[BIC-announce] BIC seminar, July 4th

[Amir Shmuel, Dr.]

BIC seminar
July 4th, 1 PM

Title:
Neural Correlates of Intuitive Decisions and Cognitive Experts' Intuition
(Science 331:341-346, 2011)

Speaker:
Xiaohong Wan  
Cognitive Brain Mapping Laboratory
RIKEN Brain Science Institute

Abstract: 
 One general and superior capability of cognitive experts is being able to make decisions intuitively and rapidly in their domains with little conscious thoughts. Although there is a history of psychological studies of chess experts over the last 100 years, the underlying neural mechanism of intuitive best next-move generation is unknown. To reveal the neural basis, we used functional magnetic resonance imaging to study brain activity of professional and amateur players in the game of shogi (Japanese Chess). We found two activations specific to professionals: one in the precuneus of the parietal lobe during perception of board patterns, and the other in the caudate nucleus of the basal ganglia during quick generation of the best next move. Activities at these two sites covaried in relevant tasks. 
 To elucidate that the involvement of the caudate head in their intuition has developed in the long-term training that the professionals had gone through, we trained novice subjects to play mini-shogi for a span of three months. We found activation of caudate nucleus in company with emergence of intuition in a subgroup of subjects, but not in the others. The further analysis reveals that the individual differences of the subjects in the development of cognitive intuition have a close relation with their anatomical structure of right caudate nucleus.  
 Taken together, these results suggest that the precuneus-caudate circuit implements the automatic, yet complicated, processes of board-pattern perception and next-move generation in board game experts.

If you are interested in meeting with Dr. Wan on July 4th, please email amir.shmuel at mcgill.ca