The ways in which the decisions we make for others differ from the ones we make for ourselves has received much attention in the literature, although less is known about their relationship to our p...

The belief bias in reasoning occurs when individuals are more willing to accept conclusions that are consistent with their beliefs than conclusions that are inconsistent. The present study...

Erroneous gambling-related beliefs can be defined as beliefs that imply a failure to recognise how commercial gambling activities are designed to generate a guaranteed loss to players. In t...

Recent theories of decision making are characterised by a growing emphasis on understanding the cognitive mechanisms that produce decisions. This has seen a growth in methods that allow for the con...

This article compares the information processing and dynamical systems perspectives on problem solving. Key theoretical constructs of the information-processing perspective include “searching” a “p...

Dual process models of higher cognition have become very influential in the cognitive sciences. The popular Default-Interventionist model has long favoured a serial view on the interaction between...

This study aims to investigate the hypothesis that “thinking in opposites” might facilitate insight problem solving. For example, if the image relating to a problem is oriented horizontally, it may...

This study examined the effects of acute stress on creative problem-solving. Thirty-five male participants underwent stress induction via the Trier Social Stress Test; another 35 male participants...

Research on implicit conflict detection suggests that people are sensitive to violations of logical principles. When they make reasoning errors, their epistemic radar presumably detects an anomaly....

Why do learners fail to seek help, when doing so would be beneficial? Principles of rational decision suggest that seeking help is not an optimal action if its costs are greater than its expected b...

This paper focuses on how Soldiers make hard choices between competing options. To understand the psychological processes behind these types of decisions, we present qualitative data collected from...

The desire to maintain current beliefs can lead individuals to evaluate contrary evidence more critically than consistent evidence. We test whether priming individuals’ scientific reasoning...

I present a critical discussion of dual-process theories of reasoning and decision making with particular attention to the nature and role of Type 2 processes. The original theory proposed...

Influential work on reasoning and decision-making has popularised the idea that sound reasoning requires correction of fast, intuitive thought processes by slower and more demanding deliberation. We present seven studies that question this corrective view of human thinking. We focused on the very problem that has been widely featured as the paradigmatic illustration of the corrective view, the well-known bat-and-ball problem. A two-response paradigm in which people were required to give an initial response under time pressure and cognitive load allowed (...) us to identify the presumed intuitive response that preceded the final response given after deliberation. Across our studies, we observe that correct final responses are often non-corrective in nature. Many reasoners who manage to answer the bat-and-ball problem correctly after deliberation already solved it correctly when they reasoned under conditions that minimised deliberation in the initial response phase. This suggests that sound bat-and-ball... (shrink)

Insight has been investigated under the assumption that participants solve insight problems with insight processes and/or experiences. A recent trend has involved presenting participants with the solution and analysing the resultant experience as if insight has taken place. We examined self-reports of the aha experience, a defining aspect of insight, before and after feedback, along with additional affective components of insight. Classic insight problems, compound remote associates, and non-insight problems were randomly interleaved and presented to participants. Solution feedback increased ratings (...) of aha experience in both insight and non-insight problems, with this result being driven by responses to solutions that were initially incorrectly generated. Ratings of aha for correctly generated solutions decreased after the correct solution was presented. These findings have implications for insight research paradigms as well as informing teaching methods. (shrink)