13 mai 2014 - Conflict between logical and intuitive reasoning?: a case for logical intuitions

Prochaine conférence :

Conflict between logical and intuitive reasoning? : a case for logical intuitions

Wim de Neys
Chercheur CNRS, Université Paris Descartes

Mardi 13 mai 2014 - 18h15 - Uni Mail - salle R040

Although the human species has unique cognitive abilities to reason, our thinking is easily biased by erroneous intuitions and stereotypes. From a sociological and economical perspective such biased thinking can be a massive problem. Examples range from the consequences of making bad financial decisions to racial or gender - based discrimination in job hiring. In my talk I will present an overview of findings that establish that despite the widespread bias and logical errors, people at least implicitly detect that their heuristic response conflicts with traditional normative considerations. I will clarify that this conflict sensitivity calls for the postulation of logical and probabilistic knowledge that is intuitive – and that is activated automatically when people engage in a reasoning task. In other words, I believe it makes sense to argue that our intuitive reasoning system is often cueing the correct logical response in classic reasoning tasks. I will sketch the opportunities and challenges of this idea for our view of human rationality.

Lecture proposée

De Neys, W. (2012). Bias and conflict: A case for logical intuitions. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 7, 28-38.