Conditions for Trusting Expert Intuition

Key Insight

Intuition, in the context of expertise, can be understood as recognition: 'The situation has provided a cue; this cue has given the expert access to information stored in memory, and the information provides the answer. Intuition is nothing more and nothing less than recognition.' This process often involves an automatic tentative plan from associative memory (System 1), followed by a deliberate mental simulation to check its viability (System 2), as seen in the recognition-primed decision model used by firefighters.

The acquisition of skilled intuition varies greatly. Emotional learning, such as fear or aversion, can be acquired very quickly, sometimes from a single intense experience or even through verbal instruction. However, what we typically consider 'expertise' in complex tasks like high-level chess or professional basketball takes a long time to develop, often requiring thousands of hours of dedicated practice (e.g., 10000 hours for chess masters) to build a vast collection of 'miniskills' and recognize intricate patterns.

Intuitions are likely to be skilled and trustworthy when two fundamental conditions are met: the environment is sufficiently regular and predictable, and the individual has had ample opportunity to learn these regularities through prolonged practice with clear and rapid feedback. For example, chess players and firefighters operate in environments that, while complex, are fundamentally orderly. Conversely, in 'zero-validity environments' like long-term stock picking or political forecasting, where events are largely unpredictable, intuitive 'hits' are due to luck, and subjective confidence in these situations is a self-delusional, unreliable guide.