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I wrote a literature review about this [1] in 2015 I think. I mostly look at support from fMRI studies in Shogi players (Japanese chess). While it was a school

I wrote a literature review about this [1] in 2015 I think. I mostly look at support from fMRI studies in Shogi players (Japanese chess). While it was a school assignment, I took it very seriously as I knew the review itself would have very serious implications on my personal life. Summary: Main question: how can one develop an effective intuition? The development of an effective intuition relies on: a high validity environment, a high amount of practice and a high interoceptive awareness. The first two elements account for intuitive answers being right. The third element accounts for the gut feeling being felt by the person. As a result the brain changes, and integrates certain brain areas more into the default mode network. The idea that if one has high activation in a brain area a lot, then the structure will be changed. High validity environment: rules are easily understandable and deterministic (think chess), or you have a lot of practice moments (think poker). Understanding psychological patients would be an example of a low validity environment. [1] https://melvinroest.github.io/articles/intuition.pdf https://melvinroest.github.io/articles/intuition.pdf

wehrkeoruw 7y ago
Love this mindset; far too many people think of the System 1 part of our brains as things to fear and reduce as much as possible. Training it is vastly superior.
derefr 7y ago
Is intuition always a literal gut feeling (or rather, an embodied feeling, in the robotics sense), such that having no interoceptive awareness would be a hindrance to developing it? I always figured people were speaking mostly metaphorically about "gut feelings." Certainly, some kinds of intuitions (e.g. ones involving disgust or fear) are held onto as "physiological state" (i.e. written through motor-cortex commands; read back through pattern-detection in embodied cognition.) But I would expect most intuitions to present as e.g. sudden emotional states, or other weird purely-mental qualia.
- melvinroest 7y ago
  I'm biased, from my own literature review I gathered that one could strengthen their intuitive signal via meditation, which is basically feeling your body (not only your gut though). Intuitive feelings that I acted on were all body-related in my experience. In most cases, these intuitive feelings always had to do with assessing who another person is. My intuition about that seems to be pretty accurate. I think there's a lot more happening in your body than you might realize. I've noticed that myself by practicing mindfulness. However, I don't think it rules out your idea that some intuitions are purely mental. By the way the word emotion is a tough one, as I believe there is always a bodily component part to an emotion. I subscribe to the James-Lange theory [1] and the appraisal theory. In part, because I experience emotions in those ways before I even knew about the names and knew that these theories existed. In short how I view emotions is process-based: - An event occurs (thought, feeling, someone talks to you) - This automatically gets processed by you whether you want it or not (though when it's automatic, obviously you're not using your full cognitive resources on it) - This automatic processing concludes into two things: 1. You get thoughts about it 2. You get feelings about it (feelings in your body) Note: thoughts and feelings are immediately re-triggering this process. So it gets meta pretty quick as you can have feelings about feelings about thoughts about feelings about <mix_and_match_as_long_as_you'd_like> During my meditation retreat I realized that feelings come slightly earlier than thoughts. At least that's how I experienced it and I happened to be laser focused on observing my feelings and thoughts. Coincidentally, that's also why I believe I have no free will as my feelings give rise to my thoughts, even when I simply observe my feelings. I don't choose that these feelings give rise to thoughts (and there were times where I really didn't want them to give rise to thoughts), therefore there's no free will. But that's another story :D [1] There's probably a more advanced theory of this one as it is pretty old. For practical purposes, this theory was good enough for my understanding on what emotions are.
SubiculumCode 7y ago
"As a result the brain changes, and integrates certain brain areas more into the default mode network. The idea that if one has high activation in a brain area a lot, then the structure will be changed." In your review you cite cross-sectional research, not a longitudinal, within-subject effect of change with study/practice/learning. Therefore your conclusions should not be about change, but on group differences. Those difference might have arisen from the training, or pre-existed in those individuals that were more prone to study/practice/learn/meditate. Post-Note: Sorry. As a developmental neuroscientist, you hit on a pet-peeve. Cheers.
- melvinroest 7y ago
  Fair enough, in group differences it's tough to be certain about causality. It's interesting that my teacher never gave this as feedback. Well, that just shows that when it comes to HN, people simply care more about science (as my teacher was a neuroscience researcher). Personally, I do think the brain is plastic in this sense though. I haven't looked deep enough into it to be a 100% certain. Nevertheless, from all the research summaries I read, I gather that whenever a skill is practiced in a focused manner for 1 to 2 hours, neural plasticity occurs. I wish there was a literature review around this idea. But I got the feeling that 4 years ago the literature was mostly on clinical patients. Normal people and neural plasticity seems to be researched less well.

wehrkeoruw 7y ago

Love this mindset; far too many people think of the System 1 part of our brains as things to fear and reduce as much as possible. Training it is vastly superior.

derefr 7y ago

Is intuition always a literal gut feeling (or rather, an embodied feeling, in the robotics sense), such that having no interoceptive awareness would be a hindrance to developing it? I always figured people were speaking mostly metaphorically about "gut feelings." Certainly, some kinds of intuitions (e.g. ones involving disgust or fear) are held onto as "physiological state" (i.e. written through motor-cortex commands; read back through pattern-detection in embodied cognition.) But I would expect most intuitions to present as e.g. sudden emotional states, or other weird purely-mental qualia.

melvinroest 7y ago
I'm biased, from my own literature review I gathered that one could strengthen their intuitive signal via meditation, which is basically feeling your body (not only your gut though). Intuitive feelings that I acted on were all body-related in my experience. In most cases, these intuitive feelings always had to do with assessing who another person is. My intuition about that seems to be pretty accurate. I think there's a lot more happening in your body than you might realize. I've noticed that myself by practicing mindfulness. However, I don't think it rules out your idea that some intuitions are purely mental. By the way the word emotion is a tough one, as I believe there is always a bodily component part to an emotion. I subscribe to the James-Lange theory [1] and the appraisal theory. In part, because I experience emotions in those ways before I even knew about the names and knew that these theories existed. In short how I view emotions is process-based: - An event occurs (thought, feeling, someone talks to you) - This automatically gets processed by you whether you want it or not (though when it's automatic, obviously you're not using your full cognitive resources on it) - This automatic processing concludes into two things: 1. You get thoughts about it 2. You get feelings about it (feelings in your body) Note: thoughts and feelings are immediately re-triggering this process. So it gets meta pretty quick as you can have feelings about feelings about thoughts about feelings about <mix_and_match_as_long_as_you'd_like> During my meditation retreat I realized that feelings come slightly earlier than thoughts. At least that's how I experienced it and I happened to be laser focused on observing my feelings and thoughts. Coincidentally, that's also why I believe I have no free will as my feelings give rise to my thoughts, even when I simply observe my feelings. I don't choose that these feelings give rise to thoughts (and there were times where I really didn't want them to give rise to thoughts), therefore there's no free will. But that's another story :D [1] There's probably a more advanced theory of this one as it is pretty old. For practical purposes, this theory was good enough for my understanding on what emotions are.

SubiculumCode 7y ago

"As a result the brain changes, and integrates certain brain areas more into the default mode network. The idea that if one has high activation in a brain area a lot, then the structure will be changed." In your review you cite cross-sectional research, not a longitudinal, within-subject effect of change with study/practice/learning. Therefore your conclusions should not be about change, but on group differences. Those difference might have arisen from the training, or pre-existed in those individuals that were more prone to study/practice/learn/meditate. Post-Note: Sorry. As a developmental neuroscientist, you hit on a pet-peeve. Cheers.

melvinroest 7y ago
Fair enough, in group differences it's tough to be certain about causality. It's interesting that my teacher never gave this as feedback. Well, that just shows that when it comes to HN, people simply care more about science (as my teacher was a neuroscience researcher). Personally, I do think the brain is plastic in this sense though. I haven't looked deep enough into it to be a 100% certain. Nevertheless, from all the research summaries I read, I gather that whenever a skill is practiced in a focused manner for 1 to 2 hours, neural plasticity occurs. I wish there was a literature review around this idea. But I got the feeling that 4 years ago the literature was mostly on clinical patients. Normal people and neural plasticity seems to be researched less well.