Paper to Advance Debate on Dual-Process Theories Genuinely Advanced Debate

Psychologists Jonathan St. B. T. Evans and Keith E. Stanovich have a history of publishing important research papers that resonate for years. Evans, for example, saw a 1975 paper on dual-process theories of cognition he co-authored with Peter Watson set the stage for discussing this insight. Meanwhile, Stanovich has been named one of the 50 most-cited developmental psychologists and was the world’s most-cited expert on reading disability for 10 years ending in 1992.

Given their track records, it should be little surprise that a paper they jointly wrote, and on dual-process theories, should have proved particularly durable, and has been honored this year as part of sage’s 10-Year Impact Awards. Their article, “Dual-Process Theories of Higher Cognition: Advancing the Debate” and which appeared in Perspectives on Psychological Science was the second-most cited paper published in a Sage journal in 2013.

“We wanted to provide a strongly argued defence of the theory which could provide a solid reference for such researchers,” Evans relates below, “and this seems to have worked.”

This is the fifth year that Sage, the parent of Social Science Space, has awarded 10-Year Impact Awards to the top three most-cited papers of the past decade. As Sage’s president of global publishing, Ziyad Marar, explains, “The impact of academic research, especially in the social and behavioral sciences, often goes beyond the standard two-year citation window. These awards extend that period to 10 years, recognizing work with a deep and lasting impact that might be overlooked in the short term.

Evans is an emeritus professor in the faculty of health in the School of Psychology at the University of Plymouth (where he’s been for the last half-century). Stanovich, former Canada Research Chair of Applied Cognitive Science, is currently professor emeritus of applied psychology and human development at the University of Toronto.

Social Science Space asked the researchers some questions about their Perspectives on Psychological Science paper. Their answers appear below.

In your estimation, what in your research—and obviously the published paper—is it that has inspired others or that they have glommed onto? 

The idea of dual processing – explicit (Type 2) and implicit (Type 1) modes of thought – has a strong intuitive appeal, which many have related to issues in their own fields. Quite a large number of the citing authors for this paper are working fields outside of psychology, we notice. It is an idea which has been discovered and rediscovered independently by many authors in the history of philosophy and psychology. – Jonathan Evans

You originally identified five main lines of arguments regarding dual-process theories to address. Do you still see those as the main criticisms, or did new (or neglected) ones make themselves apparent after you published?

I think our coverage of criticisms was comprehensive at the time but dealt mostly with the long-term critics of the framework. In the past decade, concerns have been raised by some authors who have themselves worked within the paradigm. There have been some challenging findings, suggesting that there may be fast process that can solve some reasoning problems – so-called ‘intuitive logic’ – for example. I have published responses indicating that the problems used in such studies were very simple and allowed structural cues to trigger the answers without need for explicit reasoning. Recently published experimental studies appear to confirm this.

It was never the case that Type 1 and 2 processes (fast, intuitive vs slow, reflective) necessarily lead to biases and correct answers respectively. I term this the ‘normative fallacy’ and both Keith and I have highlighted the nature and importance of this fallacy in subsequent writing. – JE

In the article, we tried to draw attention to the fact that it is a mistake to assume that all errors must be fast (the result of miserly reliance on System 1) and that all correct responses must be slow (the result of a computationally taxing override process from System 2). Such an inference ignores the fact that within System 1 can reside normative rules and rational strategies that have been practiced to automaticity and that can automatically compete with (and often immediately defeat) any alternative nonnormative response. This idea is not new. The category of autonomous processing in cognitive science has long included the automatic triggering of overlearned rules (going back to the work in the 1970s).  – Keith Stankovich

What, if anything, would you have done differently in the paper (or underlying research) if you were to go back in time and do it again?  

To be honest, nothing significant. We both put a great deal of time and thought into the preparation of this paper. We were aware that some high-profile figures were attacking dual process theory and felt this might inhibit young researchers or make it harder for them to obtain research funding. We wanted to provide a strongly argued defence of the theory which could provide a solid reference for such researchers, and this seems to have worked. At the same time, we wanted to debunk the myth of the meme-like ‘received’ theory that was featuring in academic writing on this, and also to clarify our own theory which we believe the evidence was supporting. – JE

What direct feedback—as opposed to citations—have you received in the decade since your paper appeared?

In my case, very little. But I have been working on different forms of dual-process theory since the 1970s and had already had numerous interactions with leading academics on this topic. What was very striking to me about the citations, was the breadth and nature of the disciplines from which they were coming. I think the foundations for this spread of interest in the subject must have been laid well ahead of the publication of this paper. What we did, as intended, was to provide a reference for a well-argued case for the theory and explanation of its fundamental principles. As can sometimes happen, this paper became the standard reference for this purpose, hence the unusually large number of citations. – JE

How have others built on what you published? (And how have you yourself built on it?)

I was in the early stages of retirement when I authored this with Keith and have gradually wound down by my research activity over the past decade. However, I have published further on dual-process theory and expanded on some elements of it. In particular, I have distinguished between earlier theories that see Type 2 processing as rationalising Type 1 intuitive answers, and later versions which see Type 2 processing as providing reasoned solutions that can be substituted for initially incorrect intuitive answers. I have proposed how these two views can be reconciled within a single theoretical framework. I have also rejected the idea of ‘System 2’ in favour of multiple Type 2 systems whose common feature is the engagement of working memory. – JE

Could you name a paper (or other scholarly work) that has had the most, or at least a large, impact on you and your work?

An important influence on me was Arther Reber’s 1996 book on Implicit learning and Tacit Knowledge which I read shortly after it was published. I had been working dual-process theories of reasoning for 20 years before I read this and was already broadening the thinking towards two-system theory. I realised that dual processing was a much more general feature of the mind and that it could be linked to evolution in the way that Reber argued. I was further influenced by the work of my co-author Keith Stanovich and his own arguments about the evolution of the human mind, e.g. in The Robot’s Rebellion (2004) and eventually published my own version of two minds theory, in the book Thinking Twice (2010). – JE