Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society

How does time pressure affect cognitive behavior when solving problems in an uncertain environment? We found substantial evidence that, under time pressure, decision makers can not apply knowledge-based action, even if that approach is absolutely necessary for solving the problem. The present study aims to explain this phenomenon in terms of the subjective probability of the uncertain events associated with the problem. Our model insists that overestimating the possibility of getting correct answer with rule-based action, affected by time pressure and the attitude of decision makers, leads to the persistence of rule-based action. The experiment's results supported the proposed model.