Biomedical Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
4
Risk Understanding
Knowing Risks
CHAPTER
4.1 ENHANCING RISK UNDERSTANDING
4.1.1 Time and Timing
4.1.2 The Amount of Data Involved
4.1.3 Attention
4.1.4 The Quality of the Understanding of Data
4.1.5 Getting Out of the Vicious Circle
4.2 THE DEVELOPMENT OF RISK UNDERSTANDING
4.3 COMBINING NEWNESS, SENSITIVITY, AND AWARENESS
4.4 WHERE IN THE BRAIN?
4.5 SUMMARY
TIPS FOR TRANSFER
For the second topic, risk understanding, we leave the area of percep-
tion and explore the way we process all the information that is sent to
the brain. We experience the results of risk understanding, for example,
when we are having dinner at home and suddenly, out of the blue, we
realize that we have forgotten something important. This can be an
omission in the preparation of a project, a forgotten promise we made
to a colleague, or a new insight about what has happened. Usually
such an insight comes with a sense of unrest to restore what has been
neglected. In most cases, this sudden insight was not triggered by any
actual stimulus. This indicates that risk understanding works as a
permanent side program below the surface, and we have good reason
to assume that it is active all the time, day and night. Some neurobiol-
ogists claim that this brain activity is the main reason why we need
