Lehrer, Jonahan. How We Decided

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tions are adept at finding patterns based on experience, so that a person can detect the missile amid the blur of radar blips. But when you encounter a problem you've never experienced before, when your dopamine neurons have no idea what to do, it's es­ sential that you try to tune out your feelings. Pilots call such a state "deliberate calm," because staying calm in high-pressure situations requires conscious effort. "Maintaining our compo­ sure was one of the hardest things we had to do," Haynes says. "We knew we had to focus and think straight, but that's not al­ ways so easy."

Preventing the onset of panic, however, was only the first step. If Haynes and his crew were going to land the plane at Sioux City, they needed to improvise a solution to their unprecedented problem. Consider the use of differential thrust. Such a method of flight control had never been attempted before. Haynes had never practiced it in a simulator or even contemplated the possi­ bility of turning using only his engines. Even the SAM engineers didn't know what to do. And yet, in the terrifying moments after the explosion, when Haynes looked at his dash and saw that he had no central engine and no hydraulic pressure, he was able to figure out a way to keep the plane in the air.

It's worth taking a closer look at this single decision so that we can better understand what, exactly, allows the prefrontal cortex to deal with such fraught situations. Steven Predmore, a manager of human-factors analysis at Delta Airlines, has studied the decision-making process during Flight 232 in exquisite de­ tail. He began by breaking down the thirty-four minutes of con­ versation captured by the cockpit voice recorder into a series of thought units, or pieces of information. By analyzing the flow of these thought units, Predmore was able to map out the sequence of events from the perspective of the pilots.

Predmore's study is a gripping portrait of heroism and team­ work. Shortly after Haynes realized that the plane had lost all hy­ draulic pressure, the air-traffic controllers began consulting with

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the pilots on the best flight path into Sioux City. Haynes's advice was simple: "Whatever you do," he said, "keep us away from the city." At other moments, the transcripts reveal the pilots struggling to lighten the mood:

F I T C H : I'll tell you what, we'll have a beer when this is done. H A Y N E S : Well, I don't drink, but I'll sure as hell have one.

And yet, even as the pilots were cracking jokes, they were making difficult decisions under extreme cognitive stress. During the descent into Sioux City, the number of thought units ex­ changed in the cockpit consistently exceeded thirty per minute, with peaks of nearly sixty per minute. That's nearly one new piece of information every second. (Under normal flight condi­ tions, the number of thought units rarely exceeds ten per min­ ute.) Some of this information was critical—the pilots closely followed their altitude levels—and some of it was less relevant. After all, it doesn't really matter how the yoke is positioned if the yoke is broken.

The pilots dealt with this potential information overload by quickly focusing on the most necessary bits of data. They were always thinking about what they should think about, which let them minimize potential distractions. For instance, once Haynes realized that he could control only the throttle levers—every­ thing else in the cockpit was virtually useless—he immediately zeroed in on the possibility of steering with his engines. He stopped worrying about his ailerons, elevators, and wing flaps. Once the plane was within twenty miles of the Sioux City air­ port, about twelve minutes from touchdown, the captain started to concentrate on executing the landing. He deliberately ignored everything else. According to Predmore, the ability of the flight crew to successfully prioritize their tasks was a crucial ingredient of their success.

Of course, it's not enough to just think about a problem;

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Haynes needed to solve his problem, to invent a completely new method of flight control. This is where the prefrontal cortex re­ ally demonstrates its unique strengths. It is the only brain region able to take an abstract principle—in this case, the physics of engine thrust—and apply it in an unfamiliar context to come up with an entirely original solution. It's what allowed Haynes to logically analyze the situation, to imagine his engines straighten­ ing his steep bank. He could model the aerodynamics in his mind.

Only recently have scientists learned how the prefrontal cortex accomplishes this. The key element is a special kind of memory known as working memory. The name is accurate: by keeping information in short-term storage, where it can be ma­ nipulated and analyzed, the brain can work with all the informa­ tion streaming in from other cortical areas. It is able to determine what information, if any, is relevant to the problem it's trying to solve. For instance, studies show that neurons in the prefrontal areas will fire in response to a stimulus—such as the sight of some cockpit instrumentation—and then keep on firing for sev­ eral seconds after the stimulus has disappeared. This echo of ac­ tivity allows the brain to make creative associations as seemingly unrelated sensations and ideas overlap. (Scientists refer to this as the restructuring phase of problem-solving, since the relevant information is mixed together in new ways.) It's why Haynes could think about the thrust levers while simultaneously think­ ing about how to turn the plane. Once this overlapping of ideas occurs, cortical cells start to form connections that have never existed before, wiring themselves into entirely new networks. And then, after the insight has been generated, the prefrontal cortex is able to identify it: you immediately realize that this is the answer you've been searching for. "I don't know where the idea for differential thrust came from," Haynes says. "It just oc­ curred to me, all of a sudden, out of nowhere." From the per-

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spective of the brain, new ideas are merely several old thoughts that occur at the exact same time.

The problem-solving abilities of working memory and the prefrontal cortex are a crucial aspect of human intelligence. Nu­ merous studies have found strong correlations between scores on tests of working memory and tests of general intelligence. Being able to hold more information in the prefrontal cortex, and be­ ing able to hold on to that information for longer, means that brain cells are better able to form useful associations. At the same time, the rational brain must also stringently filter out all extraneous thoughts, since they might lead to unhelpful con­ nections. Unless you are disciplined about what you choose to think about—and the pilots of Flight 232 were extremely disci­ plined—you won't be able to effectively think through your problem. You'll be so overwhelmed by all those incoming ideas that you'll never be able to figure out which ones are genuine in­ sights.

Look, for example, at the phugoids. When the aircraft started to pitch up and down, Haynes's first impulse was to increase the throttle when the plane was ascending, so that the plane main­ tained air speed. But then Haynes made himself think, for a few extra seconds, about the implications of this approach. He blocked out all the other things he could have been worrying about—he still didn't know how he was going to land the plane—and focused instead on the relationship of his thrust lev­ ers and the pitch of the plane. That's when Haynes realized that trusting his instincts in this situation was a deadly mistake. His explicit analysis, made possible by working memory, allowed him to come up with a new solution. If the plane was going up, then he needed to slow down.

Such decision-making is the essence of rationality. In the months after Flight 232, the United training center in Denver commissioned numerous pilots, including a test pilot from Mc-

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Donnell Douglas, to see if anyone could land a DC-10 without hydraulics. The training center used a flight simulator that was programmed with the precise conditions faced by the United crew on that July day. "These other pilots kept trying to land the plane at Sioux City, just like we did," says Haynes. "But they al­ ways had some kind of unfortunate event and kept on crashing outside the airport." In fact, the pilots trying to land the DC-10 in the simulator failed to make the runway on their first fiftyseven attempts.

Haynes is a modest man; he says most of the passengers sur­ vived because of "luck and teamwork." However, the landing of Flight 232 on the Sioux City runway was clearly a case of Haynes creating his own luck. Because he took advantage of his prefrontal cortex, relying on its uniquely flexible neurons, he managed to avert an almost certain disaster. He was able to maintain his cool and analyze the situation in a deliberate man­ ner so that he could generate the necessary flash of insight. "I'm no genius," Haynes says. "But a crisis like that sure can sharpen the mind."

Although the rational talents of the prefrontal cortex kept Flight 232 from crashing into a cornfield, it's important to real­ ize that rationality isn't an all-purpose solution. In the next chapter, we are going to look at what happens when people use their prefrontal cortices in the wrong way. It's possible to think too much.

5

Choking on Thought

The lesson of Wag Dodge, television focus groups, and Flight 232 is that a little rational thought can save the day. In such situations, the prefrontal cortex is uniquely

designed to come up with creative answers, to generate that flash of insight that leads a person to the right decision. Such narra­ tives fit comfortably with our broad assumption that more de­ liberation is always better. In general, we believe that carefully studying something leads to better outcomes, since we'll avoid careless errors. Consumers should always comparison shop so that they find the best products. Before we invest in stocks, we are supposed to learn as much as possible about the company. We expect doctors to order numerous diagnostic tests, even if the tests are expensive and invasive. In other words, people be­ lieve that a decision that's the result of rational deliberation will always be better than an impulsive decision. This is why one shouldn't judge a book by its cover or propose marriage on the first date. When in doubt, we try to resort to careful analysis and engage the rational circuits of the prefrontal cortex.

This faith in the power of reason is easy to understand. Ever

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since Plato, we've been assured that a perfectly rational world would be a perfect world, a Shangri-la ruled by statistical equa­ tions and empirical evidence. People wouldn't run up credit card debt or take out subprime loans. There would be no biases or prejudices, just cold, hard facts. This is the Utopia dreamed of by philosophers and economists.

However, this new science of decision-making (a science rooted in the material details of the brain) is most interesting when the data turns out to contradict the conventional wisdom. Ancient assumptions are revealed as just that: assumptions. Untested theories. Unsubstantiated speculation. Plato, after all, didn't do experiments. He had no way of knowing that the ratio­ nal brain couldn't solve every problem, or that the prefrontal cortex had severe limitations. The reality of the brain is that, sometimes, rationality can lead us astray.

F O R R E N E E F L E M I N G , the opera superstar, the first sign of trouble came during a routine performance of Mozart's The Marriage of Figaro at the Lyric Opera of Chicago. Fleming was singing the "Dove sono" aria from act 3, one of the most be­ loved songs in all of opera. At first, Fleming sang Mozart's plain­ tive melody with her typical perfection. She made the high notes sound effortless, her voice capturing the intensity of emotion while maintaining her near perfect pitch. Most sopranos struggle with Mozart's tendency to compose in the passaggio, or the awk­ ward part of the vocal range between registers. But not Fleming. Her performance the night before had earned her a long stand­ ing ovation.

But then, just as she neared the most difficult section of the aria—a crescendo of fluttering pitches, in which her voice has to echo the violins—Fleming felt a sudden stab of self-doubt. She couldn't stop thinking that she was about to make a mistake. "It caught me by surprise," she later wrote in her memoir. "That

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aria was never an easy piece, but it was certainly one with which I had had an enormous amount of experience." In fact, Fleming had performed this piece hundreds of times before. Her first big operatic break had been singing the role of the Countess at the Houston Opera, more than a decade earlier. The tragic "Dove sono" aria, in which the Countess questions the loss of her hap­ piness, had been featured on Fleming's first album and became a standard part of her repertoire. It was, Fleming said, her "signa­ ture piece."

And yet now, she could barely breathe. She felt her diaphragm constrict, sucking the power from her voice. Her throat tight­ ened and her pulse started to race. Although Fleming fought her way through the rest of the song, stealing breaths wherever pos­ sible—she still managed to get a standing ovation—she was deeply shaken. What had happened to her self-confidence? Why did her favorite aria suddenly make her so nervous?

Before long, Fleming's performance problems became chronic. The songs that used to be second nature were suddenly impossi­ ble to sing. Every performance was a struggle against anxiety, against that monologue in her head telling her not to make a mistake. "I had been undermined by a very negative inner voice," she wrote, "a little nattering in my ear that said, 'Don't do that

. . . Don't do this . . . Your breath is tight . . . Your tongue has gone back . . . Your palate is down . . . The top is spread . . . Re­ lax your shoulders!'" Eventually, it got so bad that Fleming planned to quit opera altogether. She was one of the most tal­ ented performers in the world, and yet she could no longer per­ form.

Performers call such failures "choking," because a person so frayed by pressure might as well not have any oxygen. What makes choking so morbidly fascinating is that the only thing in­ capacitating the performer is his or her own thoughts. Fleming, for example, was so worried about hitting the high notes of Mo­ zart's opera that she failed to hit them. The inner debate over

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proper technique made her voice seize up, and it became impos­ sible to sing with the necessary speed and virtuosity. Her mind was sabotaging itself.

What causes choking? Although it might seem like an amor­ phous category of failure, or even a case of excess emotion, chok­ ing is actually triggered by a specific mental mistake: thinking too much. The sequence of events typically goes like this: When a person gets nervous about performing, he naturally becomes extra self-conscious. He starts to focus on himself, trying to make sure that he doesn't make any mistakes. He begins scrutinizing actions that are best performed on autopilot. Fleming started to think about aspects of singing that she hadn't thought about since she was a beginner, such as where to position her tongue and how to shape her mouth for different pitches. This kind of deliberation can be lethal for a performer. The opera singer for­ gets how to sing. The pitcher concentrates too much on his mo­ tion and loses control of his fastball. The actor gets anxious about his lines and seizes up onstage. In each of these instances, the natural fluidity of performance is lost. The grace of talent disappears.

Consider one of the most famous chokes in sports history: the collapse of Jean Van de Velde on the last hole of the 1999 British Open. Until that point in the tournament, Van de Velde had been playing nearly flawless golf. He had a three-stroke lead entering the eighteenth hole, which meant that he could doublebogey (that is, be two strokes over par) and still win. On his previous two rounds, he'd birdied (been one stroke under par) this very hole.

Now Van de Velde was the only player on the course. He knew that the next few shots could change his life forever, turn­ ing a PGA journeyman into an elite golfer. All he had to do was play it safe. During his warm-up swings on the eighteenth, Van de Velde looked nervous. It was a blustery Scotland day, but beads of sweat were glistening on his face. After repeatedly wip-

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ing away the perspiration, he stepped up to the tee, planted his feet, and jerked back his club. His swing looked awkward. His hips spun out ahead of his body, so that the face of his driver wasn't straight on the ball. Van de Velde watched the white speck sail away and then bowed his head. He had bent the ball badly to the right, and it ended up twenty yards from the fair­ way, buried in the rough. On his next shot, he made the same mistake, but this time he sent the ball so far right that it bounced off the grandstands and ended up in a patch of knee-high grass. His third shot was even worse. By this point, his swing was so out of sync that he almost missed the ball; it was launched into the air along with a thick patch of grass. As a result, his shot came up far short and plunged into the water hazard just be­ fore the green. Van de Velde grimaced and turned away, as if he couldn't bear to watch his own collapse. After taking a penalty, he was still sixty yards short of the hole. Once again, his tenta­ tive swing was too weak, and the ball ended up exactly where he didn't want it: in a sandy bunker. From there, he managed to chip onto the green and, after seven errant shots, finish the round. But it was too late. Van de Velde had lost the British Open.

The pressure of the eighteenth hole was Van de Velde's undo­ ing. When he started thinking about the details of his swing, his swing broke down. On the last seven shots, Van de Velde seemed like a different golfer. He had lost his easy confidence. Instead of playing like a pro on the PGA tour, he started swinging with the cautious deliberation of a beginner with a big handicap. He was suddenly focusing on the mechanics of his stroke, making sure that he didn't torque his wrist or open his hips. He was liter­ ally regressing before the crowd, reverting to a mode of explicit thought that he hadn't used on the golf green since he was a child learning how to swing.

Sian Beilock, a professor of psychology at the University of Chicago, has helped illuminate the anatomy of choking. She uses