Evidence mounts that brains decide before their owners know about it

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	Evidence mounts that brains decide before their owners know about it

jamreilly

4-19-2009 2:16 PM

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<div style="margin: 12px 0px; font-family: arial; color: #333333; background: #ffffff; border: solid 4px #e5e5e5; width: 100%; clear: left;"><div class="CM_CTB_Content_Wrap" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;background-color: #ffffff;"><div style="border-bottom: solid 1px #dcdcdc; white-space: nowrap; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: #eeeeee ;background-image: url(http://clipmarks.com/images/source-bg.gif); background-repeat: repeat-x; height: 24px; line-height: 24px; vertical-align: middle; padding-bottom: 4px; color: #666666; font-size: 10px;" ><a href="http://clipmarks.com/clip-to-blog/" title="see clips that are hot right now"><img src="http://content.clipmarks.com/blog_embed/8121ca18-34a3-4ea3-a78a-94804b680762/BFE4EFCC-9389-41DD-AC21-266310B67E25/" alt="" width="19" height="19" border="0" style="vertical-align: middle; margin: 0px 4px; display: inline; border: none; float:none;" /></a>clipped from <a title="http://www.economist.com/science/displaystory.cfm?story_id=13489722" href="http://www.economist.com/science/displaystory.cfm?story_id=13489722" style="font-size: 11px;">www.economist.com</a></div><blockquote style="text-align: left; padding: 0px 8px; margin: 4px 0px 8px 0px; background: transparent; border: none;" cite="http://www.economist.com/science/displaystory.cfm?story_id=13489722">A piece of research about to be published in the <EM>Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience</EM>, by <MASHLOGIC mashbutton="a1dc3d27f65a79db7492a789681570ed" li-term="Joydeep Bhattacharya" class="mashlogic mashlink-linkedin" title="MashLogic: LinkedIn">Joydeep Bhattacharya</MASHLOGIC> at Goldsmiths’ College in London and <MASHLOGIC mashbutton="a1dc3d27f65a79db7492a789681570ed" li-term="Bhavin Sheth" class="mashlogic mashlink-linkedin" title="MashLogic: LinkedIn">Bhavin Sheth</MASHLOGIC> at the <MASHLOGIC mashbutton="qAmfVSP6OWDmUwSYjxPLFA MmJ8DH6q_mf2UTUQnFmupw Q_t6tYmm9Hg4I5P5ye4Tyg" li-term="University of Houston" class="mashlogic mashlink-wikipedia mashlink-documents-by-docstoc mashlink-documents-by-scribd" title="MashLogic: Wikipedia, Documents by Docstoc, Documents by Scribd">University of Houston</MASHLOGIC>, in Texas, suggests that although people are not consciously aware of it, their brains have to be in a certain state for an insight to take place. Moreover, that state can be detected electrically several seconds in advance of the “aha!” moment itself.</blockquote><div style="height: 2px; font-size: 2px; background: #dcdcdc; border-bottom: solid 1px #f5f5f5; margin: 2px 4px;"></div><blockquote style="text-align: left; padding: 0px 8px; margin: 4px 0px 8px 0px; background: transparent; border: none;" cite="http://www.economist.com/science/displaystory.cfm?story_id=13489722"><P>There is a precedent for such observations of unconscious thought in action. In the 1980s <MASHLOGIC mashbutton="qAmfVSP6OWDmUwSYjxPLFA MmJ8DH6q_mf2UTUQnFmupw Q_t6tYmm9Hg4I5P5ye4Tyg" li-term="Benjamin Libet" class="mashlogic mashlink-wikipedia mashlink-documents-by-docstoc mashlink-documents-by-scribd" title="MashLogic: Wikipedia, Documents by Docstoc, Documents by Scribd">Benjamin Libet</MASHLOGIC> of the <MASHLOGIC mashbutton="qAmfVSP6OWDmUwSYjxPLFA MmJ8DH6q_mf2UTUQnFmupw Q_t6tYmm9Hg4I5P5ye4Tyg" li-term="University of California, San Francisco" class="mashlogic mashlink-wikipedia mashlink-documents-by-docstoc mashlink-documents-by-scribd" title="MashLogic: Wikipedia, Documents by Docstoc, Documents by Scribd">University of California, San Francisco</MASHLOGIC>, showed that simple decisions, such as when to move a finger, are made about three-tenths of a second before the brain’s owner is aware of them, and subsequent work has found that the roots of such decisions can be seen up to ten seconds before they become conscious. But this is the first occasion that such a long lead time has been shown for more complex thought processes.</P></blockquote></div><div style="margin: 0px 6px 6px 4px;"><table style="font-size: 11px;border-spacing: 0px;padding: 0px;" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" width="100%"><tr><td style="background:transparent;border-width:0px;padding:0px;">&nbsp;</td><td align="right" style="background:transparent;border-width:0px;padding:0px;width:107px" width="107"><a href="http://clipmarks.com/share/BFE4EFCC-9389-41DD-AC21-266310B67E25/blog/" title="blog or email this clip"><img src="http://content6.clipmarks.com/images/c2b-foot.png" border="0" alt="blog it" width="107" height="17" style="border-width:0px;padding:0px;margin:0px;" /></a></td></tr></table></div></div>

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