Neuroscience of Decision Making
Review Article • DOI: 10.2478/ndm-2014-0001 • NDM • 2014 • 26–34
Primed for intuition?
Kirsten G. Volz1*
Thea Zander1,2
Abstract
Researchers have not yet agreed on a general definition of intuition. A
“condensed definition” has been put forward emphasizing that intuition
is based on automatic processes that rely on knowledge structures
acquired through different kinds of learning. This definition further posits
that intuitions operate at least partially without a person’s awareness but
nevertheless result in feelings, signals, or interpretations. In short, intuition
is a non-conscious process exerting influence on behavior by drawing
on implicitly acquired knowledge that signals higher processing areas in
the conscious brain. Such a minimal definition of intuition resembles the
generally accepted definition of implicit memory, at least as it appears in
priming, which is itself understood as “a change in the ability to identify,
produce, or classify an item as a result of a previous encounter with that
item or a related item”. This superficial similarity, however, raises the
fundamental question of whether the concepts of intuition and implicit
memory, as it functions in priming, do in fact differ, and whether this
comparison could yield a clear and precise definition of intuition. Based on
a synopsis of the conceptual, paradigmatic and neural levels, we suggest
that intuition and priming are distinct processes, differing both in terms of
the format in which information is assumed to be stored in memory, as well
in the kind of signal accompanying the respective cognitive process.
Werner Reichardt Centre for Integrative
Neuroscience, University of Tuebingen,
Tuebingen, Germany
1
²Graduate School of Neural
and Behavioural Sciences,
International Max Planck Research School,
Tuebingen, Germany
Keywords
intuitive decision making • coherence judgments • orbitofrontal cortex • implicit memory
• priming
Received 09 July 2013
Accepted 31 October 2013
© 2013 Kirsten G. Volz et al., licensee Versita Sp. z o. o.
This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs license,
which means that the text may be used for non-commercial purposes, provided credit is given to
the author
Introduction
and he noticed a woman with a black suitcase. When their eyes
met, each immediately knew the business of the other. And they
were both right. The woman was arrested, the police found
several thousand dollars in her suitcase, and she confessed. Dan
Horan was later asked by researchers, “How did you know that
it was exactly this woman?” Dan Horan replied, “I don’t know.
I just saw that there was something wrong with this woman.”
The most precise description the police officer could give of his
method was: “I am looking for someone who is looking for me.”
So here are the features of intuition: People know without
knowing how they know, i.e., they do not know on which cue(s)criterion relationship they base their judgment; the process is
partially or entirely non-conscious in the sense that the decision
makers cannot report the on-going cognitive processes but have
a strong inclination towards a specific option that they “feel” is
the correct one.
Given this conception, is intuition simply the influence of
the unconscious form of memory on performance? Where are
the decisive differences between the two concepts? Does Dan
Horan remember without recollection a specific instance of a
woman nervously fiddling around with the loops of her suitcase
and for that reason become suspicious and eventually approach
her?
What are intuitions? People know from their daily experiences
that they often arrive at a decision without knowing exactly how
they came to that solution or idea. They are often only aware
of some sort of feeling (sometimes called a “gut instinct”) that
was strong enough to act upon. Accordingly, intuitions are often
linked with the sensation of “knowing without knowing,” or
something like a sudden experience of getting to know [1]. Thus,
people are often not even aware of having acted in accordance
with their intuition. Yet in retrospect, people often assign intuitive
decisions a high validity. Capturing this idea, Claxton emphasizes
that “what just ‘pops up in the mind’ may have greater validity
than we think” [1].
Consider, for example, Dan Horan, a police officer at Los
Angeles Airport whose task it is to spot drug couriers [2]. The
task seems almost impossible: from hundreds of thousands of
people who pass through the airport, Dan Horan has to find the
one person carrying drugs. What are the giveaways of a drug
courier? Perhaps using a certain type of luggage? Or, attempting
to behave as inconspicuously as possible? One evening, a flight
from New York to LAX arrived, and many passengers deplaned.
Dan Horan circulated among them looking for someone unusual,
* E-mail: [email protected]
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Primed for intuition?
In this article, we approach the question of whether intuition
may in fact be understood as simply an implicit memory
phenomenon which in the case of priming is understood as “a
change in the ability to identify, produce, or classify an item
as a result of a previous encounter with that item or a related
item” [3]. We make use of priming as a test case of implicit
memory, and use comparisons of the theoretical definitions,
the paradigms, and the neural evidence found in studies on
intuition and priming as an outline for determining what the
distinctive features of intuitive decision making are. Clearly,
some implicit memory processes support intuition (e.g.,
implicit learning and memory might provide some input for
intuitive decision making), but we will delineate the distinct
features of intuition separate from those instances. In doing
so, we not only outline the theoretical difference(s) between
the two concepts, but also contribute to a more distinctive
theoretical definition of intuition which we offer as a possible
avenue in the larger project of a theoretical mapping of
intuition. We begin by comparing the two phenomena on a
conceptual level before addressing their (dis)similarities on
the paradigmatic and neural levels.
Definitions of the concepts “Intuition” and
“Priming”
Definition of intuition
How is an intuitive decision defined? Surprisingly, up to now,
no generally accepted scientific definition of intuition has been
agreed upon [4], with research groups that are studying intuitive
decision processes usually approaching the subject with their
own specific definitions of the concept. And though aspects of
one definition might in fact share some of the characteristics of
a definition from another research group, other parts of these
definitions will most certainly differ. To illustrate the fragmentary
nature of these partial agreements, Glöckner and Witteman cite
acknowledged examples [5]:
“ Intuition or intuitive responses are reached with little
apparent effort, and typically without conscious awareness;
they involve little or no conscious deliberation” [6]
“Intuition is an involuntary, difficult-to-articulate, affect-laden
recognition or judgment, based upon prior learning and
experiences, which is arrived at rapidly, through holistic
associations and without deliberative or conscious rational
thought” [7]
“Intuition is a process of thinking. The input to this process is
mostly provided by knowledge stored in long-term memory
that has been primarily acquired via associative learning.
The input is processed automatically and without conscious
awareness. The output of the process is a feeling that can
serve as a basis for judgments and decisions” [8]
Because of the various definitions of intuition that are now
circulating, Glöckner and Witteman propose a condensed
definition: “Intuition is based on automatic processes that rely
on knowledge structures that are acquired by (different kinds
of) learning. They operate at least partially without people’s
awareness and result in feelings, signals, or interpretations” [5].
Accordingly, intuition and implicit memory are conceived of as
hierarchical, with implicit memory as one of the basic processes
feeding into intuition.
We would summarize the derived three main criteria
as follows: c1) intuitive decisions rely on tacit knowledge
structures – which certainly must have been acquired via some
kind of learning; c2) people are not, or are only partly aware
of the underlying cognitive processes in the sense that they
cannot report on them – neither on the cues they are using nor
on the way in which these cues are processed (e.g., applied or
integrated) in order to reach a decision; and c3) these cognitive
processes result in some (consciously experienced) sort of (gut)
feeling or signal, which is strong enough to act upon even if no
definitive reasons for the decision can be specified (cp. Table 1).
This last issue is vital, since only by this form of signal
can outcomes of non-conscious knowledge-based processes
become effective. Thus the decision-maker may not have a good
reason for deciding in that particular way but has good feeling
for deciding in that particular way. It’s important to note that, in
order to recognize intuitive decision processes, all three main
criteria have to be present at the same time and thus it is the
combination of the three that satisfies the definition of intuition.
Coming back to our example: Dan Horan relies on specific (tacit)
knowledge of cue(s)-criterion relationships (c1). That is, through
different kinds of learning Dan Horan acquired knowledge about
how specific cues, for instance oculomotor behavior and/
or posture, are related to and predictive of the criterion (e.g.,
being a drug courier). This process of relying is not conscious
Table 1. Definition criteria of intuition and priming.
Definition criteria – Intuition
Definition criteria – Priming
A person
A person
(c1) relies on her tacit knowledge,
(c1) relies on implicitly acquired knowledge,
(c2) is not, or only partially aware of the underlying cognitive
processes, and
(c2) is not aware of the underlying cognitive processes in the sense
that she does not have any explicit memory, and
(c3) has a feeling for choosing a specific option that is strong
enough to act upon.
(c3) experiences some sort of go-signals that is strong enough to
act upon.
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in the sense that he could report on it (c2), yet, he has a strong
feeling of what the right choice is (c3). By definition then, intuitive
decisions are distinguishable from insights that represent “an
abrupt awareness of a mental product or end state generated by
more continuous, sub rosa cognitive processes” [9].
proper words (perceptual repetition priming). A prerequisite of
priming is participants’ being unaware of the effects between the
study and test phases. Phenomenologically, then, participants
are instructed to answer and also report having answered with
the first word that came to mind. Thus, in some sense people
are asked to follow and also report having followed their initial
apprehension without pondering the possible reasons for their
decision.
So, as with intuition, implicit memory processes
demonstrated through priming specifically involve c1) the
participants’ relying on (implicitly acquired) knowledge, c2)
their not being aware of the underlying cognitive processes,
in the sense that they cannot report about them (lack of explicit
memory), and c3) their cognitive processes being accompanied
by some sort of go-signal that is strong enough for them to have
acted on (cp. Table 1).2
Definition of implicit memory as exemplified via priming
The condensed definition of intuition (as outlined above)
resembles the definition of retention without remembering
[10] that has been put forward to describe implicit memory
phenomena at large. Implicit memory is evidenced when “prior
experience is reflected in current thought or behavior, but this
transfer brings with it no trace of conscious recollection” [10].
In the words of Ebbinghaus, “Most of these experiences remain
concealed from consciousness and yet produce an effect which
is significant and which authenticates their previous experience”
[11]. This last sentence, according to Roediger, serves reasonably
well as a modern definition of implicit memory [10].
Within cognitive psychology and neuroscience, implicit
memory is largely demonstrated via priming, which “refers to
instances in which an earlier encounter with a given stimulus
[…] alters/primes subsequent responses to that stimulus or
to a related stimulus by increasing the speed of responding,
increasing accuracy, or biasing the nature of the response
given” [12].1 Likewise, Ebbinghaus argues for the existence of
Comparison of the two concepts
Comparing the two minimal definitions of intuition and
priming, it reveals that during both sorts of decisions people
rely on some sort of implicitly acquired knowledge; are
unaware of the on-going/underlying cognitive processes; and
are motivated by other than rationally or deliberately deduced
reasons. These similarities might suggest that the two
processes substantially resemble each other, but on closer
examination, certain dissimilarities begin to appear, especially
with regard to the criteria “knowledge” (c1) and “feeling” (c2).
Concerning criteria 1 ‘knowledge’, it has been stated that the
long-term memory that is relied on during intuitive decisions
has been primarily acquired via associative learning [8]. We
take this to be cue(s)-criterion relationships. For instance,
when having learned that meticulously observing one’s
environment is disproportionally connected with having much
to answer for, this cue might later (non-consciously) been used
to assess a person’s trustworthiness3. Other factors, such as
the situational validity of the cue-criterion relationship, may
modulate whether the cue is used outright. The example
reveals that the mental representation constructed during
intuitive decisions goes beyond the existing information by
integrating further relevant (associative) information that is
activated in memory. We suggest, that specifically for intuitive
decisions, the decision maker has to rely on cue(s)-criterion
relationships so as to arrive at a decision; which is not the
case for priming. For instance, when judging the aggressive
potential in male faces (criterion), decision makers nonconsciously seem to rely on the facial width-to-height ratio
non-conscious memory by stating that “the vanished mental
states [created by prior events] give indubitable proof of their
continuing existence even if they themselves do not return to
consciousness at all, or at least not exactly at the given time”
[11]. Yet it wasn’t until after the seminal considerations of
Schacter [13,14] that many researchers committed themselves
to the exploration of non-consciously acquired information.
They soon achieved agreement that “implicit memory typically
refers to the involuntary retrieval of studied information” [15].
Schacter, Chiu, and Ochsner pointed out “that the term ‘implicit
memory’ is a descriptive label that refers to one way in which the
influence of past experiences can be expressed in subsequent
task performance – unintentionally and without conscious
recollection of a learning episode” [16]. Please see [17] on nonintentional recollection during incidental test performance.
Indeed, Henson states, “priming is one of the most basic
expressions of human memory, influencing how we perceive
and interpret the world” [18]. For example, when exposed to
the word “cheetah” during the study phase, participants, when
later queried during the test, “What is the fastest animal on
earth?” will overproportionately answer, “Cheetah” (conceptual
priming), or will overproportionately complete a word-stem of
“CHE-?” with “cheetah” (perceptual word-stem priming), or
will be significantly faster in recognizing “cheetah” as a proper
word in a lexical decision task as compared to non-primed
2 Note, within this contribution, we stick to the definition criteria of implicit
memory as commonly accepted and for now leave aside the issue of
whether implicit tests indeed univocally can preclude conscious recollection of past episodes at the time their involuntary influence occurs
(cp. [17] on involuntary conscious memory).
1 The focus of this contribution is on priming as one form of implicit
memory and for now disregards other measures of implicit memory, such
as procedural behaviors. This is because decisions being investigated in
research on priming are akin to decisions being investigated in intuition
research.
3 This might happen in a way as has been described for the detection of
schema-consistency: schema-congruent information activates networks
of neocortical representations that are strongly interconnected (schema),
activation of which in turn affects processing of new information [19].
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Primed for intuition?
(so-called face ratio; i.e., the cue), a sexually dimorphic
facial characteristic linked to testosterone concentration
during puberty [20], which in men is positively correlated with
aggression [21]. That is, when (quickly) having to judge the
aggressive potential of male faces, and no other contextual or
otherwise informative cues are present, decision makers (nonconsciously) rely on this specific cue-criterion relationship.
However, the same decision makers are much less inclined to
rely on this cue-criterion relationship when having to judge the
aggressive potential of female faces. One explanation for this
differential use of the face ratio when judging the aggressive
potential in male and female faces, is the differential predictive
power of this cue. That is, only in men the face ratio has been
shown to be associated with aggression inside and outside
the lab [22-24]. Thus, to arrive at an acceptable evaluation
of a face’s aggressive potential (criterion), decision makers
seem to base their judgment on the visual information
provided plus further relevant information that is activated in
memory; such as specific cue-criterion relationships and their
predictive power. In contrast, during incidental tests, in order
to be classified as a successful decision based on priming,
the decision maker simply has to retrieve the information she
was presented before and/or the semantically/conceptually
associated information of the primed material. For instance,
in repetition priming, people non-consciously retrieve
the primed information (e.g., “cheetah”), or in conceptual
priming, they non-consciously access semantic memory of
the primed material, including abstract knowledge about the
structural, functional, and associative information about the
stimulus. Yet, they do not have to rely on and retrieve specific
cue(s)-criterion relationships understood as the predictive
relationship between cue(s) and criterion.
Concerning the criterion “feeling” (c3), during intuitive
decisions, the decision maker cannot, due to the opacity of the
on-going cognitive processes, deduce rational reasons for why
she (strongly) favors a specific option, e.g., why she considers
a specific person suspicious or aggressive. That is, the decision
maker may not have any good reasons for the decision but her
feelings, whereby feelings are conceived of as cognitive drives
– without any emotional coloring – that directly emerge from the
on-going cognitive processes. In other words, we conceive of
the origin of cognitive feeling(s) during intuitive decisions as the
experience resulting from the non-conscious readout processing
of the cue(s)-criterion relationships. The nature of cognitive
feelings, i.e., how they are experienced, can be taken as a strong
inclination for a specific option.
Cognitive feelings conceived of on this view, follow that
of knowledgeable authorities in the field who understand
cognitive feelings as “experiential states that reflect activated
content information or accompany cognitive processes such
as feelings of familiarity [...] or the ease with which information
can be retrieved from memory (ease-of-retrieval [...]). Such
experiential states have been called cognitive because they are
associated with [one’s own] thinking and memory processes.
They are considered feelings because they are experienced
much like affective or bodily feelings are.” [25]. How then
are cognitive feelings during intuitive decisions different from
those during priming decisions? Especially, because cognitive
feelings during implicit memory decisions are often conceived
of as fluency-based affective reactions. In priming decisions,
the decision maker is biased to a specific response as it is
immediately identified due to perceptual facilitation through
prior exposure (perceptual fluency), or retrieved/constructed
based on structural or functional or associative information
about the stimulus (conceptual fluency). The inclination for a
specific option may thus be summarized as being driven by
some internal meta-cognitive feedback mechanism. So, how
do cognitive feelings differ with respect to the two phenomena,
intuition and priming?
Whether the nature of cognitive feelings during intuitive
and priming decisions differs, i.e., with regard to how they are
experienced, is an open empirical issue. Potential differences
may be fully attributed to the differential answer format. Whereas
answers can be right or wrong in intuitive decision paradigms,
this is not the case for answers in incidental tests where, by
instruction, everything that comes to mind first, is considered
valid. Yet, we suggest cognitive feelings during intuitive and
priming decisions to differ with regard to their origin and
onset. As outlined above, we take cognitive feelings in intuitive
decisions to result from the (non-conscious) read-out process of
cue(s)-criterion relationships, and therefore, this sort of cognitive
feeling directly follows from cognitive processing with the
stimulus material and its relation to stored long-term information.
In contrast, cognitive feelings in priming decisions have been
suggested to emerge at early stages of stimulus processing
and to precede the recognition of specific features. Particularly,
cognitive feelings are considered to arise from signals of
fluency (perceptual or conceptual fluency) reflecting the ease of
processing being hedonically marked [26]. Therewith, fluencybased affective signals seem to influence ongoing processes
early. “Accordingly, an organism that monitors processing
fluency may be able to detect novelty/familiarity even before
it can fully decode the content of the stimulus” [26]. Thus, we
suggest cognitive feelings during intuitive and priming decision
to differ substantially; yet, this issue awaits further empirical
investigation.
Concerning the criterion “(un-) awareness” (c2), we consider
the two concepts to be akin, since during both intuitive and
priming decisions, the decision maker is not aware of the ongoing cognitive or retrieval processes giving rise to a specific
decision. However, for both, intuitive and implicit/priming
decisions, the problem of a proof of (un-) consciousness seem
to exist which we will not elaborate here [17].
In comparison to each other, the concepts of intuition and
implicit memory as evidenced in priming at first glance seem
to resemble one another on a conceptual level. Yet on closer
examination, we suggest the two to differ significantly. To
test whether our perception of this difference also holds on
the paradigmatic level, we review and contrast the prevailing
paradigms in intuition and priming research.
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Experimental investigation of intuitive decision
making and priming
stimuli, and their task is to decide whether or not a face stimulus
belongs to a specific category, e.g., whether the emotional facial
expression can be considered authentic [31], or whether or not the
person can be considered aggressive [21], gay [32], or belonging
to the religious group of Mormons [33]. In these paradigms, it is
not the pictorial (as in the various modifications of the WGCT) but
the cue(s)-criterion relationships (i.e., which cues are to be used for
the decision) which is ambiguous. Again, the consistent empirical
finding across these various operationalizations of intuition is
above-chance level performance despite participants reporting that
they do not know exactly how they cope with the task other than by
relying on some sort of intuitive hunch.
For “constructive intuitions,” it is assumed that people
“construct mental representations based on information provided
and further relevant information that is activated in memory”
[5]. These mental representations are often “conceptualized
as networks which contain information that has been provided
directly, as well as related information that has been activated in
memory. Activation [is thought to be] spread through the network
to find the best possible interpretation (mental representation of
the task) in an automatic process in which contrary facts are
devalued and supporting facts are highlighted” [5]. It is possible
that the category of “constructive intuitions” also contains
the prime paradigm in intuition research – the so-called triads
task, which traces back to the DOT. In this task, participants
are presented with three words, e.g., SALT, DEEP, FOAM, and
their task is to indicate whether the word triad is semantically
coherent, i.e., converges on a fourth concept – SEA, in our
example – or whether the word triad is semantically incoherent,
i.e., does not have a common (remote) associate. (An example
of a semantically incoherent triad is LIGHT, FOLK, HEAD.) The
empirical finding is that participants recognize the word triads
as coherent above chance level, despite not being able to come
up with the explicit solution word or a synonym [9,34,35]. Trials
in which participants indicate the word triad as coherent and
explicitly come up with the solution word are defined as insight
trials.4 This result has been replicated to the point where the time
Paradigms in intuition research
In the literature on intuition, two major paradigms can be
distinguished, both testing intuition via coherence judgments:
one traces back to the “Waterloo Gestalt Closure task”
(WGCT), and the other traces back to the “Dyads of Triads
task” (DOT) [9]. These two paradigms exemplify what Glöckner
and Witteman termed “matching intuition” and “constructive
intuition”, respectively [5]. We first describe intuitive perceptual
coherence judgments as investigated by variants of the
WGCT – intuitive decisions that can be regarded as instances
of “matching intuitions;” and later we will describe intuitive
semantic coherence judgments as investigated by variants of
the DOT – intuitive decisions that can be regarded as instances
of “constructive intuitions.”
“Matching intuitions” are considered complex pattern
recognition processes that require the detection of coherence in
perceptual inputs. This sort of intuition “might be understood as
generating estimates based on the sampling of instances from
memory [...] or as responding based on recognizing traces in
memory” [5]. Yet the various conceptions of matching intuition
disagree on knowledge representation and thus on the issue of
if, and if so how the cues are compared to the memory traces.
Cue-abstraction models, for example, assume the existence
of abstract representations of cue(s)-criterion relationships
that are used for inference. Particularly, the decision maker
must have some knowledge about the bivariate co-variation
between cue(s) and criterion, which is our view of intuition in
this article. In contrast, exemplar models do not assume such
abstract representations, but rather the storage in memory of
each encounter with an object. That is, the decision maker has
a database with cue patterns and criterion values and judges
stimuli “by analogy” (similarity) [27]. This model of intuition
identifies (non-conscious) retention of examples from memory
as underlying intuitive decisions and so equates intuition with
priming.
In experimental investigations on intuitive decision making,
which we consider as falling into the category of “matching
intuition,” participants are presented with perceptually ambiguous
stimuli, and their task is to decide whether or not a presented
stimulus belongs to a specific category. For example, in the WGCT
participants are presented in each trial with two fragmented line
drawings of everyday objects, and their task is to indicate which of
the two depicts a coherent/meaningful object. Modification of the
WGCT mainly consists of presenting just one fragmented stimulus
at a time, with participants being asked to indicate whether or not
each stimulus is coherent in and of itself in the sense of depicting an
everyday object. The empirical finding in both is that participants can
differentiate above chance level between coherent and incoherent
stimuli despite not knowing the solution, i.e., being unable to
name the respective object [9,28-30]. In other perceptual tasks
investigating intuitive decision making – also possibly subsumed by
“matching intuition” – participants are presented primarily with face
lag between the presentation of the word triad and the forced
choice answer amounted to only 1.5 seconds [36], and has been
accepted as confirmation of the success and rapidity of intuitive
judgments in the context of semantic discovery.
Together, the prime paradigms in intuition research fulfill the
three main criteria outlined above: i) participants have to rely on
some sort of cue(s)-criterion knowledge for making an inference;
ii) they are not aware of the cognitive processes going on, i.e.,
they cannot report about the cues they use for making the
inference nor about potential integration processes; and iii) they
respond based on some (cognitive) drive or hunch.
4Note that the mean association strength between the three target words
does not differ between coherent and incoherent word triads. Thus the
mean semantic relatedness among the three clue words of a coherent
triad is not higher than among the three clue words of an incoherent triad.
As a result, it can be ensured that above-chance judgments of semantic
coherence are not based on the explicit perception of associations
among the three words of the triad [36].
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Primed for intuition?
Paradigms in priming research
Interestingly, both sorts of intuitive decision-making tasks
resemble different forms of priming tasks that have commonly
been used to probe implicit memory phenomena5 [13,14,37-41].
“Matching intuition” tasks seem to resemble perceptual priming
tasks, and “constructive intuition” tasks seem to resemble
conceptual priming tasks.
Priming experiments, however, generally consist of two
phases. First is an initial study phase in which a “prime” is
presented to the participants, but they are neither asked to
remember the material nor informed about the purpose of the
experiment. Therefore, what occurs during priming is incidental
learning that is by definition not intended. In the second
phase, participants encounter a target stimulus, which is either
some variation of the primed stimulus (repetition priming) or a
stimulus conceptually related to the prime (conceptual priming).
Contingent on the respective priming, the dependent variables
are response latency or accuracy.
Different forms of priming can be distinguished. Perceptual
priming tasks “involve the processing of stimulus form (rather
than stimulus meaning)” [12] and matches between study and test
increase priming. Examples include perceptual word identification
(participants are very briefly presented with word stimuli and are
asked to identify the respective word), word-stem completion
(participants are presented with word stems and asked to complete
the word with the first word that comes to mind), word-fragment
completion (participants are presented with word fragments and are
asked to generate a word conforming to the partially provided letter
cues, as in _H_ET_H for cheetah), and picture-fragment completion
(participants are presented with fragmented line drawings of
common objects and are asked to identify the object). Some of the
tasks are indeed similar to tasks used in intuition research, e.g., the
picture-fragment task and the WGCT [9,29,30].
Yet, we suggest the tasks used in empirical investigations
of intuition and priming to differ in the two criteria put forward
above: First, because of the study phase and the specific
instruction in priming tasks – e.g., “Answer with the first word
that comes to mind,” or “Provide one possible solution” –
participants do not have to extract specific cues indicative of
the solution – the “solution” is just kept in mind. In other words,
participants’ performance in incidental tests is based on the
involuntary and automatic retrieval of prior episodes or the
involuntary and automatic activation of conceptually related
knowledge induced by the prior episodes and not the read-out
process of cue(s)-criterion relationships. Second, we consider
cognitive feelings during incidental tests to primarily result from
the conscious experience of processing “ease” and not from
readout process of cue(s)-criterion relationships. The criterion
that does not distinguish the two phenomena, (un-) awareness,
is the same in both instances, since in both, the participants are
5 We concentrate on the widely adopted method for demonstrating
implicit memory, i.e., priming, although there are certainly also different
methods being used (e.g., artificial grammar-learning tasks, procedural
memory tasks).
not aware of the on-going cognitive processes (however, see
above for the problem of the proof of (un-) consciousness [17]).
One might argue, however, that the differentiation put forward
above does not apply when specifically considering conceptual
priming tasks. Participants’ performance in this sort of task relies
on the meaning of the stimuli and thus “require access to semantic
memory, including abstract knowledge about the structural,
functional, and associative information about a stimulus” [12].
Technically speaking, conceptual priming tasks are those in which
there is no overlap of perceptual information between the items
presented in the initial study phase and the cues presented in the
subsequent test phase, such as in tests of general knowledge
(“What is the fastest animal on earth?”) or category-exemplar
generation (study phase: presented with the word “cheetah”; test
phase: given the category “animals”) or word-association tasks
(study phase: “table”; test phase: complete CHA_ _). Conceptual
priming task and the triads task seem then to be two of a kind.
In both, participants are encouraged to report the first word that
comes to mind that they perceive as being semantically related,
either to the word triad in the semantic coherence task (SALT,
DEEP, FOAM) or to the input presented in the test phase of a
priming experiment (TABLE - _ _ _ _ _). Thus in both tasks, access
to semantic memory may lead to the correct decision. Again,
though, we suggest the tasks to differ in terms of those same
two criteria above: First, whereas participants in priming tasks
foremost have to retrieve the currently activated memories that are
semantically associated with the prime, participants in the triads
task do have to retrieve and assess the overlap of the semantic
networks of the three clue words as well as their predictive
relation as to the criterion ‘coherence.’ Second, cognitive feelings
during conceptual priming decisions and intuitive decisions
as investigated by means of constructive task are suggested
to differ with respect to the aspects of the situation, giving rise
to these experiences (origin of the feelings) as well as to their
onset. Particularly, cognitive feelings during priming decisions are
considered to result from the conscious experience of processing
“ease” and not from the readout processes of cue(s)-criterion
relationships. Furthermore fluency-based affective reactions
in priming are generated at very early stages of information
processing [42-44] as in contrast to the cognitive feelings during
intuitive decisions that are experienced as a result of the retrieval
and readout process of testing for overlapping semantic networks
with respect to the criterion. Still, in terms of the criterion (un-)
awareness, the two phenomena seem not to differ, since in both
instances participants are not aware of the on-going cognitive
processes.
Together, we take the distinction between intuition and
priming on the conceptual level to also be supported on the
experimental level. Paradigms of intuition and priming are only
superficially akin; they differ on a closer inspection of the criteria
“knowledge” and “feeling.” To test whether our perception of this
difference also holds at the neurobiological level – since imaging
is a method ideally suited to test for similarity and difference on
a neurocognitive level – we review the neuroscientific literature
on intuition and priming research.
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K.G. Volz, T Zander
Neural correlates of intuitive decision making
and priming
reduction also comes from neuropsychology, where patients
with lesions in extrastriate areas do not show any priming effects
[56]. The same is true in conceptual priming, where activation
suppression has been determined as the hallmark, but within
the left inferior prefrontal cortex (LIPFC) [54]. That is, reduced
LIPFC activation has been found during repeated relative-toinitial semantic processing of a stimulus, typically requiring
access to and evaluation of both semantic and phonological
stimulus attributes. Parallel to findings with perceptual priming
effects, conceptual neural priming effects have been suggested
to reflect “enhanced efficiency in assessing, selecting and/or
evaluating target semantic knowledge necessary to achieve the
goal [...] with this efficiency deriving from increased availability
of the target attributes as a result of earlier processing” [12]. An
essential finding across priming studies is that the reduced brain
activity correlates with the behavioral priming effect, i.e., that
there is a correlation with the reaction times for the primed trials.
Taken together, these previous imaging results indicate that
intuition and priming can be distinguished from each other –
tentatively at least given the literature available. Intuition literature
suggests that the OFC plays a crucial role in intuitive processing,
appearing as a top-down signal facilitating recognition for
downstream processing stages. In the priming literature, activity
suppression for the primed trials is considered a robust finding
reflecting a facilitation process. To our knowledge, activation
within the OFC has not yet been reported for priming processes,
nor has activity reduction been reported for intuitive decisionmaking processes, a finding that may support the assumption
of different phenomena. Since different recording and analyzing
techniques are essential for determining the putative specific
neural signatures of the two phenomena, however – taking
precautions to reliably measure OFC activation and testing for
deactivations – it is too early to state a firm difference based
on the available results. Rather, it would be helpful to conduct
an imaging study investigating and comparing the two different
concepts within the same sample, with the same material, and
with a consideration of both recoding and analyzing specifics so
as to show whether the outlined difference is reliable.
The summary of neural correlates of intuitive decision making
turns out to be short: A handful of imaging studies testing
for “matching intuition” revealed a network centered on the
reflection of intuitive decision processes in the (anterior medial)
orbitofrontal cortex (OFC) [29-31,45-47]. Specifically, these
studies suggest that the activation within the OFC reflects
a mediating function, carrying a preliminary perception of
coherence that is driven by the essential elements/cues of the
given stimulus. This biasing signal is assumed to be transferred
in a top-down manner to downstream areas facilitating
recognition processes of the criterion in question. In this way,
“the OFC serves as rapid detector and predictor of potential
content based on coarse aspects of the input (i.e., gist)” [48].
It is left to future studies to determine whether the OFC also
fulfills this function for “constructive intuitions” since, to our
knowledge, there has only been one imaging study to date on
the subject that does not make specific arrangements so as to
reliably determine putative OFC activation (e.g., by using SpinEcho EPI) [49].6 In this study, participants worked on the triads
task and activation specific to intuitive as opposed to explicit
judgments revealed within heteromodal association areas of
the bilateral inferior parietal cortex and within the right superior
temporal cortex. The authors concluded that intuition might
reflect “the unconscious activation of task-specific knowledge
in domain-specific neocortical association areas, which biases
participants’ conscious judgments” [49].
Concerning the literature available, a very different picture
comes into focus for the neural correlates of priming. As early as
imaging studies became possible, implicit memory phenomena,
and especially the neural basis of priming effects, have been
in the spotlight of scientific investigation. In these studies,
researchers have focused on the hemodynamic changes, which
occur during decisions reflecting implicit memory as it emerges
in primed, rather than in non-primed decisions. In a number of
imaging studies, the hallmark of priming has been determined
to be a decrease of activation in the computing areas. Squire
and colleagues were the first to investigate perceptual priming
by using imaging methods [52]. They applied a word-stemcompletion task and demonstrated specific decreased activation
within the right occipital cortex. They interpreted this finding by
proposing that less energy is needed when encountering the
same stimulus twice. Many studies since then have replicated
this result [53-55], providing evidence for the idea that priming
is based on a facilitation of perceptual processes. This effect
might “reflect a decrease in the number of neurons engaged
during repeated stimulus processing,” or alternatively might
reflect a decrease in either the rate or the duration of firing of
a static population of neurons [12]. Evidence for the activation
Summary
We set out in this article to tackle the question of whether intuition
can be conceived of solely as a form of implicit memory. In doing
so, we not only outlined the theoretical difference(s) between the
two concepts but also contributed to a more distinctive theoretical
definition of intuition, which we offer as a possible explanation in
the larger project of a theoretical mapping of intuition. We took
priming as a test case of implicit memory, since both phenomena
were conceived of as non-conscious processes exerting a positive
influence on people›s behavior by drawing on implicitly acquired
knowledge and resulting in some sort of go-signal biasing a
decision. Based on an analysis of intuition and priming on the
conceptual and paradigmatic levels, however, we suggest that the
two differ substantially both in the format in which information is
assumed to be stored in memory and used for a decision, as well
6 For this endeavor it is necessary to use specific imaging methods
so as to compensate for the signal loss in the OFC, which is due to
susceptibility artifacts [50,51].
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Primed for intuition?
as in the kind of signal accompanying the respective cognitive
processes. We see the preliminary results at the neurobiological
level as speaking to the processes’ distinct natures, also.
According to our analysis, then, intuition and priming can be seen
to differ in regard to the criteria of “knowledge” and “feeling,”
which can be addressed empirically. By means of this threelevel synopsis, we suggest that intuitive processes can be based
on implicitly acquired knowledge, but are inherently different
processes, with distinctive features. Whether this suggestion
also holds for other measures of implicit memory (for example
procedural behaviors or probabilistic learning processes) may be
addressed in future contributions. We offer this analysis as a way
of beginning a theoretical conversation on intuition, which we see
as a phenomenon that is separate from implicit memory and yet
equally interesting.
Acknowledgements
The authors very much thank Dr. Liz Irvine and Fran Colgan for
their constructive comments on earlier drafts of this paper.
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