The Multitasking Mind: Intuitive Thinking is a Set of Systems

We think of the Intuitive system as representing emotion, or impulse, or other negative attributes. But Plato and Aristotle also attributed positive functions such as love, empathy, duty, and honor to the Intuitive Mind. These examples show us that the Intuitive Mind isn't just one thing. Rather than describing it as a system, it may be more accurate to describe the Intuitive Mind as a set of systems. 

Evans and Stanovich (2009) suggested that Intuitive Mind activities have the common characteristic of autonomy, meaning that they are self-executing without a person paying any conscious attention to them. (This is clearly different from Narrative Mind activities, which require ongoing focus to maintain them). Some examples of autonomous mental processes are: jumping when you hear a loud noise (instinctive behavior), turning off your alarm when you wake up (Pavlovian learned behavior), checking for coins in the vending machine change drop (Skinnerian reinforced behavior), remembering your childhood home when you smell cookies (elicited memory), feeling mad when someone cuts you off in traffic (emotional response), gauging the distance between steps so that you don't fall on the stairs (visual perception of the external world), humming a tune to yourself (spontaneous memory), or unconsciously adjusting your tone of voice in response to your spouse's facial expression (social perception). We might think of many other examples. 

The common characteristics of all these experiences and behaviors are that (a) they are not consciously chosen or directed toward some goal, and (b) they happen very fast. Many of them are also adaptive in the sense of helping us to navigate the world, but not all (the anger might be counter-productive; the memories are probably just enjoyable). Some of them are completely unconscious in the sense that they go on outside of our awareness, while others we might be aware of even though we aren't directly intending for them to happen. 

Another common characteristic is that these activities appears to be (c) parallel processing -- you can do several of them at once. The Intuitive Mind's multifaceted nature is why we can walk and chew gum at the same time. This rule isn't universal, though. Some studies show that our performance degrades when we try to multitask, and those generally refer to competing behaviors that operate through the same mental channels. We can absolutely multitask when the simultaneous behaviors are things like driving and listening to music, or talking and running, or juggling while speaking to a group in a large lecture hall (my personal favorite demonstration of the Intuitive Mind). But if we try to hum two different tunes at the same time, or to feel simultaneously happy and angry, we fail. Although the Intuitive Mind has been described as "massively parallel," it is not infinitely parallel. It only permits multitasking to the extent that many different channels of mental activity are available.

Contrary to historical models of brain functioning, single aspects of human behavior are not strongly linked to specific brain locations. Instead, networks of neurons in disparate locations across the brain seem to fire at the same time (synchronization) in order to accomplish specific tasks. The "connectome" is an emerging list of different cross-brain systems that seem to be involved in certain types of tasks. The first two of these are Narrative-Mind systems:

• The Central Executive Network is the Narrative Mind. It focuses on the external world, manages active tasks, and makes decisions. It is definitely conscious processing, with a lot of activity in the prefrontal cortex (PFC) behind the eyes, but also some correlated activity in the motor and somatosensory cortex areas on top of the head. This system is the most clearly related to language, reason, and planning activities. Other areas in the sides of the cortex correspond to Language and Auditory Processing, and work closely with the Central Executive Network. Those sub-networks may, however, have some independent functions that don't rely on conscious control -- e.g., think of the way that you can hear a buzz of conversation that doesn't resolve into individual words, until suddenly you hear someone say your name. Although language is generally aligned with the Narrative Mind, it has its own sub-system in the brain and may have some Intuitive-like properties as well.
• The Dorsal Attention Network doesn't involve the PFC as much, but it still seems to contain Narrative Mind functions. This network helps people to hold their attention and avoid distraction, and involves activation in the motor and somatosensory cortex areas. Keith Stanovich suggests that this system's differentiation from the Central Executive might mean that people have a three-system mind: an algorithmic mind that keeps focus and follows structured rules, and a separate reflective mind that produces plans and conscious intentions. The Dorsal Attention Network seems more like Stanovich's algorithmic mind, and he notes that many so-called "executive functioning" tests might actually be assessing the functioning of this network rather than the Central Executive Network. There's also a Ventral Attention Network that more unconsciously monitors the environment and helps the Dorsal Attention Network to shift focus when needed.

Other systems are more automatic and further from consciousness:

• The Visual System is in the back of the head, which has long been recognized as the primary visual cortex (PVC). The location of the PVC is why you see stars when something smacks the back of your skull. Although this area of the brain usually corresponds to vision, it can also be repurposed for other spatial tasks in people who don't see, for tasks like echolocation. Vision is very automatic, transforming projections on the retina of the eye into a 3-dimensional mental representation of the world around us. It's only when we encounter an optical illusion that we may realize the things we see are just images, even though they are presented to us by our minds with a powerful sense of reality.
• The Sensorimotor Network runs around the middle of the brain from top to bottom. It connects touch, sound, and movement sensations, and gives us another understanding of the world that is separate from our visual experience of it. You can notice the independence of these two brain networks when you close your eyes, listen, and use sound and touch to obtain a different sense of your body in space. You can glance at your dashboard indicators while driving, or read a road sign, because your visual system and your sensorimotor network work independently.
• The Limbic System produces emotional reactions, and is centered in lower-brain areas like the thalamus, the hippocampus, and the amygdala. It has ties to sensory areas (particularly the olfactory bulbs, which is why smells can be so emotionally evocative), and can lead to snap decisions based on a feeling. Memory and motivation are also tied in to the limbic system, although each involves the activation of distinctive sub-parts of this brain network. Not every memory is an emotional one, but memories do have a stronger pull on the emotions than factual recitations of events.
• The Default Mode Network sits between the visual and sensorimotor areas of the cortex, and ties to lower-brain areas. It is the network that's active when we aren't doing much in the external world (hence its "default" name) and its activity corresponds to experiences like imagination and introspection. The Default Mode Network tends to be most active when the Central Executive is least active, and vice-versa, making this network a clear candidate for brain localization of the Intuitive Mind. But by Evans and Stanovich's criteria, the visual, sensorimotor, and emotional limbic networks are just as much a part of the Intuitive Mind due to their properties of automaticity and speed. 
• The Salience Network focuses attention, and is related to activation of the brain's "associative area," a confusingly named strip of cortex between the PFC and the sensorimotor areas. Because this network helps people orient toward aspects of the external world, it is tied to both conscious goals (from the PFC) and unconscious goals (from a subcortical area, the nucleus accumbens). The salience network monitors the environment, and is involved in the brain switching between Central Executive and Default Mode Network control. But just like the other brain systems in this section, it isn't making conscious decisions about which of the other brain networks to bring online. Instead, it is switching rapidly and automatically based on changing environments.

You can see how much more complex the Intuitive Mind is than the Narrative Mind. Intuitive Mind structures are also evolutionarily older in many cases, and are more concerned with immediate survival. Even though we often most strongly associate with our language-using Narrative selves, it's amazing how much mental activity is going on continuously beneath the surface. Tapping into the power of those Intuitive Mind systems can take us much further than our Narrative Minds could alone.