Here's something for the delectation of the neuroeconomics crew, or even just for Ken in relation to his experimental endeavours.
Why dithering gets you nowhere
Trust your gut instincts when decision-making gets tough, a study published today suggests. The research, published in the journal Current Biology, shows that, in some cases, snap decisions are more reliable than endless pondering using higher-level cognitive processes. Participants were asked to pick the odd one out on a screen covered in more than 650 identical symbols, including one rotated version of the same symbol. They performed better when given no time to linger and were forced to rely on their subconscious. Dr Li Zhaoping, of University College London, said: "You would expect people to make more accurate decisions when given the time to look properly."
The Daily Telegraph (1oth January)
Why dithering gets you nowhere
Trust your gut instincts when decision-making gets tough, a study published today suggests. The research, published in the journal Current Biology, shows that, in some cases, snap decisions are more reliable than endless pondering using higher-level cognitive processes. Participants were asked to pick the odd one out on a screen covered in more than 650 identical symbols, including one rotated version of the same symbol. They performed better when given no time to linger and were forced to rely on their subconscious. Dr Li Zhaoping, of University College London, said: "You would expect people to make more accurate decisions when given the time to look properly."
The Daily Telegraph (1oth January)
4 comments:
there is a good literature now on procrastination in economics that is worth looking at. Malcolm Gladwell's book "blink" makes the case for split second decisions. I would like to know more about how this depended on the type of decision being made. I can accept that quick decisions might be better with the sorts of visual tasks used in these experiments where you are better off not letting your frontal lobes get too much in the way but I wonder how it would work for complex tasks.
god - ive just realised that my picture comes up now when I comment - scary!
One could test this using chess as a model & varying the time control and the complexity of the situation by changing the strength of the other player.
If you have finite cognitive resources, it makes sense that it may not be optimal to devote too much time to one particular activity. Think about how many different things you do when driving a car.
chess is a great example. there are the odd few good chess players who play better under time pressure but at least anectodally speaking this is rare. Chess is a great paradigm for this type of work particularly since one can now use the type of computers that can beat GM's to give a good approximation to an objective of the "goodness" of a move
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