First impressions count, and have an impact on the decisions we make later on

By William Turner, Postdoctoral Research Fellow, The University of Melbourne
Daniel Feuerriegel, ARC DECRA Fellow, The University of Melbourne
Stefan Bode, Associate Professor and Head of Decision Neuroscience Laboratory, The University of Melbourne

Picture yourself standing at the edge of a road, trying to decide if it’s safe to cross. It’s night time and rain is falling, making it difficult to see what’s up ahead. After looking both ways, you step onto the road.

But what if this was a poor choice? Perhaps you’ve misjudged the speed of an approaching car. How does your brain realise its error and correct things before it’s too late?

Experiments in cognitive psychology and neuroscience have taught us we make decisions by integrating information over time – that is, our brains collect and “add up” information across…

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