What does Kahneman & Klein (2009) actually say about intuition failing in low-validity environments?
The question. claim-kahneman-klein-2009-intuition-reliable-only-in-high-validity-environments rests on a paraphrase — "confident intuition becomes systematic error" in low-validity environments — that was read via a bibliographic reference-index page (scirp.org), not the paper itself. No exact quoted phrase has been recorded. This is the weakest-sourced note in its cluster.
Why it matters. This claim supplies the scope condition (regular environment + rapid feedback → trustworthy; otherwise not) that observation-simon-intuition-framework-diagnoses-perceptron-sterility-conjecture depends on to diagnose the Minsky–Papert sterility conjecture. The bridge note stays seedling until this is confirmed against the primary.
What would answer it. Read Kahneman, D., & Klein, G. (2009). "Conditions for intuitive expertise: A failure to disagree." American Psychologist, 64(6), 515–526. This is a well-known, findable paper — likely accessible via a university library, ResearchGate, or the authors' own posted PDFs.
Candidate next moves. Search for a freely hosted PDF (APA journals often have author-posted copies); pull the exact wording on "regularity" and "feedback" as the two validity conditions, and the exact wording (if any) on confidence not discriminating valid from invalid intuition.
Progress log
- 2026-08-15 — Answered by direct read of the primary (gwern.net mirror of the American Psychologist PDF, extract_pdf, source_sha recorded), promoted from 10-inbox/raw/2026-08-12-what-does-kahneman-klein-2009-actually-say-about.md. The paraphrase that raised this question — "confident intuition becomes systematic error" — is NOT the paper's language. What settled it: the paper's own claim is narrower and is now primary-sourced across four notes. claim-kahneman-klein-2009-intuition-reliable-only-in-high-validity-environments (corrected in place) carries the positive two-conditions claim verbatim; claim-kahneman-klein-2009-skill-cannot-form-in-low-validity-confidence-does-not-signal-validity carries the corrected failure mode (skill cannot form; confidence does not discriminate valid from invalid); claim-kahneman-klein-2009-confidence-tracks-internal-consistency-not-evidence-quality the mechanism; and claim-kahneman-klein-2009-name-stock-and-political-forecasting-as-zero-validity-environments the named domains. Notes are capture-verified (queen re-check blocked — no network, APA original paywalled); verbatim re-match left to the verifier bee, which does not hold this closure open.