Conflict Monitoring and Dual Process Theories Wim De Neys Lab Experimental Psychology Leuven, BELGIUM

DPT … very popular but … Popular Annual Review / TICS (Evans, 2008, 2003) Designated Conference (“In Two Minds” ) Nobelprize Kahneman: Heuristics and Biases Criticized … Processing characteristics? “What?” not “How?” …

Conflict monitoring characterization Core question: –How do two systems interact? (Evans, 2007) How do Type-2 processes know when to intervene? Conflict monitoring –Output heuristic system is monitored –Override when conflict with analytic system is detected Nature of monitoring ??? –Efficiency? / Explicit-Implicit? Implications for … nature of the interaction between “two minds” … … nature of individual differences in reasoning … … nature of reasoning errors …

Overview Monitoring efficiency? –Are analytic/heuristic conflicts detected … Latency/reviewing data (De Neys & Glumicic, 2008) Surprise recall (De Neys & Glumicic, 2008) Neuroimaging (De Neys, Vartanian, & Goel, 2008) Subjective Certainty (De Neys & Osman, submitted) Memory probing (De Neys & Franssens, submitted) Implicit – Explicit ? –“Conscious detection” … Verbal protocols (De Neys & Glumicic, 2008) Secondary task load (Franssens & De Neys, submitted) Implications for dual process theories

Different views on monitoring efficiency Lax (D. Kahneman) –Default heuristic “People who make a casual intuitive judgement normally know little about how their judgment come about and know even less about its logical entailments” (Kahneman & Frederick, 2005) Error = detection failure Flawless (S. Sloman) –Parallel activation “People simultaneously believe two contradictory responses” (Sloman, 1996) … “ People behave against their better judgement when they err ” (Denes-Raj & Epstein, 1994) Error = failure of inhibition

Evidence for flawless nature? Anecdotes? “I know it’s wrong but it just feels right” (Epstein, 1994) “I know that the [conjunction] is least probable, yet a little homunculus in my head continues to jump up and down, shouting at me – ‘but she can’t just be a bank teller; read the description’” (Gould, 1991) But … Kahneman (2002, p. 483) also refers to “casual observation” … “only in some fraction of cases, a need to correct the intuitive judgements and preferences will be acknowledged” … we need better data …

General design Base-rate neglect problems Incongruent and congruent problems –Heuristic and analytic response conflict or not –Every item different content e.g., males-females, 20 vs. 60 year old, black-white, right wing-left wing, Spanish-German, … A psychologist wrote thumbnail descriptions of a sample of 1000 participants consisting of 995 members of the green party and 5 republicans. The description bellow was chosen at random from the 1000 available descriptions. Russell is 67 and lives in Georgia. He used to work in the oil business and owns a ranch. He believes in the right to bear arms and in traditional marriage. Which one of the following two statements is most likely? a. Russell is a member of the green party b. Russelll is a republican

Exp 1: Reviewing “Moving Window “ –Serial presentation of problem information

A psychologist wrote thumbnail descriptions of a sample of 1000 participants consisting of 995 members of the green party and 5 republicans. The description bellow was chosen at random from the 1000 available descriptions.

Which one of the following two statements is most likely? a. Russell is a member of the green party b. Russelll is a republican Russell is 67 and lives in Georgia. He used to work in the oil business and owns a ranch. He believes in the right to bear arms and in traditional marriage.

Which one of the following two statements is most likely? a. Russell is a member of the green party b. Russelll is a republican Russell is 67 and lives in Georgia. He used to work in the oil business and owns a ranch. He believes in the right to bear arms and in traditional marriage. A psychologist wrote thumbnail descriptions of a sample of 1000 participants consisting of 995 members of the green party and 5 republicans. The description bellow was chosen at random from the 1000 available descriptions.

Exp 1 : Reviewing ? Rationale “Moving Window “ –Serial presentation of base rate and description –If people detect conflict, they will “look back” and scrutinize Reviewing tendency ~ conflict detection index

Reviewing results Same pattern for least gifted reasoners! (see also Ball et al., EP, 2006)

Exp 2: Surprise recall Reasoning task –6 incongruent / 6 congruent base-rate problems 5 minute break Surprise recall task Base-rate recall performance ~ conflict detection efficiency

Recall task One of the problems you just solved concerned Tara whose description was drawn at random from a sample of Bruce Springsteen and Britney Spears fans. Try to answer the following questions. How many Bruce Springsteen fans were there exactly in the study? ___________ (write down) How many Britney Spears fans were there exactly in the study? ___________ (write down) “Levels of Processing” If base rates processed  Better recall

Recall results Same pattern for least gifted reasoners!

Exp 3: fMRI approach Neuropsychological studies on “Cognitive Control” –Conflict Detection: Anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) –Inhibition: Lateral prefrontal (LPFC)

Incongruent correct – incongruent error Area’s of interestR0I P <.01 Right LPFC yes ACC  No differential ACC activation, only RLPFC  People detect conflict but fail to inhibit when they err * see De Neys, Vartanian, & Goel, 2008, Psych Science

Exp 4: Subjective certainty Reasoning Task –Base-rate problems / conjunction fallacy / syllogisms –Incongruent and congruent problems After each problem certainty rating “How certain are you that your response is correct?” Certainty ~ conflict detection index –No conflict detected »Incongruent = Congruent –Conflict detected »Incongruent << Congruent

Certainty results Both for base-rates and conjunction Syllogisms … least gifted reasoners … (ongoing)

Exp 5: Memory probing Reasoning Task –Base-rate problems / syllogisms –Incongruent and congruent problems After each problem lexical decision task –Is letter string word or not? –E.g., ‘ball’, ‘gorq’, … 50 % non-words 50 % words -50 % TARGETS: related to cued heuristic belief/stereotype -50 % UNRELATED

Memory probing Decision making task: Base Rate Task Lexical Decision –Target: gun, oil, ranch, fuel, … –Unrelated: desk, ball, bird, ring, … A psychologist wrote thumbnail descriptions of a sample of 1000 participants consisting of 995 members of the green party and 5 republicans. The description bellow was chosen at random from the 1000 available descriptions. Russell is 67 and lives in Georgia. He used to work in the oil business and owns a ranch. He believes in the right to bear arms and in traditional marriage. Which one of the following two statements is most likely? a. Russell is a member of the green party b. Russelll is a republican

Memory studies Origin of inhibition concept Measured with –Stem completion, lexical decision task, … TEMPORARY INACCESSIBILITY of a MEMORY TRACE Oil, Arms, Ranch, … =

Rationale probing 1.Correct Incongruent  Inhibition = … More time to recognize target words after incongruent problems? … 2. Nature of inhibition failure? –Bad reasoners All incongruent problems incorrect ???

Results probing Both for syllogisms and base-rates Even least gifted try to inhibit heuristic information !

1. Efficiency of monitoring Conflict detection is pretty flawless –Even least gifted reasoners detect conflict Different tasks –Base-rate, conjunction fallacy, syllogisms, … Different methods –Latency, reviewing, recall, fmri, certainty rating, memory probing, …

2. Implicit or explicit conflict? Classic idea (Sloman, Epstein) –Conflict detection ~ “active struggle” “I know that the [conjunction] is least probable, yet a little homunculus in my head continues to jump up and down, shouting at me – ‘but she can’t just be a bank teller; read the description’” (Gould, 1991) But … maybe system detects conflict but not “consciously” experienced ? –“active struggle” vs. “gut conflict feeling” Implicit & automatic

Exp 1: Thinking aloud Verbal protocols –Incongruent and congruent base-rate problems –Liberal “conflict detection” criterion Do people mention base-rates? –“ … Ok, there are more members of the green party but given the things he does he must be a republican …”

Exp 2: Executive load Successful but implicit conflict detection –Implicit process ~ automatic ? Reasoning task –Incongruent and congruent base-rate problems –Secondary task load Dot-pattern memorization (e.g., De Neys, 2006) Burdens central executive –After 5 minute break recall test Prediction –Reasoning accuracy incongruent decrease –Recall accuracy incongruent unaffected

Results executive load Detection still OK under load ~ automatic !

Take home Results –1. Efficiency ? Even for least gifted reasoners successful –2. Explicit ? No verbal reports and automatic Pretty flawless and implicit process –“Gut conflict feeling” –Triggers full-fledged analytic/Type 2 thinking “We know something is wrong but we don’t know what” ~ Feeling of Rightness (Thompson, 2008) ~ Type-3 processes (Evans, 2008)

Implications Conflict monitoring –Implicit & automatic but cannot be a mere heuristic/Type 1 process … requires some sort of comparison … –Some “minimal analytic knowledge” needs to be activated very early … –E.g., “sample size matters” Purely serial dual process theory cannot work –Start heuristic  analytic when conflict Homunculus: How do we know that heuristic response conflicts? Hybrid serial/parallel model –1. Initial/Early “analytic” monitoring –2. Late/full-fledged analytic processing

Thanks to Oshin Vartanian (Defence Research and Development Canada) Tamara Glumicic (University of Toronto, Canada) Magda Osman (UCL, London) Samuel Franssens (University of Leuven, Belgium) Vinod Goel (York University, Toronto, Canada)