Preparation requires technical research and development, as well as adaptive, proactive governance.

We report the findings of an adversarial collaboration examining whether the cognitive reflection test (CRT) measures anything beyond mathematical aptitude and, if so, whether its incremental predictive validity can be attributed to reflection, per se. We found that an 8-item CRT has greater predictive validity than an 8-item Mathematical Aptitude Test (MAT) consisting of comparably difficult items which lack dominant intuitive lures. Further, the incremental predictive validity stems from the CRT’s measurement of reflection, which we show using both structural equation models and a dual-response paradigm that helps distinguish susceptibility to intuitions from inadequate mathematical aptitude.

This article is an annotated and edited transcript of an interview of Daniel Kahneman (1934-2024) by Craig Fox that took place at the University of California, Los Angeles, on April 30, 2004. It includes reflections on his career and his groundbreaking collaboration with Amos Tversky (1937-1996) on heuristics and biases and prospect theory, among other research topics. Kahneman also discussed his reaction to being awarded the Nobel Prize, his thoughts about the future and impact of the field, his advice to young scholars, and his legacy.

Do larger incomes make people happier? Two authors of the present paper have published contradictory answers. Using dichotomous questions about the preceding day, [Kahneman and Deaton, Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 107, 16489–16493 (2010)] reported a flattening pattern: happiness increased steadily with log(income) up to a threshold and then plateaued. Using experience sampling with a continuous scale, [Killingsworth, Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 118, e2016976118 (2021)] reported a linear-log pattern in which average happiness rose consistently with log(income). We engaged in an adversarial collaboration to search for a coherent interpretation of both studies. A reanalysis of Killingsworth’s experienced sampling data confirmed the flattening pattern only for the least happy people. Happiness increases steadily with log(income) among happier people, and even accelerates in the happiest group. Complementary nonlinearities contribute to the overall linear-log relationship. We then explain why Kahneman and Deaton overstated the flattening pattern and why Killingsworth failed to find it. We suggest that Kahneman and Deaton might have reached the correct conclusion if they had described their results in terms of unhappiness rather than happiness; their measures could not discriminate among degrees of happiness because of a ceiling effect. The authors of both studies failed to anticipate that increased income is associated with systematic changes in the shape of the happiness distribution. The mislabeling of the dependent variable and the incorrect assumption of homogeneity were consequences of practices that are standard in social science but should be questioned more often. We flag the benefits of adversarial collaboration.

A key but neglected issue in the search for collective intelligence principles is the role of noise. Does noise inhibit collective intelligence or can it amplify the discovery of intelligent solutions? In this exchange of letters, the authors explore the pros and cons of noise.

Human behavior is a diverse, complex, and highly interesting phenomenon. Despite the many differences that exist between any two people, we can find patterns that characterize typical behaviors in various situations, such as in a classroom or at a family dinner. The research field called behavioral economics studies human behavior in financial situations. In this article, I will present the main findings of the prospect theory, which I developed together with the late Amos Tversky. Prospect theory explains human choices in situations that involve gambling, and it answers questions such as whether people consider gains and losses equally and how a person’s initial financial situation influences the value they give to gains and losses. At the end of the article, I will share important insights from my scientific career and explain why happiness has two faces.

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Behavioural scientists Daniel Kahneman and Olivier Sibony tell Graham Lawton why “noise” in judgements gets in the way of truth and fairness across society

Your fifty years of work had a massive impact on different disciplines ranging from social sciences to psychology, from philosophy to economics. The Prize motivation states that you won the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel 2002 ‘for having integrated insights from psychological research into economic science, especially concerning human judgment and decision-making under uncertainty’.

Why does judgment matter? We expect good judgment from a doctor making a diagnosis, an employer screening resumes, or a professor grading an essay. But even the wisest experts are susceptible to both bias (consistently going in the wrong direction) and noise (randomly missing the mark). The first step to more accurate and precise judgment is to understand the ways in which the human mind jumps to conclusions. Your judgment will never be perfect—but you can strive to be aware of your limitations and to correct for them.

Reports in the 1970s of cognitive illusions in judgments of uncertainty had been anticipated by Laplace 150 years earlier. We discuss Miller and Gelman’s remark that Laplace’s anticipation of the main ideas of the heuristics and biases approach “gives us a new perspective on these ideas as more universal and less contingent on particular developments [that came much] later.”

The psychologist Anne Treisman dedicated her career to the study of attention and perception, a central concern of cognitive science. While still a graduate student, she modified and reformulated the leading theory of auditory attention. Her discoveries and insights into the role of visual attention in the perception of objects, to which she devoted her subsequent decades of research, have had a lasting influence, not only in experimental psychology but also in vision research, neuroscience and artificial intelligence. In a period of rising interest in the brain, her foundational theories inspired thousands of experiments in her own field and others, and the originality and precision of her experimental design confirmed the continued relevance of behavioural research to the scientific enterprise. Treisman's accomplishments were recognized by the National Academy of Sciences in the USA in 1994 and by the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1995. In 1996, she became the first psychologist to win the Golden Brain Award. She received the University of Louisville Grawemeyer Award in Psychology in 2009, and was awarded the National Medal of Science by President Barack Obama at a White House ceremony in 2013.

The psychologist Anne Treisman dedicated her career to the study of attention and perception, a central concern of cognitive science. While still a graduate student, she modified and reformulated t...