How many times has it happened? Decisions that seem good after extensive study, purchases with the best cost-benefit ratio, and yet... your gut churns before taking the opposite path. Intuition can be very powerful, and at the same time very wrong, but in certain occasions not so. The question we all ask comes down to "how reliable it is", and luckily, science has been studying its effects for years.
Many people don't believe in it, however, a significant number of people follow it all the time. The value of intuition has been called into question many times, placing it on the same level as mysticism and other elements of the 'sixth sense' such as clairvoyance and telepathy. Of course, that doesn't stop science from trying to understand intuition, how it works, and when it is better to follow its advice. In truth, intuition is nothing mystical, but rather it leans mainly toward pattern recognition. An accumulation of previous and repeated experiences gives us a more solid idea of how good or bad a decision might be. Professional card and chess players are a good example of an intuition tuned for a specific task, but what about the rest of us?
How reliable is intuition?
In simple terms, the human brain processes data at two different speeds. The so-called 'slow speed' comes into action for more complex and potentially stressful tasks, while the fast speed is where intuition resides. Simple example: A mother recognizing that her child is crying due to a tantrum rather than genuine pain is a fast thinking action. If we add lack of time, the region of the brain responsible for conscious thought yields the spotlight to the basal ganglia, associated with automatic behaviors and habit formation.
Another curious aspect of intuition is that it seems to work better for larger decisions, like buying a house or a car (there are also higher satisfaction levels among those who rely on intuition for such things), while for simple acquisitions, deep study tends to be superior. On the other hand, we find cases where our intuition tries to give a signal but doesn't do so with enough impact or doesn't work well, such as recognizing our own voice, or cases where empathy intervenes.
Finally, there is an element that changes with intuition: the galvanic skin response, which increases when the unconscious side of our mind begins to recognize patterns that our conscious mind ignores. In summary: The answer to the original question is that you can trust your intuition... depending on the situation.
