And all this time we thought that decisions arose consciously by thoroughly evaluating the data and coming to a conclusion. Maybe not.
Fishing in the stream of consciousness, researchers now can detect our intentions and predict our choices before we are aware of them ourselves. The brain, they have found, appears to make up its mind 10 seconds before we become conscious of a decision -- an eternity at the speed of thought. Their findings challenge conventional notions of choice.
In ways we are only beginning to understand, the synapses and neurons in the human nervous system work in concert to perceive the world around them, to learn from their perceptions, to remember important experiences, to plan ahead, and to decide and act on incomplete information. In a rudimentary way, they predetermine our choices.
The article goes on to describe a couple of the scientific experiments that led to that conclusion.
Studying the brain behavior leading up to the moment of conscious decision, the researchers identified signals that let them know when the students had decided to move 10 seconds or so before the students knew it themselves. About 70% of the time, the researchers could also predict which button the students would push. "It's quite eerie," said Dr. Haynes.
As someone who relied on all-night nickel-ante poker games to supply beer money during college, my mind is already considering the possibilities. But what does this really mean?
The findings lend credence to researchers who argue that many important decisions may be best made by going with our gut -- not by thinking about them too much.
Dutch researchers led by psychologist Ap Dijksterhuis at the University of Amsterdam recently found that people struggling to make relatively complicated consumer choices -- which car to buy, apartment to rent or vacation to take -- appeared to make sounder decisions when they were distracted and unable to focus consciously on the problem.
Moreover, the more factors to be considered in a decision, the more likely the unconscious brain handled it all better, they reported in the peer-reviewed journal Science in 2006. "The idea that conscious deliberation before making a decision is always good is simply one of those illusions consciousness creates for us," Dr. Dijksterhuis said.
So are leaders really great decision-makers, or is it just that their self-confidence lets them trust their first gut feel without the need to over-analyze?