Hi. Welcome to my blog on your snap decisions with practical simple, scientifically backed ways to take control of your mental life. Let’s talk today about your adaptive unconscious. It is located right behind your nose and it’s called the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (VPC). Your adaptive unconscious helps you make quick assessments of a situation. How long do you suppose it takes to predict the quality of a teacher? A few days, weeks, months maybe a year? Would it surprise you to know that Nelene Ombuddy, a researcher, was able to get the same predictive information from giving college students a clip of a few seconds with the sound garbled as college students provided at the end of their full year
course. That is surprising isn’t it? It’s due to your adaptive unconscious. Your adaptive unconscious picks up the teacher’s body language and voice tone that serve to predict that teacher’s ability to communicate effectively.