Decision-making Performance Based On The Consciousness Situations

A period of distraction which drive subjects`attention from object task while makingcomplex decisions can actually lead to better decisions than a pe riod of conscious deliberation.This phenomenon is called―unconscious thought effect‖. Dijksterhuis and his colleagues hadmade a lot of research to prove this effect and explored influence of some factors to the effect,such as the decision-making situation, the difficulty of the tasks, the way display information andproperty of subjects. But now researchers have gradually reached a consensus view on the effect.Recent years, some research show that some brain areas have higher activity level in resting statethan task performing condition. Looking throughout the previous studies, the author thinks it isnecessary to prove unconscious thought effect in another decision situation and make furtherresearch about the factor affects unconscious thought and the relationship between conscious andunconscious thought. At last，we carry on a ERP experiment based on the results of behavioralexperiments.Based on the reasons above, the first study tends to explore the unconscious thought effectand set four kinds of thinking (resting state of goal-dependence, unconscious thought,unconscious and conscious integrative conditions and conscious thought) modes to investigatethe relationship between conscious and unconscious thought when the information presentedrandomly one by one.The second study aims to explore the unconscious thought effect and the relationshipbetween conscious and unconscious thought when the information presented lists.The third study aims to explore the ERP waveforms of four kinds of thinking modes whenthe information presented lists.The results indicate:(1) When information is presented randomly one by one, there is no significant differenceon the correct rates of choices among four thinking modes. But the attitude scores of four kindsof thinking modes are different significantly. The performance under the situation of resting stateof goal-dependence and unconscious thought is higher than conscious thought significantly. It proved that the unconscious effect is existed.(2) When information is presented randomly one by one, subjects’ ability to distinguish thebest and the worst jobs gradually decrease with the reduction of unconscious thinkingcomponent.(3) When information is presented by lists, subjects’ decision performance (include thecorrect rate of choices and the attitude score) is different significantly. The performance underthe situation of resting state of goal-dependence is higher than integrative and conscious thoughtsignificantly. The performance of unconscious thought is higher than conscious thoughtsignificantly. It proved that the unconscious effect is existed.(4) When information is presented by lists, subjects’ ability to distinguish the best and theworst jobs gradually decrease with the reduction of unconscious thinking component.(5) It is the way to present information by list that is more conducive to unconsciousthought effect.(6) In FPZ and PZ lead position, there is obvious difference on the ERP waveforms betweenresting state of goal-dependence and conscious thinking modes.