Predicting the Most Common Incorrect Response: Metacognitive Advantage of Deliberative Over Intuitive Responders on Cognitive Reflection Test

Abstract

In this study, we investigated the hypothesis that deliberative responders are at metacognitive advantage in comparison with intuitive responders because they are aware that there exists an appealing, but incorrect response, and that many would probably fall for it. A total of 169 participants solved three CRT tasks, followed by questions about perceived difficulty of the tasks and the most probable incorrect response that others gave. Results mainly confirmed the hypothesis: the more correct responses (or the less intuitive responses) participants gave, the more they were correct about the most prevalent incorrect responses of others. Furthermore, the more correct responses (or the less intuitive responses) participants had, the more difficult they found the tasks to be, perhaps due to the awareness of the incorrect, but appealing response that would trick many others into giving wrong response. Interestingly and perhaps surprisingly, the amount of non-sensical responses (those neither correct nor intuitive) was positively related both to awareness of appealing incorrect response and to perceived difficulty of the task. This indicates that even those participants that seemingly gave non-sensical responses to CRT tasks might have metacognitive advantage over those that responded intuitively. We discuss how our results fit into contemporary dual-process theories.