I Have a Hunch I’m Right

Have you ever met somebody to whom you took an immediate dislike, but you couldn’t quite put your finger on why? I’ve had this happen more than once, and in every case, as I got to know the person better, my initial impression proved right — the guy turned out to be some flavor of scumbag. Trusting my hunches was a valuable skill back in my college days, when I supported myself by working in bars in the less-savory parts of town.

I’ve read that hunches often pan out because they amount to your subconscious mind making connections of which your conscious brain is not aware. And today, the BBC reports on a new study that seems to confirm this: snap decisions are sometimes better than decisions you take time to think about.

University College London found making subconscious snap decisions is more reliable in certain situations than using rational thought processes. Participants in the study were given a computer-based task and performed better when they were given less time to make their decisions. . . . Ten volunteers were shown a computer screen covered in over 650 identical symbols, including one rotated version of the symbol. They were asked to decide which side of the screen the rotated image was on. Given a fraction of a second to look at the screen, the subjects were 95% accurate. But when they were allowed to scrutinize the image for over a second, they were only 70% accurate. . . .people and animals were designed subconsciously to recognise and fixate on anything out of the ordinary as it could help to identify and escape from predators quickly, and so has an evolutionary advantage.

If I’d written this story, I would have said we “evolved” to notice things out of the ordinary, rather than that we were “designed” to do so, but I have a hunch I’m being too nitpicky.