These Problems Sound Familiar to Me: Previous Exposure, Cognitive Reflection Test, and the Moderating Role of Analytic Thinking

Abstract

One of the current topics in research on the Cognitive Reflection Test (CRT) is its growing familiarity among the general public. Surprisingly, Bialek and Pennycook (2017) showed that previous exposure does not diminish the CRT’s predictive power in Heuristics and Biases (H&B) tasks, but proposed that the relationship is moderated by analytic thinking, a conjecture tested in the present study. Participants (N = 365) filled in the CRT, Need for Cognition (NFC) scale, and a battery of H&B problems. While the CRT did retain its predictive power in the H&B performance, regardless of participants’ self-reported thinking dispositions and exposure, both of these factors moderated the relationship, such that exposure increased CRT’s predictive power in H&B tasks, albeit only among high-NFC individuals. Present results converge with studies showing that prior exposure does not invalidate the use of CRT, while offering some novel evidence for the metacognitive disadvantage account proposed by Bialek and Pennycook (2017).

Keywords

• Cognitive Reflection Test
• familiarity issue
• cognitive bias
• analytic thinking