Cognitive processes operating in hindsight

The aim of this investigation was to study the cognitive processes involved in the "knew-it-all-along'' effect, especially in regard to use of inferen tial processes. The results of three experiments showed that the magnitude of the phenomenon did not increase with more use of inferential processes. It is proposed that only under misleading circumstances do inferential proc esses associated with overconfidence increase the magnitude of the phenomen on. For a majority of the tasks introspectively classified as solved by pur e guessing, the hindsight phenomenon entirely disappeared whereas "intuitio n" tasks lead to the strongest bias. The results are generally consistent w ith the accuracy-assessment model (A. Winman et al., 1998).