2,400 research outputs found

    Simplicity, scientific inference and econometric modelling

    Get PDF
    Economic Schools;Econometric Models;Economic Methodology

    A Natural Law of Succession

    Full text link
    Consider the problem of multinomial estimation. You are given an alphabet of k distinct symbols and are told that the i-th symbol occurred exactly n_i times in the past. On the basis of this information alone, you must now estimate the conditional probability that the next symbol will be i. In this report, we present a new solution to this fundamental problem in statistics and demonstrate that our solution outperforms standard approaches, both in theory and in practice.Comment: 23 page

    Algorithmic complexity for psychology: A user-friendly implementation of the coding theorem method

    Full text link
    Kolmogorov-Chaitin complexity has long been believed to be impossible to approximate when it comes to short sequences (e.g. of length 5-50). However, with the newly developed \emph{coding theorem method} the complexity of strings of length 2-11 can now be numerically estimated. We present the theoretical basis of algorithmic complexity for short strings (ACSS) and describe an R-package providing functions based on ACSS that will cover psychologists' needs and improve upon previous methods in three ways: (1) ACSS is now available not only for binary strings, but for strings based on up to 9 different symbols, (2) ACSS no longer requires time-consuming computing, and (3) a new approach based on ACSS gives access to an estimation of the complexity of strings of any length. Finally, three illustrative examples show how these tools can be applied to psychology.Comment: to appear in "Behavioral Research Methods", 14 pages in journal format, R package at http://cran.r-project.org/web/packages/acss/index.htm

    Universal generalization and universal inter-item confusability

    Get PDF
    We argue that confusability between items should be distinguished from generalization between items. Shepard's data concern confusability, but the theories proposed by Shepard and by Tenenbaum & Griffiths concern generalization, indicating a gap between theory and data. We consider the empirical and theoretical work involved in bridging this gap
    corecore