Misstating the Obvious: The Pitfalls of Doing What Comes Naturally

Reviewed By Diane Cole

The Invisible Gorilla: And Other Ways Our Intuitions Deceive Us
By Christopher Chabris and Daniel Simons
Crown. 306 pp.
ISBN: 9780307459657
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On Second Thought: Outsmarting Your Mind's Hard-Wired Habits
By Wray Herbert
Crown. 289 pp.
ISBN: 9780307461636
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With his lively bestseller Blink: The Power of Thinking without Thinking, author Malcolm Gladwell crystallized the extraordinary influence wielded by the intuitive mind and our mysterious, under-the-radar mental mechanisms. Even if his book contained little headline news for professionals who work every day with the stuff of the unconscious, his engaging explanations for why trusting your gut can sometimes lead to a better decision than careful, logical reasoning seemed to resonate broadly. His work has become a touchstone for a larger cultural interest in intuitive thought, as evidenced by a whole bookshelf of works since published on the…