Intuitive Decisions

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Intuitive Decisions

• Descartes Error?
• Or Damasios Paradox

Dick Bierman (Uni of Amsterdam) and Axel
Cleeremans (Uni. Colorado Boulder, Uni Libre
Brussels)
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What is an Intuitive decision?

• Not an analytic decision
• Problem Space too large
• Time too short
• (sometimes?) Based on some Feeling
• MOST DECISIONS IN REAL LIFE
• Choice of partner
• Business decisions etc. etc.

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Scientific Research

• Focussed on analytic (intelligent) decisions
• IQ tests
• Thinking aloud protocol analysis
• Decision (AI) support systems
• Intuition (as a style restricted to
  questionnaires) was considered to be
  disadvantageous

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Thinking of the Chess PlayerA.D. de Groot

• Reduction of problem space based upon
• Smyslow No analytic thinking at all
• Maybe intuition can be advantageous?

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Damasios Patients

• Bilateral damage ventromedial prefrontal cortex
• Good analytic problem solving
• Bad daily life decisions

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Damasio gambling procedure

• Participant gets initially 2000
• Draws cards from one of 4 different decks
• Card is either winning or losing
• 2 decks are advantageous in the long run

Preparation anticipation
Skin Conductance
time
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Results Periods in Task

• Hundred trials
• Each 10 trials test for explicit knowledge
• Pre-hunch period No explicit knowledge (50)
• Hunch period Unsure explicit
• Conceptual period Explicit knowledge

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Dependent Variables

• Anticipatory skin conductance
• High implies high arousal
• Performance

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Results
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Conclusion Damasio

• Intuitive decisions can be advantageous
• But needs somatic marking (the body knows before
  knowledge becomes explicit)
• I.e. (non conscious) association with emotional
  states is required.

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Model for Intuitive decision

• Acquisition of implicit knowledge about decision
  and outcomes
• Association of outcomes with emotional states
  through somatic marker
• Use of this marker to select advantageous
  decision

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But there is a paradox here!
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Replication attempt

• Goal instrument for intuition assessment
• Replication with gambling task failed
• Need a more complex task
• implicit grammar task
• demo

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Experimental details

• 39 Ss (Psychology students)
• Two words on screen randomly placed select the
  word from planet A
• Money bonus for good performance
• Dep. Var Anticipatory skin conductance
• Each 10 trials probe for explicit knowledge of
  underlying ruleset for planet A

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Rulesets
Planet A
Planet B
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Performance results
conceptual
preconceptual
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Skin Conductance results (preconceptual)
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So what is the paradox?

• IF the SM is helping to decide advantageously.
• Why is it then larger before DISadvantageous
  choices?

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What should be done

• Split the anticipatory period in a period where
  choices are
• A) Reflected and
• B) Made
• Measure for these periods the arousal separately
• Could this be done with eye movement registration
  (looks to/contemplates planet A word versus
  planet B word) in combination with pupil
  dilation (fast arousal measure)?

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Elements of Intuition measure

• The speed of implicit learning
• The development of Somatic Marking
• The proper Use of this Marker