A study found parole decisions shifted dramatically across the day despite unchanged judges, case difficulty, and prisoner types. Early sessions showed a high likelihood of parole, which dropped to nearly zero by session end, then returned after a break. The change was attributed to reduced cognitive resources. Under sustained pressure, cognitive load can create a paradoxical sense of focus, narrowing attention and shutting down peripheral processing while feeling “sharp.” Confidence can also rise because overloaded brains rely more on fast, intuitive System 1 thinking, while slower, evidence-checking System 2 processes decline first. The result is degraded decision quality that is hard to detect from inside the mind.
"In 2011, a study of Israeli judges found that in the early sessions of the day, prisoners had roughly a 65% chance of parole. By the end of each session, that probability had fallen to nearly zero. After a break, it returned to 65%. The judges didn't vary. The cases didn't get harder. The types of prisoners didn't change. What changed was the judges' cognitive resources."
"One of the paradoxes of high cognitive load is that it produces a sense of focus. When the brain is overwhelmed, it narrows attention, conserving resources by shutting down peripheral processing. You are concentrating. You feel sharp. What you've lost is your awareness of everything outside this tunnel: the team's emotional state, the signal buried in an email chain, the strategic risk sitting just adjacent to the immediate problem."
"Here is the deeper paradox: the more cognitively overloaded a leader becomes, the more confident they tend to feel. Under high cognitive load, the brain falls back increasingly on what is often called System 1 thinking - fast, intuitive, pattern-based processing. The supervisory function that questions, second-guesses and looks for counterevidence - System 2 - is the first thing to go."
Read at Fast Company
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