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INRM
23rd July 2008, 11:41 AM
Swede cracks the secrets of intuitions
http://www.thelocal.se/13230/20080723/
Published: 23 Jul 08 14:51 CET

A learning expert at Linköping University in central Sweden has come up with an explanation for why some people seem to have the ability to act without thinking

Lars-Erik Björklund has dedicated his doctoral research thesis, defended at Linköping University last week, to finding a neuro-biological explanation for why experience-based knowledge comes about.

In layman's terms - what is intuition and from where does it arise?

"In studies of nurses from the 1980s it could be shown that those with greater experience saw more and could make better decisions faster. One spoke of a intuitive ability," said Lars-Erik Björklund wrote in his thesis.

Similar tests were carried out in the 1990s on doctors and business people and the research was consistent with previous findings.

The argument that 'practice makes perfect' and that 'there is no substitute for experience' is nothing new. The broad interest generated by Björklund's thesis is because he seeks to provide neuro-biological explanations for why intuition exists.

After having researched the body of neurological literature, Björklund was able to solve the riddle of intuition in that human beings have two systems for receiving and analyzing sensory impressions - a conscious and an unconscious.

Contained within the unconscious we have an album of pictures, images and sensory signals that we use to compare against new information received and analyzed by the systems of the brain. We store up both images and memories of previous experiences and this helps us to predict the outcome of similar, new situations that we face.


INRM

epeos76
23rd July 2008, 02:12 PM
If that's right, shouldn't it be easy to get a machine to do this? Compare new information against a library of old information?

paximperium
23rd July 2008, 02:47 PM
Cool. Maybe we can learn how the brain processes that information and how we subconsciously and consciously arrive in making decisions.

Contained within the unconscious we have an album of pictures, images and sensory signals that we use to compare against new information received and analyzed by the systems of the brain. We store up both images and memories of previous experiences and this helps us to predict the outcome of similar, new situations that we face.
It's called Heuristics
"A heuristic is a method to help solve a problem, commonly informal. It is particularly used for a method that often rapidly leads to a solution that is usually reasonably close to the best possible answer. Heuristics are "rules of thumb", educated guesses, intuitive judgments or simply common sense.
In more precise terms, heuristics stand for strategies using readily accessible, though loosely applicable, information to control problem-solving in human beings and machines."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heuristics

However, Heuristics are prone to error and many inferences about the supernatural is due to these "shortcuts" our brain makes.

INRM
23rd July 2008, 08:30 PM
I guess intuitions are a form of heuristics then.

soylent
23rd July 2008, 10:19 PM
A learning expert at Linköping University in central Sweden has come up with an explanation for why some people seem to have the ability to act without thinking

I too have an explanation for this phenomenon. When one is isolated from the consequences of one's actions there's no incentive to think before acting. People who have acquired the abillity to do so are usually called "inconsiderate jerks" or "bloody morons". ;)