Speaker 1: Welcome to brain Stuff production of iHeart Radio. Hey brain Stuff,
Speaker 1: Lauren boglebam here. Do you make better decisions in the
Speaker 1: morning or in the evening? That might depend on whether
Speaker 1: you want a quick decision or an accurate one. A
Speaker 1: few years back, researchers looked at the decision making behavior
Speaker 1: of a dred and eighty four users of the Free
Speaker 1: Internet Chess Server to discover at what time of day
Speaker 1: players made the best decisions. Chess players, who in this
Speaker 1: case made around forty move decisions in games lasting from
Speaker 1: three to fifteen minutes, are often used in experiments that
Speaker 1: analyze complex human thinking. The Free Internet Chess Server Chess
Speaker 1: Game Database presented itself as an optimal study tool with
Speaker 1: its treasure trove of time stamped right and wrong decisions,
Speaker 1: and allowed researchers to study not just the length of time,
Speaker 1: but also the quality of real world decision making behavior
Speaker 1: at various times of day. Study published in the journal
Speaker 1: Cognition showed that, whether you're morning person or not, the
Speaker 1: most accurate decision making happens on the early side of
Speaker 1: the day, between eight am and one pm. However, even
Speaker 1: though morning decisions were the most accurate, those also took
Speaker 1: the longest to make, and that's a liability in time
Speaker 1: limited activities like a chess game. As the day wore on,
Speaker 1: the chess player's decision making sped up, but accuracy slumped. Ultimately,
Speaker 1: the time of day had no effect on the player's scores,
Speaker 1: as decisions, speed and accuracy canceled each other out. We
Speaker 1: spoke with the studies lead author, Maria Juliana Leone, who
Speaker 1: is herself a chess champion and a postdoctoral fellow at
Speaker 1: the Integrated Neuroscience Lab at the Universidada in Buenos Aires, Argentina.
Speaker 1: She said, in some way these two variables are compensating
Speaker 1: to maintain the performance throughout the day. Leon suspected it
Speaker 1: was more than growing tiredness as a day waned that
Speaker 1: affected player's speed of decision making. Groups of players were
Speaker 1: observed playing more games at certain times than others. She
Speaker 1: thought the gamers chronotypes might be playing a role. Your
Speaker 1: chronotype is a classification based on which of a day's
Speaker 1: twenty four hours you choose for sleep. Subjects were asked
Speaker 1: to complete a morning this evening miss questionnaire to determine
Speaker 1: whether they tended to be larks who preferred to rise
Speaker 1: early or owls who like to sleep late. Leon's research
Speaker 1: showed that both larks and owls played the most chess
Speaker 1: games at about the same hours since awakening. Even though
Speaker 1: owls would get started later than larks, the number of
Speaker 1: games would end up being about the same. Surprisingly, the
Speaker 1: decision making pattern was the same for both groups. It
Speaker 1: got slower as the day progressed. However, the larks slowed
Speaker 1: down the most. So how can we put the findings
Speaker 1: of the study to concrete use, Leon said, If we
Speaker 1: know that during the morning we are slower, but our
Speaker 1: decisions are more accurate, and during the afternoon we know
Speaker 1: that our decisions will be faster but less accurate, we
Speaker 1: can decide when to make some important decisions according to
Speaker 1: what's important for that decision. In particular, maybe we need
Speaker 1: to prior has the time or the quality. If we
Speaker 1: need to make a decision faster, maybe it's better to
Speaker 1: make that decision in the afternoon. Leon took the chronotype
Speaker 1: questionnaire and found she was halfway between the morning larks
Speaker 1: and the night owls. She therefore tries to schedule intense
Speaker 1: work tasks closer to the middle of the day, but
Speaker 1: with all the daily demands of the work. She hasn't
Speaker 1: yet managed to divide and schedule her decision making for
Speaker 1: optimal results. She said, it's not easy for me either.
Speaker 1: Today's episode was written by Michelle Edelman and produced by
Speaker 1: Tyler Clay. For more on this and lots of other
Speaker 1: curious topics, visit how stuff works dot com. Brain Stuff
Speaker 1: is a production of iHeart Radio. For more podcasts, for
Speaker 1: my heart Radio is the I heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,
Speaker 1: or where ever you listen to your favorite shows.