212 Understanding Intuitive Decision Making
Figure 5.1 uses a simple fl ow chart to represent how the perceptual fl uency heuristic can lead
to perceptual biases. Similar fl ow charts could represent how heuristics related to each of the
other fi ve cognitive processes in our model also lead to process-related biases. For perception,
irrelevant stimuli that are familiar, highly audible, highly legible, or otherwise easy to perceive
lead the audience to experience positive subjective feelings about those stimuli, such as liking
and certainty. The audience’s positive subjective feelings, in turn, lead them to give the irrelevant
stimuli undue value and weight and to place unwarranted confi dence in them. On the other
hand, relevant stimuli that are less familiar, less audible, less legible, or otherwise diffi cult to per-
ceive lead the audience to experience negative subjective feelings about them, such as disliking
and uncertainty. The audience’s negative subjective feelings, in turn, lead the audience to unduly
discount the relevant stimuli.
The intuitive-mode processes take place every time one of the six major cognitive processes
in decision making has been completed. The information on which the intuitive processes act is
not content information (i.e., what is perceived, attended to, comprehended, etc.) but is processing
information (i.e., the ease or diffi culty with which something is perceived, attended to, compre-
hended, and so on).
Brain Regions Activated. Intuitive-mode processes are a form of metacognition, 49 which is the
subjective experience people have of their cognitive processes.^50 Typically, the only time audience
members become consciously aware of an intuitive process is when processing becomes diffi cult.
When that happens, the metacognitive experience of disfl uency may activate rational-mode pro-
cesses.^51 Neuroscientists fi nd that disfl uency, or the subjective diffi culty of processing information,
triggers the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC), a brain region located below the dorsomedial pre-
frontal cortex (see Figure 3.5 , p. 108).^52 The ACC acts as an alarm that activates areas in the frontal
lobe responsible for rational-mode thinking.^53
Legibility Effects: The Intuitive Appeal of Easy-to-See Messages
Audience members are more likely to believe highly legible messages than less legible ones. For
instance, they are more likely to judge a statement to be true when it is shown in colors that are easy
to read against the background color. In a study of legibility effects, readers were asked to quickly
FIGURE 5.1 Intuitive Processes Leading to Perceptual Biases
Irrelevant stimuli given
undue value, weight,
and confidence
Yes
Processing
information
No
Content
information Stimuli
easy to
perceive?
Feelings of
disliking
and
uncertainty
Feelings of
liking and
certainty
Perception
Irrelevant stimuli
easy to perceive
Relevant stimuli
not easy to perceive
Relevant stimuli
unduly discounted