The Getty Museum purchased a rare ancient Greek statue (a kouros ) after months of scientific and legal scrutiny. Yet several art experts, within seconds of seeing it, felt something was “wrong”—a vague sense of inauthenticity. Their blink judgment turned out to be correct, while the careful analysis missed the forgery.

Great decision-makers don’t always rely on lengthy analysis. Instead, they use “thin-slicing”—the ability to find patterns in narrow windows of experience—to make rapid, accurate judgments in the blink of an eye. However, this intuitive power can be sabotaged by biases, stress, or too much information.

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