Although it is well established that our thinking can often be biased, the precise cognitive mechanisms underlying these biases are still debated. The present study builds on recent research showing that biased reasoners often seem aware that their reasoning is incorrect; they show signs of conflict detection. One important shortcoming in this research is that the conflict detection effect has only been studied with classic problem-solving tasks, requiring people to make a decision themselves. However, in many reasoning situations people are confronted with decisions already made by others. Therefore, the present study (N = 159) investigated whether conflict detection occurs not only during reasoning on problem-solving tasks (i.e., decision-making), but also on vignette tasks, requiring participants to evaluate decisions made by others. We analyzed participants' conflict detection sensitivity on confidence and response time measures. Results showed that conflict detection occurred during both decision-making and decision-evaluation, as indicated by a decreased confidence. The response time index appeared to be a less reliable measure of conflict detection on the novel tasks. These findings are very relevant for studying reasoning in contexts in which recognizing reasoning errors is important; for instance, in education where teachers have to give feedback on students' reasoning.

尽管已经公认我们的思维经常会产生偏见，但仍在争论这些偏见的确切认知机制。本研究以最近的研究为基础，显示有偏见的推理者似乎常常意识到他们的推理是不正确的。它们显示出冲突检测的迹象。这项研究的一个重要缺点是，仅以经典的解决问题的任务来研究冲突检测效果，这需要人们自己做出决定。但是，在许多推理情况下，人们会面临他人已经做出的决定。因此，本研究（N = 159）调查了冲突检测是否不仅在解决问题的任务（即决策）的推理过程中发生，而且在小插图的任务中发生，要求参与者评估其他人的决策。我们分析了参与者对置信度和响应时间测度的冲突检测敏感性。结果表明，在决策和决策评估过程中都发生了冲突检测，这表明置信度降低了。响应时间指数似乎是对新任务进行冲突检测的较不可靠的度量。这些发现对于在识别推理错误很重要的情况下研究推理非常相关；例如，在教育中，教师必须就学生的推理提供反馈。