engleski

Metacognitive assessment in a base-rate task: The effect of Type 1 and Type 2 processing

Psychologists commonly distinguish between two types of thought processes. Type 1 processes are intuitive and stereotypical, while Type 2 processes are analytical and require more time. Pennycook et al. (2015) suggested a three-stage model describing these processes. Stage 1 generates initial responses, reflecting Type 1 processing. Stage 2 monitors for possible conflicts between the response and the cue which initiated response generation. If conflict is detected, stage 3 transitions into Type 2 processing with two possible outcomes ; decoupling (abandoning the initial response for an alternative) or rationalizing (confirming the initial response despite conflict detection). If no conflict is detected, the initial response becomes final. The goal of this study was to test the model in relation to metacognitive judgments of confidence with respect to reaction times. Participants (N=30) had to make decisions in a base-rate task. First they were shown a single trait for a random person (e.g. Person A is tall), shortly after they were shown information about group composition from which that person was selected (e.g. The group contains 850 basketball players, and 150 physicians). Finally, they had to decide to which group the person more likely belongs. Presented traits were used to initiate a stereotypical response, while group composition provided information about mathematical probability. Experimental manipulations were introduced at the conflict detection stage. The stereotypical response was either congruent or incongruent with one of two levels of base-rate probabilities. The model predicts participants should detect conflicts more often when the initial response and the probable response were not congruent, switching them to Type 2 processing. This should be more common if the probability margin between responses is high, which has a predictable influence on confidence judgements and response times. Additional processing should reduce confidence judgements and prolong response times. These predictions were statistically confirmed by conducting a set of 2x2 analyses of variance. In addition, participants were more likely to choose an alternative response when there was a higher probability of conflict detection. The results confirmed predictions regarding the influence of processing type on metacognitive assessment, response time and response choice. These findings are in line with the proposed model.

Type 1 and Type 2 processing ; decision making ; base-rate task ; metacognition ; conflict detection

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