Wisdom influenced by heart rate variability [View all]
Source: Medical News Today
"There is a wisdom of the head, and a wisdom of the heart," Charles Dickens wrote in his novel Hard Times. But a new study suggests the heart could have a large influence on the wisdom of the head, after finding people with greater heart rate variability may have wiser judgement.
Lead researcher Prof. Igor Grossman, of the Department of Psychology at the University of Waterloo, Canada, and colleagues publish their findings in the journal Frontiers in Behavioral Neuroscience.
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Prof. Grossman and colleagues note that an increasingly popular notion among cognitive scientists and philosophers is that wise judgement is "recognizing the limits of one's knowledge, being aware of the varied contexts of life and how they may unfold over time, acknowledge other people's points of view, and search for reconciliation of opposing viewpoints."
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When asked about their opinions on social issues from a third-person perspective, participants with greater heart rate variation were found to reason in a wiser, less biased manner than those with lower heart rate variation.
However, when asked to reflect about societal issues from a first-person perspective, no association between heart rate variation and wiser judgement was identified.
Explaining what their findings mean, Prof. Grossmann says:
"Our research shows that wise reasoning is not exclusively a function of the mind and cognitive ability. We found that people who have greater heart rate variability and who are able to think about social problems from a distanced viewpoint demonstrate a greater capacity for wise reasoning."
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Read more: http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/308851.php
Another stumbling block for classical AI and self-driving cars.
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