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. 2024 Apr 18;64(1):42-57.
doi: 10.5334/pb.1260. eCollection 2024.

Adieu Bias: Debiasing Intuitions Among French Speakers

Nina Franiatte  1   2 , Esther Boissin  1 , Alexandra Delmas  2 , Wim De Neys  1
Affiliations

Adieu Bias: Debiasing Intuitions Among French Speakers

Nina Franiatte et al. Psychol Belg. .

Abstract

Recent debiasing studies have shown that a short, plain-English explanation of the correct solution strategy can improve reasoning performance. However, these studies have predominantly focused on English-speaking populations, who were tested with problem contents designed for an English-speaking test environment. Here we explore whether the key findings of previous debiasing studies can be extended to native French speakers living in continental Europe (France). We ran a training session with a battery of three reasoning tasks (i.e., base-rate neglect, conjunction fallacy, and bat-and-ball) on 147 native French speakers. We used a two-response paradigm in which participants first gave an initial intuitive response, under time pressure and cognitive load, and then gave a final response after deliberation. Results showed a clear training effect, as early as the initial (intuitive) stage. Immediately after training, most participants solved the problems correctly, without the need for a deliberation process. The findings confirm that the intuitive debiasing training effect extends to native French speakers.

Keywords: Debiasing; French; Heuristics and biases; Intuition; Reasoning.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors have no competing interests to declare.

Figures

Example of a typical two-response trial
Figure 1
Time course of a typical two-response trial, with a bat-and-ball problem. For convenience, the problem content is illustrated in English.
Bar plot representing the mean accuracy of correct responses on conflict problems
Figure 2
Mean accuracy (%) of correct initial and final responses on conflict problems for control and training groups, before and after the intervention, for each task (BB, BR, CF), and combined (All). Error bars are standard errors. BB = bat-and-ball, BR = base-rate neglect, CF = conjunction fallacy tasks, All = the composite mean across the three tasks.
Bar plot representing the proportion in percentage of each direction of change
Figure 3
Proportion (%) of each direction of change (i.e., ‘00’ pattern, ‘01’ pattern, ‘10’ pattern, and ‘11’ pattern; 0 = incorrect response, 1 = correct response, first digit = initial response, second digit = final response) on conflict problems for control and training groups, before and after the intervention, for each task (BB, BR, CF), and combined (All). Error bars are standard errors. BB = bat-and-ball, BR = base-rate neglect, CF = conjunction fallacy tasks, All = the composite mean across the three tasks.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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