Intuition

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Intuition The heart has its reasons which reason
does not know. Pascal, 1670. He that trusteth
his own heart is a fool. Proverbs 2836 How much
do we know at any time? Much more, or so I
believe, than we know we know! Agatha Christie,
The Moving Finger Nothing is so difficult as not
deceiving onself. Ludvig Wittgenstein
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Intuition does it exist? General consensus
that it exists but we have been wrong before. .
. . . earth is flat . . . sun travels
around earth. . . .
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• Intuition what is it?
• things tell you things
• Implicit and unconscious, but depends on the 5
  senses
• Emotional (gut feeling) but has strong cognitive
  component
• Error prone but do we ever say, I just had a
  feeling in my gut
• that I was wrong about this?
• Slow to learn and hard to unlearn
• Some people are just good at it, but develops
  with experience
• Accessible to verbal articulation but self-report
  is fallacious
• Leads to action except sometimes intuition is to
  not act
• Occurs in split-second situations and develops
  slowly across time
• things tell you things

4

• Intuition what else is it?
• Increased alertness or vigilance
• Higher level of motivation
• Better social skills
• More common sense
• Greater awareness of the situation
• Being more assertive
• Having greater empathy
• Being more focused
• More dedicated and enthusiastic for role of cop
• Having integrity character
• Complex pattern recognition
• Complex emergent process

5

• Intuition where/when does it occur?
• When are calm (and can observe more)
• When in survival situation and need immediate
  decision
• In crime scene investigation (that can go on for
  days or months)
• When remain open to alternative hypotheses
• In law enforcement, medicine, airport border
  security
• car salesmen?
• out hunting and feel (animals) eyes on you?

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• Intuition is it learned or innate?
• 20 have it
• National Academy classes 90 report experiencing
• intuitive event
• People get better with experience and mentoring
• Some people remain clueless even after years on
  the job
• Has implications for training and assessment

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Intuition is it learned or innate? Has
implications for training and assessment
learning
genetics
Area of the individual needs H X W to exist
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Intuition what is it? Immediate insight without
observation or reason Perception-like, rapid,
effortless cognition leading to action Social
intuition sensing that something is not
right Unconscious learning Complex pattern
recognition Myers, D. G. (2002). Intuition Its
Powers and Perils. New Haven Yale University
Press.
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• Intuition does it exist?
• Science if we can measure it
• Describe operations of measurement
• Agree that may not have consensus
• other abstractions are measured
• time
• general relativity theory
• special relativity theory
• intelligence

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Precedence exists

• However, the conviction remains that whenever we
  do use vision to become aware of objects or
  events, this must be accompanied by a
  corresponding visual experience. . . .The
  experiments reported here show that this belief
  is incorrect. In particular, some observers can
  consciously feel (or sense) a change in their
  surroundings even though they no visual
  experience of it. . . .

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Forty naïve observers were tested. Observers
viewed the display and were asked to press a
response key twice. The first response was to be
given when they sense a change that is, had a
feeling that a change was occurring. The
second response key was to be given when they saw
the change that is, had a visual experience
sufficient for a verbal description of the
changing item. . . .
Rensink, R. A. (2004). Visual Sensing Without
Seeing. Psychological Science, 15, 27-32.
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Intuition in controlled settings? Priming
studies Present a word on a screen (e.g.,
bread) too briefly for people to be able to
verbally report the word Then flash either
bubble or butter briefly but slow enough that
people can see it Will see butter more easily
(faster) than bubble Primed the word butter with
a cue that person could not report seeing.
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Intuition how can we research it?
Descriptive studies Who experienced vs
rookie men and women equally? bad guys and good
guys When repeated or seldom ET instantaneo
us vs. slow realization Where alone or with
partner situations of high/low risk situations
of high/low emotions at work or all the
time with constant or with changing environments
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Intuition how can we research it?
Retrospective studies Self-report . . . . .
memory reporting requirements feedback
Talking through think aloud
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• Intuition how can we research it?
• Correlational studies
• Implicit and unconscious, but depends on the 5
  senses
• Emotional (gut feeling) but has strong cognitive
  component
• Error prone but do we ever say, I just had a
  feeling in my gutthat I was wrong about this?
• Slow to learn and hard to unlearn
• Some people are just good at it, but develops
  with experience
• Accessible to verbal articulation but self-report
  is fallacious
• Leads to action except sometimes intuition is to
  not act
• Occurs in split-second situations and develops
  slowly across time
• Look for presence or absence of one to occur with
  presence or absence of the other e.g., does
  intuition occur more often under stress or calm?

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Intuition how can we research it?
Experimental studies Manipulate antecedents and
measure behavior E.g., person observes complex
scene (with low or high density of cues) and
track eye movement as a function of the cues
moving around in that environment. Vary the
characteristics of the person test the expert
as well as the novice.
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Signal
Present Absent
Response
No Yes
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Future Directions

• Research Recommendations
• Research Priorities