

We Know When We're Being Lazy Thinkers - kevin_morrill
http://www.springer.com/about+springer/media/springer+select?SGWID=0-11001-6-1408044-0

======
gjm11
Like everything from Science Daily, this is a pure reprint of someone else's
press release. Here's the original from Springer:

[http://www.springer.com/about+springer/media/springer+select...](http://www.springer.com/about+springer/media/springer+select?SGWID=0-11001-6-1408044-0)

and here's the article itself, from the lead author's website:

<http://wdeneys.org/data/De%20Neys_substitution_revision.pdf>

Incidentally, the article addresses _mistercow_ 's criticism: "For example,
some critics might spontaneously argue that since our control bat-and-ball
version is easier than the standard version our findings are trivial since
they simply show that people are more confident when answering an easy
question than when answering a hard question. It is important to stress that
this critique is begging the question. The crucial question is of course
whether or not people realize that the classic version is hard. That is, the
control version presents the easier statement that participants are supposed
to be unconsciously substituting. What we want to know is whether or not
people note this substitution. If people do not notice it, then the two
problems should be isomorphic and they should be considered equally hard. In
other words, arguing that people notice that the classic problem is harder
than the control problem underscores the point that they are not oblivious to
the substitution."

I'm not sure quite how convincing I find that, for two reasons. Firstly, since
it's possible to ask equivalent questions in different ways, it seems like
someone might (1) genuinely think the question they've been asked is the same
as the easy one, but (2) have found it harder to parse or something. Secondly
and (I think) more importantly, isn't it possible that _asking people about
their level of confidence_ provokes extra reflection? Participants may have
substituted obliviously, but then -- only when asked "how confident are you in
this answer?" -- realised on some level, to some extent, that something wasn't
quite right.

~~~
tokenadult
ScienceDaily is just a press release recycling service, nothing more. Users
here on HN think there are better sites to submit from.

Comments about ScienceDaily:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3992206>

"Blogspam.

"Original article (to which ScienceDaily has added precisely nothing):

[http://www.washington.edu/news/articles/abundance-of-rare-
dn...](http://www.washington.edu/news/articles/abundance-of-rare-dna-changes-
following-population-explosion-may-hold-common-disease-clues)

"Underlying paper in Science (paywalled):

[http://www.sciencemag.org/content/early/2012/05/16/science.1...](http://www.sciencemag.org/content/early/2012/05/16/science.1219240)

"Brief writeup from Nature discussing this paper and a couple of others on
similar topics:

[http://www.nature.com/news/humans-riddled-with-rare-
genetic-...](http://www.nature.com/news/humans-riddled-with-rare-genetic-
variants-1.10655)

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4108603>

"Everything I've ever seen on HN -- I don't know about Reddit -- from
ScienceDaily has been a cut-and-paste copy of something else available from
nearer the original source. In some cases ScienceDaily's copy is distinctly
worse than the original because it lacks relevant links, enlightening
pictures, etc.

" . . . . if you find something there and feel like sharing it, it's pretty
much always best to take ten seconds to find the original source and submit
that instead of ScienceDaily."

------
pawelwentpawel
Quite of a funny coincidence - I was just discussing this with my colleague
literally a few seconds before seeing this link.

We were both going through the same book recently - _Thinking, Fast and Slow_
by Kahneman. Interesting read if you want to find out more about those
phenomenons.

------
mistercow
This seems to be extracting a lot of inference from not a lot of evidence. The
difference in confidence could simply arise from the fact that the "2 dollars
more" question _sounds harder_ than the control question. It's a more
complicated question, so it stands to reason that people would be less
confident about it.

What I really want to know is this: how confident were the people who got the
harder question _right_?

