Basic mechanisms underlying reasoning and decision making

推理和决策的基本机制

• 批准号: RGPIN-2022-03014
• 负责人: Fugelsang, Jonathan
• 金额: $ 3.42万
• 依托单位: University of Waterloo
• 依托单位国家: 加拿大
• 项目类别: Discovery Grants Program - Individual
• 财政年份: 2022
• 资助国家: 加拿大
• 起止时间: 2022-01-01 至 2023-12-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nserc-crsng.gc.ca/ase-oro/Details-Detailles_eng.asp?id=764021
• 关键词: Basic; mechanisms; underlying; reasoning; decision

The ability to think and reason is one of the most remarkable feats of the human mind, and is arguably one of the key cognitive faculties that separates the human mind from that of other animals. However, the human mind is not perfect, and does not always make optimal decisions. Decades of research has documented a multitude of ways in which human thinking and reasoning is fallible, resulting in biased performance in a number of domains. For example, people often let their personal beliefs guide their thinking when it would be more optimal to use logic. Furthermore, people are often overconfident in their judgments and decisions, even when their reasoning performance is error prone. Perhaps surprisingly, we still know little about the cognitive mechanisms that promote effective thinking. The research proposed in my current grant application will make important headway towards understanding this by systematically examining the basic cognitive mechanisms supporting effective reasoning, particularly focusing on how metacognitive processes (e.g., subjective confidence) affect how we allocate our attention in reasoning and decision-making tasks. In addition, by including individual differences measures indexing cognitive ability and thinking styles, my lab will determine the extent to which the coupling of metacognition and attention varies as a function of key individual differences known to significantly affect reasoning performance. These are important research questions, as understanding the role of metacognition in guiding people's attention to relevant information in a reasoning task will help not only inform our understanding of the basic cognitive mechanisms underlying successful reasoning performance, but it will also ultimately help shape manipulations designed to reduce bias and promote effective reasoning, which is a secondary objective of the proposed research. Specifically, once the metacognitive and attentional mechanisms underlying reasoning performance are better understood, my lab will then empirically examine experimental manipulations that target those mechanisms to examine the degree to which attention to relevant dimensions of reasoning tasks, and overall reasoning performance, can be facilitated. At an academic level, the findings from the proposed studies will enable my lab to develop a more comprehensive model of how higher-level cognitive processes (e.g., metacognition) interact with lower-level cognitive processes (e.g., attention) when reasoning and decision-making. At a practical level, by gaining new insights into the basic cognitive mechanisms that promote effective reasoning and decision making, and determining how such mechanisms can be facilitated, my lab will be able to take important steps towards developing strategies that can be used to reduce bias and facilitate reasoning and decision making in domains that have real-world consequences (e.g., personal health, finance).

思考和推理的能力是人类思维最显著的成就之一，也可以说是将人类思维与其他动物区分开来的关键认知能力之一。然而，人类的头脑并不完美，并不总是做出最佳决策。几十年的研究已经证明了人类思维和推理的多种方式是错误的，导致在许多领域的偏见表现。例如，人们经常让他们的个人信念指导他们的思维，而使用逻辑是最佳选择。此外，人们往往对自己的判断和决定过于自信，即使他们的推理表现容易出错。也许令人惊讶的是，我们仍然对促进有效思考的认知机制知之甚少。在我目前的资助申请中提出的研究将通过系统地研究支持有效推理的基本认知机制，特别是关注元认知过程（例如，主观信心）影响我们在推理和决策任务中如何分配注意力。此外，通过纳入衡量认知能力和思维方式的个体差异指标，我的实验室将确定元认知和注意力的耦合变化程度，该变化程度是已知会显着影响推理表现的关键个体差异的函数。这些都是重要的研究问题，因为理解元认知在引导人们注意推理任务中的相关信息方面的作用不仅有助于我们了解成功推理表现的基本认知机制，而且最终有助于塑造旨在减少偏见和促进有效推理的操作，这是拟议研究的次要目标。具体来说，一旦元认知和注意力机制的推理性能得到更好的理解，我的实验室将经验性地检查实验操作，目标是这些机制，以检查注意力的程度，推理任务的相关方面，和整体推理性能，可以促进。在学术层面上，拟议研究的结果将使我的实验室能够开发一个更全面的模型，来研究更高层次的认知过程（例如，元认知）与较低级的认知过程（例如，在推理和决策时注意。在实践层面上，通过对促进有效推理和决策的基本认知机制获得新的见解，并确定如何促进这种机制，我的实验室将能够采取重要步骤，制定可用于减少偏见并促进具有现实世界后果的领域（例如，个人健康、财务）。