The role of answer fluency and perceptual fluency in the monitoring and control of reasoning: Reply to Alter, Oppenheimer, and Epley (2013)

Valerie A. Thompson, Rakefet Ackerman, Yael Sidi, Linden J. Ball, Gordon Pennycook, Jamie A. Prowse Turner

Research output: Contribution to journalComment/debate

Abstract

In this reply, we provide an analysis of Alter et al. (2013) response to our earlier paper (Thompson et al., 2013). In that paper, we reported difficulty in replicating Alter, Oppenheimer, Epley, and Eyre's (2007) main finding, namely that a sense of disfluency produced by making stimuli difficult to perceive, increased accuracy on a variety of reasoning tasks. Alter, Oppenheimer, and Epley (2013) argue that we misunderstood the meaning of accuracy on these tasks, a claim that we reject. We argue and provide evidence that the tasks were not too difficult for our populations (such that no amount of "metacognitive unease" would promote correct responding) and point out that in many cases performance on our tasks was well above chance or on a par with Alter et al.'s (2007) participants. Finally, we reiterate our claim that the distinction between answer fluency (the ease with which an answer comes to mind) and perceptual fluency (the ease with which a problem can be read) is genuine, and argue that Thompson et al. (2013) provided evidence that these are distinct factors that have different downstream effects on cognitive processes.

Original languageAmerican English
Pages (from-to)256-258
Number of pages3
JournalCognition
Volume128
Issue number2
DOIs
StatePublished - Aug 2013

Keywords

  • Analytic thinking
  • Answer fluency
  • Dual process theories
  • Intuition
  • Metacognition
  • Perceptual fluency

All Science Journal Classification (ASJC) codes

  • Language and Linguistics
  • Experimental and Cognitive Psychology
  • Developmental and Educational Psychology
  • Linguistics and Language
  • Cognitive Neuroscience

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