b. 1933
Raymond Nickerson is a contemporary cognitive psychologist and researcher at Tufts University and BBN Technologies, known for his extensive work on human reasoning, critical thinking, and cognitive biases. His scholarship spans probabilistic reasoning, confirmation bias, and the nature of general thinking skills, making significant contributions to both cognitive science and philosophy of education. He is among the most cited researchers on the psychology of reasoning and epistemic rationality.
Authored the landmark review 'Confirmation Bias: A Ubiquitous Phenomenon in Many Guises' (1998), one of the most cited papers on epistemic error
Developed a comprehensive empirical account of critical thinking and its teachability, directly engaging philosophical debates about domain-generality
Wrote 'Cognition and Chance' (2004), a rigorous treatment of probabilistic reasoning and its failures
Contributed to debates in philosophy of education on whether general thinking skills exist and can be taught
Produced 'Mathematical Reasoning: Patterns, Problems, Conjectures, and Proofs' (2010), bridging cognitive science and mathematical epistemology