JUST PUBLISHED: How does human behaviour change in response to failure and success? Post-error recklessness and the hot hand

Post-error slowing describes systematic increases in response time (RT) following an error in rapid choice tasks (Laming, 1968). The hot hand originated in sports, and describes an increase in the probability of success after previous success. The hot hand is often considered a fallacy as, despite the strong beliefs of spectators and players, the effect is not often empirically observed (Gilovich, Vallone, & Tversky, 1985).  Even though they are both measured by a difference between post-error and post-correct performance, and even though they both tap similar questions - the literature have not overlapped because post-error slowing (rapid choice experiments) and the hot hand (professional sports) have been studied in vastly different environments.

Paul Williams, a PhD student in the School of Psychology, developed over the last few years dedicated computer game-like tasks (and measures) that allow assesing Post-Error slowing and Hot Hand simultaneously.

In this recently published paper Paul and his colleagues at the Newcastle Cognition Lab present data from their computerized game-like task along with a comparison of several measures of sequential dependency. The results were quite surprising...

SPOILER ALERT -  First and foremost, unpaid players exhibited surprising and strong evidence for the elusive hot hand, with an unprecedented effect size. Furthermore, financial reward to successful performance led to a more cautious approach following errors, whereas unrewarded performance led to recklessness. You can read about these results and other findings in the full paper:

Williams, P., Heatchocte, A., Nesbitt, K., & Eidels, A. (2016). Post error recklessness and the hot hand. Judgment and Decision Making, 11(2), 174-184.