Quick thinking is better thinking

We all expect people to make more accurate decisions when given the time to look properly. But it turned out that in many cases, people performed better when given almost no time to think.

In a recent study, participants were asked to identify an oddly rotated symbol on a screen of more than 650 identical symbols. When subjects were given 0.5 second, participants picked the correct answer 95% of the time. With 1.0 second to contemplate an answer, this accuracy dropped to about 80%.

Researcher attributes this result to the difference in the abilities of the subconscious and conscious minds to recognize the rotated symbol as different from the original. Often, our instincts and higher-level functions are in conflict and in this case our instincts (subconscious) are often silenced by our reasoning conscious mind.

Anyone who have read the book Blink will found above numbers very assuring.