Fast reasoning and metacognition

Previous research has demonstrated that reasoners' Feeling of Rightness (FOR) for a quick, intuitive responses predicts the amount of analytic thinking they give to slower, more considered responses operationalized in terms of the length of thinking time and the probability of answer changes (Thompson et al., Cognitive Psychology, 63 (3), 107-140, 2011). In this experiment, we tested the novel hypothesis that FORs can also signal the direction in which answers will change when participants reason about a sequence of similar inferences. 289 participants responded to two blocks of belief-logic conflict syllogisms, with the first under an initial time constraint and the second in a no-constraint condition. Of particular interest were those participants who gave a mixed pattern of validity- and belief-based responses under time constraints, because they had the opportunity to shift their responses towards either belief-based or validity-based responses in the unconstrained condition. Consistent with our hypothesis, reasoners giving low FORs to their belief-based responses shifted their responses towards validity-based ones in the unconstrained condition, whereas those giving high FORs shifted towards belief-based responses. Thus, intuitive FORs generated during a sequence of inferential problems predicted both the probability and direction of answer change.