Predicting Soccer Matches After Unconscious and Conscious Thought as a Function of Expertise

The Double Framing Effect of Emotive Metaphors in Argumentation

In argumentation, metaphors are often considered as ambiguous or deceptive uses of language leading to fallacies of reasoning. However, they can also provide useful insights into creative argumentation, leading to genuinely new knowledge. Metaphors entail a framing effect that implicitly provides a specific perspective to interpret the world, guiding reasoning and evaluation of arguments. In the same vein, emotions could be in sharp contrast with proper reasoning, but they can also be cognitive processes of affective framing, influencing our reasoning and behavior in different meaningful ways. Thus, a double (metaphorical and affective) framing effect might influence argumentation in the case of emotive metaphors, such as “Poverty is a disease” or “Your boss is a dictator,” where specific “emotive words” (disease, dictator) are used as vehicles. We present and discuss the results of two experimental studies designed to explore the role of emotive metaphors in argumentation. The studies investigated whether and to what extent the detection of a fallacious argument is influenced by the presence of a conventional vs. novel emotive metaphor. Participants evaluated a series of verbal arguments containing either “non-emotive” or “emotive” (positive or negative) metaphors as middle terms that “bridge” the premises of the argument. The results show that the affective coherence of the metaphor's vehicle and topic plays a crucial role in participants' reasoning style, leading to global heuristic vs. local analytical interpretive processes in the interplay of the metaphorical and the affective framing effects.

Performance and Material-Dependent Holistic Representation of Unconscious Thought: A Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging Study

Psychological research has demonstrated that humans can think unconsciously. Unconscious thought (UT) refers to cognitive or affective decision-related processes that occur beyond conscious awareness. UT processes are considered more effective in complex decision-making than conscious thought (CT). In addition, holistic representation plays a key role in UT and consists of a multimodal, value-related cognitive process. While the neural correlates of UT have recently been investigated, the holistic representation hypothesis of UT has not been confirmed. Therefore, in the present study, we aimed to further evaluate this hypothesis by utilizing two UT tasks (person and consumer-product evaluations) in conjunction with an improved functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) experimental protocol. Participants evaluated four alternatives with 12 attributes each. In the UT condition, once the decision information had been presented, the participants completed a 1-back task for 120 s and evaluated each alternative, as well as an independent 1-back task in the absence of any decision information. We then performed regression analysis of the UT performance in both tasks. Our results revealed a positive correlation between performance in the UT task and the use of the anterior part of the precuneus/paracentral lobule in the person evaluation task and between performance and the posterior part of the precuneus, postcentral gyrus, middle occipital gyrus, and superior parietal lobule in the consumer-product evaluation task. The involvement of the precuneus area in both tasks was indicative of a multimodal, value-related process and is consistent with the features of holistic representation, supporting a central role for holistic representation in UT. Furthermore, the involvement of different precuneus subregions in the two UT tasks may reflect the task dependency of the key representation critical for advantageous UT.

Do Not Think Carefully? Re-examining the Effect of Unconscious Thought on Deception Detection

Several recent studies have examined the effect of unconscious thinking on deception detection with the hypothesis that unconscious thought increases the ability to discriminate between truth and deception, but these studies yielded conflicting results. The present study aimed to re-examine the effect of unconscious thinking and extend it by adopting both verbal and non-verbal/paraverbal stimuli. We hypothesized that unconscious thought leads to a higher accuracy rate than immediate decision and conscious thought when judging non-verbal/paraverbal stimuli, but not when judging verbal stimuli. In Study 1, we compared unconscious thought with immediate decision by using both video and audio stimuli. In Study 2, we compared unconscious thought with conscious thought by using both video and text stimuli. The results showed that when detecting deception vs. truth, (1) unconscious thought was not better than immediate decision on deception detection in both audio and video conditions (Study 1), and (2) unconscious thought was not better than conscious thought in both video and text conditions (Study 2). The Bayes factor of both studies also showed substantial evidence for null hypothesis (H0) relative to alternative hypothesis (H1). The implications and limitations of the present study are discussed.

A Case for Thinking Without Consciousness

People can engage in prolonged thought processes, such as when they are facing an important decision or when they are working on a scientific discovery. Such thought processes can take months or even years. We argue that while people engage in such thinking, they make progress not only when they consciously think but also sometimes when they are consciously thinking about something else-that is, while they think unconsciously. We review the literature on unconscious thought (UT) processes and conclude that there is indeed quite some evidence for UT. Conceptualized as a form of unconscious goal pursuit, UT is likely to be especially fruitful for thought processes that are complex, important, or interesting to the thinker. In addition, we discuss other characteristics of the UT process. We end with proposing Type 3 processes, in addition to Type 1 and Type 2 (or Systems 1 and 2) processes, to accommodate prolonged thought processes in models on thought.

Cognitive style modulates conscious but not unconscious thought: Comparing the deliberation-without-attention effect in analytics and wholists

Unconscious thought theory (UTT) suggests that conscious thinking is less effective in complex decision-making than unconscious thinking. However, little research has taken individual differences (e.g., cognitive style) into account. Using an adapted UTT paradigm, the present study compared the performances of individuals with a wholist or an analytic cognitive style in both conscious and unconscious thought conditions. After viewing information regarding four hypothetical phones, participants in the conscious thought condition deliberated for three minutes before rating the phones, while participants in the unconscious thought condition were distracted with a 2-back task for three minutes before rating. The results showed that wholists were equally good at differentiating good and bad phones after conscious or unconscious thought, whereas analytics performed well only when thinking unconsciously. The modulation effect of cognitive style appeared only in conscious thought. Implications for UTT and the understanding of cognitive style are discussed.

Research Note—Deliberation Without Attention: The Latent Benefits of Distracting Website Features for Online Purchase Decisions

Early studies on Web design typically caution against the use of distracting website features in electronic commerce, such as animated banners, pop-ups, and floating advertisements, because they may cause annoyance for online consumers and disrupt information processing, leading to poorer purchase decisions. Yet, the recently uncovered deliberation-without-attention (D-W-A) effect suggests that distracting consumers from the decision-making process may improve their decision quality when there are a large number of decision parameters to consider. To ascertain whether the D-W-A effect can be triggered through the use of distracting website features in the context of online shopping, two experiments are conducted. The first experiment reveals that the presence of distracting website features, in the form of pop-ups, gives rise to annoyance in general, but also leads to better purchase decisions when the decision to be made is complex. The second experiment supports the findings of the first and sheds further light on the underlying mode of thought triggered by these features. In particular, by eliminating a number of potential alternative mechanisms, including online judgments, the mere disruption of decision-related thought, and cognitively constrained conscious deliberation, the second experiment demonstrates that unconscious deliberation is likely to be the underlying cause of superior decision making. With these findings, this research supports a more balanced view in the recent human–computer interaction literature, which suggests that the usual advice to minimize the use of distracting website features should be examined more carefully. The research also uncovers evidence that contributes to the ongoing debate surrounding the D-W-A effect and unconscious thought theory.

A critical review and meta-analysis of the unconscious thought effect in medical decision making

Based on research on the increasingly popular unconscious thought effect (UTE), it has been suggested that physicians might make better diagnostic decisions after a period of distraction than after an equivalent amount of time of conscious deliberation. However, published attempts to demonstrate the UTE in medical decision making have yielded inconsistent results. In the present study, we report the results of a meta-analysis of all the available evidence on the UTE in medical decisions made by expert and novice clinicians. The meta-analysis failed to find a significant contribution of unconscious thought (UT) to the accuracy of medical decisions. This result cannot be easily attributed to any of the potential moderators of the UTE that have been discussed in the literature. Furthermore, a Bayes factor analysis shows that most experimental conditions provide positive support for the null hypothesis, suggesting that these null results do not reflect a simple lack of statistical power. We suggest ways in which new studies could usefully provide further evidence on the UTE. Unless future research shows otherwise, the recommendation of using UT to improve medical decisions lacks empirical support.

Can Medical Diagnosis Benefit from "Unconscious Thought"?

The unconscious thought theory argues that making complex decisions after a period of distraction can lead to better decision quality than deciding either immediately or after conscious deliberation. Two studies have tested this unconscious thought effect (UTE) in clinical diagnosis with conflicting results. The studies used different methodologies and had methodological weaknesses. We attempted to replicate the UTE in medical diagnosis by providing favorable conditions for the effect while maintaining ecological validity. Family physicians (N= 116) diagnosed 3 complex cases in 1 of 3 thinking modes: immediate, unconscious (UT), and conscious (CT). Cases were divided into short sentences, which were presented briefly and sequentially on computer. After each case presentation, the immediate response group gave a diagnosis, the UT group performed a 2-back distraction task for 3 min before giving a diagnosis, and the CT group could take as long as necessary before giving a diagnosis. We found no differences in diagnostic accuracy between groups (P= 0.95). The CT group took a median of 7 s to diagnose, which suggests that physicians were able to diagnose "online," as information was being presented. The lack of a difference between the immediate and UT groups suggests that the distraction had no additional effect on performance. To assess the decisiveness of the evidence of this null result, we computed a Bayes factor (BF01) for the 2 comparisons of interest. We found a BF01of 5.76 for the UT versus immediate comparison and of 3.61 for the UT versus CT comparison. Both BFs provide substantial evidence in favor of the null hypothesis: physicians' diagnoses made after distraction are no better than diagnoses made either immediately or after self-paced deliberation.

Assessment of unconscious decision aids applied to complex patient-centered medical decisions

Background

To improve patient health, recent research urges for medical decision aids that are designed to enhance the effectiveness of specific medically related decisions. Many such decisions involve complex information, and decision aids that independently use deliberative (analytical and slower) or intuitive (more affective and automatic) cognitive processes for such decisions result in suboptimal decisions. Unconscious thought can arguably use both intuitive and deliberative (slow and analytic) processes, and this combination may further benefit complex patient (or practitioner) decisions as medical decision aids. Indeed, mounting research demonstrates that individuals render better decisions generally if they are distracted from thinking consciously about complex information after it is presented (but can think unconsciously), relative to thinking about that information consciously or not at all.

Objective

The current research tested whether the benefits of unconscious thought processes can be replicated using an Internet platform for a patient medical decision involving complex information. This research also explored the possibility that judgments reported after a period of unconscious thought are actually the result of a short period of conscious deliberation occurring during the decision report phase.

Methods

A total of 173 participants in a Web-based experiment received information about four medical treatments, the best (worst) associated with mostly positive (negative) side-effects/attributes and the others with equal positive-negative ratios. Next, participants were either distracted for 3 minutes (unconscious thought), instructed to think about the information for 3 minutes (conscious thought), or moved directly to the decision task (immediate decision). Finally, participants reported their choice of, and attitudes toward, the treatments while experiencing high, low, or no cognitive load, which varied their ability to think consciously while reporting judgments. Cognitive load was manipulated by having participants memorize semi-random (high), line structured (low), or no dot patterns and recall these intermittently with their decision reports. Overall then, participants were randomly assigned to the conditions of a 3 (thought condition) by 3 (cognitive-load level) between-subjects design.

Results

A logistic regression analysis indicated that the odds of participants choosing the best treatment were 2.25 times higher in the unconscious-thought condition compared to the immediate-decision condition (b=.81, Wald=4.32, P=.04, 95% CI 1.048-4.836), and 2.39 times greater compared to the conscious-thought condition (b=.87, Wald=4.87, P=.027, 95% CI 1.103-5.186). No difference was observed between the conscious-thought condition compared to the immediate-decision condition, and cognitive load manipulations did not affect choices or alter the above finding.

Conclusions

This research demonstrates a plausible benefit of unconscious thinking as a decision aid for complex medical decisions, and represents the first use of unconscious thought processes as a patient-centered medical decision aid. Further, the quality of decisions reached unconsciously does not appear to be affected by the amount of cognitive load participants experienced.

On making the right choice: A meta-analysis and large-scale replication attempt of the unconscious thought advantage

Are difficult decisions best made after a momentary diversion of thought? Previous research addressing this important question has yielded dozens of experiments in which participants were asked to choose the best of several options (e.g., cars or apartments) either after conscious deliberation, or after a momentary diversion of thought induced by an unrelated task. The results of these studies were mixed. Some found that participants who had first performed the unrelated task were more likely to choose the best option, whereas others found no evidence for this so-called unconscious thought advantage (UTA). The current study examined two accounts of this inconsistency in previous findings. According to the reliability account, the UTA does not exist and previous reports of this effect concern nothing but spurious effects obtained with an unreliable paradigm. In contrast, the moderator account proposes that the UTA is a real effect that occurs only when certain conditions are met in the choice task. To test these accounts, we conducted a meta-analysis and a large-scale replication study (N = 399) that met the conditions deemed optimal for replicating the UTA. Consistent with the reliability account, the large-scale replication study yielded no evidence for the UTA, and the meta-analysis showed that previous reports of the UTA were confined to underpowered studies that used relatively small sample sizes. Furthermore, the results of the large-scale study also dispelled the recent suggestion that the UTA might be gender-specific. Accordingly, we conclude that there exists no reliable support for the claim that a momentary diversion of thought leads to better decision making than a period of deliberation.

Conscious versus unconscious thinking in the medical domain: the deliberation-without-attention effect examined

Previous studies have shown that with important decisions, unconscious thought has surprisingly led to better choices than conscious thought. The present study challenges this so-called 'deliberation-without-attention effect' in the medical domain. In a computerized study, physicians and medical students were asked, after either conscious or unconscious thought, to estimate the 5-year survival probabilities of four fictitious patients with varying medical characteristics. We assumed that experienced physicians would outperform students as a result of their superior knowledge. The central question was whether unconscious thought in this task would lead to better performance in experts or novices, in line with the deliberation-without-attention effect. We created four fictitious male 60-year-old patients, each of whom with signs and symptoms related to likely prognosis, from 12 (Complex) or 4 (Simple) categories. This manipulation resulted in objectively different life expectancies for these patients. Participants (86 experienced physicians and 57 medical students) were randomly allocated to the Simple or Complex condition. Statements were randomly presented for 8 s. Next, each participant assessed the life expectancies after either conscious or unconscious thought. As expected, experienced physicians were better in assessing life expectancies than medical students. No significant differences were found in performance between conscious and unconscious thought, nor did we detect a significant interaction between expertise level and mode of thought. In a medical decision task, unconscious thought did not lead to better performance of experienced physicians or medical students than conscious thought. Our findings do not support the deliberation-without-attention effect.

Unconscious influences on decision making: a critical review

To what extent do we know our own minds when making decisions? Variants of this question have preoccupied researchers in a wide range of domains, from mainstream experimental psychology (cognition, perception, social behavior) to cognitive neuroscience and behavioral economics. A pervasive view places a heavy explanatory burden on an intelligent cognitive unconscious, with many theories assigning causally effective roles to unconscious influences. This article presents a novel framework for evaluating these claims and reviews evidence from three major bodies of research in which unconscious factors have been studied: multiple-cue judgment, deliberation without attention, and decisions under uncertainty. Studies of priming (subliminal and primes-to-behavior) and the role of awareness in movement and perception (e.g., timing of willed actions, blindsight) are also given brief consideration. The review highlights that inadequate procedures for assessing awareness, failures to consider artifactual explanations of "landmark" results, and a tendency to uncritically accept conclusions that fit with our intuitions have all contributed to unconscious influences being ascribed inflated and erroneous explanatory power in theories of decision making. The review concludes by recommending that future research should focus on tasks in which participants' attention is diverted away from the experimenter's hypothesis, rather than the highly reflective tasks that are currently often employed.

The devil is in the specificity: the negative effect of prediction specificity on prediction accuracy

In the research reported here, we proposed and demonstrated the prediction-specificity effect, which states that people's prediction of the general outcome of an event (e.g., the winner of a soccer match) is less accurate when the prediction question is framed in a more specific manner (e.g., guessing the score) rather than in a less specific manner (e.g., guessing the winner). We demonstrated this effect by examining people's predictions on actual sports games both in field and laboratory studies. In Study 1, the analysis of 19 billion bets from a commercial sports-betting business provided evidence for the effect of prediction specificity. This effect was replicated in three controlled laboratory studies, in which participants predicted the outcomes of a series of soccer matches. Furthermore, the negative effect of prediction specificity was mediated by participants' underweighting of important holistic information during decision making.

Gist Memory in the Unconscious-Thought Effect

The unconscious-thought effect (UTE) occurs when people are better able to make complex decisions after a period of distraction rather than immediately or after a period of conscious deliberation. This finding has often been interpreted as evidence of unconscious thinking. In two experiments, we provided the first evidence that the UTE is accompanied by enhanced memory for the gist of decision-relevant attributes and demonstrated that the cognitive demands of a distraction task moderate its effect on decision making and gist memory. It was only following a low-demand distraction task that participants chose the best alternative more often and displayed enhanced gist memory for decision-relevant attributes. These findings suggest that the UTE occurs only if cognitive resources are available and that it is accompanied by enhanced organization of information in memory, as shown by the increase in gist memory.

Evaluating the role of attention in the context of unconscious thought theory: differential impact of attentional scope and load on preference and memory

Attention is a key process used to conceptualize and define modes of thought, but we lack information about the role of specific attentional processes on preferential choice and memory in multi-attribute decision making. In this study, we examine the role of attention based on two dimensions, attentional scope and load on choice preference strength and memory using a paradigm that arguably elicits unconscious thought. Scope of attention was manipulated by using global or local processing during distraction (Experiment 1) and before the information-encoding stage (Experiment 2). Load was manipulated by using the n-back task in Experiment 1. Results from Experiment 1 show that global processing or distributed attention during distraction results in stronger preference irrespective of load but better memory only at low cognitive load. Task difficulty or load did not have any effect on preference or memory. In Experiment 2, distributed attention before attribute encoding facilitated only memory but did not influence preference. Results show that attentional processes at different stages of processing like distraction and information-encoding influence decision making processes. Scope of attention not only influences preference and memory but the manner in which attentional scope influences them depends on both load and stage of information processing. The results indicate the important role of attention in processes critical for decision making and calls for a re-evaluation of the unconscious thought theory (UTT) and the need for reconceptualizing the role of attention.

The unconscious thought advantage: Further replication failures from a search for confirmatory evidence

According to the deliberation without attention (DWA) hypothesis, people facing a difficult choice will make a better decision after a period of distraction than after an equally long period of conscious deliberation, an effect referred to as the unconscious thought advantage (UTA). The status of the DWA hypothesis is controversial, as many studies have tried but failed to replicate the UTA. Here, we report a series of experiments that sought to identify the conditions under which the UTA can be replicated. Our starting point was a recent meta-analysis that identified the conditions under which the UTA was strongest in previous studies. Using a within-subjects design and a task that met each of these conditions, we failed to replicate the UTA. Based on closer inspection of previous methods and findings, we then examined some additional factors that could be important for replicating the UTA, including mental fatigue and choice complexity. This was to no avail, as the results revealed only a significant conscious thought advantage, when choice complexity was increased relative to the first experiment. We subsequently conducted exploratory analyses on the data across experiments and found that male subjects showed a significant conscious thought advantage while female subjects showed a trend towards an UTA. Taken together, our results suggest that replication of the UTA may depend more on characteristics of the sample than on the characteristics of the task, and they suggest that gender could be a source of variance in the outcomes of previous studies using a between-subjects design.

A new intuitionism: Meaning, memory, and development in Fuzzy-Trace Theory

Combining meaning, memory, and development, the perennially popular topic of intuition can be approached in a new way. Fuzzy-trace theory integrates these topics by distinguishing between meaning-based gist representations, which support fuzzy (yet advanced) intuition, and superficial verbatim representations of information, which support precise analysis. Here, I review the counterintuitive findings that led to the development of the theory and its most recent extensions to the neuroscience of risky decision making. These findings include memory interference (worse verbatim memory is associated with better reasoning); nonnumerical framing (framing effects increase when numbers are deleted from decision problems); developmental decreases in gray matter and increases in brain connectivity; developmental reversals in memory, judgment, and decision making (heuristics and biases based on gist increase from childhood to adulthood, challenging conceptions of rationality); and selective attention effects that provide critical tests comparing fuzzy-trace theory, expected utility theory, and its variants (e.g., prospect theory). Surprising implications for judgment and decision making in real life are also discussed, notably, that adaptive decision making relies mainly on gist-based intuition in law, medicine, and public health.

Conscious and unconscious thought in risky choice: testing the capacity principle and the appropriate weighting principle of unconscious thought theory

Daily we make decisions ranging from the mundane to the seemingly pivotal that shape our lives. Assuming rationality, all relevant information about one's options should be thoroughly examined in order to make the best choice. However, some findings suggest that under specific circumstances thinking too much has disadvantageous effects on decision quality and that it might be best to let the unconscious do the busy work. In three studies we test the capacity assumption and the appropriate weighting principle of Unconscious Thought Theory using a classic risky choice paradigm and including a "deliberation with information" condition. Although we replicate an advantage for unconscious thought (UT) over "deliberation without information," we find that "deliberation with information" equals or outperforms UT in risky choices. These results speak against the generality of the assumption that UT has a higher capacity for information integration and show that this capacity assumption does not hold in all domains. Furthermore, we show that "deliberate thought with information" leads to more differentiated knowledge compared to UT which speaks against the generality of the appropriate weighting assumption.

Unconscious intuition or conscious analysis? Critical questions for the Deliberation-Without-Attention paradigm

The Deliberation without Attention (DWA) effect refers to apparent improvements in decision-making following a period of distraction. It has been presented as evidence for beneficial unconscious cognitive processes. We identify two major concerns with this claim: first, as these demonstrations typically involve subjective preferences, the effects of distraction cannot be objectively assessed as beneficial; second, there is no direct evidence that the DWA manipulation promotes unconscious decision processes. We describe two tasks based on the DWA paradigm in which we found no evidence that the distraction manipulation led to decision processes that are subjectively unconscious, nor that it reduced the influence of presentation order upon performance. Crucially, we found that a lack of awareness of decision process was associated with poorer performance, both in terms of subjective preference measures used in traditional DWA paradigm and in an equivalent task where performance can be objectively assessed. Therefore, we argue that reliance on conscious memory itself can explain the data. Thus the DWA paradigm is not an adequate method of assessing beneficial unconscious thought.

The Impact of the Mode of Thought in Complex Decisions: Intuitive Decisions are Better

A number of recent studies have reported that decision quality is enhanced under conditions of inattention or distraction (unconscious thought; Dijksterhuis, 2004; Dijksterhuis and Nordgren, 2006; Dijksterhuis et al., 2006). These reports have generated considerable controversy, for both experimental (problems of replication) and theoretical reasons (interpretation). Here we report the results of four experiments. The first experiment replicates the unconscious thought effect, under conditions that validate and control the subjective criterion of decision quality. The second and third experiments examine the impact of a mode of thought manipulation (without distraction) on decision quality in immediate decisions. Here we find that intuitive or affective manipulations improve decision quality compared to analytic/deliberation manipulations. The fourth experiment combines the two methods (distraction and mode of thought manipulations) and demonstrates enhanced decision quality, in a situation that attempts to preserve ecological validity. The results are interpreted within a framework that is based on two interacting subsystems of decision-making: an affective/intuition based system and an analytic/deliberation system.

What makes recognition without awareness appear to be elusive? Strategic factors that influence the accuracy of guesses

Various factors could conceivably promote the accuracy of guesses during a recognition test. Two that we identified in previous studies are forced-choice testing format and high perceptual similarity between the repeat target and novel foil. In restricted circumstances, the relative perceptual fluency of the target can be compared with that of the foil and used as a reliable cue to guide accurate responses that occur without explicit retrieval--a phenomenon we referred to as "implicit recognition." In this issue, Jeneson and colleagues report a failure to replicate accurate guesses and also a tendency on the part of subjects to hazard guesses infrequently, even though testing circumstances were very similar to those that we used. To resolve this discrepancy, we developed a simple manipulation to encourage either guessing or confident responding. Encouraging guessing increased both the prevalence of guesses and the accuracy of guesses in a recognition test, relative to when confident responding was encouraged. When guessing was encouraged, guesses were highly accurate (as in our previous demonstrations of implicit recognition), whereas when confident responding was encouraged, guesses were at chance levels (as in Jeneson and colleagues' data). In light of a substantial literature showing high accuracy despite low confidence in certain circumstances, we infer that both the prevalence and accuracy of guessing can be influenced by whether subjects adopt guessing-friendly strategies. Our findings thus help to further characterize conditions likely to promote implicit recognition based on perceptual fluency.

Predicting soccer matches: A reassessment of the benefit of unconscious thinking

We evaluate Dijksterhuis, Bos, van der Leij, & van Baaren (2009), Psychological Science, on the benefit of unconscious thinking in predicting the outcomes of soccer matches. We conclude that the evidence that unconscious thinking helps experts to make better predictions is tenuous both from theoretical and statistical perspectives.

Conscious thought beats deliberation without attention in diagnostic decision-making: at least when you are an expert

Contrary to what common sense makes us believe, deliberation without attention has recently been suggested to produce better decisions in complex situations than deliberation with attention. Based on differences between cognitive processes of experts and novices, we hypothesized that experts make in fact better decisions after consciously thinking about complex problems whereas novices may benefit from deliberation-without-attention. These hypotheses were confirmed in a study among doctors and medical students. They diagnosed complex and routine problems under three conditions, an immediate-decision condition and two delayed conditions: conscious thought and deliberation-without-attention. Doctors did better with conscious deliberation when problems were complex, whereas reasoning mode did not matter in simple problems. In contrast, deliberation-without-attention improved novices’ decisions, but only in simple problems. Experts benefit from consciously thinking about complex problems; for novices thinking does not help in those cases.

The unconscious thought effect in clinical decision making: an example in diagnosis

The unconscious thought effect refers to improved judgments and decisions after a period of distraction. The authors studied the unconscious thought effect in a complex and error-prone part of clinical decision making: diagnosis. Their aim was to test whether conscious versus unconscious processing influenced diagnosis of psychiatric cases. They used case descriptions from the DSM-IV casebook. Half of the participants were randomly assigned to the conscious-processing-condition (i.e., consciously thinking about the information they read in the case description), the other half to the unconscious-processing condition (i.e., performing an unrelated distracter task). The main dependent measure was the total number of correct classifications. Compared to conscious processing, unconscious processing significantly increased the number of correct classifications. The results show the potential merits of unconscious processing in diagnostic decision making.

Unconscious-Thought Effects Take Place Off-Line, Not On-Line

The unconscious-thought effect refers to an improvement in decision making following distraction from the decision context for a period of time. The dominant explanation for this effect is that unconscious processes continue to deal with the problem during the distraction period. Recently, however, some researchers have proposed that unconscious thinkers may be merely recalling a judgment that was formed on-line (i.e., during information acquisition). We present two experiments that rule out the latter interpretation. In the unconscious-thought condition of the first experiment, participants who reported making their decision after unconscious thought made better decisions than those who reported making their decision on-line. In the second experiment, all participants judged the choice alternatives both on-line and off-line. On-line judgments were predictive of off-line judgments only in the immediate-decision condition, but not in the conscious- and unconscious-thought conditions. These results demonstrate that a period of unconscious thought does improve judgments that were formed earlier on-line.

Are complex decisions better left to the unconscious? Further failed replications of the deliberation-without-attention effect

The deliberation-without-attention effect occurs when better decisions are made when people experience a period of distraction before a decision than when they make decisions immediately or when they spend time reflecting on the alternatives. This effect has been explained (e.g., Dijksterhuis, 2004) by the claim that people engage in unconscious deliberation when distracted and that unconscious thought is better suited for complex decisions than conscious thought. Experiments 1, 2A, and 2B in this study included a dominant alternative and failed to find evidence for this effect. Experiment 3 removed the dominant alternative and manipulated mode of thought within-subjects to eliminate alternative explanations for the failed replication. In all experiments participants did not make better decisions after unconscious thought; decisions were consistently better than chance when made immediately after the encoding of information. Encouraging people not to think about complex decisions appears to be unwarranted.