One of the most inspiring yet frustrating tendency people have is to listen to their guts. This is because we can learn a lot from our gut feelings but we can also be led to believe some pretty crazy things. Indeed, our feelings can often inform us when something is amiss. Unfortunately, how we interpret those feelings is fraught with bias and misinterpretation.
Let me give you an example of how the brain works. Skip ahead if you don’t want the technical details.
There are some people who have operations to cut the corpus callosum, the band of connecting fibers between both halves of the brain. The operation is necessary for some people with epilepsy as a means of limiting seizures. The interesting thing about this operation is that very little appears to change in the people except in very specific circumstances.
If you ask the person to put their hands under a table and put a set of keys in their left hand, the right-handed patients will not be able to tell you what they have in their hand. This is because their speech center is in the left half of the brain. Only the right half knows there are keys in the left hand. Without the corpus callosum, the speech center has no access to the information. Remember, the right half of the brain controls the left part of the body and vice versa.
If you later ask them to bring their hands back above the table and show you what a person would do with the item you had earlier placed in their left hand, they will make a gesture of turning the keys. They will then blurt out, “Oh yeah, it was a set of keys!” this is because they can now see with their eyes and the left side of the brain can figure out what the object was.
Using the same subjects, if you quickly flash a picture of a house with flames coming out of a left side window, only the right half of the brain sees the burning house (When a picture is flashed quickly, the eyes don’t have time to scan the image. This means that the left side of the image is detected by the right side of the eyes and sent to the right side of the brain only.) If you ask the subject what they saw, they say “a house,” with nothing unusual about it. If you flash them a second picture of a house without flames, they again report seeing an ordinary house.
Now comes the interesting part. When you ask which house they prefer, they all choose the second house. Even more interesting are the reasons given. No one will say, “Well, because the first one is on fire, I choose the second one.” Instead they make comments about color and shape even though the houses are essentially identical. This is because the right half of their brains detect a problem but can’t put it into words. The left half can detect some unease and tension but can’t say why. Instead, the left side explains the choice by focussing on color or shape.
OK, so what does this have to do with intuition? Well, we cannot always have a verbal awareness of what is going on in our brains. This means that we can often detect SOMETHING without knowing what that something is. This SOMETHING is then interpreted and, like all interpretations, some are right and some are wrong.
This is why our sixth sense can either help or hinder us. Interpretations are subject to all our usual biases. We have a tendency to see the things we want to see and believe the things we want to believe. A critical thinker, who gathers information and looks for patterns before jumping to conclusions is more likely to benefit from intuition. A person who doesn’t question their beliefs and interpretations is more likely to use intuition to justify their biases.
Here is a column I wrote on the subject:
My intuition is telling me something
(Source: La voix de mon intuition. Journal Métro, May 31, 2011)
Lots of people talk about their intuition, or their sixth sense. Is it a real phenomenon, how accurate is it, and why do we feel it?
I think it is real but probably not as significant as some people think. Understood, it can be a very helpful ally. Misunderstood or overvalued, it can lead us down some damaging paths.
Have you had the experience of meeting someone after a short break and noticing something different in their appearance? “Hey, did you grow a moustache?” you might ask.
“No, but I did shave off the rest of my beard,” might come the answer.
“Oh, yeah! Of course.”
I’m sure you’ve had many similar exchanges in your lives. I think this is an excellent example of what we typically refer to as intuition. Our brains register an image that becomes familiar. When the image is altered we detect a difference but we may not immediately remember the exact difference. This creates an unusual feeling we can detect even if the specific memory hasn’t been retrieved. Hence the gut feelings or the intuition we refer to.
The same thing happens when we experience events. There is a usual course of events that lead to a certain familiarity. Any mild alteration in the expected course will create the same gut feeling. We detect that something is amiss even if we can’t say what.
Without getting technical, the brain has far more parts than just its language center. But language is what we use to communicate. This makes it hard to always have words to describe a perception or a feeling. The brain can detect an alteration in an expected pattern. But imperfect memory and limited tools of communication means we will not always be able to pinpoint the reasons for everything we feel.
Intuition is a great tool to use at times. By listening to your guts you may detect a medical condition more readily than someone who dismisses feelings. You may also sense problems at work or in a relationship before they become apparent. Unfortunately your guts cannot always distinguish between important and unimportant differences. Those who listen to their guts too often will overreact. This is when fear and mistrust take over.
Intuition is the sense that something unusual is happening. Treat intuition as a source of extra information and it can be your ally. But don’t be misled by taking it as gospel truth. Information, even if real and detectable, is not always significant.
Tagged as attributional bias, intuition, self-fulfilling beliefs, sixth-sense.
Posted in Human nature, Random thoughts.
Posted on 15 Jun 2011
