Should we believe in intuition?

Have you ever been intimidated by something and it came true? Do you often use reason or intuition when making decisions? The following is an explanation of the neurologist Dr. Valerie Van Mulukom.

Imagine the director of a big company announcing an important decision and explaining that his intuition told him so. Surely his staff will receive this in surprise. According to common sense, consider, think carefully but why use intuition?

For a long time, intuition is underestimated by logical thinking - (Photo: BBC).

In fact, it is not "silly" reactions that you should ignore or adjust by logic. It is an evaluation of what you have experienced or thought before. Under this understanding, intuition is also a form of information processing.

Many studies have shown that the brain is a great predictor. It regularly compares new sensory and experience information with knowledge store and storage memories to predict what will happen next.

Scientists call it "predictive processing structure". It ensures that the brain is always ready to deal with the current situation in the best way. If a deviation occurs (not true with prediction), the brain will automatically update the cognitive model.

In short, intuition occurs when your brain notes a coincidence or difference (between the current cognitive model and experience), but it has not yet reached awareness.

For example, you're driving on a deserted rural road in the dark, suddenly suddenly told you to drive the command line. Going a bit, you realize you have just avoided a giant elephant.

You are relieved to listen intuitively and avoid an accident. In fact, the car running in front of you far away also performs a similar driving motion, you imitate unconsciously but don't realize.

On an empty road, what tells your driver - (Photo: YOUTUBE).

When you have a lot of experience in a certain area, the brain has more information to compare with the new experience. Then intuition will be more reliable. Just like creativity, intuition can be improved by experience.

In psychology literature, it is considered one of the two main modes of thinking, in parallel with analytical reasoning. One happens automatically, quickly and subconsciously, the other is slow, logical, alert and cautious.

A recent study found that there is no correlation between two ways of thinking and they can happen simultaneously. In any situation, intuition or logic - either will overwhelm the other.

In fact, the two ways of thinking can complement each other very well . Many top-notch scientific works can begin with an intuitive clue, enabling scientists to formulate breakthrough ideas and theory before proving it with thorough experiments and analysis.

Plus: Intuition or perceived as clumsy and inaccurate, analytical thinking can be equally harmful. Many studies have shown that excessive thinking can seriously affect the brain's decision-making process.

You notice, sometimes we don't know why we decided so, but we still want to have explanations for our decision.

You have a craving for a donut, but in fact your body doesn't need that much sugar and fat - (Photo: Donut Bouquets).

If intuition is so useful, should we believe it 100%? The answer is a bit complicated.

Because intuition is based on fast , automated and evolutionary processing, it is easy to fall into a trap, such as cognitive bias. To fix it, you can get used to the prejudices (in perception) to avoid it later.

Similarly, because intuition is an ancient thinking tool, it can be "outdated".

Imagine that you stand in front of a donut plate, you feel craving for food but maybe your body doesn't need that much fat and sugar. But if you live in the days of old hunting, reserve more energy is a good instinct.

So, in every situation that needs to be decided, consider whether your intuition properly evaluates the event. Is it related to cognitive bias? Do you have much experience about this situation?

If it is biased and you are not familiar with it, rely on logical thinking, on the contrary, believe in instincts.