We examined whether the classical framing effect observedwith the Asian Disease problem could be reversed when peoplemake decisions from experience. Ninety-five universitystudents were randomly allocated to one of three conditions:Description, Sampling (where the participants were allowed tosample through the outcomes presented as a pack of cards) andInteractive (where the participants were invited to spread outall possible outcomes in a sample) and made three gain-framedchoices and three loss-framed choices, with two filler tasksafter the first three choices. The results revealed a significantinteraction effect between framing and choice condition. In theDescription choice condition, participants were more risk-seeking with loss-framed problems. This pattern was reversedin the Sampling choice condition where participants were morerisk-seeking with gain frames. Finally, the Interactive choicecondition resulted in a classic pattern of framing effect,whereby people were more risk averse in the domain of gains.

Recent evidence shows that, contrary to what is commonly assumed, people who are pressured to think fast are also less likely to provide a heuristic judgment when heuristic and logical considerations point to conflicting answers in a conjunction fallacy task (Vallée-Tourangeau & Faure- Bloom, under review). The present study explores this finding using an eye-tracking methodology. Eye movements from 41 participants were recorded while they read a thumbnail description and made a judgment on a statement comparing the probability of a single-event and that of a conjunctive event. Results showed participants focused more on the comparative probability statement under logicoheuristic conflict while they focused more the task description in the absence of conflict. Additionally, longer judgment latencies predicted higher rates of heuristic responding, which contradicts the original dual-process assumption that heuristic thinking in conjunction fallacy tasks is fast.

Building upon the finding that people can assess the logicality of conjunctive probability statements intuitively (Vallee-Tourangeau & Faure-Bloom, 2015), we examine whether increasing the salience of people’s implicit knowledge about the logic of sets can impact the influence of logical considerations on probability judgments. We compared the rate of heuristic responding in a control group with that observed in two experimental groups where participants were either explicitly or implicitly primed to reflect on the logic of sets inclusions prior to completing a conjunction probability task. Explicit priming involved asking them to rate a series of statements such as ‘I am more likely to meet a bank teller than a bank teller who is also a feminist.’ Implicit priming involved experiencing a series of events with the co-occurring presence and absence of a target characteristic (e.g., Feminist) and an alternative characteristic (e.g., Bank Teller) using a computer-based dynamic learning task

Planning is an everyday activity that is extended in timeand space, yet is frequently studied in the absence ofinteractivity. Successful planning relies on an array ofexecutive functions including self-control. Weinvestigated the effects of interactivity and self-controlon planning using a sequential-task paradigm. Half ofthe participants first completed a video-viewing taskrequiring self-control of visual attention, whereas theother half completed the same task without the self-control constraint. Next, and within each of thesegroups, half of the participants manipulated cards tocomplete their plan (high-interactivity condition); for theother half, plans were made with their hands down (low-interactivity condition). Planning performance wassignificantly better in the high- than in the low-interactivity conditions; however the self-controlmanipulation had no impact on planning performance.An exploration of individual differences revealed thatlong-term planning ability and non-planningimpulsiveness moderated the impact of interactivity onplanning. These findings suggest that interactivityaugments working memory resources and planningperformance, underscoring the importance of aninteractive perspective on planning research.

Outside the cognitive psychologist’s laboratory, problem solving is an activity that takes place in a rich web of interactions involving people and artifacts. Through this interactivity, a reasoner’s comprehension of the problem emerges from a coalition of internal and external resources. In the experiment presented here, interactivity was explored under laboratory conditions. Participants were invited to solve an insight problem, the so-called 17 Animals problem. The solution to this problem involves the spatial arrangements of sets. The problem masquerades as an arithmetic problem, which creates a difficult impasse to overcome. Problem solving took place in two different ecosystems: in one, participants were given a stylus and an electronic tablet to sketch out a model of the solution; in a second, participants could interact with artifacts that corresponded to the problem’s physical constituent features to build a model of the solution. Participants in the sketch group were never able to break the impasse, that is to abandon their interpretation of the problem as one requiring an arithmetic solution. Participants in the model building group were more likely to break the impasse and discover a productive action trajectory that helped them identify a plausible solution. Video evidence revealed substantial differences in the manner with which participants ‘thought’ about the problem as a function of the type of interactivity afforded by the two cognitive ecosystems. Insight was enacted through model building activity.