Cognitive Illusions

Pohl's edited volume examines the mental shortcuts and errors that shape how people think, judge and recall events in daily life. It opens by defining cognitive illusions and weighing a central debate: do these patterns reveal a flawed human information-processing system, or are they side effects of mechanisms that usually serve us well?

Each topic is introduced with its background, followed by the relevant experimental research, proposed explanations and practical implications. The phenomena covered include the illusion of control, overconfidence and hindsight bias. Every chapter also describes an experiment that instructors can run as a classroom demonstration.

This edition adds six new chapters and has been revised throughout to reflect recent research and shifts in the field. It is aimed at students and researchers interested in thinking, reasoning, decision-making and memory.