The cognitive structure of surprise: looking for basic principles

We develop a conceptual and formal clarification of notion of surprise as a belief-based phenomenon by exploring a rich typology. Each kind of surprise is associated with a particular phase of cognitive processing and involves particular kinds of epistemic representations (representations and expectations under scrutiny, implicit beliefs, presuppositions). We define two main kinds of surprise: mismatch-based surprise and astonishment. In the central part of the paper we suggest how a formal model of surprise can be integrated with a formal model of belief change. We investigate the role of surprise in triggering the process of belief reconsideration. There are a number of models of surprise developed in the psychology of emotion. We provide several comparisons of our approach with those models.

顾客为什么参与创造？ ——消费者参与创造的动机研究

从消费者参与企业价值创造的角度研究了消费者创造动机与创造意愿之间的关系,结果说明,一般创造性理论所证实的认知需求并未对消费者创造意愿产生显著影响,而独特性产品需求、独特性体验需求以及创造激励对消费者创造意愿产生了显著的正面影响研究还发现,信任和创造激励分别调节了独特性产品需求和独特性体验需求与创造意愿之间的关系     

“This way!”, “No! That way!”—3-year olds know that two people can have mutually incompatible desires

In theory of mind research, there is a long standing dispute about whether children come to understand the subjectivity of both desires and beliefs at the same time (around age 4), or whether there is an asymmetry such that desires are understood earlier. To address this issue, 3-year olds’ understanding of situations in which two persons have mutually incompatible desires was tested in two studies. Results revealed that (i) children were quite proficient at ascribing incompatible desires to two persons, and in simpler scenarios even incompatible desire-dependent emotions; (ii) children showed this proficiency even though they mostly failed the false belief task. Overall, these results suggest that there is an asymmetry such that young children come to understand the subjective nature of desires before they understand the corresponding subjectivity of beliefs. Possible explanations for this asymmetry are discussed in light of conceptual change and information-processing accounts of theory of mind development.     

Perception: Mirror-Image or Action?

In the article two viewpoints on the mind’s influence on perception are considered. One of them was developed on the assumption that perception is a nonproblematic source of knowledge about the world, which is free from mind’s influence—perception as a mirror-image. Another viewpoint is perception as action, i.e. active search and gathering the relevant information, its processing and evaluation. First viewpoint has dominated in philosophy for a long time, the second one has been developing in psychology from the 80th of the 20th century. The aim of the paper is to examine some philosophically significant corollaries from both positions concerning objectiveness, epistemological status of an observation, truth, meaning of name. Analysis showed that perception as action is non-compatible with many traditional concepts, and it goes both against empiricism and against realism as it involves some critical arguments, e.g. theory ladenness of observations, underdetermination of theory by facts, the historical development of a scientific fact.     

More than words: A reply to Malt and Sloman

In four experiments, Malt and Sloman [Malt, B. C., & Sloman, S. A. (2007). Category essence or essentially pragmatic? Creator’s intention in naming and what’s really what. Cognition, 105, 615-648] show that the naming of artifacts is affected by discourse context. They see this phenomenon as posing a problem for the intentional-history theory of artifact categorization (e.g., [Bloom, P. (1996). Intention, history, and artifact concepts. Cognition, 60, 1-29]), and as supporting instead their alternative theory that naming is determined by communicative goals. This response begins by distinguishing the problem of artifact categorization (determining the categories that artifacts belong to) from the problem of artifact naming (deciding how to talk about members of these categories). In light of this distinction, it turns out that Malt and Sloman’s findings are fully consistent with all theories of artifact categorization, including the intentional-historical one. Moreover, contrary to what they argue, there are actually many cases where the relative contributions of categorization and pragmatics can be clearly distinguished. Finally, it is argued that Malt and Sloman’s own account of artifact naming presupposes a capacity for artifact categorization; it cannot work without one.     

Second-order beliefs about intention and children's attributions of sociomoral judgment

Predicting how another person will evaluate the intention underlying an action involves consideration of second-order mental states. Children (ages 5-10 years) and college students (N=105) predicted an observer's belief about an actor's intention and evaluated the actor from both their own perspectives and the perspective of the observer. Younger children were more likely than older children and adults to attribute a belief to the observer that mismatched the actor's prior intention. Attributed beliefs about intention were more likely to match negative prior intentions than to match positive prior intentions and were also more likely to match prior intentions when the observer knew the actor's prior intention than when the observer did not know the actor's prior intention. The judgments attributed to the observer were based on the beliefs about intention attributed to the observer, showing use of second-order mental states to infer another's sociomoral judgments.     

Simulation à la Goldman: pretend and collapse

Theories of mind draw on processes that represent mental states and their computational connections; simulation, in addition, draws on processes that replicate (Heal 1986) a sequence of mental states. Moreover, mental simulation can be triggered by input from imagination instead of real perceptions. To avoid confusion between mental states concerning reality and those created in simulation, imagined contents must be quarantined. Goldman bypasses this problem by giving pretend states a special role to play in simulation (Goldman 2006). We argue that this path leads to the resurgence of the threat of collapse (Davies 1994), diluting the principled distinction between simulation and theory use. Exploration of a related method of real-mental states operating in a pretend mode leads to a factually untenable model. Our main goal here is to raise this problem as a challenge for Goldman’s reconfigured simulation theory. Only at the end we will briefly sketch a possible alternative way of quarantine that preserves the replicative element of simulation and avoids collapse. Figure 1 provides a guide to our argument. Fig. 1 Structure of argument

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Four Keys to Success (Theory, Implementation, Evaluation, and Resource/System Support): High Hopes and Challenges in Participation

In this article, I attempt to merge two themes. First, there is often a large gap between high hopes about impacts of policies or programs and the demonstrated results. I describe four keys/threats to success in any social problem area: theory, implementation, evaluation, and resource/system support. Second, I present theory and research from over 30 years of work on participation, conducted by my colleagues and myself that can illuminate and be illuminated by theory, implementation, evaluation, and resource/system support. I offer ideas for solutions that increase the probability of success. I conclude with the need to have high hopes tempered by theory and research to develop realistically ambitious solutions to social problems.     

When some is actually all: Scalar inferences in face-threatening contexts

Accounts of the scalar inference from ‘some X-ed’ to ‘not all X-ed’ are central to the debate between contemporary theories of conversational pragmatics. An important contribution to this debate is to identify contexts that decrease the endorsement rate of the inference. We suggest that the inference is endorsed less often in face-threatening contexts, i.e., when X implies a loss of face for the listener. This claim is successfully tested in Experiment 1. Experiment 2 rules out a possible confound between face-threatening contexts and lower-bound contexts. Experiment 3 shows that whilst saying ‘some X-ed’ when one knew for a fact that all X-ed is always perceived as an underinformative utterance, it is also seen as a nice and polite thing to do when X threatens the face of the listener. These findings are considered from the perspective of Relevance Theory as well as that of the Generalized Conversational Inference approach.