The physical roots of intelligence
There’s an interesting little snippet in the Boston Globe today:
Perhaps heartfelt decisions are smarter than we think. A team of psychologists in Germany [Werner, N. et al., ”Enhanced Cardiac Perception Is Associated with Benefits in Decision-Making,” Psychophysiology] asked people to count their own heartbeats (without taking a pulse) and then asked them to play a computer gambling game, which required choosing repeatedly among four card decks that yielded different returns. People who were more accurate at counting their own heartbeats picked more cards from the decks with better returns. It seems that people who are in touch with feedback from their own body have an easier time learning from positive and negative experiences.
I was talking about something similar in a podcast interview with Tami Simon of Sounds True (I’ll let you know when the podcast goes online). She asked me about writing as a spiritual practice and I explained how an awareness of gut feelings allows me to recognize and correct bad writing. While I’m writing, or editing earlier writing, I’ll sometimes notice a strange discomfort in the pit of my belly. I often don’t notice consciously that there’s a sentence that is ambiguous or grammar that is contorted, but some subconscious faculty seems able to pick up on bad writing and alerts me by creating a feeling (in Buddhist terms this is a vedana). This isn’t exactly the same as following one’s heartbeat, but it’s a physical sensation nonetheless. And it’s interesting to see a suggestion that an awareness of physical sensations can allow for better decision-making.
18 Responses to “The physical roots of intelligence”
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You’re currently reading “The physical roots of intelligence,” an entry on Bodhipaksa's blog, bodhi tree swaying
Published: Sep 27 2009
Knowing before we know we know (ya know?). Very interesting. I had enjoyed reading about similar studies and topics in Malcolm Gladwell’s “Blink”. Thanks
I’m going to have to read that book — once I’ve finished writing my six elements book, that is.
Beware the correlation = causation fallacy. Which makes more sense?
1. Counting your heartbeats increases your gambling winnings, or
2. Paying Attention helps you count heartbeats and cards accurately
The card game did not involve counting cards, but developing a sense of which piles of cards had the best probabilities for good returns. The article is suggesting that having the ability to count heartbeats (that is, to pay attention to your bodily sensations — not the act of counting the heartbeats itself) allows people to make better assessments of probabilities in a complex situation. Another way of putting it is to say that being able to pay attention to the body is correlated with higher levels of intuitive awareness, or the ability to make good guesses based on limited information.
bodhipaksa, we don’t know precisely what the card game involved because the paper, presumably containing such details, has not been published yet. But the Globe’s sketchy blurb says it involved “choosing repeatedly among four card decks”.
As one who financed a significant portion of his college tuition via poker tables I believe it quite likely that card-counting occurred, deliberately or subconsciously. That is how one wins at cards.
Every honest, true thing is simple. The more complex a thing is made, the less likely it is to remain honest or true.
The article is rather lacking in details, but it does say “choosing repeatedly among four card decks that yielded different returns” — suggesting that probabilities were at work. Here’s a fuller account of the experiment: “Participants with accurate vs. poor perception of their heart activity were compared with regard to their performance in the Iowa Gambling Task. During this task, participants have to choose between four card decks. Decks A and B yield high gains and high losses, and if played continuously, result in net loss. In contrast, decks C and D yield small gains and also small losses, but result in net profit if they are selected continuously. Accordingly, participants have to learn to avoid the net loss options in favor of the net gain options. In our study, participants with good cardiac perception chose significantly more of the net gain and fewer of the net loss options.”
“Iowa Gamgling Task”… a lot of these things come out Iowa, it seems.
Thank you for looking that up for us.
The key, to me, is that “participants have to learn”. If some mystical intuition was in place, their results should be consistent from the first draw of a card to the last. But if they lose more at first and improve with learning, then it is likely that they are counting cards and calculating probabilities as they learn more about the decks’ remaining cards.
Well, what you’re proposing is a reasonable hypothesis given the information you have at hand, but if you know about the game it’s clear that people don’t in fact count cards — in fact they don’t know how they know which decks are best to pick from. After as few as 10 trials, participants show measurable physiological stress in the form of galvanic skin response when hovering over the “bad” decks, and this is long before they are consciously aware that there are in fact good and bad decks.
No one is proposing a “mystical” form of intuition. What good guessers are doing is paying attention to their physical sensations more effectively than the bad guessers do. They are, as you say, calculating probabilities, but they’re not doing that on a conscious level.
People who take cards seriously do indeed count them, and a plethora of books on the subject suggests there are quite a few of them.
“What good guessers are doing is paying attention…” I believe that’s where I started. Glad to have you aboard!
Namaste’!
“People who take cards seriously do indeed count them.” That’s true. Professional gamblers and serious amateurs count cards. However these participants are not “people who take cards seriously,” but ordinary volunteers for psychology experiments. And when asked, they do not know how they know which decks are good or bad. They rely on hunches.
“these participants are not “people who take cards seriously,” but ordinary volunteers for psychology experiments. And when asked, they do not know how they know which decks are good or bad. They rely on hunches.”
Sorry, I didn’t realize you were involved in the screening and selection of these subjects.
I’m talking about the Iowa Gambling Task in general, not about this particular study. It’s a commonly used test that’s been around for a long time and I’ve read about it before. To repeat myself, participants do not know how they know which decks are best. In fact they “know” on a physiological level — as measured by stress responses — long before they know on a conscious level.
I see. You’ve read about such tests, at least once before. Did what you read tell you about the card-playing experience and strategies of the subjects?
This is becoming rather tedious. My previous reading on the subject — and if you’ve looked over this blog you’ll get a sense that I’m obsessive about reading science news — is that participants report that they do not know how they know which decks are best. They report that they go on hunches.
Well, no, I’m not going to read your whole blog to let you off the hook. Things only get “tedious” when one finds oneself in the awkward position of defending the indefensible.
But I’ll unsubscribe from this thread and go point at another Emperor’s new clothes.
Namaste’!
Nothing I said indicated that you’d have to read my whole blog in order to justify my point. The tediousness arises from the fact that I’m having to say the same thing over and over again — apparently you think that tediousness only has one cause, but my experience indicates otherwise.
We constantly perceive things below the level of conscious thought. This is a survival trait, well-developed over countless generations of ill-armed, thin-skinned hominids. If they had needed to consider all the facts and implications before heading for safety, our ancestors would not have produced the little critters that finally led to Home sapiens.
Some of us are better at noticing and acting on these “gut feelings” than others, but we all have them. The more intellectual amongst us have learned to ignore them — which may explain why they do well in ivory towers, but less-well in the real world. (I’m just sayin’.) Conversely, anyone who is aware of self and reality — which would include, one would hope, many Buddhists and other practitioners — knows that when it feels right it’s OK with caution, and when it doesn’t you’d better head for the trees. Just think about the last time you “had a feeling,” but went on and did it anyway.
Those of us who deal with recovering addicts and others with life adjustment problems adjure them constantly to “go with their gut.” It is the harbinger of subconscious conclusions that may well save other portions of the anatomy.
Perhaps the phenomenon mentioned above is related.
Parenthetically: the intellectualizing and fault-finding in the posts above is truly mind-boggling, and a bit disappointing.
Yes, everything you say rings true with me. While gut feelings are not infallible they provide useful cues for us to pay attention to. When I’m leaving the house and I have a feeling I’ve forgotten something it’s always wise to pay attention to that. And I’ve often regretted overriding a feeling off not trusting someone because I’ve wanted to give them the benefit of the doubt.
Your parenthesis is something I also agree with wholeheartedly. There’s a lot of it around these days.