The Somatic-Heuristic Decision Loop (SHDL)
Beyzanur Bulut
Submitted to AI Incident Response Sprint. Sprint projects are early-stage work by participants, not Apart Research publications.
The Somatic-Heuristic Decision Loop (SHDL) provides a biophysically plausible architecture for high-velocity AI incident response in dynamic, high-uncertainty environments. Traditional artificial intelligence paradigms rely heavily on deterministic computational processing, creating critical latency bottlenecks during emergency states. Drawing from Antonio Damasio’s Somatic Marker Hypothesis and Daniel Kahneman’s Dual-System Theory, SHDL resolves the trade-off between execution velocity and cognitive bias propagation.
By integrating subconscious heuristic shortcuts (System 1) with an Anterior Cingulate Cortex (ACC)-mediated conflict resolution mechanism, the framework enables real-time threat evaluation while dynamically shifting to System 2 reasoning during high-conflict anomaly states. Ultimately, the model demonstrates how combining biophysically plausible heuristics with dynamic safety monitoring provides a scalable, real-time decision-making architecture for critical AI incident response scenarios.
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@misc{bulut2026somaticheuristic,
title = {{The Somatic-Heuristic Decision Loop (SHDL)}},
author = {Beyzanur Bulut},
year = {2026},
month = sep,
note = {Submitted to AI Incident Response Sprint, an Apart Research Sprint},
howpublished = {\url{https://apartresearch.com/sprints/projects/the-somaticheuristic-decision-loop-shdl-mm79}},
url = {https://apartresearch.com/sprints/projects/the-somaticheuristic-decision-loop-shdl-mm79}
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