Studies Show the Value of Not Overthinking

WSJdpatton writes "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, writes WSJ's Robert Lee Hotz."

Comments

I would have thought a better test would be:

[mykepredko]

Giving the subject a series of comparisions to make and determine the difference of when they make the decision and when they act on it.

Use the same apparatus, but ask the subjects to select which they would prefer at that moment in time:

Steak vs Salad
Blonde vs Brunette
Pepsi vs Coke
Car vs Bicycle
Mac vs PC
and so on...

You could go on and try to week out personal preferences with things that the subject has to evaluate:
Which would you like in your front hall: A Van Gough or a Gougain?
Which is funnier: A joke from Steve Martin or a joke from Robin Williams?
What smells better: Roses or Cinnamon?
With a given math problem, what is the better of two choices to solve it?

I would think this approach would be a better way to see how decisions are made within the human mind.

myke

headline does not describe the conclusions

[petes_PoV]

The article states that the testers (only!) tested 14 people. The subjects pressed a button whenever they felt like it. The testers could see some tell-tales up to 10 seconds before the button was pressed.

All this really tells us that when we think we're making a random action, we really commit to it some time beforehand. It only tells when people make a random decision - not what the choice is

bad reporting.