in the domain of sports, athletes often train so that their split-second, intuitive decisions will be more accurate. This quote also hints at the fact that intuitive judgments have to take into account many different factors (e.g. when throwing the football, where your feet are, who to pass to, what their projected route is, what the trajectory of the ball should be to optimally reach the intended target, etc.), yet this happens outside of conscious awareness and (I will argue) only provides a signal of "go" or "no-go" -- "good" or "bad."

Advantages of Intuition

Recently, researchers have identified numerous cases in which implicit (intuitive) judgments are somewhat surprisingly superior to explicit (deliberative) judgments.

One great example is the Iowa Gambling task.^[3] In this study, subjects were given four decks of cards to draw from, two of which would be profitable in the long run and two of which would make the subject lose money. Interestingly, although participants began to draw exclusively from the profitable decks after drawing merely 50 cards, they could only explain why these decks were better by card 80. The participants’ intuition had figured out the game 30 cards before they were explicitly aware of what was going on.

These findings are not just limited to artificial lab settings: In a series of studies in the lab and among actual shoppers, it was found that choices among complex products (such as between different houses or different cars) produced better results when they were made without conscious thought.^[4] Specifically, the authors gave each of the products a high number of attributes (for instance, complex cars had 12 different attributes), some of which were positive and some of which were negative. In this context, the “better” choice or the more “desirable” product was the one with a higher proportion of positive attributes.

Another earlier study also showed that participants who chose their favorite poster from five choices after careful consideration were later less satisfied with their choice than participants who only considered the posters briefly before choosing.^[5] Furthermore, in a different study, participants were more accurate at judging the quality of paintings and poems when they relied on their intuition, instead of thinking deliberatively about their response.^[6] Although paintings and poems may be considered matters of personal preference, the authors of the study tried to circumvent the problem of subjectivity by incorporating paintings and poems that are widely recognized as low-quality. For example, the authors chose their high-quality paintings from the Museum of Modern Art (MOMA), and their low-quality paintings from the Museum of Bad Art. Pre-test ratings confirmed that this difference in quality is consistently agreed-upon.

References

1. Kahneman, D. (2003). A perspective on judgment and choice: Mapping bounded rationality. American Psychologist, 58, 697-720.
2. Stroop, J. R. (1935). Studies of interference in serial verbal reactions. Journal of Experimental Psychology, 18, 643-662.
3. Bechara, A., Damasio, H., Tranel, D., & Damasio, A. R. (1997). Deciding advantageously before knowing the advantageous strategy. Science, 275, 1293–1295.
4. Dijksterhuis, A., Bos, M. W., Nordgren, L. F., & Van Baaren, R. B. (2006). On Making the Right Choice: The Deliberation-Without-Attention Effect. Science, 311, 1005-1007.
5. Wilson, T. D., Lisle, D. J., Schooler, J. W., Hodges, S. D., Klaaren, K. J., & LaFleur, S. J. (1993). Introspecting About Reasons Can Reduce Post-Choice Satisfaction. Personality & Social Psychology Bulletin, 19(3), 331-339.
6. Dijkstra, K.A., van der Pligt, J., van Kleef, G.A. & Kerstholt, J.H. (2012). Deliberation versus Intuition: Global versus Local Processing in Judgment and Choice, Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, doi: 10.1016/j.jesp.2012.05.001