The intersection between Descriptivism and Meliorism in reasoning research: further proposals in support of 'soft normativism'

The rationality paradox centres on the observation that people are highly intelligent, yet show evidence of errors and biases in their thinking when measured against normative standards. Elqayam and Evans (e.g., 2011) reject normative standards in the psychological study of thinking, reasoning and deciding in favour of a ‘value-free’ descriptive approach to studying high-level cognition. In reviewing Elqayam and Evans’ position, we defend an alternative to descriptivism in the form of ‘soft normativism’, which allows for normative evaluations alongside the pursuit of descriptive research goals. We propose that normative theories have considerable value provided that researchers: (1) are alert to the philosophical quagmire of strong relativism; (2) are mindful of the biases that can arise from utilising normative benchmarks; and (3) engage in a focused analysis of the processing approach adopted by individual reasoners. We address the controversial ‘is–ought’ inference in this context and appeal to a ‘bridging solution’ to this contested inference that is based on the concept of ‘informal reflective equilibrium’. Furthermore, we draw on Elqayam and Evans’ recognition of a role for normative benchmarks in research programmes that are devised to enhance reasoning performance and we argue that such Meliorist research programmes have a valuable reciprocal relationship with descriptivist accounts of reasoning. In sum, we believe that descriptions of reasoning processes are fundamentally enriched by evaluations of reasoning quality, and argue that if such standards are discarded altogether then our explanations and descriptions of reasoning processes are severely undermined

Negative decision outcomes are more common among people with lower decision-making competence: An item-level analysis of the Decision Outcome Inventory (DOI)

Most behavioral decision research takes place in carefully controlled laboratory settings, and examination of relationships between performance and specific real-world decision outcomes is rare. One prior study shows that people who perform better on hypothetical decision tasks, assessed using the Adult Decision-Making Competence (A-DMC) measure, also tend to experience better real-world decision outcomes, as reported on the Decision Outcomes Inventory (DOI). The DOI score reflects avoidance of outcomes that could result from poor decisions, ranging from serious (e.g., bankruptcy) to minor (e.g., blisters from sunburn). The present analyses go beyond the initial work, which focused on the overall DOI score, by analyzing the relationships between specific decision outcomes and A-DMC performance. Most outcomes are significantly more likely among people with lower A-DMC scores, even after taking into account two variables expected to produce worse real-world decision outcomes: younger age and lower socio-economic status. We discuss the usefulness of DOI as a measure of successful real-world decision-making

Individual differences in causal learning and decision making

This is an accepted author manuscript of an article subsequently published by Elsevier. The final published version can be found here: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.actpsy.2005.04.003In judgment and decision making tasks, people tend to neglect the overall frequency of base-rates when they estimate the probability of an event; this is known as the base-rate fallacy. In causal learning, despite people s accuracy at judging causal strength according to one or other normative model (i.e., Power PC, DP), they tend to misperceive base-rate information (e.g., the cause density effect). The present study investigates the relationship between causal learning and decision making by asking whether people weight base-rate information in the same way when estimating causal strength and when making judgments or inferences about the likelihood of an event. The results suggest that people differ according to the weight they place on base-rate information, but the way individuals do this is consistent across causal and decision making tasks. We interpret the results as reflecting a tendency to differentially weight base-rate information which generalizes to a variety of tasks. Additionally, this study provides evidence that causal learning and decision making share some component processes

Assessing the association between thinking dispositions and clinical error

Background- Dual-process theory suggests that Type 1 thinking results in a propensity to make ‘intuitive’ decisions based on limited information. Type 2 processes, on the other hand, are able to analyse these initial responses and replace them with rationalised decisions. Individuals may have a preference for different modes of rationalisation, on a continuum from careful to cursory. These ‘dispositions’ of thinking reside in type 2 processes, and may result in error when the preference is for ‘quick and casual’ decision-making. Methods - We asked clinicians to answer a cognitive puzzle to which there was an obvious, but incorrect, answer, to measure their propensity for ‘quick and casual’ decision-making. The same clinicians were also asked to report the number of clinical errors they had committed in the previous two weeks. We hypothesized an association between committing error and settling for an incorrect answer, and that the cognitive puzzle would have predictive capability. Results- Ninety of 153 (59%) clinicians reported that they had committed error, while 103 (67%) gave the incorrect ‘intuitive’ answer to the cognitive puzzle. There was no statistically significant difference between clinicians who committed error and answered incorrectly, and those who did not and answered correctly (χ2 (1, n=1153)=0.021, p=0.885). Conclusions- The prevalence of clinical error in our study was higher than previously reported in the literature, and the propensity for accepting intuitive solutions was high. Although the cognitive puzzle was unable to predict who was more likely to commit error, the study offers insights into developing other predictive models for error

The Role of Knowledge in Early Literacy

Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/88052/1/RRQ.36.4.6.pd

Controller HIL testing of real-time distributed frequency control for future power systems

With the evolution of power system components and structures driven mainly by renewable energy technologies, reliability of the network could be compromised with traditional control methodologies. Therefore, it is crucial to thoroughly validate and test future power system control concepts before deployment. In this paper, a Controller Hardware in the Loop (CHIL) simulation for a real-time distributed control algorithm concept developed within the ELECTRA IRP project is performed. CHIL allows exploration of many real-world issues such as noise, randomness of event timings, and hardware design issues that are often not present on a simulation-only system. Octave has been used as the programming language of the controller in order to facilitate the transition between software simulation and real-time control testing. The distributed controller achieved frequency restoration with a collaborative response between different controllers very fast after the unbalanced area is located

Telepresence and the Role of the Senses

The telepresence experience can be evoked in a number of ways. A well-known example is a player of videogames who reports about a telepresence experience, a subjective experience of being in one place or environment, even when physically situated in another place. In this paper we set the phenomenon of telepresence into a theoretical framework. As people react subjectively to stimuli from telepresence, empirical studies can give more evidence about the phenomenon. Thus, our contribution is to bridge the theoretical with the empirical. We discuss theories of perception with an emphasis on Heidegger, Merleau-Ponty and Gibson, the role of the senses and the Spinozian belief procedure. The aim is to contribute to our understanding of this phenomenon. A telepresence-study that included the affordance concept is used to empirically study how players report sense-reactions to virtual sightseeing in two cities. We investigate and explore the interplay of the philosophical and the empirical. The findings indicate that it is not only the visual sense that plays a role in this experience, but all senses

Narrative writing, reading and cognitive processes in middle childhood: what are the links?

This study investigated the relationship between measures of reading and writing, and explored whether cognitive measures known to be related to reading ability were also associated with writing performance in middle childhood. Sixty-Four children, aged between 8 years 9 months and 11 years 9 months, took part in a battery of writing, reading, and cognitive ability tasks. Reading fluency emerged as having a strong relationship to written language performance, after controlling for age and verbal reasoning. While children with reading difficulties were weak at spelling accuracy, they were otherwise found to produce written compositions of similar quality to typical readers. Boys produced less written text than girls, but did not demonstrate weaker written language abilities. Collectively the results demonstrate that writing skills can be separated into transcription and composition processes, and highlight the need for further research on the relationship between reading fluency and children’s writing

On the source of human irrationality

Reasoning and decision making are error prone. This is often attributed to a fast, phylogenetically old System 1. It is striking, however, that perceptuo-motor decision making in humans and animals is rational. These results are consistent with perceptuo-motor strategies emerging in Bayesian brain theory that also appear in human data selection. People seem to have access, although limited, to unconscious generative models that can generalise to explain other verbal reasoning results. Error does not emerge predominantly from System 1, but rather seems to emerge from the later evolved System 2 that involves working memory and language. However language also sows the seeds of error correction by moving reasoning into the social domain. This reversal of roles suggests key areas of theoretical integration and new empirical directions

The logic-bias effect: The role of effortful processing in the resolution of belief-logic conflict.

According to the default interventionist dual-process account of reasoning, belief-based responses to reasoning tasks are based on Type 1 processes generated by default, which must be inhibited in order to produce an effortful, Type 2 output based on the validity of an argument. However, recent research has indicated that reasoning on the basis of beliefs may not be as fast and automatic as this account claims. In three experiments, we presented participants with a reasoning task that was to be completed while they were generating random numbers (RNG). We used the novel methodology introduced by Handley, Newstead & Trippas (Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 37, 28-43, 2011), which required participants to make judgments based upon either the validity of a conditional argument or the believability of its conclusion. The results showed that belief-based judgments produced lower rates of accuracy overall and were influenced to a greater extent than validity judgments by the presence of a conflict between belief and logic for both simple and complex arguments. These findings were replicated in Experiment 3, in which we controlled for switching demands in a blocked design. Across all three experiments, we found a main effect of RNG, implying that both instructional sets require some effortful processing. However, in the blocked design RNG had its greatest impact on logic judgments, suggesting that distinct executive resources may be required for each type of judgment. We discuss the implications of our findings for the default interventionist account and offer a parallel competitive model as an alternative interpretation for our findings