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This is Scientific American's 60-Second Science. I'm Cynthia Graber. This will just take a minute.

In the hit movie Slumdog Millionaire, the star answers game show questions correctly based on his life experiences. At least one right answer, however, is a lucky guess. But maybe the guess wasn’t so lucky. Maybe his brain actually knew the answer—even though he didn’t realize it.

That’s what scientists at Northwestern University are saying about so called lucky guesses. They published their research online in the journal¹ Nature Neuroscience.

Study participants were shown brightly colored pictures. They had to memorize half. While viewing the other half, they had to concentrate on remembering a spoken number. So they were distracted². Later, they were quizzed on all the images. Surprisingly, they were more successful at remembering those images that they only paid half a mind to. Not only that, but they were more accurate³ when they said they were just guessing. The researchers say their visual systems stored memories quite accurately⁴, even when the participants weren’t paying attention. And that what we call intuition⁵, some of those gut⁶ feelings we get, may often be based on good information.

Thanks for the minute for Scientific American's 60-Second Science. I'm Cynthia Graber.