Flow and intuition are both rooted in nonconscious information processing but differ in their roles in action and cognition. Intuition is a rapid, nonconscious decision-making process, while flow enables optimal cognitive control and performance without conscious deliberation. Using a revised dual-processing framework and an active inference perspective, the authors reconcile the paradox of enhanced intuition during flow—a state of heightened cognitive control. The account advances understanding of human cognition and consciousness and raises questions for future research on harnessing flow and intuition to improve performance and wellbeing.
Artificial intelligence methods used in computational psychiatry raise ethical issues including fairness, data ownership, and privacy. Beyond these, AI applications may transform how we conceive of autonomy and privacy, and computational psychiatry may change how mental disorders are categorized and classified. Since many mental disorders involve disturbed conscious experiences, successful computational psychiatry applications could improve understanding of such disorders. However, even successful applications may fail to account for all aspects of disordered conscious experiences. The authors discuss both prospects and pitfalls of these transformative effects.