Intuition training proven to work
The idea that intuition develops with experience and that it can inform decision-making is difficult to quantify in a laboratory setting. Researchers from University College London (UK) and the Université Pierre et Marie Curie (France) have developed a sophisticated methodology to assess awareness, and have demonstrated that subliminal instrumental learning (using consequences to modify behaviour) occurs in the brain without conscious intervention. The study, which was partly funded by the EU, was published in the journal Neuron on 28 August. The assertion that intuition can guide a person's decision-making more effectively than conscious reasoning is not completely unfounded. One might pick up subliminal signals that are consistently associated with certain situations and outcomes, and learn subconsciously from those signals. The authors of the current study cite the example of a doctor improving her therapeutic decisions over time by learning to associate subliminal signs presented by her patients with treatment outcomes. Another was of a poker player improving his performance by learning to associate monetary reward with his opponents' subliminal signalling (commonly called the 'gambler's tell'). Subliminal instrumental learning is normally associated with the brain's ventral striatum, which encodes reward-related information. Dr Pessiglione and colleagues hypothesised that, 'processes associated with striatal learning are not consciously accessible but, nonetheless, influence choice decision making'. They used perceptual masking together with computational modelling and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to study subjects performing subliminal conditioning tests. They found that rewarding visual cues can influence behavioural choices, and identified brain circuitry associated with subliminal instrumental conditioning. A refined perceptual masking technique was used, wherein subjects were shown novel, abstract images for a very short time (33 or 50 milliseconds) that were masked in such a way that they could not be seen consciously. To test whether subjects were consciously aware of what the images looked like, they were shown two images together and asked if they were different from one another. They guessed right about half the time (the same outcome as chance). When asked to describe the images after the study, the subjects said they had no idea what they looked like; when they were shown the images they expressed surprise and were not aware of ever having seen them before. This indicated that during the study they had no preconceived notion of what the images could be, which was considered by the authors to be a crucial feature of the study's design. After it was established that the subjects could not consciously see the masked cues, they performed a subliminal conditioning task that used the same masking procedure. This time, they played for money. They were shown masked cues (images displayed on screen for 33 or 50 milliseconds in between two other images) and given a choice: press a button or don't. They were told that one response was safe (you do not win or lose anything) while the other was risky (you can win GBP1, lose GBP1, or get nothing), and were also told that the outcome of choosing the risky response would depend on the masked image. They were encouraged to take risks if they felt things were going their way. Subjects were then debriefed about their visual perceptions and their response strategies, and were asked to rank the images, now unmasked, in order of preference. They showed a significant preference for 'reward' images (the winners) and low ranking for 'punishment' images (the losers), indicating that their preferences were biased by subliminal training. During the subliminal conditioning task the subjects' brain activity was recorded using fMRI. This functional neuroimaging showed that 'from the first to the second half of conditioning sessions, ventral striatal responses increased for reward cues and decreased for punishment cues'. They noted bilateral activity in the ventral striatum that was significantly correlated with the subjects' response to punishment and reward. The study demonstrated that subliminally perceived rewards and punishments can guide behaviour, and can condition preferences for things that cannot be consciously seen. They hope that their methodology can be applied to studies of brain mechanisms in patients with neurological or psychiatric conditions. The study was funded in part by a grant from the EU's Marie Curie Intra-European research fellowship programme.
Countries
France, United Kingdom