Some people seem to have an unusual ability to know when something is right, wrong, safe or suspicious without being able to explain exactly why. They may meet someone and immediately sense that the person cannot be trusted, walk into a room and notice that something feels unusual, or make a decision that later turns out to be remarkably accurate. This is often described as having a great natural instinct.
But psychology suggests that what people call instinct is not necessarily mysterious or supernatural. In many situations, it may reflect a combination of implicit learning, pattern recognition, emotional processing and accumulated experience.
