The Decisive Moment: How The Brain Makes Up Its Mind

This is an enjoyable book to read and provides an interesting insight into how we go about making decisions in our lives.Although covering much ground familiar to specialists, it helps to illustrate how science is opening our understanding of the decision making process via MRI scans and various psychological experiements. The 'black box' of the brain is described as a set of differing components who play out various roles in our process of making a decision. Although broadly divided between our more ancient emotional decision making abilities and our more recently developed rational side, it also digs down into the sub-components in both areas. Of course some of the theories are controversial, since clearly much more science is needed to understand just exactly what happens in these sub-components in more 'primitive' animals before assuming that rational thought is simply the preserve of humans.The anectotes provide interesting illustrations of how we set about making decisions in a range of circumstances ranging from the banal to the extreme.As mentioned by other reviewers, the book would have been improved by some simple diagrams to illustrate the anatomy of the brain, when describing some of the thinking processes and their contributors; although the keen students can naturally refer to relevant books if necessary. The style is very readable and although some of the stories are US based, they neverthelss make their points well. Clearly, the author is aware that some of the stories were a little too padded.As suggested in the review by Cheese Steak Jimmy, the person designing the cover with the 'don't press' button on its front deserves credit for an innovative and fun design, which really made the book stand out on the shelves. Interestingly, I did not pick up any reference to this phenomenon, where our behavoiur is often to do precisely the opposite of the instruction.

Do not be discouraged by advertising tricks on the cover of the book. Judging by the enthusiastic claims the book seems to promise it will improve your decision making skills which immediately sets off the alarm: watch out everybody, here comes another guide of how to get rich within two days, how to learn computer programming in three hours and how to make 5000 friends on facebook in four easy steps. Luckily it turned out to be just a moderate tribute paid to the commercial part of today's book writing business and "The decisive moment" is very far away from pseudo-psychology self-help. So the alarm is off, this is a real book, not something pretending to be a book.It is a compilation of real life stories carefully selected to be attractive and meaningful smartly put together in a very coherent way with one purpose in mind: to illustrate how the brain works while confronted with tough task of decision making. Situations covered range from as simple tasks as choosing a strawberry jam in a supermarket to apparently more complex decisions on how to maneuver a plane full of passengers that has just lost all of its hydraulics and how to take it safely to the airport though after reading the book I'm not sure anymore which situation is actually easiest. Lehrer highlights the way how different areas of the brain coordinate their efforts while coping with challenges faced by few people on the planet such as NFL stars or opera singers (how many of them will ever read this review?). His selection of case studies seems to be be designed to attract attention, to involve the reader in the plot - it does get mysterious couple of times - and then, when the reader's attention is caught, Lehrer takes him behind the scenes wide opening the mechanics of the brain down to anatomy details. This is of course not a medical course in anatomy just a brief overview, so doctors could get bored (but again: how many of them will read this review?). Yet if you don't happen to be a neurosurgeon it is a very interesting, condensed and easy to digest piece of information. Just enough to get basic understanding of how mental processes are mapped across different parts of the brain (in case you need simplistic and basic summary: amygdala - emotions, frontal cortex - rational thought).The book has a very solid and transparent design in terms of how its threads are structured and support each other throughout the story. There are three key layers. The first layer is composed of real situations faced by real people though maybe not very often "real" people happen to be particle physicist playing professional poker with 6 million $ at stake or Mosad agents. Never mind - it is just to illustrate the story better. The second layer are biochemical processes of brain functioning and anatomical structures supporting them. Most important is the third layer: the struggle between emotions and reason. Equally provoked by extraordinary situations and daily routines, the skirmishes take place in our brain whether we want it or not. Lehrer makes a strong case we at least should be aware of them, and should strive to take advantage of them because conflict can be constructive. That's what the brain was designed for and why don't we start taking advantage of its power right away. You will have to see for yourself, personally I do not subscribe to his optimistic view as I believe self awareness is not the hardest part of making the right decision. There is reason, there are emotions, but in Lehrer's book there is no place for will, character, endurance, stamina. There is a dedicated chapter dealing with moral background of choices we made, and one day it might evolve to a separate book (or I wish so), but so far Lehrer offers somewhat simplified picture.I still rate the book very high as it is excellent and fast read (especially for non-native english speaker) and it makes a couple of points well beyond author intentions (or maybe not?). Example #1: he makes a very solid case against rationality as main driver behind human behavior. I work in marketing since 1997 and I have never seen a rational consumer so I don't need to be convinced, but it's always nice to have somebody put your thoughts in such an eloquent way. Example #2: Lehrer gives credit to conflict as a state (of mind in this particular case) that can be constructive and fruitful if managed properly. Not a revelation in itself, but I always find it to be a very inspiring thought. I don't expect Lehrer to like being called apologist of conflict but he sheds some interesting light on its potential merits. And last but not least, he quotes Mother Teresa and Chesterton. That's rare in popular science books today, and that's precious.

I've given the book 5 stars because of the impact it has had on me, and the way I think about things. It has made me more aware of my decision making process, and has confirmed my instincts about certain decisions needing more time than others. It also explains why some of my biggest successes have been with very rushed work, and failures where I have over-worked.On the other hand, I should be a little critical. The writing style is rather horrible: grab the reader's attention, rattle out a number of facts, and then repeat the previous information at greater length. If you are easily off-put by such a ghastly American rant-at-the-reader style, unfortunately you will have to put up with it if you want to benefit from the content.

After a while, if you read enough popular psychology, behavioural economics, and other similar books you start coming across the same studies being quoted, but that isn't necessarily a bad thing. In some ways it helps as the books end up reinforcing each other. For example, I read this straight after The Righteous Mind which covers very similar ground. Both examine the way the rational and emotional parts of the mind work together but for slightly different reasons.I think this book explains some of the neurological workings better and does a good job of explaining how you could teach yourself to make better decisions by learning when to think and when to rely on instinct.

I was puzzled to how you can make neuroscience interesting. This book did it without actually making it as a scientific paper. Made the whole book accessible to the lay person. Definitely worth the effort to read this. Recommended.

I bought two of these - one for each of my sons - after reading it myself. Really helps you to be aware of how you make decisions and on what basis we should make different kinds of decisions.

Rubbish nothing more to say.

This book explores how we make decisions. Fascinating, full of examples, and a great read. I'd recommend it to marketers all over the world as well as those who are interested in how the brain works.

Good ...enjoyed the book

To us interested in how we thing is a very usefull review. I advised to any proffesional in the psycology area

A really interesting insight for amateur psychologists. Not sure it needed the whole book to get to the point though.