Reading Quest 1

During Chapter 2, I became extremely interested in the fact that Riley was able to identify a radar blip as an enemy missile based on basically a feeling in his gut. This is simply incredible. I became curious to see if there have been other instances of an unconscious decision ending up being the best decision to make. I found that the human brain is actually a great decision maker, that is when the decisions are made unconsciously. According to Alex Pouget, a professor at the University of Rochester,

"You don’t consciously decide to stop at a red light or steer around an obstacle in the road. Once we started looking at the decisions our brains make without our knowledge, we found that they almost always reach the right decision, given the information they had to work with."

During a study conducted by Pouget, participants were asked to stare at a computer screen with multiple dots. Most of these dots are moving randomly about the screen, but a set and controlled number of dots are moving either to the left or to the right. The longer that the participants stared at the dots, the more information was obtained and stored subconsciously, until the brain was able to ensure the participant that the dots were either moving to the left or moving to the right. At this moment the participant instantly realizes which way they dots are moving with out even thinking about the complex process that it took to gain this information.

I guess this is why when one spots something laying in the road, that person is instantly "encouraged" to swerve in order to avoid the object. This type of thinking is extremely affective in the way that it allows for good decisions to be made in a reasonable amount of time based on the information presented to the brain.