LONDON, Jan. 10 (UPI) -- University College London researchers say that people perform better when they have no time to think, or when the subconscious mind trumps the rational mind.
"This finding seems counter-intuitive. You would expect people to make more accurate decisions when given the time to look properly. Instead they performed better when given almost no time to think. The conscious or top-level function of the brain, when active, vetoes our initial subconscious decision -- even when it is correct -- leaving us unaware or distrustful of our instincts and at an immediate disadvantage," said Dr. Li Zhaoping. "Falling back on our inbuilt, involuntary subconscious processes for certain tasks is actually more effective than using our higher-level cognitive functions."
Ten participants were asked to locate the only back-to-front version of a repeated symbol on screen. With only a tiny fraction of a second for scrutinizing the target, subjects performed with 95 percent accuracy, but with more than a second to scrutinize the image, subjects were only 70 percent accurate, according to the study published in the journal Current Biology.
"If our higher-level and lower-level cognitive processes are leading us to the same conclusions, there is no issue," said Zhaoping. "Often though, our instincts and higher-level functions are in conflict and in this case our instincts are often silenced by our reasoning conscious mind."
