You think you’ve decided what to buy? In reality, your brain is still deciding – even as you put it in your cart

You’re standing in the breakfast cereal aisle wondering whether to buy robust bran or the sweet chocolate alternative.

Your hand hangs in the air for a moment before you make your final decision.

But did you know that in those final seconds when you reach for something, your brain is still weighing the pros and cons – influenced by everything from your last meal, to its health rating, to the catchy jingle in a commercial, to the colors of the letters on the box?

Our recently published tests shows that our brain does not think first and then act. Even when you reach for a product on the supermarket shelf, your brain is still assessing whether you are making the right choice.

What’s more, we found that measuring hand movements offers precise insight into the brain’s current assessment of decisions—without the need to hook people up to pricey brain scanners.

What does this say about our decision-making? And what does it mean for consumers and those who market to them?

What hand movements tell us about decision-making

There was debate within neuroscience on whether a person’s decision-making movements can be modified once the brain’s “motor plan” has been created.

Our research has shown that not only can movements change after a decision has been made – “on the fly” – but also that these changes correspond to information reaching a person from the senses.

To learn how our decisions develop over timeWe tracked people’s hand movements as they reached for different options shown in images – for example, in response to the question “is this picture of a face or an object?”

When the choice was straightforward, their hands went straight to the right option. But when the choice was harder, the up-to-date information caused the brain to change its mind, which was reflected in the trajectory of their hand movements.

When we compared these hand movement trajectories with brain activity recorded by neuroimaging, we found that the timing and amount of brain evidence matched the movement pattern.

To put it simply, the movements of achieving goals depend on continuous thinking and decision-making.

By showing that brain patterns correspond to movement trajectories, our study also highlights that it is not always necessary to employ vast and pricey brain scanners to study decision-making processes in the brain, because movement tracking is much more cost-effective and easier to test on a vast scale.

What does this mean for consumers and marketers?

Consumers know that their brains constantly re-evaluate decisions that may seem “final,” which can aid them be more aware of their choices.

For straightforward decisions like choosing a breakfast cereal, the impact can be petite. Even if you initially decided on a robust option, at the last minute you may be tempted by the garish packaging of a less robust choice.

However, when it comes to significant long-term decisions, such as choosing a mortgage, it can have grave consequences.

On the other hand, marketers have long known that many purchasing decisions are made made on site.

They employ strategies such as attractive packaging and strategic product placement to influence people’s decisions.

Fresh ways of studying how the human brain processes information – even at the last minute – can aid marketers design more effective strategies.

Possibilities for further research

Further research in this area could investigate how different types of information, such as environmental cues or memories, influence this ongoing decision-evaluation process in different groups of people. For example, how do people of different ages process information when making decisions?

Our finding that hand movements reflect the brain’s internal processes during decision-making could make future research cheaper and more capable.

The ability to fine-tune marketing in this way has implications that go beyond just selling products. It can also make strategic public messaging much more effective.

This could include tailoring public health campaigns on vaping to people under 30, or more effectively targeting messages about pension scams to people of retirement age.

Reaching for a product isn’t a straightforward consequence of a decision already made; it’s a highly energetic process. Knowing what influences our last-minute decision-making can aid us make better choices that yield better results.