Guillermo Campitelli

The 21st century has witnessed an exponential increase on scientists’ interest in Bayesianism. The Bayes theorem is a simple equation in probability theory that gave rise to new theoretical and methodological approaches in philosophy of science, statistics, psychology and neuroscience. Although the simplest version of the Bayes theorem is computationally relatively easy to solve, we humans are very bad at doing so. After introducing the general ideas underlying Bayesian approaches, in this seminar Associate Professor Guillermo Campitelli will show research in Bayesian reasoning, depict his expertise approach to explain results, and present his research inspired by that approach. In the second part of the seminar, he will introduce Bayesian approaches in statistics and his view on how they could help psychologists improve their research practices.

The cognitive reflection test (CRT, Frederick, 2005) aims to measure the ability or disposition to resist reporting the response that first comes to mind, it contains three problems, and is typically completed in less than ten minutes. We used a mathematical modelling approach, based on a sample of 2,019 participants, to investigate properties of this test. Given that the test contains three mathematical problems, is this test just a numeracy test? We found that the models that include a critical thinking parameter (i.e., the probability of inhibiting an intuitive response), as well as a numeracy parameter (i.e., the probability of using an adequate mathematical procedure), fitted the data better than a model that only included a numeracy parameter. We also found that the critical thinking parameter in males is best explained by both a critical thinking ability and a critical thinking disposition, whereas in females this parameter was better explained by only a critical thinking ability.