AF Evans, JST

TI In two minds: dual-process accounts of reasoning

SO TRENDS IN COGNITIVE SCIENCES
AB Researchers in thinking and reasoning have proposed recently that there are two
distinct cognitive systems underlying reasoning. System 1 is old in evolutionary terms
and shared with other animals: it comprises a set of autonomous subsystems that include
both innate input modules and domain-specific knowledge acquired by a domain-general
learning mechanism. System 2 is evolutionarily recent and distinctively human: it permits
abstract reasoning and hypothetical thinking, but is constrained by working memory
capacity and correlated with measures of general intelligence. These theories essentially
posit two minds in one brain with a range of experimental psychological evidence
showing that the two systems compete for control of our inferences and actions.
RI Blanchet, karl/F-4678-2012
SN 1364-6613
PD OCT
PY 2003
VL 7
IS 10
BP 454
EP 459
AF Moors, A
De Houwer, J
TI Automaticity: A theoretical and conceptual analysis
SO PSYCHOLOGICAL BULLETIN
AB Several theoretical views of automaticity are discussed. Most of these suggest that
automaticity should be diagnosed by looking at the presence of features such as
unintentional, uncontrolled/uncontrollable, goal independent, autonomous, purely
stimulus driven, unconscious, efficient, and fast. Contemporary views further suggest that
these features should be investigated separately. The authors examine whether features of
automaticity can be disentangled on a conceptual level, because only then is the separate
investigation of them worth the effort. They conclude that the conceptual analysis of
features is to a large extent feasible. Not all researchers agree with this position, however.
The authors show that assumptions of overlap among features are determined by the
other researchers' views of automaticity and by the models they endorse for information
processing in general.
RI Moors, Agnes/C-6342-2008
OI Moors, Agnes/0000-0002-5137-557X
SN 0033-2909
EI 1939-1455
PD MAR
PY 2006
VL 132
IS 2
BP 297

2
EP 326
AF Nonaka, Ikujiro
von Krogh, Georg
TI Tacit Knowledge and Knowledge Conversion: Controversy and Advancement in
Organizational Knowledge Creation Theory
SO ORGANIZATION SCIENCE
AB Nonaka's paper [1994. A dynamic theory of organizational knowledge creation.
Organ. Sci. 5(1) 14-37] contributed to the concepts of "tacit knowledge" and "knowledge
conversion" in organization science. We present work that shaped the development of
organizational knowledge creation theory and identify two premises upon which more
than 15 years of extensive academic work has been conducted: (1) tacit and explicit
knowledge can be conceptually distinguished along a continuum; (2) knowledge
conversion explains, theoretically and empirically, the interaction between tacit and
explicit knowledge. Recently, scholars have raised several issues regarding the
understanding of tacit knowledge as well as the interaction between tacit and explicit
knowledge in the theory. The purpose of this article is to introduce and comment on the
debate about organizational knowledge creation theory. We aim to help scholars make
sense of this debate by synthesizing six fundamental questions on organizational
knowledge creation theory. Next, we seek to elaborate and advance the theory by
responding to questions and incorporating new research. Finally, we discuss implications
of our endeavor for organization science.
RI Wang, Charles/B-5565-2011
OI Wang, Charles/0000-0001-9331-8437
SN 1047-7039
PD MAY-JUN
PY 2009
VL 20
IS 3
BP 635
EP 652
AF Evans, Jonathan St B. T.
Stanovich, Keith E.
TI Dual-Process Theories of Higher Cognition: Advancing the Debate
SO PERSPECTIVES ON PSYCHOLOGICAL SCIENCE
AB Dual-process and dual-system theories in both cognitive and social psychology have
been subjected to a number of recently published criticisms. However, they have been
attacked as a category, incorrectly assuming there is a generic version that applies to all.
We identify and respond to 5 main lines of argument made by such critics. We agree that
some of these arguments have force against some of the theories in the literature but
believe them to be overstated. We argue that the dual-processing distinction is supported
by much recent evidence in cognitive science. Our preferred theoretical approach is one
in which rapid autonomous processes (Type 1) are assumed to yield default responses
unless intervened on by distinctive higher order reasoning processes (Type 2). What
defines the difference is that Type 2 processing supports hypothetical thinking and load

3
heavily on working memory.
SN 1745-6916
PD MAY
PY 2013
VL 8
IS 3
BP 223
EP 241
AF Aleven, VAWMM
Koedinger, KR
TI An effective metacognitive strategy: learning by doing and explaining with a
computer-based Cognitive Tutor
SO COGNITIVE SCIENCE
AB Recent studies have shown that self-explanation is an effective metacognitive
strategy, but how can it be leveraged to improve students' learning in actual classrooms?
How do instructional treatments that emphasizes self-explanation affect students'
learning, as compared to other instructional treatments? We investigated whether selfexplanation can be scaffolded effectively in a classroom environment using a Cognitive
Tutor, which is intelligent instructional software that supports guided learning by doing.
In two classroom experiments, we found that students who explained their steps during
problem-solving practice with a Cognitive Tutor learned with greater understanding
compared to students who did not explain steps. The explainers better explained their
solutions steps and were more successful on transfer problems. We interpret these results
as follows: By engaging in explanation, students acquired better-integrated visual and
verbal declarative knowledge and acquired less shallow procedural knowledge, The
research demonstrates that the benefits of self-explanation can be achieved in a relatively
simple computer-based approach that scales well for classroom use. (C) 2002 Cognitive
Science Society, Inc. All rights reserved.
SN 0364-0213
PD MAR-APR
PY 2002
VL 26
IS 2
BP 147
EP 179
AF Stanovich, Keith E.
West, Richard F.
TI On the relative independence of thinking biases and cognitive ability
SO JOURNAL OF PERSONALITY AND SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY
AB In 7 different studies, the authors observed that a large number of thinking biases are
uncorrelated with cognitive ability. These thinking biases include some of the most
classic and well-studied biases in the heuristics and biases literature, including the
conjunction effect, framing effects, anchoring effects, outcome bias, base-rate neglect,
"less is more" effects, affect biases, omission bias, myside bias, sunk-cost effect, and

4
certainty effects that violate the axioms of expected utility theory. In a further experiment,
the authors nonetheless showed that cognitive ability does correlate with the tendency to
avoid some rational thinking biases, specifically the tendency to display denominator
neglect, probability matching rather than maximizing, belief bias, and matching bias on
the 4-card selection task. The authors present a framework for predicting when cognitive
ability will and will not correlate with a rational thinking tendency.
SN 0022-3514
EI 1939-1315
PD APR
PY 2008
VL 94
IS 4
BP 672
EP 695
AF Walker, MP
TI A refined model of sleep and the time course of memory formation
SO BEHAVIORAL AND BRAIN SCIENCES
AB Research in the neurosciences continues to provide evidence that sleep plays a role in
the processes of learning and memory. There is less of a consensus, however, regarding
the precise stages of memory development during which sleep is considered a
requirement, simply favorable, or not important. This article begins with an overview of
recent studies regarding sleep and learning, predominantly in the procedural memory
domain, and is measured against our current understanding of the mechanisms that
govern memory formation. Based on these considerations, I offer a new neurocognitive
framework of procedural learning, consisting first of acquisition, followed by two
specific stages of consolidation, one involving a process of stabilization, the other
involving enhancement, whereby delayed learning, occurs. Psychophysiological evidence
indicates that initial acquisition does not rely fundamentally on sleep. This also appears to
be true for the stabilization phase of consolidation, with durable representations, resistant
to interference, clearly developing in a successful manner during time awake (or just
time, per se). In contrast, the consolidation stage, resulting in additional/enhanced
learning in the absence of further rehearsal, does appear to rely on the process of sleep,
with evidence for specific sleep-stage dependencies across the procedural domain.
Evaluations at a molecular, cellular, and systems level currently offer several sleep
specific candidates that could play a role in sleep-dependent learning. These include the
upregulation of select plasticity-associated genes, increased protein synthesis, changes in
neurotransmitter concentration, and specific electrical events in neuronal networks that
modulate synaptic potentiation.
SN 0140-525X
PD FEB
PY 2005
VL 28
IS 1
BP 51

5
EP +
AF Dietrich, Arne
Kanso, Riam
TI A Review of EEG, ERP, and Neuroimaging Studies of Creativity and Insight
SO PSYCHOLOGICAL BULLETIN
AB Creativity is a cornerstone of what makes us human, yet the neural mechanisms
underlying creative thinking are poorly understood. A recent surge of interest into the
neural underpinnings of creative behavior has produced a banquet of data that is
tantalizing but, considered as a whole, deeply self-contradictory. We review the emerging
literature and take stock of several long-standing theories and widely held beliefs about
creativity. A total of 72 experiments, reported in 63 articles, make up the core of the
review. They broadly fall into 3 categories: divergent thinking, artistic creativity, and
insight. Electroencephalographic studies of divergent thinking yield highly variegated
results. Neuroimaging studies of this paradigm also indicate no reliable changes above
and beyond diffuse prefrontal activation. These findings call into question the usefulness
of the divergent thinking construct in the search for the neural basis of creativity. A
similarly inconclusive picture emerges for studies of artistic performance, except that this
paradigm also often yields activation of motor and temporoparietal regions. Neuroelectric
and imaging studies of insight are more consistent, reflecting changes in anterior
cingulate cortex and prefrontal areas. Taken together, creative thinking does not appear to
critically depend on any single mental process or brain region, and it is not especially
associated with right brains, defocused attention, low arousal, or alpha synchronization,
as sometimes hypothesized. To make creativity tractable in the brain, it must be further
subdivided into different types that can be meaningfully associated with specific
neurocognitive processes.
SN 0033-2909
PD SEP
PY 2010
VL 136
IS 5
BP 822
EP 848
AF Ellis, R
TI Measuring implicit and explicit knowledge of a second language - A psychometric
study
SO STUDIES IN SECOND LANGUAGE ACQUISITION
AB A problem facing investigations of implicit and explicit learning is the lack of valid
measures of second language implicit and explicit knowledge. This paper attempts to
establish operational definitions of these two constructs and reports a psychometric study
of a battery of tests designed to provide relatively independent measures of them. These
tests were (a) an oral imitation test involving grammatical and ungrammatical sentences,
(b) an oral narration test, (c) a timed grammaticality judgment test (GJT), (d) an untimed
GJT with the same content, and (e) a metalinguistic knowledge test. Tests (a), (b), and (c)
were designed as measures of implicit knowledge, and tests (d) and (e) were designed as

6
measures of explicit knowledge. All of the tests examined 17 English grammatical
structures. A principal component factor analysis produced two clear factors. This
analysis showed that the scores from tests (a), (b), and (c) loaded on Factor 1, whereas
the scores from ungrammatical sentences in test (d) and total scores from test (e) loaded
on Factor 2. These two factors are interpreted as corresponding to implicit and explicit
knowledge, respectively. A number of secondary analyses to support this interpretation of
the construct validity of the tests are also reported.
SN 0272-2631
PD JUN
PY 2005
VL 27
IS 2
BP 141
EP 172
AF Gallese, Vittorio
Sinigaglia, Corrado
TI What is so special about embodied simulation?
SO TRENDS IN COGNITIVE SCIENCES
AB Simulation theories of social cognition abound in the literature, but it is often unclear
what simulation means and how it works. The discovery of mirror neurons, responding
both to action execution and observation, suggested an embodied approach to mental
simulation. Over the past few years this approach has been hotly debated and alternative
accounts have been proposed. We discuss these accounts and argue that they fail to
capture the uniqueness of embodied simulation (ES). ES theory provides a unitary
account of basic social cognition, demonstrating that people reuse their own mental states
or processes represented with a bodily format in functionally attributing them to others.
OI SINIGAGLIA, CORRADO/0000-0002-3365-7522
SN 1364-6613
PD NOV
PY 2011
VL 15
IS 11
BP 512
EP 519
AF Dienes, Z
Scott, R
TI Measuring unconscious knowledge: distinguishing structural knowledge and judgment
knowledge
SO PSYCHOLOGICAL RESEARCH-PSYCHOLOGISCHE FORSCHUNG
AB This paper investigates the dissociation between conscious and unconscious
knowledge in an implicit learning paradigm. Two experiments employing the artificial
grammar learning task explored the acquisition of unconscious and conscious knowledge
of structure (structural knowledge). Structural knowledge was contrasted to knowledge of
whether an item has that structure (judgment knowledge). For both structural and

7
judgment knowledge, conscious awareness was assessed using subjective measures. It
was found that unconscious structural knowledge could lead to both conscious and
unconscious judgment knowledge. When structural knowledge was unconscious, there
was no tendency for judgment knowledge to become more conscious over time.
Furthermore, conscious rather than unconscious structural knowledge produced more
consistent errors in judgments, was facilitated by instructions to search for rules, and after
such instructions was harmed by a secondary task. The dissociations validate the use of
these subjective measures of conscious awareness.
SN 0340-0727
PD JUN
PY 2005
VL 69
IS 5-6
BP 338
EP 351
AF Sun, R
Slusarz, P
Terry, C
TI The interaction of the explicit and the implicit in skill learning: A dual-process
approach
SO PSYCHOLOGICAL REVIEW
AB This article explicates the interaction between implicit and explicit processes in skill
learning, in contrast to the tendency of researchers to study each type in isolation. It
highlights various effects of the interaction on learning (including synergy effects). The
authors argue for an integrated model of skill learning that takes into account both
implicit and explicit processes. Moreover, they argue for a bottom-up approach (first
learning implicit knowledge and then explicit knowledge) in the integrated model. A
variety of qualitative data can be accounted for by the approach. A computational model,
CLARION, is then used to simulate a range of quantitative data. The results demonstrate
the plausibility of the model, which provides a new perspective on skill learning.
SN 0033-295X
EI 1939-1471
PD JAN
PY 2005
VL 112
IS 1
BP 159
EP 192
AF Rosenbaum, DA
Carlson, RA
Gilmore, RO
TI Acquisition of intellectual and perceptual-motor skills
SO ANNUAL REVIEW OF PSYCHOLOGY
AB Recent evidence indicates that intellectual and perceptual-motor skills are acquired in

8
fundamentally similar ways. Transfer specificity, generativity, and the use of abstract
rules and reflexlike productions are similar in the two skill domains; brain sites
subserving thought processes and perceptual-motor processes are not as distinct as once
thought; explicit and implicit knowledge characterize both kinds of skill; learning rates,
training effects, and learning stages are remarkably similar for the two skill classes; and
imagery, long thought to play a distinctive role in high-level thought, also plays a role in
perceptual-motor learning and control. The conclusion that intellectual skills and
perceptual motor skills are psychologically more alike than different accords with the
view that all knowledge is performatory.
SN 0066-4308
PY 2001
VL 52
BP 453
EP 470
AF Pothos, Emmanuel M.
TI Theories of artificial grammar learning
SO PSYCHOLOGICAL BULLETIN
AB Artificial grammar learning (AGL) is one of the most commonly used paradigms for
the study of implicit learning and the contrast between rules, similarity, and associative
learning. Despite five decades of extensive research, however, a satisfactory theoretical
consensus has not been forthcoming. Theoretical accounts of AGL are reviewed, together
with relevant human experimental and neuroscience data. The author concludes that
satisfactory understanding of AGL requires (a) an understanding of implicit knowledge as
knowledge that is not consciously activated at the time of a cognitive operation; this
could be because the corresponding representations are impoverished or they cannot be
concurrently supported in working memory with other representations or operations, and
(b) adopting a frequency-independent view of rule knowledge and contrasting rule
knowledge with specific similarity and associative learning (co-occurrence) knowledge.
SN 0033-2909
EI 1939-1455
PD MAR
PY 2007
VL 133
IS 2
BP 227
EP 244
AF Broaders, Sara C.
Cook, Susan Wagner
Mitchell, Zachary
Goldin-Meadow, Susan
TI Making children gesture brings out implicit knowledge and leads to learning
SO JOURNAL OF EXPERIMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY-GENERAL
AB Speakers routinely gesture with their hands when they talk, and those gestures often
convey information not found anywhere in their speech. This information is typically not

9
consciously accessible, yet it provides an early sign that the speaker is ready to learn a
particular task (S. Goldin-Meadow, 2003). In this sense, the unwitting gestures that
speakers produce reveal their implicit knowledge. But what if a learner was forced to
gesture? Would those elicited gestures also reveal implicit knowledge and, in so doing,
enhance learning? To address these questions, the authors told children to gesture while
explaining their solutions to novel math problems and examined the effect of this
manipulation on the expression of implicit knowledge in gesture and on learning. The
authors found that, when told to gesture, children who were unable to solve the math
problems often added new and correct problem-solving strategies, expressed only in
gesture, to their repertoires. The authors also found that when these children were given
instruction on the math problems later, they were more likely to succeed on the problems
than children told not to gesture. Telling children to gesture thus encourages them to
convey previously unexpressed, implicit ideas, which, in turn, makes them receptive to
instruction that leads to learning.
SN 0096-3445
PD NOV
PY 2007
VL 136
IS 4
BP 539
EP 550
AF Ellis, R
TI The definition and measurement of L2 explicit knowledge
SO LANGUAGE LEARNING
AB A number of theories of second language (L2) acquisition acknowledge a role for
explicit L2 knowledge. However, the testing of these theories. remains problematic
because of the lack of a widely accepted means for measuring L2 explicit knowledge.
This article seeks to address this lacuna by examining L2 explicit knowledge from two
perspectives. First, it considers explicit knowledge as a construct. How can explicit
knowledge be defined? How does it differ from other constructs such as L2 proficiency
and language aptitude? Second, the article considers how L2 explicit knowledge can be
measured. It critically reviews some of the ways in which explicit knowledge has been
operationalized in second language acquisition research and discusses some of the
instruments that have been used to measure L2 explicit knowledge. It concludes with
some guidelines for investigating explicit knowledge as analyzed knowledge and as
metalanguage.
RI Fitzgerald, Robert/I-7250-2016
OI Fitzgerald, Robert/0000-0003-1906-4939
SN 0023-8333
PD JUN
PY 2004
VL 54
IS 2
BP 227

10
EP 275
AF Ruffman, T
Garnham, W
Import, A
Connolly, D
TI Does eye gaze indicate implicit knowledge of false belief? Charting transitions in
knowledge
SO JOURNAL OF EXPERIMENTAL CHILD PSYCHOLOGY
AB Three-year-olds sometimes look to the correct location but give an incorrect verbal
answer in a false belief task. We examined whether correct eye gaze among 3- to 5-yearold children indexed unconscious knowledge or low confidence conscious knowledge.
Children "bet" counters on where they thought a story character would go. If children
were conscious of the knowledge conveyed by their eye gaze then they should have bet
modestly on their explicit answer (i.e., been unsure whether this answer or the answer
conveyed through eye direction was correct). We found that children bet very highly on
the location consistent with their explicit answer, suggesting that they were not aware of
the knowledge conveyed through their eye gaze. This result was supported by a number
of conditions that showed that betting was a sensitive measure of even small degrees of
uncertainty. The results shed light on false-belief understanding, the implicit-explicit
distinction, and transitional knowledge. We argue that the transition to a full
understanding of false belief is marked by periods of implicit knowledge and explicit
understanding with low confidence. (C) 2001 Academic Press.
SN 0022-0965
PD NOV
PY 2001
VL 80
IS 3
BP 201
EP 224
AF Hodgkinson, Gerard P.
Langan-Fox, Janice
Sadler-Smith, Eugene
TI Intuition: A fundamental bridging construct in the behavioural sciences
SO BRITISH JOURNAL OF PSYCHOLOGY
AB The concept of intuition has, until recently, received scant scholarly attention within
and beyond the psychological sciences, despite its potential to unify a number of lines of
inquiry. Presently, the literature on intuition is conceptually underdeveloped and
dispersed across a range of domains of application, from education, to management, to
health. In this article, we clarify and distinguish intuition from related constructs, such as
insight, and review a number of theoretical models that attempt to unify cognition and
affect. Intuition's place within a broader conceptual framework that distinguishes between
two fundamental types of human information processing is explored. We examine recent
evidence from the field of social cognitive neuroscience that identifies the potential
neural correlates of these separate systems and conclude by identifying a number of

11
theoretical and methodological challenges associated with the valid and reliable
assessment of intuition as a basis for future research in this burgeoning field of inquiry.
RI Hodgkinson, Gerard/K-8969-2012
OI Hodgkinson, Gerard/0000-0003-4824-4920
SN 0007-1269
PD FEB
PY 2008
VL 99
BP 1
EP 27
AF Slater, Mel
Antley, Angus
Davison, Adam
Swapp, David
Guger, Christoph
Barker, Chris
Pistrang, Nancy
Sanchez-Vives, Maria V.
TI A Virtual Reprise of the Stanley Milgram Obedience Experiments
SO PLOS ONE
AB Background. Stanley Milgram's 1960s experimental findings that people would
administer apparently lethal electric shocks to a stranger at the behest of an authority
figure remain critical for understanding obedience. Yet, due to the ethical controversy that
his experiments ignited, it is nowadays impossible to carry out direct experimental
studies in this area. In the study reported in this paper, we have used a similar paradigm
to the one used by Milgram within an immersive virtual environment. Our objective has
not been the study of obedience in itself, but of the extent to which participants would
respond to such an extreme social situation as if it were real in spite of their knowledge
that no real events were taking place. Methodology. Following the style of the original
experiments, the participants were invited to administer a series of word association
memory tests to the (female) virtual human representing the stranger. When she gave an
incorrect answer, the participants were instructed to administer an 'electric shock' to her,
increasing the voltage each time. She responded with increasing discomfort and protests,
eventually demanding termination of the experiment. Of the 34 participants, 23 saw and
heard the virtual human, and 11 communicated with her only through a text interface.
Conclusions. Our results show that in spite of the fact that all participants knew for sure
that neither the stranger nor the shocks were real, the participants who saw and heard her
tended to respond to the situation at the subjective, behavioural and physiological levels
as if it were real. This result reopens the door to direct empirical studies of obedience and
related extreme social situations, an area of research that is otherwise not open to
experimental study for ethical reasons, through the employment of virtual environments.
RI Barker, Chris/C-2193-2008; Pistrang, Nancy/C-3021-2008; Sanchez-Vives,
Maria/J-8526-2014; Slater, Mel/M-5210-2014
OI Barker, Chris/0000-0002-9268-9356; Sanchez-Vives,
Maria/0000-0002-8437-9083; Slater, Mel/0000-0002-6223-0050

12
SN 1932-6203
PD DEC 20
PY 2006
VL 1
IS 1
AR e39
AF Rounis, Elisabeth
Maniscalco, Brian
Rothwell, John C.
Passingham, Richard E.
Lau, Hakwan
TI Theta-burst transcranial magnetic stimulation to the prefrontal cortex impairs
metacognitive visual awareness
SO COGNITIVE NEUROSCIENCE
AB We used a recently developed protocol of transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS),
theta-burst stimulation, to bilaterally depress activity in the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex
as subjects performed a visual discrimination task. We found that TMS impaired subjects'
ability to discriminate between correct and incorrect stimulus judgments. Specifically,
after TMS subjects reported lower visibility levels for correctly identified stimuli, as if
they were less fully aware of the quality of their visual information processing. A signal
detection theory analysis confirmed that the results reflect a change in metacognitive
sensitivity, not just response bias. The effect was specific to metacognition; TMS did not
change stimulus discrimination performance, ruling out alternative explanations such as
TMS impairing visual attention. Together these results suggest that activations in the
prefrontal cortex in brain imaging experiments on visual awareness are not
epiphenomena, but rather may reflect a critical metacognitive process.
OI Rothwell, John/0000-0003-1367-6467
SN 1758-8928
PY 2010
VL 1
IS 3
SI SI
BP 165
EP 175
AF McInerney, C
TI Knowledge management and the dynamic nature of knowledge
SO JOURNAL OF THE AMERICAN SOCIETY FOR INFORMATION SCIENCE AND
TECHNOLOGY
AB Knowledge management (KM) or knowledge sharing in organizations is based on an
understanding of knowledge creation and knowledge transfer. In implementation, KM is
an effort to benefit from the knowledge that resides in an organization by using it to
achieve the organization's mission. The transfer of tacit or implicit knowledge to explicit
and accessible formats, the goal of many KM projects, is challenging, controversial, and
endowed with ongoing management issues. This article argues that effective knowledge

13
management in many disciplinary contexts must be based on understanding the dynamic
nature of knowledge itself. The article critiques some current thinking in the KM
literature and concludes with a view towards knowledge management programs built
around knowledge as a dynamic process.
RI Wang, Charles/B-5565-2011
OI Wang, Charles/0000-0001-9331-8437
SN 1532-2882
PD OCT
PY 2002
VL 53
IS 12
BP 1009
EP 1018
AF Stanovich, Keith E.
West, Richard F.
TI Natural myside bias is independent of cognitive ability
SO THINKING & REASONING
AB Natural myside bias is the tendency to evaluate propositions from within one's own
perspective when given no instructions or cues (such as within-participants conditions) to
avoid doing so. We defined the participant's perspective as their previously existing status
on four variables: their sex, whether they smoked, their alcohol consumption, and the
strength of their religious beliefs. Participants then evaluated a contentious but ultimately
factual proposition relevant to each of these demographic factors. Myside bias is defined
between-participants as the mean difference in the evaluation of the proposition between
groups with differing prior status on the variable. Whether an individual difference
variable (such as cognitive ability) is related to the magnitude of the myside bias is
indicated by whether the individual difference variable interacts with the betweenparticipants status variable. In two experiments involving a total of over 1400 university
students (n = 1484) and eight different comparisons, we found very little evidence that
participants of higher cognitive ability displayed less natural myside bias. The degree of
myside bias was also relatively independent of individual differences in thinking
dispositions. We speculate that ideas from memetic theory and dual-process theory might
help to explain why natural myside bias is quite dissociated from individual difference
variables.
SN 1354-6783
PD AUG
PY 2007
VL 13
IS 3
BP 225
EP 247
AF Robinson, EJ
Whitcombe, EL
TI Children's suggestibility in relation to their understanding about sources of knowledge

14
SO CHILD DEVELOPMENT
AB In the experiments reported here, children chose either to maintain their initial belief
about an object's identity or to accept the experimenter's contradicting suggestion. Both
3- to 4-year-olds and 4- to 5-year-olds were good at accepting the suggestion only when
the experimenter was better informed than they were (implicit source monitoring). They
were less accurate at recalling both their own and the experimenter's information access
(explicit recall of experience), though they performed well above chance. Children were
least accurate at reporting whether their final belief was based on what they were told or
on what they experienced directly (explicit source monitoring). Contrasting results
emerged when children decided between contradictory suggestions from two
differentially informed adults: Three- to 4-year-olds were more accurate at reporting the
knowledge source of the adult they believed than at deciding which suggestion was
reliable. Decision making in this observation task may require reflective understanding
akin to that required for explicit source judgments when the child participates in the task.
SN 0009-3920
PD JAN-FEB
PY 2003
VL 74
IS 1
BP 48
EP 62