EVENT: Psychology Colloquium: Prof Brett Hayes (UNSW), with post-talk drinks in the Psychology Courtyard

Presenter: Prof Brett Hayes

Brett Hayes is Professor of Cognitive Psychology at the University of New South Wales. He is a former Head of the School of Psychology at UNSW, and has held previous appointments at the University of Sydney, University of Newcastle, and honourary appointments at New York University and Northwestern University, USA. Professor Hayes is internationally recognised for his research in the field of complex cognition and cognitive development. This work encomppasses the study of cognitive processes involved in inductive reasoning, judgment and categorisation and the development of these abilities during early childhood. His work in these areas has resulted in a co-authored book and over 90 book chapters and articles in leading international journals.

Title: How many types of reasoning are there? A new approach to the single-dual process debate

Abstract:

A very popular idea in high-level cognition is that there are at least two distinct processes that underlie reasoning, judgment and decision-making; a fast, intuitive, heuristic process on the one hand, and a slow, deliberative, analytic process on the other. Such "two-process" models of reasoning however are often under-specified and therefore hard to falsify. In this talk I will 1) outline how we can develop more testable single- and dual process models using concepts adapted from signal detection theory, 2) review the existing literature for evidence of single- and dual- processes in human reasoning, 3) Outline the results of new experiments specifically designed to compare well- specified single - and dual - process models of reasoning. The main conclusion is that most of the existing evidence can be accounted for by posting a single core reasoning process.