[1] When a person gives a response that is determined by the believability of the conclusion rather than logical validity, this is referred to as belief bias only when a syllogism is used.
This phenomenon is so closely related to syllogistic reasoning that, when it does occur, in areas such as Wason's selection task or the THOG problem, it is called "memory cueing" or the "effects of content".
Various studies have proved that the time period for which a subject is allowed to think when evaluating arguments is related to the tendency for belief bias to take place.
In a study done by Evans and Holmes in 2005,[12] they recruited two different groups of people to answer a series of reasoning questions.
The nature of the content presented can also affect belief bias of an individual as shown by a study done by Goel & Vartanian in 2011.
The results of the experiments reflects that when elaborated instructions were given to subjects to reason logically, the effects of belief bias is decreased.
In a series of experiments by Evans, Barston and Pollard (1983),[15] participants were presented with evaluation task paradigms, containing two premises and a conclusion.
Participants also illustrated evidence of logical competences and the results determined an increase in acceptance of valid (73%) than invalid (41%).
The results indicated “a significant belief-bias effect” that existed “independently of the subjects' abstract reasoning ability.”[19] A 2010 study by Donna Torrens examined differences in belief bias among individuals.
Torrens found that “the extent of an individual's belief bias effect was unrelated to a number of measures of reasoning competence” but was, instead, related to that person's ability “to generate alternative representations of premises: the more alternatives a person generated, the less likely they were to show a belief bias effect.