Many technical problems can be solved by digital computers, but some problems require such high performance that they must be addressed by analog computers. In a similar way, our minds have simultaneous decison-making mechanisms - reason and emotion - which may be involved in the decision-making process.

If conscious reason were all we had, it would be impossible to make the right decisions in many high-pressure situations.

In the book, "How We Decide", .  For example, during the Persian Gulf War, Royal Navy Lt. Cmdr. Michael Riley was monitoring a shipboard radar station when he saw something heading toward the USS Missouri. The blip could have been either an incoming coalition A-6 aircraft or an enemy Silkworm missile. On gut feeling, Riley gave the order to shoot down what turned out to be an enemy missile. After hours of analysis, the officer and a cognitive psychologist resolved that his feeling had been a subliminal recognition that the missile had entered his screen at a slightly different interval from the planes he was used to tracking.