Profiles
Professor Jonathan Evans
Emeritus Professor
School of Psychology (Faculty of Health)
Biography
Biography
Professor Emeritus (2009 on)
Professor of Cognitive Psychology (1985-2009)
Director of the Centre for Thinking and Language (1998-2009)
Head of School of Psychology (1999-2005)
Qualifications
BSc Psychology (1) University College London, 1972
PhD Psychology, University College London, 1972
Professional membership
Member of the Experimental Psychology Society
Roles on external bodies
Editor, Thinking & Reasoning (1995-2011)
Editorial Board, Psychological Review. (2009-2014)
Research
Research
Research interests
Dual-process theories of higher cognition.
Rationality and cognitive biases.
Deductive reasoning - especially the study of biases, linguistic and pragmatic factors.
Decision making and judgement - heuristics and biases in probability judgement; judgement analysis; medical decision making.
Other research
Conference papers and colloquia since 2006
Evans, J.St.B.T. (2012). What is reasoning for? Thinking, deciding or arguing? Keynote address. 7th International Conference on Thinking, Birkbeck College London, July.
Evans, J.St.B.T. (2012). Dual process theories of reasoning: advancing the debate. 7th International Conference on Thinking, Brikbeck College London, July.
Evans, J.St.B.T. (2012). Exploring the two minds hypothesis. Keynote address. Herb Simon Society, Trento, Italy, September.
Evans, J.St.B.T. (2010). Two minds in one brain? University of Washington, Seattle.
Evans, J.St.B.T. (2010). The suppositional theory of conditionals: Assessing the evidence. University of Washington, Seattle.
Evans, J.St.B.T. (2010). Dual-process theories of reasoning: Facts and fallacies. BASICs conference, Banff, Canada. April
Evans, J.St.B.T. (2010). Conditional inference: some curiosities. Reasoning workshop, University of Toulouse, May.
Evans, J.St.B.T. (2010). Dual-process theories of reasoning: Facts and fallacies. Piaget seminar. University of Geneva. June
Evans, J.St.B.T. (2009). Dual process theories of reasoning: Types, systems and types of system. London Reasoning Workshop, Birkbeck College, August.
Evans, J.St.B.T. (2008). Exploring the two minds hypothesis. Keynote address. British Psychological Society, Scottish Branch. Edinburgh, February.
Evans, J.St.B.T. (2008). Psychology of reasoning: Reflections on four decades of research. London Reasoning Workshop, Birkbeck College, August.
Evans, J.St.B.T. (2008). Heuristic = bias, analytic = correct. Right? Wrong! BPS international conference on thinking, Venice. August.
Evans, J.St.B.T. (2008). Dual-process theories: Serial, parallel and hybrid. BPS international conference on thinking, Venice. August.
Evans, J.St.B.T. (2008). Exploring the two minds hypothesis. De Montfort University, January.
Evans, J.St.B.T. (2007). How many dual process theories do we need? One, two or many? Princeton University, October. UCL, November.
Evans, J.St.B.T. (2007). The ghost at the banquet: type 3 processes. Workshop on dual process models in cognitive and social psychology. Universtiy of Charlottesville, VA. November.
Evans, J.St.B.T. (2007). Dual-process theories in cognitive and social psychology: A comparison. University of Toulouse, France, May.
Evans, J.St.B.T.. (2006). A suppositional theory of if. Invited presentation. Open University, March.
Evans, J.St.B.T. (2006). Dual system theories of cognition: Some issues. Cognitive Science Society, Vancouver, July. Also presented at the University of Leuven, May.
Evans, J.St.B.T. (2006). The multiplicity of mind. International conference on ‘In two minds: Dual process theories of reasoning and rationality.’ Cambridge, July.
Evans, J.St.B.T. (2004). A suppositional theory of If. Cognitive Science Seminar, University of Kent, November.
Evans, J.St.B.T. (2004). On the origin of dual processes in reasoning. Invited presentation, Department of Cognitive Science, Brown University, Rhode Island.Evans, J.St.B.T. (2004). History of the dual process theory of reasoning. BPS 5th International Conference on Thinking, Leuven, Belgum, July.
Research degrees awarded to supervised students
Jonathan Rolison. PhD. 2010.
Kinga Morsanyi. PhD. 2010.
Rebecca McKenzie, PhD. 2009.
Grants & contracts
Roser, M. Evans, J.St.B.T., Fugetta, G. Dual processes in reasoning: A neuropsychological study of the role of working memory. ESRC £302,903. August 2012-July 2015.
Evans, J.St.B.T. Developing the dual system theory of cognition. ESRC £193,417 (research fellowship). November 2005 - April 2008.
Elqayam,S., Evans, J.St.B.T. and Over D.E. To be or not to be: A suppositional account of disjunctives. ESRC £44,644. November 2005 - October 2006.
Evans, J.St.B.T., Bacon, A. & Handley, S.J. An investigation of dual processes in conditional reasoning. ESRC. £44,500. September 2005 - August 2006.
Evans, J.St.B.T., Handley, S.J. & Over, D.E. Hypothetical thinking with conditional statements. ESRC. £99,493. December 2004 - May 2007.
Publications
Publications
Refereed journal articles
Evans, J.St.B.T. (in press). Reasoning, biases and dual processes: The lasting impact of Wason (1960). Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology.
Elqayam,S., Thompson,V.A., Wilkinson,M., Evans, J.St.B.T. and Over, D.E. (in press). Deontic introduction: A theory of inference from is to ought. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning Memory and Cognition.
Evans, J.St.B.T., Thompson, V.A. & Over, D.E. (2015). Uncertain deduction and conditional reasoning. Frontiers in Psychology. 6:398, 1-12.
Evans, J.St.B.T. (2014). Rationality and the illusion of choice. Frontiers in Psychology, 5: 104,
Roser, M.E., Evans, J.St.B.T., McNair, N.A., Fugetta, G., Handley, S.J., Carroll, L. and Trippas, D. (2014). Investigating reasoning with multiple integrated neuroscientific methods. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, 9:41, 1-3.
Elqayam, S.E. & Evans, J.St.B.T. (2013). Rationality in the new paradigm: Strict versus soft Bayesian approaches. Thinking & Reasoning, 19, 453-470.
Thompson, V.A., Evans, J.St.B.T. & Campbell, J. (2013). Matching bias in the selection task: It’s fast and it feels good. Thinking & Reasoning, 19, 431-452.
Evans, J.St.B.T. & Stanovich, K.E. (2013). Dual-process theories of higher cognition: Advancing the debate. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 8, 223-241.
Evans, J.St.B.T. & Stanovich, K.E. (2013). Theory and metatheory in the study of dual processes: Reply to comments. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 8, 263-271.
Evans, J.St.B.T. & Over, D.E. (2013). Reasoning and to and from belief: Deduction and induction are still distinct. Thinking & Reasoning, 19, 267-268.
Evans, J.St.B.T. (2012). Spot the difference: Distinguishing between two kinds of processing. Mind & Society, 11, 121-131.
Evans, J.St.B.T. (2012). Questions and challenges for the new psychology of reasoning. Thinking & Reasoning, 18, 5-31.
Stupple, J.J., Ball, L.J., Evans, J.St.B.T. & Kamal-Smith, E. (2011). When logic and belief collide: Individual differences in reasoning times support a selective processing model. Journal of Cognitive Psychology, 23, 931-941.
Rolison, J.J., Evans, J.St.B.T., Walsh, C. & Dennis, I. (2012). The role of working memory capacity in multiple cue probability learning. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 118, 189-202.
Evans, J.St.B.T. (2011). Dual-process theories of reasoning: Contemporary issues and developmental applications. Developmental Review, 31, 86-102.
Elqayam, S. & Evans, J.St.B.T. (2011). Subtracting ‘ought’ from ‘is’: Descriptivism versus normativism in the study of human thinking. Behavioural & Brain Sciences, 34, 233-290 (target article).
Evans, J.St.B.T. & Elqyam, S. (2011). Towards a descriptivist psychology of reasoning and decision making. Behavioral & Brain Sciences, 34, 257-284 (authors' response).
Evans, J.St.B.T. (2011). Reasoning is for thinking, not just for arguing. Behavioral and Brain Sciences. 34, 77-78 (Commentary on Mercier and Sperber).
Evans, J.St.B.T. (2010). Intuition and reasoning: A dual process perspective. Psychological Inquiry.
Morsanyi, K., Handley, S.J. & Evans, J.St.B.T. (2010). Decontextualised minds: Adolescents with autism are less susceptible to the conjunction fallacy than typically developing adolescents. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 40, 1378-1388.
McKenzie, R., Evans, J.St.B.T. & Handley, S.J. (2010). Autism and performance on the suppression task: reasoning, context and complexity. Thinking & Reasoning, 17, 182-196.
Evans, J.St.B.T. (2010). On the nature of inductive inference. American Journal of Psychology, 123, 118-121.
McKenzie, R., Evans, J. St. B. T., & Handley, S. J. (2010). Conditional reasoning in autism: activation and integration of knowledge and belief. Developmental Psychology, 46, 391-403.
Evans, J.St.B.T. & Ball, L.J. (2010). Do people reason on the selection task? A new look at the data of Ball et al. (2003). Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 63, 434-441.
Elqayam, S.,Ohm,E. Evans, J.St.B.T. & Over, D.E. (2010). First things first: order bias in deontic disjunctions. Language and Cognitive Processes, 25, 375-401.
Evans, J. St. B. T., Handley, S., Neilens, H., & Over, D. E. (2010). The influence of cognitive ability and instructional set on causal conditional inference. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 63, 892-909.
Evans, J.St.B.T. & Over, D.E. (2010). Heuristic thinking and human intelligence: A commentary on Marewski, Gaissmaier and Gigerenzer. Cognitive Processing, 11, 171-175.
Evans, J.St.B.T. & Over, D.E. (2010). Conditional truth: Comment on Byrne and Johnson-Laird. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 14, 5.
Evans, J. St. B. T., Handley, S., & Bacon, A. M. (2009). Reasoning under time pressure: A study of causal conditional inference. Experimental Psychology, 56, 77-83.
Evans, J.St.B.T. (2009) Does rational analysis stand up to rational analysis? Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 2, 88-89. (Commentary on Oaksford and Chater).
Evans, J.St.B.T. (2009) Introspection, confabulation and dual-process theory. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 2, 142-143. (Commentary on Carruthers).
Evans, J.St.B.T. (2008). Dual-processing accounts of reasoning, judgement and social cognition. Annual Review of Psychology, 59, 255-278.
Hadjichristidis, C., Handley, S., Sloman, S. A., Evans, J. St. B. T., Over, D. E., & Stevenson, R. J. (2007). Iffy beliefs: Conditional thinking and belief change. Memory & Cognition, 35, 2052-2059.
Elqayam, S., Evans, J. St. B.T. & Handley, S.J. (2008). On some limits of hypothetical thinking. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 61, 748-808.
Feeney, A., Evans, J. St. B. T. & Venn, S. (2008). Rarity, pseudodiagnosticity and Bayesian reasoning. Thinking & Reasoning, 14, 209-230.
Evans, J.St.B.T., Neilens, H., Handley, S.J. & Over, D.E. (2008). When can we say if? Cogniiton.108, 100-116.
Evans, J.St.B.T., Handley, S.J., Neilens, H. & Over, D.E. (2008). Understanding causal conditionals: A study of individual differences. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 61, 1291-1297.
Evans, J.St.B.T. (2008). Over, D.E., Hadjichristidis, C., Evans, J.St.B.T., Handley, S.E. & Sloman, S. (2007). The probability of causal conditionals. Cognitive Psychology, 54, 62-97.
Evans, J.St.B.T., Handley, S.J., Hadjchristidis, C., Thompson, V., Over, D.E. and Bennett, S. (2007). On the basis of belief in causal and diagnostic conditionals. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology 60, 635-643.
Evans, J. St. B. T. (2007). On the resolution of conflict in dual-process theories of reasoning. Thinking & Reasoning, 13, 321-329.
Evans, J. St. B. T. & Elqayam, S. (2007). Dual-processing explains base-rate neglect, but which dual-process theory and how? Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 30, 261-262
Evans, J. St. B. T., Handley, S., Neilens, H., & Over, D. E. (2007). Thinking about conditionals: A study of individual differences. Memory & Cognition, 35, 1772-1784.
Evans, J.St.B.T (2006). The heuristic-analytic theory of reasoning: Extension and evaluation. Psychnomic Bulletin and Review, 13, 378-395..
Handley,S.J., Evans, J.St.B.T. & Thompson, V. (2006). The negated conditional: Litmus test for the ssuppositional conditional? Jounal of Experimental Psychology: Learning Memory and Cognition, 13, 378-395.
Evans, J.St.B.T. (in press) How to be a researcher: A strategic guide to academic success. Hove, UK: Psychology Press.
Evans, J.St.B.T. (2014). (Ed) Reasoning, rationality and dual processes: Selected works of Jonathan St B T Evans. Hove, UK. Psychology Press.
Evans, J.St.B.T. (2010). Thinking twice: Two minds in one brain. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Evans, J.St.B.T. & Frankish, K. (Eds) (2009). In two minds: Dual processes and beyond. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Evans, J.St.B.T. (2007). Hypothetical thinking: Dual processes in reasoning and judgement. Hove, UK: Psychology Press.
Evans, J.St.B.T. (2013). Reasoning. In D Reisberg (Ed) The Oxford handbook of cognitive psychology. New York: Oxford University Press.
Evans, J.St.B.T. (2012).. Dual-process theories of reasoning: Facts and fallacies. In K.J. Holyoak and R.G. Morrison (Eds). The Oxford handbook of thinking and reasoning. (New York: Oxford University Press.
Evans, J.St.B.T. (2011). The psychology of reasoning: Reflections on four decades of research. In K Manktelow, D Over and S Elqayam (Eds). The science of reason: a Festschrift for Jonathan St B T Evans. Hove, UK: Psychology Press
Evans, J.St.B.T. (2010). Verbal reasoning. In P.C. Hogan (Ed). Cambridge Encyclopaedia of the Language Sciences. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Over, D.E., Evans, J.St.B.T. & Elqayam, S. (2010). Conditionals and non-constructive reasoning. In M. Oaksford & N Chater (Eds). Cognition and conditionals: probability and logic in human thinking. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Evans, J.St.B.T. (2009). How many dual process theories do we need; One, two or many? In J.St.B.T. Evans & . Frankish (Eds). In two minds: Dual processes and beyond. pp 1-32. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Frankish, K. & Evans, J.St.B.T. (2009). Duality of mind: An historical perspective. In J.St.B.T. Evans & . Frankish (Eds). In two minds: Dual processes and beyond. pp. 33-54. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Evans, J. St. B. T. & Coventry, K. R. (2006). A dual process approach to behavioural addiction: The case of gambling. In R. W. Wiers & A. Stacy (Eds.), Handbook of Implicit Processes in Addictive Behaviors: Developments in Memory, Cognition, Emotion, and Social Cognition Research. Sage.
Personal
Personal
Reports & invited lectures
Evans, J.St.B.T. (2012). What is reasoning for: knowing, deciding or arguing? Keynote address, 7th International Conference on Thinking, Birkbeck College London, July.
Evans, J.St.B.T. (2012). Exploring the two minds hypothesis. Keynote address. Herb Simon Society, Trento, Italy, September.
Evans, J.St.B.T. (2010). Two minds in one brain? University of Washington, Seattle.
Evans, J.St.B.T. (2010). The suppositional theory of conditionals: Assessing the evidence. University of Washington, Seattle.
Evans, J.St.B.T. (2010). Dual-process theories of reasoning: Facts and fallacies. BASICs conference, Banff, Canada. April
Evans, J.St.B.T. (2010). Dual-process theories of reasoning: Facts and fallacies. Piaget seminar. University of Geneva. June
Evans, J.St.B.T. (2008). Exploring the two minds hypothesis. Keynote address. British Psychological Society, Scottish Branch. Edinburgh, February.
Conferences organised
International workshop: 'Dual-process theories in cognitive and social psychology.' Charlottesville, VA. November, 2007.
International meeting: 'In two minds: dual process theories of reasoning and rationality' (with K. Frankish), Cambridge, July 2006.
EPS Conference. Plymouth, July 2006. Local organizer and symposium convener.
Intnational meeting on 'In two minds: Dual processes in reasoning and rationality'. Cambridge, July 2006. Co-organizer with Keith Franish.