Cognitive scientists claim to have discovered a large number of cognitive biases, which have a tendency to mislead reasoners. Might cognitive scientists themselves be subject to the very biases they purport to discover? And how should this alter the way they evaluate their research as evidence for the existence of these biases? In this paper, we posit a new paradox (the ‘Self-Reflexive Bias Paradox’), which bears a striking resemblance to some classical logical paradoxes. Suppose that research R appears to be good evidence for the existence of bias B, but if B exists, then R would have been subject to B. Thus, it seems sensible for the researcher to reject R as good evidence for the existence of B. However, rejecting R for this reason admits the existence of B. We examine four putative cognitive biases and criticisms of them, each of which seem to be subject to self-reflexivity. In two cases, we argue, paradox is avoidable. In the remaining two, we cannot find a way to avoid the paradox, which poses a practical obstacle to scientific inquiry and results in an intriguing theoretical quandary.

认知科学家声称发现了大量的认知偏差，这些偏差有误导推理者的倾向。认知科学家自己是否会受到他们声称要发现的偏见的影响？这应该如何改变他们评估研究作为存在这些偏见的证据的方式？在本文中，我们提出了一个新的悖论（“自反偏见悖论”），它与一些经典的逻辑悖论有着惊人的相似之处。假设研究R似乎是偏见B存在的好证据，但如果B存在，那么R就会受到B 的影响。因此，研究人员拒绝R似乎是明智的作为B存在的良好证据。然而，由于这个原因拒绝R承认B的存在。我们检查了四种假定的认知偏见和对它们的批评，每一种似乎都受到自我反思的影响。我们认为，在两种情况下，悖论是可以避免的。在剩下的两个中，我们无法找到避免悖论的方法，这对科学探究构成了实际障碍并导致了有趣的理论困境。