MIND & SOCIETY
Cognitive Studies in Economics and Social Sciences |
|
|
|
|
| 2, 2006, Mind&Society, Vol.5 |
| |
Articles
Amber N. Bloomfield • Josh A. Sager • Daniel M. Bartels • Douglas L. Medin
Caring about framing effects
Abstract
We explored the relationship between qualities of victims in hypothetical scenarios and the appearance of framing effects. In past studies, participants’ feelings about the victims have been demonstrated to affect whether framing effects appear, but this relationship has not been directly examined. In the present study, we examined the relationship between caring about the people at risk, the perceived interdependence of the people at risk, and frame. Scenarios were presented that differed in the degree to which participants could be expected to care about the group and the extent to which the group could be construed as interdependent. A framing effect was found only for the scenario describing the victims as the participant’s friends who did not know each other (high caring/low interdependence), and this went in the opposite direction from typical framing effects. Finally, perceived interdependence and caring affected choice both within and across scenarios, with more risky choices made by participants with high interdependence ratings and high caring ratings.
Wolfram Hinzen
Internalism about truth
Abstract
Internalism is an explanatory strategy that makes the internal structure and constitution of the organism a basis for the investigation of its external function and the ways in which it is embedded in an environment. It is opposed to an externalist explanatory strategy, which takes its departure from observations about external function and mind environment interactions, and infers and rationalizes internal organismic structure from that. This paper addresses the origins of truth, a basic ingredient in the human conceptual scheme. I suggest the necessity of pursuing an internalist line of explanation for it, as adopted in the biolinguistic program and generative grammar at large. According to this view, the concept of truth is a presupposition for the way language is used in relation to the world, rather than a function of that use or a consequence of language-world relations.
Symposium on:
Cognition and Rationality – Part I
Introduction by Massimiliano Carrara, Paolo Cherubini, Pierdaniele Giaretta
Cristiano Castelfranchi • Francesca Giardini • Francesca Marzo
Relationships between rational decisions, human motives, and emotions
Abstract
In the decision making and rationality research field, Rational Decision Theory (RDT) has always been the main framework, thanks to the elegance and complexity of its mathematical tools. Unfortunately, the formal refinement of the theory is not accompanied by a satisfying predictive accuracy, thus there is a big gap between what is predicted by the theory and the behaviour of real subjects. Here we propose a new foundation of the RDT, which has to be based on a cognitive architecture for reason based agents, acting on the basis of their beliefs in order to achieve their goals. The decision process is a cognitive evaluation of conflicting goals, based on different beliefs and values, but also on emotions and desires. We refer to a cognitive analysis of emotions and we integrate them in this more general RDT.
Isaac Levi
Minimal rationality
Abstract
An argument is advanced to show why E admissibility should be preferred over maximality as a principle of rational choice where rationality is understood as minimal rationality. Consideration is given to the distinction between second best and second worst options in three way choice that is ignored according to maximality. It is shown why the behavior exhibited in addressing the problems posed by Allais (1952) and by Ellsberg (1961) do not violate the Independence Postulate according to Minimal Rationality.
Lorenzo Magnani
The rationality of scientific discovery. Abductive processes and epistemic mediators
Abstract
Philosophers have usually offered a number of ways of construing hypotheses generation, but all aim at demonstrating that the activity of generating hypotheses is paradoxical, illusory or obscure, and then not analyzable. Those descriptions are often so far from Peircian pragmatic prescription and so abstract to result completely unknowable and obscure. The “computational turn” gives us a new way to understand creative processes in a strictly pragmatic sense. In fact, by exploiting artificial intelligence and cognitive science tools, computational philosophy allows us to test concepts and ideas previously conceived only in abstract terms. It is in the perspective of these actual computational models that I find the central role of abduction in the explanation of creative reasoning in science. Creativity and discovery are no more seen as a mysterious irrational process, but, thanks to constructive accounts, as a complex relationship among different inferential steps that can be clearly analyzed and identified. I maintain that the computational philosophy analysis of model based and manipulative abduction and of external and epistemic mediators is important not only to delineate the actual practice of abduction, but also to further enhance the development of programs computationally adequate in rediscovering, or discovering for the first time, for example, scientific hypotheses or mathematical theorems.
Jean-Baptiste Van der Henst
Relevance effects in reasoning
Abstract
Reasoning research has focussed mainly on the type of cognitive processes involved when representing premises and when producing conclusions. But less is known about the factors that guide these representational and inferential processes. What premises are actually taken as input in reasoning? And what conclusions are intended? In this paper it is argued that considerations of relevance (Sperber and Wilson 1995) are helpful for addressing these a pragmatic analysis of two sorts of tasks is carried out, Wason's 2 4 6 problem (Study 1) and a conditional reasoning problem (Study 2). Study 1 indicates that the way this task is communicated may encourage participants to consider misleading information as highly relevant for solving it. Two experiments go on to show that when the relevance of misleading information is contextually diminished, participants are more efficient at providing the correct solution. Study 2 compares the production rate of two sorts of conclusions: logically valid but weakly relevant conclusions and invalid but relevant and pragmatically justified conclusions. This study shows that the relevance of conclusions determines to a large extent whether or not they will be produced.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
