Haste Makes Waste, REALLY ?

Haste Makes Waste, REALLY ?

Haste Makes Waste, REALLY ?  Hoping that this won't be a hard sell, let me mention a research study from Vanderbilt University which study points everything to our brain.  To quote Professor Jeffrey Schall, our brain switches into a special mode when pushed to make rapid decisions.  The study says that if we can understand how our brain changes when we are pushed to respond faster, we have gone a long way to understand it.

Numerous behavioral and brain-mapping studies have supported that model which states that the brain uses the same basic model to make both deliberate and rapid decisions.  In order to shorten the decision-making time, our brain simply reduces the cumulative amount of neuronal activity it requires before making a decision.  Because the brain must make a snap decision based on less information than it uses for slower decisions, the likelihood that it will make mistakes increases.  Although it is easy to set up tests with human subjects that prompt them to switch between 

SPEEDY and ACCURATE decision-making, the method for measuring human brain activity do not have the required speed or resolution.  Scientists even developed a method for teaching monkeys to switch back and forth between FAST and ACCURATE decision-making in a task that involved picking out a target from an array of objects presented on a computer screen.  In one experimental condition, monkeys learned that only accurate responses would be rewarded.  In another condition, they learned that making some mistakes was acceptable as long as the decisions were fast.  In situations where we need to act fast, in order to act correctly, it's like being fast to hit the buzzer first.  But note that BUZZING and answering incorrectly is bad, but being slower than the other constant means you will never earn a reward.

That scenario departs from that standing theory that the brain uses the same process for all types of decisions.  To quote Professor Schall, that 'really flies in the face of what we thought we knew about decision-making.  Let's look at those game shows where the #1 criterion is to hit the buzzer first before giving the answer.  And although identical information is presented

to the brain, it gets analyzed differently under speed stress than under accuracy stress.  So why are we harping till now that Haste Makes Waste?  It is because when a mistake entails dire consequences but there are many situations in life when the cost of NOT acting is higher than making an ERROR in JUDGMENT.  With haste, the quality of decisions and outputs would end up compromised because our brains get more focused on SPEED at the expense of ACCURACY ❗❗❗