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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Psychol.
Sec. Cognition
Volume 16 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2025.1485283
This article is part of the Research Topic Cognitive Mechanisms Underpinning Pro-Social Behavior Across Cultures View all 5 articles
Effect of Hit Rate and Cognitive Style on Bayesian Reasoning: Evidence from Eye Movements
Provisionally accepted- Hunan Normal University, Changsha, China
While psychological research has established both probability information and cognitive style as key factors in Bayesian reasoning, their interactive effects remain underexplored. We conducted an eyetracking experiment with 52 undergraduates using EyeLink II to examine how hit rate variations and field dependence/independence influence reasoning patterns during classic Bayesian tasks. Results revealed significant hit rate × cognitive style interactions across multiple eye-tracking measures (total/average fixation durations, area-specific dwell time, fixation proportion). The attention prioritization followed the order: hit rate > false alarm rate > base rate, though base rate information retained measurable influence. High hit rates amplified field-dependent participants' base rate neglect, while field-independent individuals maintained stable attention allocation across conditions. Fieldindependent reasoners demonstrated superior concentration and more efficient cognitive resource allocation, employing systematic information-processing strategies. These findings clarify the cognitive hierarchy of probability weighting in Bayesian reasoning while validating the critical moderating role of individual differences in information processing styles.
Keywords: Bayesian reasoning, Breast Cancer Problem, EYE MOVEMENT, cognitive style, hit rate
Received: 23 Aug 2024; Accepted: 04 Mar 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Yin, Shi, Liu and Chen. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence:
Zifu Shi, Hunan Normal University, Changsha, China
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