Mind Matters is edited by Jonah Lehrer, the science writer behind the blog The Frontal Cortex and the book Proust was a Neuroscientist.

5 Comments

1. 1. docartemis 06:45 PM 6/3/08

   I just finished an interesting new book by Robert A Burton, MD called "On Being Certain: Believing You are Right Even When You're Not. He points out that one of the things that happens in the "unconscious" part of the brain is the generation of the feeling of certainty. We generally place undue confidence in this feeling, considering that we have no access to how it is generated, and no independent way to confirm its accuracy.

   Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this

2. 2. Pavel Nadin 03:34 PM 6/4/08

   As long as this "undue confidence" pushes us to take risks that result in more rewards than detriment, I'm all for it B-)
   
   I'm wondering how the knowledge of one's 'hidden pursuaders' or biases affects one's behavior, if it becomes a bias of its own, and if indeed it's a good bias, something you want. Maybe we'd be making better decisions if we were not aware of our cognitive tendencies, at least to some degree. I'm just getting a funny feeling about the increasing number of people telling me "you're thinking about it too much, just do it". Any research on that?

   Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this

3. 3. docartemis 07:37 PM 6/4/08

   Pavel,
   
   I think you are expressing something similar to what Dr. Burton seems to be saying in his book. He is warning against giving our unconscious decisions free rein.
   
   As far as the research goes, I think the results are mixed. Sometimes our "unconscious" decisions are better than "thinking." This phenomen is described in great detail in books like Malcom Gladwell's [i]Blink[/i]. In contrast, in his new book [i]The Political Brain[/i], Drew Westen has documented that one of the problems is that often our "unconscious" and our conscious attitudes conflict.

   Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this

4. 4. Pavel Nadin 06:51 AM 6/5/08

   I haven’t read those books, but I also find the issue of “conflict” between conscious and unconscious interesting from a social and evolutionary perspective. There is a ‘naturalistic fallacy’ out there that states that just because something is natural doesn’t mean it’s right. The only justification for such logic I see is that in order to promote the greater good for the greater number of people, our prefrontal cortex (PFC) has to control our limbic system, the seat of our emotions responsible for most of our automatic decision making. And that’s where the conflict emerges. So, how do we decide then how much of expectations we can place on the PFC in regulation of our emotions, which obviously has an impact on our legal punishment system? What do we do with people who are naturally weak in their ability to control the limbic system?
   
   Such dual system makes me also believe that the future social progress, which I define as a ratio of minimum resources needed over the ability to satisfy all of the needs, depends either on genetic engineering or some heavy duty conditioning in childhood. Pleistocene genes we carry with us don’t seem to be designed well for cosmopolitan ethics. There’s evidence that we automatically prefer what is associated with our own traits and membership of our own group, which subsequently affects our decisions. So, if we all want to live in piece and increase the complexity of our social structure that allows us to meet all of our needs for minimum resources, we have to expect more and more reasoning and controling capabilities from our PFC. But we can't train and condition it infinitely, can we? So, it seems to me that without altering the brain machinery, our social progress will asymptotically approach a limit. How's that for a futuristic doomsday prediction?
   
   
   On a slightly different note, do you know by chance of any book or presentation that discusses the development of automatic skills in sports based on the knowledge on how unconscious mind works. For example, it’s been documented that if we overload our short term memory (as in trying to remember a long digit number), the regulatory system (PFC) is weakened and we let our emotional response to be much more obvious in our behavior. But it also impairs our motor abilities (try to walk a straight line while overloading your memory). But now, my questions is, Can I turn it around and use this ‘problem’ to develop some sports skills. I tried practicing some hockey moves while trying to remember things and I’m not sure about the results. So, I'm going to leave it to the professionals who can do controlled studies. If you know of any, I would REALLY appreciate your letting me know about it.

   Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this

5. 5. eweb12 02:53 PM 2/25/13

   The correct link for "one recent compelling demonstration of this phenomenon comes from Princeton University psychologist Adam Alter" should be http://web.princeton.edu/sites/opplab/papers/JEPG%20Intuitive%20Correction%20Paper.pdf

   Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this