Sound Booth: Risky choices

Take 15 seconds and listen to the tones below.

That last sound, the surprising one at the end — if you heard that when you were about to make a decision, would it affect your choice? You may think that it would be distracting, that it might break your focus. But a new study from Yale researchers finds it actually makes you riskier.

For the numerous tiny decisions we make in a day — which turnstile to walk through, which jacket to wear — does it matter if the noise around us changes our decision? What about during bigger decisions, like buying a car or placing a bet at a casino?

Read more about how sounds affect our decisions, what’s going on in the brain when it happens, and how researchers might use this to better understand conditions like schizophrenia.