Abstract
Sound mind, irrational behavior?
Highlights
In his engaging article “Rationality and the illusion of choice” (Evans, 2014) argues that erroneous answers to questions posed in the study of reasoning and decision-making (RDM) ought not be viewed as irrational, just as errors in other cognitive domains are not viewed as irrational
Not optimized as in Signal Detection Theory (SDT), many errors in RDM occur because people who are paying attention, motivated, educated, and not otherwise cognitively compromised, violate normative prescriptions for behavior in systematic ways
Much of the research in RDM, observes behavior when optimal normative prescriptions are available but are either ignored or misused by participants. Evans refers to his theory of old mind/new mind, whose theoretical drivers are not themselves characterized as rational or irrational
Summary
T. Evans, in his engaging article “Rationality and the illusion of choice” (Evans, 2014) argues that erroneous answers to questions posed in the study of reasoning and decision-making (RDM) ought not be viewed as irrational, just as errors in other cognitive domains are not viewed as irrational. Researchers in no other fields of cognitive psychology do this, inferring instead cognitive limitations from errors.” perceptual inaccuracy is described using language of perceptual illusion; suboptimal memory performance is forgetting or distortion.
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