When faced with making a difficult life decision, many of us can spend hours agonising over what to do.
But new research has discovered that this is perhaps not the best way to find a solution. Instead, we should trust our intuition and make a quick decision.
Researchers in Portugal found that decisions made on the spur of the moment are just as good as when we take our time. They discovered that when rats were challenged with a series of perceptual decision problems, their performance was just as good when they decided rapidly as when they took a much longer time to respond.
Despite being encouraged to slow down and try harder, the subjects of the study, led by Dr Zachary Mainen, of the Champalimaud Neuroscience Programme, achieved their maximum performance in less than 300 milliseconds.
Mainen, a neuroscientist who led the study while an associate professor in the US, said: “There are many kinds of decisions, and for some, having more time appears to be of no help.
“In these cases, you’d better go with your intuition, and that’s what our subjects did.”
Mainen said the study suggested that rats could be used as an animal model to investigate what was happening in the human brain when “intuitive” decisions were being made.
“Decision-making is not a well-understood process, but it appears to be surprisingly similar among species. This study provides a basis to begin to take apart one type of decision and see how it really works.”
More research is being carried out at the Champalimaud Centre for the Unknown in Lisbon.
The findings were published in the scientific journal Neuron. – Daily Mail
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