Biased probing of memory: A new explanation of hindsight bias.

Abstract

The following research explores how biased probing of memory leads to overestimating the accuracy with which one could have predicted past events, the hindsight bias. MINERVA-DM, a multiple trace model developed by Dougherty, Gettys, and Ogden (1999), suggests that the probing of memory with detailed versus sketchy probes leads to a hindsight bias. When making probability judgments concerning an event that has already occurred we tend to probe memory with a highly detailed probe. We use sketchy probes for alternative events that might have happened but did not. This asymmetry in the amount of detail in the probes leads to an excessive feeling of certainty for what actually happened, and reduces the feelings of certainty for alternative outcomes.

Two experiments were conducted examining the effects of biased probing on the hindsight bias. Experiment 1 systematically varied the amount of detail used to probe memory. It was found that the more detailed outcome knowledge was, the more excessive the bias. Experiment 2 examined what participants forgot about a sporting event, and how forgetting affected the hindsight bias. Participants forgot more details of outcomes for "what might have happened, but did not." This differential forgetting created the asymmetry in the details of the probes, and produced the hindsight bias.