While working memory capacity is associated with superior performance on a number of tasks, could it paradoxically sometimes be associated with suboptimal performance? Corbin et al. (2010, Judgment and Decision Making 5(2), 110–115) found that, in a between-subjects design, higher WMC is associated with a larger risky-choice framing effect, traditionally conceived of as a departure from rational principles. Such surprising findings are of potentially great theoretical importance; yet the original study was underpowered. In this registered report, we aimed to replicate and extend the original findings, by conducting an online experiment among 425 North Americans. To extend the findings beyond the specific single tasks used in the original study, we used three WMC tasks with different processing components and six framing problems involving human lives. In a close replication, the frame significantly interacted with neither the Ospan short absolute score nor the Ospan short partial score in predicting ratings on the disease-framing problem. Similarly, in an extended replication, a composite WMC score did not significantly interact with the frame in predicting ratings on three framing problems involving human lives. The Bayes factors showed that the data were 3 to 10 times more likely under the null hypothesis of no interaction between WMC and frame. Taken together, these findings show an absence of association between the between-subjects risky-choice framing effect and WMC. This outcome is compatible with four out of the six theoretical accounts we considered, and is uniquely predicted by the default-interventionist dual-process account and the pragmatic inference account. Further research can more rigorously pit conflicting predictions of these accounts against each other.

Current guidelines and regulatory frameworks create a dilemma that threatens the effectiveness of much needed communication between patients and medical providers: How can patients be presented with detailed facts without creating cognitive “overload”? We explain how this is a false dichotomy and illustrate, using three examples, how fuzzy-trace theory offers a third way of informing patients.

In “Risky choice framing: Task versions and a comparison of prospect theory and fuzzy-trace theory”, Kühberger and Tanner (2010) examined the impacts of removing stated zero/non-zero complements of risky options on the gain/loss framing effect. They also tested two rival theoretical explanations for this effect: prospect theory and fuzzy-trace theory. The present study aimed to examine the reliability and robustness of the evidence provided by Kühberger and Tanner by precise replication in Study 1. The original findings were reported for conditions in which the probability of the risky option was fixed, and the expected value of the two alternatives was approximately equivalent. The present study also aimed to examine the generality of their findings under additional conditions in which large, medium and small probabilities of the risky option were assigned, and the expected value of the certain or risky options differed. The main findings of Kühberger and Tanner (2010) were successfully replicated and confirmed under the original and additional conditions. The implications of these findings are discussed.

Combining meaning, memory, and development, the perennially popular topic of intuition can be approached in a new way. Fuzzy-trace theory integrates these topics by distinguishing between meaning-based gist representations, which support fuzzy (yet advanced) intuition, and superficial verbatim representations of information, which support precise analysis. Here, I review the counterintuitive findings that led to the development of the theory and its most recent extensions to the neuroscience of risky decision making. These findings include memory interference (worse verbatim memory is associated with better reasoning); nonnumerical framing (framing effects increase when numbers are deleted from decision problems); developmental decreases in gray matter and increases in brain connectivity; developmental reversals in memory, judgment, and decision making (heuristics and biases based on gist increase from childhood to adulthood, challenging conceptions of rationality); and selective attention effects that provide critical tests comparing fuzzy-trace theory, expected utility theory, and its variants (e.g., prospect theory). Surprising implications for judgment and decision making in real life are also discussed, notably, that adaptive decision making relies mainly on gist-based intuition in law, medicine, and public health.

The current study looks at the role working memory plays in risky-choice framing. Eighty-six participants took the Automatic OSPAN, a measurement of working memory; this was followed by a risky-choice framing task. Participants with high working memory capacities demonstrated well pronounced framing effects, while those with low working memory capacities did not. This pattern suggests that, in a typical risky-choice decision task, elaborative encoding of task information by those with high working memory capacity may lead them to a more biased decision compared to those with low working memory.