Our unconscious brain makes the best decisions possible

Researchers at the University of Rochester have shown that the human brain—once thought to be a seriously flawed decision maker—is actually hard-wired to allow us to make the best decisions possible with the information we are given. The findings are published in today's issue of the journal Neuron.
Neuroscientists Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky received a 2002 Nobel Prize for their 1979 research that argued humans rarely make rational decisions. Since then, this has become conventional wisdom among cognition researchers
Contrary to Kahnneman and Tversky's research, Alex Pouget, associate professor of brain and cognitive sciences at the University of Rochester, has shown that people do indeed make optimal decisions—but only when their unconscious brain makes the choice.
"A lot of the early work in this field was on conscious decision making, but most of the decisions you make aren't based on conscious reasoning," says Pouget. "You don't consciously decide to stop at a red light or steer around an obstacle in the road. Once we started looking at the decisions our brains make without our knowledge, we found that they almost always reach the right decision, given the information they had to work with."
Pouget says that Kahneman's approach was to tell a subject that there was a certain percent chance that one of two choices in a test was "right." This meant a person had to consciously compute the percentages to get a right answer—something few people could do accurately.
Pouget has been demonstrating for years that certain aspects of human cognition are carried out with surprising accuracy. He has employed what he describes as a very simple unconscious-decision test. A series of dots appears on a computer screen, most of which are moving in random directions. A controlled number of these dots are purposely moving uniformly in the same direction, and the test subject simply has to say whether he believes those dots are moving to the left or right. The longer the subject watches the dots, the more evidence he accumulates and the more sure he becomes of the dots' motion.
Subjects in this test performed exactly as if their brains were subconsciously gathering information before reaching a confidence threshold, which was then reported to the conscious mind as a definite, sure answer. The subjects, however, were never aware of the complex computations going on, instead they simply "realized" suddenly that the dots were moving in one direction or another. The characteristics of the underlying computation fit with Pouget's extensive earlier work that suggested the human brain is wired naturally to perform calculations of this kind.
"We've been developing and strengthening this hypothesis for years—how the brain represents probability distributions," says Pouget. "We knew the results of this kind of test fit perfectly with our ideas, but we had to devise a way to see the neurons in action. We wanted to see if, in fact, humans are really good decision makers after all, just not quite so good at doing it consciously. Kahneman explicitly told his subjects what the chances were, but we let people's unconscious mind work it out. It's weird, but people rarely make optimal decisions when they are told the percentages up front."
Pouget analyzed the data from a test performed in the laboratory of Michael Shadlen, a professor of physiology and biophysics at the University of Washington. Shadlen's team watched the activity of a pair of neurons that normally respond to the sight of things moving to the left or right. For instance, when the test consisted of a few dots moving to the right within the jumble of other random dots, the neuron coding for "rightward movement" would occasionally fire. As the test continued, the neuron would fire more and more frequently until it reached a certain threshold, triggering a flurry of activity in the brain and a response from the subject of "rightward."
Pouget says a probabilistic decision-making system like this has several advantages. The most important is that it allows us to reach a reasonable decision in a reasonable amount of time. If we had to wait until we're 99 percent sure before we make a decision, Pouget says, then we would waste time accumulating data unnecessarily. If we only required a 51 percent certainty, then we might reach a decision before enough data has been collected.
Another main advantage is that when we finally reach a decision, we have a sense of how certain we are of it—say, 60 percent or 90 percent—depending on where the triggering threshold has been set. Pouget is now investigating how the brain sets this threshold for each decision, since it does not appear to have the same threshold for each kind of question it encounters.
Source: University of Rochester

Mismatch Indeed!

While firmly stapling his place in boxing history Filipino phenom Manny “PacMan” Pacquiao, last night, a big nail into a golden casket, undoubtedly ending one hell of a career for the Golden Boy, Oscar De La Hoya. In front of a sold-out crowd of 15,001, what began as a partial De la Hoya crowd inside the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas watched as a Hall of Fame fighter whose done nothing but great things for the sport get soundly beaten to the point of quitting.
The Olympic Gold medalist and six division former champion entered the bout admittingly towards the tail end of a wonderful career, looking to finish strong by taking on the pound-for-pound best fighter in the sport.
To make this “Dream Match” a reality Pacquiao, who started his professional boxing career at the tender age of 16 fighting at 106 pounds, moved up two weight classes from where he last fought, at lightweight, in order to meet the legendary De La Hoya.
A heavy media and considerable sportsbook favorite, De La Hoya, who won his first title before Pacquiao ever stepped inside the ring, entered the bout with the pressure of being expected to win a fight against the much smaller man.

Promoter Bob Arum is making arrangements to be at Manny Pacquiao's birthday on Dec. 17 in General Santos, Philippines. "Manny's win on Saturday night was one of the most exciting and biggest in Top Rank history," Arum said. "I am thrilled. Manny and Freddie (Roach) convinced me they could win it and they came through. I cannot wait to get to the Phillipines and celebrate."

It was an antisipated Saturday night. Most people back in the Philippines were glued to their TV or probably flocked to a nearby Gym or a restaurant to view the “The Dream Match” between the Pacman and the Golden boy.
I was with my family and my sister with her boyfriend that afternoon in Des Moines to celebrated my birthday a day ahead since the fight would be in the evening. So it would be like a double celebration. My DVD recorder is already standing by to capture the mega fight.
Early this week I already received some email from my buddies on board asking me to get a copy since they can't watch it since they are still at high seases and besides If ever they get a copy back home in the Philippines it would be full of annoying TV ads.
As the first under card started around 8pm Central, I thought the main event would be early because most of the under card ended only in less than 2 rounds. Forget the under cards It was boring and not worth watching. They (Top Rank and Golden Boy Promotion) should have put a much interesting bouts especially that Lopez / Medina thing. Medina is no doubt a weekend paycheck fight so as Lares.
A lot of nervous Pacman fans comments just before this fight, It is so annoying to hear their comment that Manny have no chances against Oscar. Even one local government official in the Philippines would want the fight canceled because they value Manny so much that they don't want him to get hurt.
Yeah right, who got hurt now? ehey!
I even heard one prediction that that fight could have been Manny's last fight because he surely be in trouble against Oscar.

It was a mismatch indeed. But not for Oscar's favor but of Manny...

Well done Manny and advance happy Birthday!