Speaker: Dr Esther Boissin
Abstract
Reasoners often show biases when solving reasoning problems. Recent studies have shown that providing brief explanations can enhance their performance. However, the nature of this training effect remains unclear.
Does the training enable participants to correct erroneous intuitions through deliberation, or does it help them develop more accurate intuitions? To address this, we conducted three studies with distinct reasoning tasks associated with different biases (bat-and-ball, base-rate, and conjunction fallacy tasks).
A two-response paradigm requiring participants to provide an initial response under time pressure, and cognitive load helped us identify the initial intuitive response, which preceded the final response given after deliberation.
Our findings suggest that after a brief training intervention, participants, initially biased, were more inclined to solve problems correctly from the intuitive stage, rather than by revising their initial incorrect responses. This implies that the training primarily enhances correct intuitive responses.
In a follow-up study, they test the debiasing intervention on non-WEIRD (non-Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, and Democratic) participants, the Himba of Namibia, with diverse demographics to better understand the mechanisms underlying the success of the debiasing process.
All together, these studies enabled them to gain a better understanding of the factors that facilitate debiasing, particularly at an intuitive level.
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