Collective problem solving is supposed to benefit from cognitive diversity (e.g., when a team consists of individuals with different learning strategies). However, recent evidence for this claim fails to rule out an alternative explanation: that the benefit is due to moderate non-conformity, not diversity. We extend a previous agent-based simulation to distinguish these hypotheses, and demonstrate that diverse learning strategies alone do not yield the expected benefit. We extend the model further, based on an idea from the philosophy of science: Group-level benefits in complex problem solving often entail individual-level failures. Accordingly, we parameterize tolerance for failure, and show that there is an interaction between tolerance for failure and diversity. When tolerance for failure is zero, heterogeneous and homogeneous groups perform equally; when non-zero, diverse groups can outperform heterogeneous groups. Our agent-based simulations help clarify when cognitive diversity benefits collective problem solving.

We frequently use social information when making decisions.For instance, other people may know more about a problemthan we do, so we might update our initial beliefs in light oftheir opinions. The epistemic value of these social cues de-pends in part on their informational independence. Peopleshould thus be sensitive to nonindependence in their weightingof social information. However, the current literature yieldsconflicting results. In one recent study, participants valued so-cial information less when it was nonindependent; in another,participants were insensitive to nonindependence. We identifypossible causes of this inconsistency, and present an experi-mental paradigm that aims to fill these gaps. Then, in a study(N=200) with pre-registered hypotheses and analyses, we findthat participants were not sensitive to cue dependence. Wehighlight the relevance of this finding for the modern mediacontext, where nonindependence of both traditional and socialmedia sources can lead to the spread of bias or false belief.

This study investigates social context's effect on human perceptual decision-making in animacy recognition, a crucial skill for identifying potential social interaction partners. Visual cues, particularly goal-directed and synchronized motion, are essential in animacy inference. We hypothesize a bias (evidenced by response frequency, response time, and confidence levels) toward perceiving motion as animate when in the presence of others. Participants assess animations featuring two moving disks engaging in interactions characterized by varying degrees of synchronized and goal-directed motion. These assessments are conducted individually and alongside another participant performing the same task. During each animation, participants indicate via button press whether they perceive the disks as being alive. Subsequently, they rate their confidence in their response using a 1-5 Likert Scale. By employing Bayesian and Drift Diffusion Models, we aim to uncover how the presence of others impacts animacy perception, thereby shedding light on the role of social factors in perceptual decision-making.