Jean-Paul Caverni

Cognitive Biases: Their Contribution for Understanding Human Cognitive Processes

Publisher Summary Research in psychology currently offers an ever-growing number of empirical findings interpreted in terms of cognitive biases and their effects on a wide variety of tasks including inference, categorization, assessment, and comparison. With the rising number of research fields in which the notion of bias is being applied, one finds not only an increase in the diversity of the models set forth to account for such biases, but also an extension of the very meaning of the concept. This extension appears to be occurring despite the independent development of the fields in which the notion is being called upon. This chapter answers the need to assess the contribution of the notion of cognitive bias to the understanding of the processes at play in the various realms of cognitive activity. A recent book by Evans illustrates the utility of such an endeavor in studies on logical problem solving and in research into behavioral decision making and statistical inference.

Feedback in Hypothesis Testing: An ERP Study

We used event-related potentials (ERPs) to probe the effects of feedback in a hypothesis testing (HT) paradigm. Thirteen college students serially tested hypotheses concerning a hidden rule by judging its presence or absence in triplets of digits and revised them on the basis of an exogenous performance feedback. ERPs time-locked to performance feedback were then examined. The results showed differences between responses to positive and negative feedback at all cortical sites. Negative feedback, indicating incorrect performance, was associated to a negative deflection preceding a P300-like wave. Spatiotemporal principal component analysis (PCA) showed the interplay between early frontal components and later central and posterior ones. Lateralization of activity was selectively detectable at frontal sites, with a left frontal dominance for both positive and negative feedback. These results are discussed in terms of a proposed computational model of trial-to-trial feedback in HT in which the cognitive and emotive aspects of feedback are explicitly linked to putative mediating brain mechanisms. The properties of different feedback types and feedback-related deficits in depression are also discussed.

The Anchoring-Adjustement Heuristic in an "Information Rich, Real World Setting": Knowledge Assessment by Experts

Abstract Through the manipulation of the external structure of the information available to subjects, our experiments enabled us to more accurately describe the anchoring-adjustment heuristic and its use in the assessment of knowledge acquisition by experts. In Experiment 1, the effects of assimilation to an anchor were placed in opposition to the effects triggered by a contrast with the other productions to be assessed. When in conflict, only the anchor assimilation effect seems to occur. In Experiment 2, the anchor effect was studied in a situation where an unspecified anchor was to be extracted by subjects. The results showed that only the dimension isolated and manipulated beforehand, i.e. the previous mean, turned out to be determinant. These findings clearly argue in favor of the validation and generalization or prior interpretations. Even when opposed to other types of information, the information traditionally used to provide evidence of anchor effects in the assessment of knowledge acquisition is what counts.

Perseveration related to frontal lesion in mice using the olfactory H-maze

The delayed reaction paradigm, consisting to discover two different rules consecutively (delayed alternation and non-alternation task) followed by a delayed reversal task, is a specific marker for the functioning of primate prefrontal cortex. Although several works in rodents report the use of operant delayed alternation tasks, in none of the studies mice with lesion of the prefrontal cortex were used in this paradigm. In the current study, mouse experiments were conducted using a new, totally automated device, the olfactory H-maze. Here, we show that unilateral lesion of the dorsomedial prefrontal cortex in mice induced similar deficits to those observed after frontal lesions in monkeys and humans. These pronounced learning deficits seem to come from difficulty elaborating a new rule and the inability to inhibit the previous rule, characterized by perseveration after prefrontal cortex lesion. The present results demonstrate that this very simple experimental paradigm using the olfactory H-maze presents the advantage to be fast (one training session) and well suited to assess the frontal functions in mice. It should be useful for testing pharmacological or stem cell approaches in order to reduce organic damages or gain insight into the cognitive functions of the frontal cortex using transgenic or gene-targeting mice.

Knowledge acquisition assessment by experts: Effects and models of the cognitive functioning of evaluators

When assessment of knowledge acquisition is done by a human expert, the cognitive functioning of the expert is a variable of the assessment. The present article reviews research in experimental psychology that has studied this phenomenon. The main effects of the evaluator’s cognitive functioning on the assessment made, as well as the models that have been proposed to account for them, are discussed. The effects on how student performance modifications are taken into account are then discussed. Lastly, a few paradoxes concerning the applications of research findings in this field are brought up.RésuméLorsque l’évaluation de connaissances est le fait d’un expert humain, le fonctionnement cognitif de l’expert est une variable de l’évaluation. Le présent article presente une revue de travaux de psychologie expérimentale qui ont mis ce fait en évidence: sont successivement rappelés les principaux effets du fonctionnement cognitif de l’évaluateur sur les évaluations qu’il attribue, ainsi que les modèles proposés pour en rendre compte. Sont ensuite examinées les conséquences sur la prise en compte des modifications de performances des élèves. Quelques paradoxes quant à l’application des résultats de la recherche dans ce domaine sont enfin évoqués.

Feedback modulates gamma oscillations in a hypothesis testing paradigm

We analyzed the time-varying modulation of gamma (>30 Hz) electroencephalographic (EEG) activity exerted by positive and negative feedback in a hypothesis testing paradigm. Ten college students serially tested hypotheses concerning a hidden rule by judging its presence or absence in triplets of digits and revised them on the basis of an exogenous performance feedback. The EEG signal was convolved with a family of complex wavelets and brain potentials were extracted in the gamma range. Feedback-related modulations were found as early as 100 ms after feedback onset, as well as in the 300-600 ms time-window. The results were discussed in terms of functional and neurophysiological models of feedback.