Abstract

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 reasoners do not necessarily need to deliberate to correct their intuitions; their intuitions are often already correct. Pace the corrective view, findings suggest that in these cases, they deliberate to verify correct intuitive insights.

摘要

在推理和决策方面有影响力的工作已普及了这样一种观点，即合理的推理需要通过较慢且要求更高的审议来纠正快速，直观的思维过程。我们提出了七项研究，对人类思维的这种矫正观点提出了质疑。我们专注于作为矫正视图的范式插图而广为人知的问题，即众所周知的击球问题。要求人们在时间压力和认知负担下做出初始响应的两种响应模式使我们能够确定在思考后给出的最终响应之前的假定的直观响应。在我们的研究中，我们观察到正确的最终反应通常是非校正性的。许多在讨论后设法正确回答“球与球”问题的推理者，在最初的响应阶段中在最小化讨论的条件下进行推理时，已经正确地解决了这个问题。这表明，合理的击球推理者并不一定需要考虑改正直觉。他们的直觉通常已经是正确的。从纠正观点出发，研究结果表明，在这些情况下，他们故意验证正确的直观见解。