Psychological research has consistently demonstrated how our perceptions and cognitions are affected by context, motivation, expectation, and experience. Factors extraneous to the content of the information being considered can shape people's perceptions and judgments. In this chapter, we discuss the nature of human cognition and how people's limited capacity for information processing not only is remarkably efficient, but also introduces systematic errors into decision making. The cognitive shortcuts people take when processing information can cause bias, and these shortcuts largely occur outside of conscious awareness. Experts are not immune to such cognitive vulnerabilities, and their lack of awareness of cognitive contamination in their judgments makes the implementation of interventions such as blinding (i.e., limiting exposure to biasing contextual information) a necessary procedure when seeking to minimize bias and optimize decision making.

A Primer on the Psychology of Cognitive Bias

Investigating the effect of emotional stress on adult memory for single and repeated events.

Cognitive effort is an essential part of both forensic and clinical decision-making. Errors occur in both fields because the cognitive process is complex and prone to bias. We performed a selective review of full-text English language literature on cognitive bias leading to diagnostic and forensic errors. Earlier work (1970-2000) concentrated on classifying and raising bias awareness. Recently (2000-2016), the emphasis has shifted toward strategies for "debiasing." While the forensic sciences have focused on the control of misleading contextual cues, clinical debiasing efforts have relied on checklists and hypothetical scenarios. No single generally applicable and effective bias reduction strategy has emerged so far. Generalized attempts at bias elimination have not been particularly successful. It is time to shift focus to the study of errors within specific domains, and how to best communicate uncertainty in order to improve decision making on the part of both the expert and the trier-of-fact.

Diagnosing Crime and Diagnosing Disease: Bias Reduction Strategies in the Forensic and Clinical Sciences.

Linear Sequential Unmasking-Expanded (LSU-E): A general approach for improving decision making as well as minimizing noise and bias.

Accounts of arguments from expert opinion take it for granted that expert judgments count as (defeasible) evidence for propositions, and so an argument that proceeds from premises about what an expert judges to a conclusion that the expert is probably right is a strong argument. In Mizrahi (Informal Log 33:57–79, 2013), I consider a potential justification for this assumption, namely, that expert judgments are significantly more likely to be true than novice judgments, and find it wanting because of empirical evidence suggesting that expert judgments under uncertainty are not significantly more likely to be true than novice judgments or even chance. In this paper, I consider another potential justification for this assumption, namely, that expert judgments are not influenced by the cognitive biases novice judgments are influenced by, and find it wanting, too, because of empirical evidence suggesting that experts are vulnerable to pretty much the same cognitive biases that novices are vulnerable to. If this is correct, then the basic assumption at the core of accounts of arguments from expert opinion, namely, that expert judgments count as (defeasible) evidence for propositions, remains unjustified.

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Arguments from Expert Opinion and Persistent Bias

Breaking script: Deviations and postevent information in adult memory for a repeated event

The current study addressed tunnel vision in industrial incident investigation by experimentally testing how a priori information and a human bias (generated via the fundamental attribution error or correspondence bias) affected participants' investigative behavior as well as the effectiveness of a debiasing intervention. Undergraduates and professional investigators engaged in a simulated industrial investigation exercise. We found that participants' judgments were biased by knowledge about the safety history of either a worker or piece of equipment and that a human bias was evident in participants' decision making. However, bias was successfully reduced with "tunnel vision education." Professional investigators demonstrated a greater sophistication in their investigative decision making compared to undergraduates. The similarities and differences between these two populations are discussed.

Carla L. MacLean

Papers

A Primer on the Psychology of Cognitive Bias

Breaking script: Deviations and postevent information in adult memory for a repeated event

Investigating industrial investigation: examining the impact of a priori knowledge and tunnel vision education.

Biasability and reliability of expert forensic document examiners.

An illusion of objectivity in workplace investigation: The cause analysis chart and consistency, accuracy, and bias in judgments.