WEBVTT - Is There a Best Time of Day for Making Decisions?

0:00:01.920 --> 0:00:07.080
<v Speaker 1>Welcome to brain Stuff production of iHeart Radio. Hey brain Stuff,

0:00:07.120 --> 0:00:11.200
<v Speaker 1>Lauren boglebam here. Do you make better decisions in the

0:00:11.200 --> 0:00:14.960
<v Speaker 1>morning or in the evening? That might depend on whether

0:00:15.000 --> 0:00:18.560
<v Speaker 1>you want a quick decision or an accurate one. A

0:00:18.600 --> 0:00:21.439
<v Speaker 1>few years back, researchers looked at the decision making behavior

0:00:21.480 --> 0:00:23.319
<v Speaker 1>of a dred and eighty four users of the Free

0:00:23.320 --> 0:00:26.279
<v Speaker 1>Internet Chess Server to discover at what time of day

0:00:26.320 --> 0:00:30.040
<v Speaker 1>players made the best decisions. Chess players, who in this

0:00:30.080 --> 0:00:33.160
<v Speaker 1>case made around forty move decisions in games lasting from

0:00:33.159 --> 0:00:36.199
<v Speaker 1>three to fifteen minutes, are often used in experiments that

0:00:36.240 --> 0:00:40.360
<v Speaker 1>analyze complex human thinking. The Free Internet Chess Server Chess

0:00:40.360 --> 0:00:43.960
<v Speaker 1>Game Database presented itself as an optimal study tool with

0:00:44.040 --> 0:00:47.280
<v Speaker 1>its treasure trove of time stamped right and wrong decisions,

0:00:47.560 --> 0:00:50.320
<v Speaker 1>and allowed researchers to study not just the length of time,

0:00:50.520 --> 0:00:53.960
<v Speaker 1>but also the quality of real world decision making behavior

0:00:54.120 --> 0:00:58.040
<v Speaker 1>at various times of day. Study published in the journal

0:00:58.080 --> 0:01:01.400
<v Speaker 1>Cognition showed that, whether you're morning person or not, the

0:01:01.480 --> 0:01:04.200
<v Speaker 1>most accurate decision making happens on the early side of

0:01:04.240 --> 0:01:08.679
<v Speaker 1>the day, between eight am and one pm. However, even

0:01:08.680 --> 0:01:11.760
<v Speaker 1>though morning decisions were the most accurate, those also took

0:01:11.760 --> 0:01:14.800
<v Speaker 1>the longest to make, and that's a liability in time

0:01:14.840 --> 0:01:18.400
<v Speaker 1>limited activities like a chess game. As the day wore on,

0:01:18.600 --> 0:01:23.039
<v Speaker 1>the chess player's decision making sped up, but accuracy slumped. Ultimately,

0:01:23.080 --> 0:01:25.480
<v Speaker 1>the time of day had no effect on the player's scores,

0:01:25.800 --> 0:01:30.360
<v Speaker 1>as decisions, speed and accuracy canceled each other out. We

0:01:30.400 --> 0:01:33.560
<v Speaker 1>spoke with the studies lead author, Maria Juliana Leone, who

0:01:33.640 --> 0:01:36.520
<v Speaker 1>is herself a chess champion and a postdoctoral fellow at

0:01:36.560 --> 0:01:41.920
<v Speaker 1>the Integrated Neuroscience Lab at the Universidada in Buenos Aires, Argentina.

0:01:42.400 --> 0:01:45.640
<v Speaker 1>She said, in some way these two variables are compensating

0:01:45.680 --> 0:01:50.280
<v Speaker 1>to maintain the performance throughout the day. Leon suspected it

0:01:50.320 --> 0:01:52.880
<v Speaker 1>was more than growing tiredness as a day waned that

0:01:52.920 --> 0:01:56.280
<v Speaker 1>affected player's speed of decision making. Groups of players were

0:01:56.320 --> 0:01:59.760
<v Speaker 1>observed playing more games at certain times than others. She

0:02:00.000 --> 0:02:03.400
<v Speaker 1>thought the gamers chronotypes might be playing a role. Your

0:02:03.480 --> 0:02:06.240
<v Speaker 1>chronotype is a classification based on which of a day's

0:02:06.240 --> 0:02:09.839
<v Speaker 1>twenty four hours you choose for sleep. Subjects were asked

0:02:09.880 --> 0:02:12.880
<v Speaker 1>to complete a morning this evening miss questionnaire to determine

0:02:12.880 --> 0:02:15.160
<v Speaker 1>whether they tended to be larks who preferred to rise

0:02:15.160 --> 0:02:19.560
<v Speaker 1>early or owls who like to sleep late. Leon's research

0:02:19.600 --> 0:02:22.200
<v Speaker 1>showed that both larks and owls played the most chess

0:02:22.200 --> 0:02:25.480
<v Speaker 1>games at about the same hours since awakening. Even though

0:02:25.480 --> 0:02:28.040
<v Speaker 1>owls would get started later than larks, the number of

0:02:28.080 --> 0:02:31.720
<v Speaker 1>games would end up being about the same. Surprisingly, the

0:02:31.760 --> 0:02:34.720
<v Speaker 1>decision making pattern was the same for both groups. It

0:02:34.840 --> 0:02:38.519
<v Speaker 1>got slower as the day progressed. However, the larks slowed

0:02:38.560 --> 0:02:42.160
<v Speaker 1>down the most. So how can we put the findings

0:02:42.200 --> 0:02:46.200
<v Speaker 1>of the study to concrete use, Leon said, If we

0:02:46.320 --> 0:02:48.400
<v Speaker 1>know that during the morning we are slower, but our

0:02:48.440 --> 0:02:51.040
<v Speaker 1>decisions are more accurate, and during the afternoon we know

0:02:51.080 --> 0:02:53.640
<v Speaker 1>that our decisions will be faster but less accurate, we

0:02:53.680 --> 0:02:56.360
<v Speaker 1>can decide when to make some important decisions according to

0:02:56.400 --> 0:02:59.520
<v Speaker 1>what's important for that decision. In particular, maybe we need

0:02:59.560 --> 0:03:02.280
<v Speaker 1>to prior has the time or the quality. If we

0:03:02.320 --> 0:03:04.720
<v Speaker 1>need to make a decision faster, maybe it's better to

0:03:04.720 --> 0:03:08.720
<v Speaker 1>make that decision in the afternoon. Leon took the chronotype

0:03:08.800 --> 0:03:11.840
<v Speaker 1>questionnaire and found she was halfway between the morning larks

0:03:11.840 --> 0:03:15.320
<v Speaker 1>and the night owls. She therefore tries to schedule intense

0:03:15.320 --> 0:03:18.040
<v Speaker 1>work tasks closer to the middle of the day, but

0:03:18.200 --> 0:03:20.480
<v Speaker 1>with all the daily demands of the work. She hasn't

0:03:20.520 --> 0:03:23.080
<v Speaker 1>yet managed to divide and schedule her decision making for

0:03:23.240 --> 0:03:26.760
<v Speaker 1>optimal results. She said, it's not easy for me either.

0:03:32.000 --> 0:03:34.560
<v Speaker 1>Today's episode was written by Michelle Edelman and produced by

0:03:34.560 --> 0:03:36.760
<v Speaker 1>Tyler Clay. For more on this and lots of other

0:03:36.800 --> 0:03:39.840
<v Speaker 1>curious topics, visit how stuff works dot com. Brain Stuff

0:03:39.880 --> 0:03:42.200
<v Speaker 1>is a production of iHeart Radio. For more podcasts, for

0:03:42.240 --> 0:03:45.040
<v Speaker 1>my heart Radio is the I heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,

0:03:45.080 --> 0:03:46.720
<v Speaker 1>or where ever you listen to your favorite shows.