Transitive and pseudo-transitive inferences

Given that A is longer than B, and that B is longer than C, even 5-year-old children can infer that A is longer than C. Theories of reasoning based on formal rules of inference invoke simple axioms ("meaning postulates") to capture such transitive inferences. An alternative theory proposes instead that reasoners construct mental models of the situation described by the premises in order to draw such inferences. An unexpected consequence of the model theory is that if adult reasoners construct simple models of typical situations, then they should infer transitive relations where, in certain cases, none exists. We report four studies corroborating the occurrence of these "pseudo-transitive" fallacies. Experiment 1 established that individuals' diagrams of certain non-transitive relations yield transitive conclusions. Experiment 2 showed that these premises also give rise to fallacious transitive inferences. Experiment 3 established that when the context suggested alternatives to the simple models, the participants made fewer errors. Experiment 4 showed that tense is an important aspect of meaning which affects whether individuals draw transitive conclusions. We discuss the implications of these results for various theories of reasoning.     

特征框架效应的心理机制与影响因素

特征框架效应是指当分别以积极框架和消极框架来描述给定情境中某一事物或事件的关键特征时, 一般情况下人们更偏好以积极框架来描述其关键特征的事物或事件的现象。特征框架效应广泛的存在于消费、医学及政治等领域。目前, 它的解释机制主要包括效价加工的认知机制、参照依赖、查询理论以及认知神经机制。它的影响因素主要包括经验、人格特质、计算能力以及认知闭合需要等。未来的研究应该从深入探索特征框架效应的产生根源和影响因素, 拓展其应用研究, 深入探索偏好消极框架下的特征框架效应以及探讨该现象与其它现象之间的关系等五方面展开。     

Intelligence Failure and Need for Cognitive Closure: On the Psychology of the Yom Kippur Surprise

This paper uses newly available evidence to shed light on the circumstances and causes of the 6 October 1973 Yom Kippur surprise attack of Egyptian and Syrian forces on Israeli positions at the Suez Canal and the Golan Heights. The evidence suggests that an important circumstance that accounts for the surprise effect these actions managed to produce, despite ample warning signs, is traceable to a high need for cognitive closure among major figures in the Israeli intelligence establishment. Such a need may have prompted leading intelligence analysts to "freeze" on the conventional wisdom that an attack was unlikely and to become impervious to information suggesting that it was imminent. The discussion considers the psychological forces affecting intelligence operations in predicting the initiation of hostile enemy activities, and it describes possible avenues of dealing with the psychological impediments to open–mindedness that may pervasively characterize such circumstances.     

The Relationship Between Need for Closure and Conservative Beliefs in Western and Eastern Europe

This work explored the hypothesis that need for closure is associated with the adoption of conservative ideology. Two different studies on eastern and western European samples (Polish and Flemish) supported the hypothesis that need for closure—as measured by Webster and Kruglanski's (1994 ) Need for Closure Scale—is related to conservative beliefs. However, in the second study, a negative relationship between need for closure and economic conservatism in the Polish sample was noted, whereas a positive relationship occurred in the Flemish sample. These results may be accounted for by the Need for Simple Structure factor of Neuberg, Judice, and West (1997 ) and by specific rather than non-specific epistemic processes.     

Many faces of dogmatism: Prejudice as a way of protecting certainty against value violators among dogmatic believers and atheists

In this article, we suggest that dogmatic beliefs, manifested as strong beliefs that there is no God (i.e., dogmatic atheism) as well as strong beliefs in God (i.e., religious orthodoxy), can serve as a cognitive response to uncertainty. Moreover, we claim that people who dogmatically do not believe in religion and those who dogmatically believe in religion are equally prone to intolerance and prejudice towards groups that violate their important values. That is because prejudice towards these groups may be an efficient strategy to protect the certainty that strong beliefs provide. We tested these assumptions in two studies. In Study 1 and Study 2, we demonstrated that dogmatic beliefs mediate the relationship between intolerance to uncertainty and both, religious orthodoxy and dogmatic atheism. In addition, in Study 2 we showed that both the religiously orthodox and dogmatic atheists become prejudiced towards groups that violate their values and that these effects are especially strong under experimentally induced uncertainty. In this study, we focused on atheists and homosexuals as groups that pose a threat to Christian's religious worldviews, and Catholics and pro‐life supporters as groups that pose a threat to the values of atheists. The results are discussed in relation to past research on dogmatism and religion, as well as with reference to what this means for the study of prejudice.     

SHUTTING DRETSKE’S DOOR

Dretske proposes a theory of knowledge in terms of a theory of information, but wishes to deny that empirical knowledge settles the large question of scepticism. This leads him to deny the closure of knowledge under known entailment. In a recent paper J?ger argues that Dretske’s theory of information entails closure for knowledge, ‘at least for the kind of propositions here at issue’ (J?ger 2004:194). If J?ger is right, Dretske is seriously embarrassed and must give something up. In this paper I show that there are two flaws in J?ger’s argument. The principle of informational closure considered by J?ger is incompatible with Dretske’s theory of information, and J?ger’s argument that Dretske is committed to a certain kind of substitution instance of that principle of informational closure is invalid. I propose adequacy conditions on signalled information and use them to motivate a formulation of a general closure principle for signalled information. I show that Dretske’s account of information satisfies the adequacy conditions, but in a way which commits him to an instance of the general closure principle. I argue that Dretske is consequently committed to closure for some cases of knowledge for which he wishes to deny closure. Finally, I sketch how, on the basis of the closure principle to which Dretske is committed, J?ger’s broader argument may yet go through.     

Need for closure and compensatory rule-based perception: The role of information consistency

When making comparisons, people tend to use routinized standards, rules, and knowledge structures. Compensatory rules (e.g., “if competent, then cold”, “if incompetent, then warm”) allow for the quick and easy evaluation of groups when they are compared. We claim that the application of these rules is especially attractive for people who are motivated to seek quick and firm answers (people high in the need for closure—NFC). However, we assume that when people are confronted with expectancy-inconsistent information, higher levels of NFC lead to a lower reliance on these rules. This is because the inconsistency may serve as a signal that the rules no longer provide guidance on how to act. We demonstrated these effects in three studies set in different group contexts, where we manipulated expectancy-consistent and expectancy-inconsistent information. These findings allow for a more comprehensive view of the dynamic and diverse effects of NFC.     

Premise-pair training for valid tests of serial list organization in macaques

This study evaluated the role of several different training procedures on (1) efficiency of acquisition and (2) organizational characteristics of memory for lists that could be serially ordered. Five macaque monkeys were trained via two-choice object discriminations in a formboard apparatus on several five-item-series tasks that provided different levels of intrasession conditionality. Although ease of acquisition differed for subsets of the constituent pairs, concurrent inclusion of the four premise pairs that defined a list required equivalent amounts of training on every task. All training procedures yielded similar retention-test performances and showed common organizational properties (on both error and latency measures) consistent with the view that lists were retained as internally represented ordered series. Test outcomes emphasized the need for integrated exposition of all concurrent conditional relationships to allow appropriate tests of serial organization. However, if given such training, the monkeys revealed integrated serial memory even though they had never seen many of the possible novel combinations of list items. In overview, their performances offered further definition of the procedures required for valid assessment of inferential properties in comparative cognition. Electronic Publication     

Prosodic boundaries, comma rules, and brain responses: the closure positive shift in ERPs as a universal marker for prosodic phrasing in listeners and readers

Just as the false comma in this sentence, shows punctuation can influence sentence processing considerably. Pauses and other prosodic cues in spoken language serve the same function of structuring the sentence in smaller phrases. However, surprisingly little effort has been spent on the question as to whether both phenomena rest on the same mechanism and whether they are equally efficient in guiding parsing decisions. In a recent study, we showed that auditory speech boundaries evoke a specific positive shift in the listeners' event-related brain potentials (ERPs) that indicates the sentence segmentation and resulting changes in the understanding of the utterance (Steinhauer et al., 1999a). Here, we present three ERP reading experiments demonstrating that the human brain processes commas in a similar manner and that comma perception depends crucially on the reader's individual punctuation habits. Main results of the study are: (1) Commas can determine initial parsing as efficiently as speech boundaries because they trigger the same prosodic phrasing covertly, although phonological representations seem to be activated to a lesser extent. (2) Independent of the input modality, this phrasing is reflected online by the same ERP component, namely the Closure Positive Shift (CPS). (3) Both behavioral and ERP data suggest that comma processing varies with the readers' idiosyncratic punctuation habits. (4) A combined auditory and visual ERP experiment shows that the CPS is also elicited both by delexicalized prosody and while subjects replicate prosodic boundaries during silent reading. (5) A comma-induced reversed garden path turned out to be much more difficult than the classical garden path. Implications for psycholinguistic models and future ERP research are discussed.