Normativity, interpretation, and Bayesian models

It has been suggested that evaluative normativity should be expunged from the psychology of reasoning. A broadly Davidsonian response to these arguments is presented. It is suggested that two distinctions, between different types of rationality, are more permeable than this argument requires and that the fundamental objection is to selecting theories that make the most rational sense of the data. It is argued that this is inevitable consequence of radical interpretation where understanding others requires assuming they share our own norms of reasoning. This requires evaluative normativity and it is shown that when asked to evaluate others’ arguments participants conform to rational Bayesian norms. It is suggested that logic and probability are not in competition and that the variety of norms is more limited than the arguments against evaluative normativity suppose. Moreover, the universality of belief ascription suggests that many of our norms are universal and hence evaluative. It is concluded that the union of evaluative normativity and descriptive psychology implicit in Davidson and apparent in the psychology of reasoning is a good thing

Preferences show greater stability for transactions than for gambles in cost discounting

Many factors point to the underlying instability of preferences in choice behavior. In particular, discounting reveals some effects not consistent with stable preferences. In discounting, the subjective value of a reward reduces as the uncertainty of or delay to obtaining it increases. The function relating subjective value to delay or probability must be exponential with a constant discount rate to respect transitivity over time, i.e., if A > B and B > C, then A > C (“ > ” = is preferred to). If the discount rate varies with value or time, then it is possible for transitivity to be violated, i.e., for preferences to be unstable. And people do show unstable, preference reversals over time in intertemporal choice more consistent with a hyperbolic discounting function (e.g., Myerson and Green, 1995). Thus, while someone may prefer £100 for certain now rather than £110 tomorrow, they will prefer £110 in a year and a day over £100 in a year’s time. People discount rate is very high initially, more rapid than the exponential, but over time it decreases leading to a flatter function than the exponential. Consequently, the £10 difference is almost totally discounted in the short term, but in a year’s time the extra day barely reduces the subjective value we attach to gaining an extra £10

Rational explanation of the selection task.

What knowledge about publics of Combined Arts was developed from the social sciences in Argentina? The aim of this article is to present a critical review of the production of knowledge for the last twenty years, about the reception of cinema, theatre and opera. We have made an extensive survey on academic papers published from 1990, in the field of social sciences, about publics of arts in Argentina. Regarding this corpus, we set out the following questions: what are the favorite issues? Which disciplinary and theoretical perspectives do researchers use more frequently? What methodologies are employed? In this way, we have rebuilt a map of thematic, theoretical and methodological coincidences and divergences. The result shows an ensemble of contributions to knowledge that – even if they may be fragmentary or shows many lacks- it provides a base of references to future researches on publics of arts in Argentina. This work of systematization and reflection allows us to point out the unexplored areas and the shortcomings that the current status of the issue presents.¿Qué conocimientos se han elaborado desde las ciencias sociales en torno a los públicos de las artes combinadas en Argentina? El objetivo de este artículo es presentar una revisión crítica de la producción de saberes de los últimos veinte años, acerca de los procesos de recepción del cine, el teatro y la ópera. Para esta investigación, hemos realizado un extenso relevamiento de trabajos académicos publicados desde 1990, en el campo de las ciencias sociales, acerca del público de artes en la Argentina. Sobre dicho corpus de trabajos, nos preguntamos: ¿Cuáles son los temas privilegiados? ¿Qué perspectivas disciplinarias y teóricas utilizan más frecuentemente los investigadores? ¿Qué metodologías se emplean? De esta manera, construimos un mapa de coincidencias y divergencias temáticas, teóricas y metodológicas. El resultado muestra un conjunto de aportes al conocimiento que -si bien pueden resultan fragmentarios o presentar omisiones- provee una base de referencia para la investigación sobre los públicos de las artes en Argentina. Este trabajo de sistematización y reflexión nos permite señalar las áreas inexploradas y las limitaciones que presenta el actual estado de la cuestión

Explaining the implicit negations effect in conditional inference: experience, probabilities and contrast Sets

Psychologists are beginning to uncover the rational basis for many of the biases revealed over the last 50 years in deductive and causal reasoning, judgement and decision-making. In this paper, it is argued that a manipulation, experiential learning, shown to be effective in judgement and decision-making may elucidate the rational underpinning of the implicit negation effect in conditional inference. In three experiments, this effect was created and removed by using probabilistically structured contrast sets acquired during a brief learning phase. No other theory of the implicit negations effect predicts these results, which can be modelled using Bayes nets as in causal approaches to category structure. It is also shown how these results relate to a recent development in the psychology of reasoning called “inferentialism.” It is concluded that many of the same cognitive mechanisms that underpin causal reasoning, judgement and decision-making may be common to logical reasoning, which may require no special purpose machinery or module

Paradigms, possibilities and probabilities: Comment on Hinterecker et al. (2016)

Hinterecker et al. (2016) compared the adequacy of the probabilistic new paradigm in reasoning with the recent revision of mental models theory (MMT) for explaining a novel class of inferences containing the modal term “possibly”. For example, the door is closed or the window is open or both, therefore, possibly the door is closed and the window is open (A or B or both, therefore, possibly(A & B)). They concluded that their results support MMT. In this comment, it is argued that Hinterecker et al. (2016) have not adequately characterised the theory of probabilistic validity (p-validity) on which the new paradigm depends. It is unclear how p-validity can be applied to these inferences, which are anyway peripheral to the theory. It is also argued that the revision of MMT is not well motivated and its adoption leads to many logical absurdities. Moreover, the comparison is not appropriate because these theories are defined at different levels of computational explanation. In particular, revised MMT lacks a provably consistent computational level theory that could justify treating these inferences as valid. It is further argued that the data could result from the non-colloquial locutions used to express the premises. Finally, an alternative pragmatic account is proposed based on the idea that a conclusion is possible if what someone knows cannot rule it out. This account could be applied to the unrevised mental model theory rendering the revision redundant

Discounting testimony with the argument ad hominem and a Bayesian congruent prior model

When directed to ignore evidence of a witness’ previous bad character because of a violation of the rules of evidence, are jurors’ beliefs still affected? The intuition is that they will be because in everyday argumentation, fallacies, like the ad hominem, are effective argumentative strategies. An ad hominem argument (against the person) undermines a conclusion by questioning the character of the proposer. This intuition divides current theories of argumentation. According to pragmadialectical theory (e.g., Van Eemeren & Grootendorst, 2004) procedural rules exactly like the rules of evidence are part of our cognitive resources for evaluating arguments. If one of these rules is violated, an argument should be treated as a fallacy and so it should not alter someone’s belief in the conclusion. Some recent experiments investigating how reasonable these arguments are perceived to be seem to support this account (Van Eemeren, Garssen, & Meufells, 2009). These experiments are critiqued from the perspective of the relevance (Walton, 2008, 2009) and epistemic (Hahn & Oaksford, 2006, 2007; Oaksford & Hahn, 2004) approaches to argumentation. An experiment investigates the predictions of these approaches for a graded belief change version of Van Eemeren et al.’s (2009) experiment and the results are modelled using a Bayesian congruent prior model. These results cannot be explained by the pragmadialectical approach and show that in everyday argument people are extremely sensitive to the epistemic relevance of evidence. Moreover, it seems highly unlikely that this can be switched off in more formal contexts such as the courtroom

Imaging deductive reasoning and the new paradigm

There has been a great expansion of research into human reasoning at all of Marr’s explanatory levels. There is a tendency for this work to progress within a level largely ignoring the others which can lead to slippage between levels (Chater et al., 2003). It is argued that recent brain imaging research on deductive reasoning—implementational level—has largely ignored the new paradigm in reasoning—computational level (Over, 2009). Consequently, recent imaging results are reviewed with the focus on how they relate to the new paradigm. The imaging results are drawn primarily from a recent meta-analysis by Prado et al. (2011) but further imaging results are also reviewed where relevant. Three main observations are made. First, the main function of the core brain region identified is most likely elaborative, defeasible reasoning not deductive reasoning. Second, the subtraction methodology and the meta-analytic approach may remove all traces of content specific System 1 processes thought to underpin much human reasoning. Third, interpreting the function of the brain regions activated by a task depends on theories of the function that a task engages. When there are multiple interpretations of that function, interpreting what an active brain region is doing is not clear cut. It is concluded that there is a need to more tightly connect brain activation to function, which could be achieved using formalized computational level models and a parametric variation approach

Theories or fragments?

Lake et al. argue persuasively that modelling human-like intelligence requires flexible, compositional representations in order to embody world knowledge. But human knowledge is too sparse and selfcontradictory to be embedded in “intuitive theories.” We argue, instead, that knowledge is grounded in exemplar-based learning and generalization, combined with high flexible generalization, a viewpoint compatible both with non-parametric Bayesian modelling and with subsymbolic methods such as neural networks

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