Web site and content Copyright © 2008 MindWaves
Most Visited Pages
Scientists Say 'Sleep On It'
BBC Report
BBC Report
" The conscious brain should be reserved for simple choices like picking between towels and shampoos".
When it comes to making tough decisions - don't sweat it, sleep on it. Or so a team of scientists recommends. A Dutch study suggests complex decisions such as buying a car can be better made when the subconscious mind is left to churn through the options.
This is because people can only focus on a limited amount of information, the study in the journal 'Science' suggests. The conscious brain should be reserved for simple choices like picking between towels and shampoos, the team said.
Psychologists from the University of Amsterdam in the Netherlands divided their experimental participants into two groups, and devised a series of experiments to test a theory on " deliberation without attention" .
One group was given four minutes to pick a favourite car from a list, having weighed up four attributes including fuel consumption and leg room.
The second group was given a series of puzzles to keep their conscious minds busy before making a decision.
The 'conscious thought' group managed to pick the best car based on four aspects around 55% of the time, while the 'subconscious thought' group only chose the right one 40% of the time.
But when the experiment was made more complex by bringing in 12 attributes to weigh up, the conscious thought group's success rate fell to around 23%, as opposed to nearly 60% for the subconscious thought group.
A second study followed up a group of shoppers and asked them how satisfied they were with simple purchases such as kitchen accessories and clothing. They were also asked about more complex purchases such as furniture.
The researchers found the shoppers they had classed as conscious shoppers reported most post-choice satisfaction with the simple products they bought. But the results were the reverse with the more complex furniture choices.
The study says: " The scientific approach has emphasized the benefits of conscious deliberation in decision making for hundreds of years. In contrast, the notion that unconscious thought is fruitful hardly developed beyond the status of 'folk wisdom' " .
But the study found that people can think subconsciously and that for complex decisions unconscious thought is actually superior.
The team argued the problem with conscious thought is that the brain can only focus on a few things at the same time, which can lead to some aspects being given undue importance.
Lead researcher Dr Ap Dijksterhuis said: " The take-home message is that when you have to make a decision, the first step should be to get all the information necessary for the decision.
" Once you have the information, you have to decide, and this is best done with conscious thought for simple decisions, but left to unconscious thought - to 'sleep on it' - when the decision is complex."
Jonathan Schooler of the University of British Columbia in Vancouver told Science the study built on evidence that too much reflection could be detrimental in some situations. " What may be really critical is to engage in conscious reflection but not make a decision immediately" he added.
Source: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/4723216.stm
When it comes to making tough decisions - don't sweat it, sleep on it. Or so a team of scientists recommends. A Dutch study suggests complex decisions such as buying a car can be better made when the subconscious mind is left to churn through the options.
This is because people can only focus on a limited amount of information, the study in the journal 'Science' suggests. The conscious brain should be reserved for simple choices like picking between towels and shampoos, the team said.
Psychologists from the University of Amsterdam in the Netherlands divided their experimental participants into two groups, and devised a series of experiments to test a theory on " deliberation without attention" .
One group was given four minutes to pick a favourite car from a list, having weighed up four attributes including fuel consumption and leg room.
The second group was given a series of puzzles to keep their conscious minds busy before making a decision.
The 'conscious thought' group managed to pick the best car based on four aspects around 55% of the time, while the 'subconscious thought' group only chose the right one 40% of the time.
But when the experiment was made more complex by bringing in 12 attributes to weigh up, the conscious thought group's success rate fell to around 23%, as opposed to nearly 60% for the subconscious thought group.
A second study followed up a group of shoppers and asked them how satisfied they were with simple purchases such as kitchen accessories and clothing. They were also asked about more complex purchases such as furniture.
The researchers found the shoppers they had classed as conscious shoppers reported most post-choice satisfaction with the simple products they bought. But the results were the reverse with the more complex furniture choices.
The study says: " The scientific approach has emphasized the benefits of conscious deliberation in decision making for hundreds of years. In contrast, the notion that unconscious thought is fruitful hardly developed beyond the status of 'folk wisdom' " .
But the study found that people can think subconsciously and that for complex decisions unconscious thought is actually superior.
The team argued the problem with conscious thought is that the brain can only focus on a few things at the same time, which can lead to some aspects being given undue importance.
Lead researcher Dr Ap Dijksterhuis said: " The take-home message is that when you have to make a decision, the first step should be to get all the information necessary for the decision.
" Once you have the information, you have to decide, and this is best done with conscious thought for simple decisions, but left to unconscious thought - to 'sleep on it' - when the decision is complex."
Jonathan Schooler of the University of British Columbia in Vancouver told Science the study built on evidence that too much reflection could be detrimental in some situations. " What may be really critical is to engage in conscious reflection but not make a decision immediately" he added.
Source: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/4723216.stm
