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When this monograph was published a quarter century ago, it sank virtually without a trace. It is clear to me now that the paper lacked what today would be called “curb appeal”; moreover, cognitive science was a new and unproven discipline. Then,
few inside or outside the intelligence world were aware of it, and even fewer had thought about its relevance to intelligence analysis.
The field has opened up to a stunning degree since then. Not only have we seen a flood of studies documenting the myriad cognitive activities our brains engage in, but electronic imaging allows us to observe what happens in the brain as it goes about its business. Authors like Malcolm Gladwell have mined the literature to show the insights these
processes can produce, as well as the times they leave us stuck in unproductive ways of thinking. In Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking, Gladwell reports that when experts were asked to assess the provenance of an allegedly ancient sculpture, they could agree that it was a fake but could not put into words how they had reached that conclusion. This and other examples, he says, illustrate how the things we learn through experience often are not readily available to our conscious minds. |
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