Cognitive Bases of Hindsight Effects

后见之明偏见的特点是在事件发生后，夸大地相信自己可以事先预测到它。研究发现，这种“周一早上的四分卫”会影响很多领域的判断，包括医学、法律和会计。例如，医生如果知道了正确的诊断，就会大大夸大他们做出正确诊断的可能性。这种偏见会干扰学习。一个能够认识到他或她可能没有做出正确诊断的医生将更愿意从一个困难的病例中吸取教训。本研究解决了后见之明偏见的原因。一个假设的原因是，当一个正确答案被揭示或一个事件发生时，认知处理的“流畅性”会增加。例如，如果X发生了，我花了一些时间思考X。当被问及我是否会预测到X、Y或Z会发生时，对X进行的增强处理使其流畅性高于Y或Z。为了测试提高流畅性是否会导致后见之明偏见，我通过一些非正统的手段操纵流畅性，然后评估后见之明偏见的程度。例如，在一项研究中，打印语句的视觉清晰度将被操纵。该陈述将被如实标记为“正确”或“错误”。受试者将被问及，如果他们没有被告知真实情况，他们会将陈述评为真实还是虚假。我预测，当陈述印得不那么清楚时，它们产生的后见之明效应就会减少，因为不清楚的表述会降低处理这些陈述的流畅性。另一组实验将测试对某个主题了解更多的人是否比那些不太了解的人更不容易隔离有关该主题的新知识。例如，一个教授必须忽略他或她的大部分知识，以教新手上课。这类似于后见之明偏见：在后见之明偏见的情况下，为了做出准确的评估，一个人必须忽略对结果的了解。在教授的情况下，他或她必须忽略内容知识。我将研究使人们能够或多或少成功地完成这项任务的条件。

Hindsight bias is characterized by an exaggerated belief, following the occurrence of an event, that one could have predicted it beforehand. This 'Monday morning quarterbacking' has been found to compromise judgment in a large variety of domains including medicine, law, and accounting. For example, physicians who learn a correct diagnosis significantly exaggerate the likelihood that they could have arrived at that diagnosis. This bias interferes with learning. A physician who is able to recognize that he or she might not have made a correct diagnosis will be more willing to attend to the lessons to be learned from a difficult case.This research addresses the causes of the hindsight bias. A hypothesized cause is the increased 'fluency' of cognitive processing that occurs when a correct answer is revealed or an event that has occurred. For example, if X occurs, I spend some time thinking about X. When asked whether I would have predicted that X, Y, or Z would occur, the augmented processing done on X makes its fluency higher than that for Y or Z. To test whether heightened fluency causes hindsight bias, I manipulate fluency by some unorthodox means and then assess the magnitude of the hindsight bias. For example, in one study the visual clarity of a printed statement will be manipulated. The statement will be truthfully labeled as either 'true' or 'false.' Subjects will be asked whether they would have rated the statement as true or false if they had not been told the actual truth status. I predict that when statements are printed less clearly they will produce less of a hindsight effect, because the unclear presentation will lower the fluency with which they are processed.Another group of experiments will test whether people more knowledgeable about a topic are less able to quarantine new knowledge about that topic compared to those less knowledgeable. For example, a professor must ignore much of his or her knowledge in order to teach the novices taking a class. This is similar to the hindsight bias: in hindsight-bias situations, a person must ignore knowledge about outcomes in order to make accurate assessments. In the professor's situation, he or she must ignore content knowledge. I will examine the conditions that enable people to perform this task more or less successfully.