The Bat-and-Ball Problem: Stronger evidence in support of a conscious error process.

Traditional accounts of reasoning have characterized human error response to be an unconscious process whereby cognitive misers blindly neglect the critical information that would lead to problem solution, thereby substituting an easier problem for the actual problem (e.g., Kahneman & Frederick, 2002).

Using language to get ready: Familiar labels help children engage proactive control.

A key developmental transition is the ability to engage executive functions proactively in advance of needing them. We tested the potential role of linguistic processes in proactive control. Children completed a task in which they could proactively track a novel (target) shape on a screen as it moved unpredictably amid novel distractors and needed to identify where it disappeared.

Algebraic reasoning and bat-and-ball problem variants: Solving isomorphic algebra first facilitates problem solving later.

The classic bat-and-ball problem is used widely to measure biased and correct reasoning in decision-making. University students overwhelmingly tend to provide the biased answer to this problem. To what extent might reasoners be led to modify their judgement, and, more specifically, is it possible to facilitate problem solution by prompting participants to consider the problem from an algebraic perspective? One hundred ninety-seven participants were recruited to investigate the effect of algebraic cueing as a debiasing strategy on variants of the bat-and-ball problem.