The brain is a complex and wonderful machine which is the result of thousand years of evolution .
Generations after generations it became more and more efficient . Today i'm gonna talk about the two systems which coexist in your thinking process .
First of all i want you to do a small experience . It is a selective attention test .
You'll have to count the number of pass of the white team . Try to do it seriously .
Here is the link :
Interesting no ?!
Those two systems i want to talk about can be called system 1 and system 2 .
System 1 :
To understand this first system , look at this picture :
What you feel when looking at this picture is combining seeing and intuitive thinking . As soon as you saw this picture you knew that this guy was angry . If he would arrive in the room and walk in your direction with this face you would surely be ready to protect yourself . You look at this picture and you can anticipate the fact that this guy won't arrive and bring something really positive and that you should be careful . You've just experienced fast thinking .
System 2 :
now look at this : 23 x 14
Here we have a different situation . You immediately knew that this was a multiplication problem and it is highly probable that you didn't solve it as fast as you understood that the first guy was angry . You also have a vague intuition of what the result can be . You know that the result won't be 17 nor 54987362000 . instantly you look at the problem and you understand that you have to solve it , that you will have to think to solve it , and you have a certain idea of what the result could be ( or could not be ) . You've just experienced slow thinking as you proceeded through a sequence of steps .
System 1 can be defined as an automatic system effortlessly originating impressions and feelings that are the main sources if the explicit beliefs and deliberate choices of system 2 .
Here are somes examples of the automatic activities that are attributed to system 1 :
- Detect that one object is more distant that another
- orient of the source of a sudden sound
- complete the phrase " bread and ... "
- understand simple sentences
- recognizing somebody's feeling
All those thinking process are automatics and fast .
The system 2's operations require attention and are disrupted when attention is drawn away .
Here are some examples of the automatic activities that are attributed to system 2 :
- Look for a man with white hair
- Focus on the voice of a particular person in a crowded and noisy room
- Count the occurences of the letter b in a page of text
- Multiply 35 by 587
To sum up this article :
2 thinking systems coexist in your brain . The first one is automatic and you don't even realize that you use it . The second one ask more attention and you realize that you are using it . What you've experienced on the first test is the fact that when you use the system 2 ( which asks more attention to your brain ) your system 1 is less efficient . That's something that magicians know , they turn off your system 1 by forcing you to use the system 2 .
System 1 is the system that allows you to think without realising you think . The system 2 is the system in which you are thinking and are aware of the fact you are thinking .