High level cognition vs intuition
Many writers extol the virtues of intuition for developing creative talents and enhancing life decisions. A new study by University College London indicates you are more likely to perform well on a symbol discrimination task if “you do not think too hard and instead trust your instincts,” according to their press release article, Trusting your instincts leads you to the right answer.
Dr Li Zhaoping, of the UCL Department of Psychology, said: “If our higher-level and lower-level cognitive processes are leading us to the same conclusions, there is no issue. Often though, our instincts and higher-level functions are in conflict and in this case our instincts are often silenced by our reasoning conscious mind. Participants would have improved their performance if they had been able to switch off their higher-level cognition by, for example, acting quickly.”
Malcolm Gladwell - author of the book Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking - says what we refer to as intuition may be a matter of”rapid cognition”: “Intuition strikes me as a concept we use to describe emotional reactions, gut feelings — thoughts and impressions that don’t’ seem entirely rational.
“But I think that what goes on in that first two seconds is perfectly rational. It’s thinking — its just thinking that moves a little faster and operates a little more mysteriously than the kind of deliberate, conscious decision-making that we usually associate with ‘thinking.’ What is going on in inside our heads when we engage in rapid cognition?”
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