Knowledge Attributions and Behavioral Predictions

Recent work has shown that knowledge attributions affect how people think others should behave, more so than belief attributions do. This paper reports two experiments providing evidence that (a) knowledge attributions also affect behavioral predictions more strongly than belief attributions do, and (b) knowledge attributions facilitate faster behavioral predictions than belief attributions do. Thus, knowledge attributions play multiple critical roles in social cognition, guiding judgments about how people should and will behave.     

Analyzing behavior implied by EWA learning: An emphasis on distinguishing reinforcement from belief learning

An important issue in the field of learning is to what extent one can distinguish between behavior resulting from either belief or reinforcement learning. Previous research suggests that it is difficult or even impossible to distinguish belief from reinforcement learning: belief and reinforcement models often fit the empirical data equally well. However, previous research has been confined to specific games in specific settings. In the present study we derive predictions for behavior in games using the EWA learning model (e.g., Camerer & Ho, 1999), a model that includes belief learning and a specific type of reinforcement learning as special cases. We conclude that belief and reinforcement learning can be distinguished, even in 2×2 games. Maximum differentiation in behavior resulting from either belief or reinforcement learning is obtained in games with pure Nash equilibria with negative payoffs and at least one other strategy combination with only positive payoffs. Our results help researchers to identify games in which belief and reinforcement learning can be discerned easily.     

詹姆士真理观中的休谟因素

与常识的和传统的符合论真理观相比,由詹姆士第一次明确阐述的实用主义真理观有着诸多不同的特点,以及体现在这些特点中的不同的哲学内涵。这些特点和内涵都是怎样产生的呢?在认识论发展的历史进程中有无其根源?该文拟通过联系休谟的经验主义,尤其是他的因果理论,来追溯实用主义真理观的认识论根源。     

毛泽东与现代中国的完备型革命模式

世界文明史上有可能存在着这样一种革命,一种独特的革命方式,即以精神建构的方式来实现突变、做成政治的演替和社会的变革。而这种精神建构的革命模式,同样采用了暴力革命的方式。二十世纪现代中国的革命,实际上就是这样一种革命的模式。它以传统汤武革命为基础,整合了来自西方政治革命的理念,并给予当代中国以十分深刻的影响,几乎左右了中国人和中国社会生活的所有领域,构成了当代中国改革开放的潜在主题。     

Believe What I Believe: Correspondence Between the Beliefs of Young Adults and the Perceived Beliefs of Their Caregivers

Little research has examined the mechanisms through which adult children adopt beliefs across a range of contexts. Through an online survey, the authors examined belief transmission via the correspondence between beliefs of 837 young adults and the perceived ideological beliefs of their caregivers as a function of attachment, parental behavior, and religious beliefs in four domains: moral, political, religious, and lifestyle. The strongest predictor of belief transmission across domains was the geographic location in which the participants were sampled, with individuals currently residing in the Southern region of the United States indicating greater belief transmission compared with those residing in the Midwestern region of the United States. Women also exhibited greater belief transmission compared with men. Controlling for these predictors, we also found that insecurity was negatively related to belief transmission, whereas authority, autonomy, and religious attachment were positively related to belief transmission in some contexts. Taken together, these results suggest that the relationships that young adults remembered having had with their primary caregivers were associated with the transmission of their caregivers’ beliefs.     

A standardised database of Chinese emotional film clips

Film clips are widely used in emotion research due to their relatively high ecological validity. Although researchers have established various film clip sets for different cultures, the few that exist related to Chinese culture do not adequately address positive emotions. The main purposes of the present study were to establish a standardised database of Chinese emotional film clips that could elicit more categories of reported positive emotions compared to the existing databases and to expand the available film clips that can be used as neutral materials. Two experiments were conducted to construct the database. In experiment 1, 111 film clips were selected from more than one thousand Chinese movies for preliminary screening. After 315 participants viewed and evaluated these film clips, 39 excerpts were selected for further validation. In experiment 2, 147 participants watched and rated these 39 film clips, as well as another 8 excerpts chosen from the existing databases, to compare their validity. Eventually, 22 film excerpts that successfully evoked three positive emotions (joy, amusement, and tenderness), four negative emotions (moral disgust, anger, fear, and sadness), and neutrality formed the standardised database of Chinese emotional film clips.     

Modest deontologism in epistemology

Deontologism in epistemology holds that epistemic justification may be understood in terms of “deontological” sentences about what one ought to believe or is permitted to believe, or what one deserves praise for believing, or in some similar way. If deonotologism is true, and people have justified beliefs, then the deontological sentences can be true. However, some say, these deontological sentences can be true only if people have a kind of freedom or control over their beliefs that they do not in fact have. Thus, deontologism in epistemology, combined with anti-skepticism, has implausible implications. I first describe one sort of control that people typically have over ordinary actions but do not have over typical beliefs. I then argue that there is a paradigmatic type of epistemic evaluation that does properly apply to beliefs even though we lack this sort of control over them. Finally, I argue that these paradigmatic epistemic evaluations are sufficient to make true some of the deontological sentences.     

Preference-based belief revision for rule-based agents

Agents which perform inferences on the basis of unreliable information need an ability to revise their beliefs if they discover an inconsistency. Such a belief revision algorithm ideally should be rational, should respect any preference ordering over the agent’s beliefs (removing less preferred beliefs where possible) and should be fast. However, while standard approaches to rational belief revision for classical reasoners allow preferences to be taken into account, they typically have quite high complexity. In this paper, we consider belief revision for agents which reason in a simpler logic than full first-order logic, namely rule-based reasoners. We show that it is possible to define a contraction operation for rule-based reasoners, which we call McAllester contraction, which satisfies all the basic Alchourrón, Gärdenfors and Makinson (AGM) postulates for contraction (apart from the recovery postulate) and at the same time can be computed in polynomial time. We prove a representation theorem for McAllester contraction with respect to the basic AGM postulates (minus recovery), and two additional postulates. We then show that our contraction operation removes a set of beliefs which is least preferred, with respect to a natural interpretation of preference. Finally, we show how McAllester contraction can be used to define a revision operation which is also polynomial time, and prove a representation theorem for the revision operation.     

Probabilistic dynamic belief revision

We investigate the discrete (finite) case of the Popper–Renyi theory of conditional probability, introducing discrete conditional probabilistic models for knowledge and conditional belief, and comparing them with the more standard plausibility models. We also consider a related notion, that of safe belief, which is a weak (non-negatively introspective) type of “knowledge”. We develop a probabilistic version of this concept (“degree of safety”) and we analyze its role in games. We completely axiomatize the logic of conditional belief, knowledge and safe belief over conditional probabilistic models. We develop a theory of probabilistic dynamic belief revision, introducing probabilistic “action models” and proposing a notion of probabilistic update product, that comes together with appropriate reduction laws.     

In a Fitter Direction: Moving Beyond the Direction of Fit Picture of Belief and Desire

Those working within the tradition of Humean psychology tend to mark a clear distinction between beliefs and desires. One prominent way of elucidating this distinction is to describe them as having different “directions of fit” with respect to the world. After first giving a brief overview of the various attempts to carry out this strategy along with their flaws, I argue that the direction of fit metaphor is misleading and ought to be abandoned. It fails to take into account the actual complexity of the roles played by belief and desire and forces us to look for a single, fundamental contrast between these two that is unlikely to be found.