Critical Thinking beyond Biases

Human beings possess notable analytical capacities, but these may remain hidden unless the context and formulation of questions allow them to emerge. This chapter examines communication between experimenters and participants in psychological research on thinking, shifting attention from analytical abilities to the communicative features of the task. When communication fails, participants’ interpretations often diverge from the experimenter’s intentions, producing tasks that may appear more difficult–or even nonsensical–than designed. Experimental evidence demonstrates that subtle modifications in instructions can significantly improve accuracy in both nave participants and experts in logic. These findings call for a reassessment of reasoning competence, traditionally conceived within the framework of logical-scientific ideals, through the lens of the psychorhetorical dimension of thought. This perspective underscores how communicative framing shapes performance, whether reasoning is engaged in evaluating the validity of an idea, a hypothesis, or a conclusion. The analysis highlights a dimension of thought that cuts across argumentative, logical, and demonstrative discourse, situating reasoning within its broader communicative context.