Second-guess: Testing the specificity of error detection in the bat-and-ball problem

In the last decade conflict detection studies in the reasoning and decision-making field have suggested that biased reasoners who give an intuitive response that conflicts with logico-mathematical principles can often detect that their answer is questionable. In the present studies we introduced a second guess paradigm to test the nature and specificity of this error or conflict signal. Participants solved the bat-and-ball problem and were allowed to make a second guess after they had entered their answer. Three studies in which we used a range of second guess elicitation methods show that biased reasoners predominantly give second guesses that are smaller than the intuitively cued heuristic response (“10 cents”). Findings indicate that although biased reasoners do not know the exact correct answer (“5 cents”) they do correctly grasp that the right answer must be smaller than the intuitively cued “10 cents” answer. This suggests that reasoners might be savvier about their errors than traditionally assumed. Implications for the conflict detection and dual process literature are discussed. •Conflict detection studies have suggested that biased reasoners can often detect that their answer is questionable.•We introduced a second guess paradigm to test the nature and specificity of this error or conflict signal.•We used the bat-and-ball problem.•Findings show that biased reasoners correctly grasp that the right answer must be smaller than their intuitively cued answer.