Dual Processing theory proposes that the ability to over ride associative (System 1) in favour of analytical (System 2) processed in deductive reasoning may depend on inhibitory control. The present study applies this association to a spatial reasoning task by adapting a mental rotation task to a multichoice format including System 1 (mirror) and System 2 (rotated image) responses. Fifty undergraduate volunteers from the University of Canterbury responded to a Stroop task as a measure of inhibitory control that was compared with System 1 and System 2 responding from a spatial and a deductive reasoning task. It was expected that people with weaker inhibitory potential would make more System 1 and fewer System 2 responses in both deductive and visual-spatial reasoning tasks. Contrary to expectation System 2 responding dominated for both tasks and correlations between both reasoning tasks and measures of inhibitory control were non-significant. The differing idiosyncratic demands of each task may have obscured any common variables associated with inhibitory control. This research initiated a test for the presence of System 1 and System 2 in spatial reasoning.

Dual Processing theory proposes that the ability to over ride associative (System 1) in favour of analytical (System 2) processed in deductive reasoning may depend on inhibitory control. The present study applies this association to a spatial reasoning task by adapting a mental rotation task to a multichoice format including System 1 (mirror) and System 2 (rotated image) responses. Fifty undergraduate volunteers from the University of Canterbury responded to a Stroop task as a measure of inhibitory control that was compared with System 1 and System 2 responding from a spatial and a deductive reasoning task. It was expected that people with weaker inhibitory potential would make more System 1 and fewer System 2 responses in both deductive and visual-spatial reasoning tasks. Contrary to expectation System 2 responding dominated for both tasks and correlations between both reasoning tasks and measures of inhibitory control were non-significant. The differing idiosyncratic demands of each task may have obscured any common variables associated with inhibitory control. This research initiated a test for the presence of System 1 and System 2 in spatial reasoning.

In an attempt to understand how humans make decisions, a wealth of researchers have explored the commonalities of different decision making demands. Two ranges of systems have been classified. Whereas Type 1 decision making is fast, automatic, and effortless, Type 2 judgments are slow, contemplative, and effortful. Here, I sought to determine underlying mechanisms of these processes. To do this, I present an extensive review and two electroencephalogram experiments. My review addresses theoretical models defining Type 1 and Type 2 decision making, discusses the debate between dual-process and continuous frameworks, proposes a novel insight into how these processes are selected and executed, and outlines neuro-anatomical findings. In one experiment, participants retained digits (Type 1 processes) and completed mathematical computations (Type 2 processes). I found that cognitive control – as reflected by frontal theta – and attentional mechanisms – as reflected by parietal alpha – are core mechanisms in Type 1 and Type 2 decision making. In a second experiment, I sought to replicate these findings when trained students diagnosed diseases. Differences in theta and alpha activity were not seen. I posit that the discrepancy between experiments may be because cognitive control relies on uncertainty which existed in experiment one but not experiment two. Moreover, attentional mechanisms involve the retrieval of knowledge in which the demands would have differed in experiment one but not two. I conclude by describing how cognitive control and attention fit into my hypothesis of different decision making steps: process selection and execution. These findings are important as they could lead to the assessment of decision making processes in real-world contexts, for example with clinicians in the hospital. Moreover, they could be used in biofeedback training to optimize decisions. / Graduate

In today’s constantly evolving technological environment, businesses have more tools to support decision-making and these can be categorized as Decision Support Systems (DSS). One of the tools is Business Intelligence (BI), which is regarded as a high-priority investment in organizations nowadays. Even though there exists a vast amount of research in the DSS area, most of the influential work is conducted in time incomparable to today’s technological environment. In addition, most of the research focuses on profit-seeking organizations, as BI has been regarded as a tool to increase profits. However, non-profit organizations also use BI, but are not portrayed in the BI research area. The aim with this study is to explore how BI is used in relation to decision-making in a non-profit organization and to investigate the crucial factors in the usage of BI in relation to decision-making. A qualitative case study approach is applied where the Swedish non-profit organization Systembolaget AB is the case company. The main findings indicate that interaction between the two decision-making types is needed when using BI in a non-profit context. Moreover, having data literacy, data reliability, and data accessibility is found crucial in order to achieve BI success in relation to decision-making, especially when more and more decisions are made at the operational level. Finally, the results of this study amplify the need for an update in the DSS framework.

Previous research on human judgment and decision making has demonstrated systematic and predictable biases of judgment in experimental settings. One example of this is the tendency to intuitively violate the conjunction rule - a simple rule of probability. This was well illustrated in the famous Linda-problem. (Tversky & Kahneman, 1983). According to the dual-process theory of reasoning, (Kahneman, 2011) reasoning fallacies such as the conjunction fallacy occurs when people fail to use analytic reasoning and instead overly rely on their intuition. The dual process theory proposes that cognitive processes underlying our intuitive impulses and our conscious reasoning constitutes two different modes in the mind –system 1 and system 2- and that the intuitive system 1 are not able to compute probabilities. Furthermore, it is assumed that processes that are labeled system 1 are fast whereas system 2 are thought to be slow. We tested these time course assumptions of dual process theory in a within-subject design by comparing response time latencies between conjunction fallacy judgments and accurate probability judgments. The results showed that inducing accurate responding did not result in delayed response latency. This indicates that making accurate probability judgments does not require more processing time which goes against what would be expected by the dual-process framework. / Tidigare forskning om mänskligt beslutsfattande och bedömningar har i experiment påvisat systematiska och förutsägbara bias. Ett exempel på detta är tendensen att intuitivt gå emot konjuktionsregeln- en enkel regel gällande sannolikhet. Detta illustrerades väl i det berömda Linda- problemet (Tversky & Kahneman, 1983). Enligt två-systemsteorin (Kahneman, 2011) om problemlösning, uppstår bedömningsfel såsom konjuktionsfelet när människor inte använder sig av analytiskt tänkande och istället förlitar sig för mycket på sin intuition. Två-systemsteorin menar att de kognitiva processer som ligger till grund för våra intuitiva impulser och vårt medvetna resonerande utgör två olika aktörer i vårt tänkande- system 1 och system 2- och att det intuitiva system 1 inte kan beräkna sannolikheter. Processer som betecknas som tillhörande system 1 är enligt två-systemsteorin snabba medan system 2 föreställs vara ett långsamt system. I denna studie testades antagandet om tidsåtgång för de två systemen i en inomgruppsdesign genom att jämföra responstider mellan bedömningar där konjunktionsfelet begåtts och bedömningar där det inte begåtts. Resultaten visar att korrekta sannolikhetsbedömningar inte resulterar i långsammare responstider. Detta indikerar att det inte tycks vara mer tidskrävande att göra riktiga sannolikhetsbedömningar, vilket motsäger två-systemsteorins antagande om snabbt och långsamt processande.