Children do not follow the rule "ignorance means getting it wrong"

Two experiments tested whether 4- and 5-year-olds follow the rule “ignorance means you get it wrong.” Following this rule should lead children to infer that a character who is ignorant about some situation will also have a false belief about it. This rule should sometimes lead children into error because ignorance does not imply false belief. In Experiment 1, children and adults were told about a girl who is looking for her dog but does not know which of two boxes it is under. Most children predicted that the girl would look in the box with the dog and not in the empty box; adults chose both boxes equally. Experiment 2 used a similar story but varied whether the girl wants to approach or avoid her dog. Again, most children predicted that the girl would succeed. These findings suggest that children do not follow the rule “ignorance means you get it wrong.”     

Motivated reasoning and verbal vs. numerical probability assessment: Evidence from an accounting context

A perplexing yet persistent empirical finding is that individuals assess probabilities in words and in numbers nearly equivalently, and theorists have called for future research to search for factors that cause differences. This study uses an accounting context in which individuals are commonly motivated to reach preferred (rather than accurate) conclusions. Within this context, I predict new differences between verbal and numerical probability assessments, as follows: first, individuals will justify an optimistic verbal assessment (e.g., somewhat possible) by retaining the option of re-defining it, in case of negative outcomes, as though the phrase really means something different, and, for that matter, means more things. This re-definition will maintain some connection to the original meaning of the phrase, but de-emphasized relative to the new meaning. Second, based on this behavior, I also predict individuals’ verbal probability assessments to be (1) more biased and yet (2) perceived as more justifiable than their numerical assessments. I find supportive evidence in an experiment designed to test the hypotheses. This study contributes to motivated reasoning and probability assessment theories (1) with new evidence of how individuals can word-smith in multiple attributes of a phrase to justify reaching a preferred conclusion, and (2) with new, reliable differences between verbal and numerical probability assessments. This study has important theoretical and practical implications relevant to organizational contexts in which people assess the likelihoods of uncertainties in words or numbers, and with motivations to reach a preferred conclusion.     

Fallacies in probability judgments for conjunctions and disjunctions of everyday events

The conjunction fallacy occurs when people judge a conjunction B‐and‐A as more probable than a constituent B, contrary to probability theory's ‘conjunction rule’ that a conjunction cannot be more probable than either constituent. Many studies have demonstrated this fallacy in people's reasoning about various experimental materials. Gigerenzer objects that from a ‘frequentist’ standpoint probability theory is not valid for these materials, and so failure to follow the conjunction rule is not a fallacy. This paper describes three experiments showing that the conjunction fallacy occurs as consistently for conjunctions where frequentist probability theory is valid (conjunctions of everyday weather events) as for other conjunctions. These experiments also demonstrate a reliable correlation between the occurrence of the conjunction fallacy and the disjunction fallacy (which arises when a disjunction B‐or‐A is judged less probable than a constituent B). This supports a probability theory + random variation account of probabilistic reasoning. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

类推理的发展序列与年龄特点

类推理主要涉及类别层级包含关系的理解和判断。使用修订的类包含、替代包含和二元律任务,以162名二至五年级儿童为被试,利用Raseh模型分析方法,旨在揭示儿童逻辑包含能力的发展序列。此外,探讨了儿童类推理发展的年龄特点。结果表明：1）类推理发展中儿童最先掌握类包含推理,其次是替代包含,最后是二元律推理;2）三、四、五年级儿童已能解决多数类包含任务,其成绩显著优于二年级儿童。四、五年级儿童能解决多数替代包含任务,其成绩均显著优于二年级儿童;3）二元律任务对二至五年级儿童来讲均比较困难。     

条件推理和选择任务的关系：选择任务中的条件推理逻辑

要求大学生被试在相同的情境和规则下先后完成选择任务和条件推理任务,从而系统考察两项条件命题任务之间的关系。结果表明,当规则的语义表征意义为条件命题和反条件命题时,两项任务的反应模式具有一致性;当为双向条件和非条件命题时,两项任务的反应模式出现了分歧,而且四种推理形式和四张卡片之间不存在直接的对应关系。两项条件命题任务之间的关系表现在,它们可能享有共同的语义关系表征空间,但推理过程和策略有所不同。     

Nonmonotonic abductive inductive learning

Inductive Logic Programming (ILP) is concerned with the task of generalising sets of positive and negative examples with respect to background knowledge expressed as logic programs. Negation as Failure (NAF) is a key feature of logic programming which provides a means for nonmonotonic commonsense reasoning under incomplete information. But, so far, most ILP research has been aimed at Horn programs which exclude NAF, and has failed to exploit the full potential of normal programs that allow NAF. By contrast, Abductive Logic Programming (ALP), a related task concerned with explaining observations with respect to a prior theory, has been well studied and applied in the context of normal logic programs. This paper shows how ALP can be used to provide a semantics and proof procedure for nonmonotonic ILP that utilises practical methods of language and search bias to reduce the search space. This is done by lifting an existing method called Hybrid Abductive Inductive Learning (HAIL) from Horn clauses to normal logic programs. To demonstrate its potential benefits, the resulting system, called XHAIL, is applied to a process modelling case study involving a nonmonotonic temporal Event Calculus (EC).     

专家医生的知识结构及诊断推理方式

医学专长研究中“中间者效应”的发现,引发了研究者对专家医生知识结构的探讨。在“知识打包”的基础上,医生的临床知识以“疾病脚本”的方式组织起来。随着临床经验的增加,专家医生积累了丰富的疾病脚本。在临床诊断中,他们无需对病人所有的体征和症状进行仔细地和系统地分析,而是通过非分析性的推理方式——“模式识别”或“样例识别”便可自动激活与之匹配的疾病脚本,据此对病人做出迅速而准确的诊断。医学专长的本质就在于专家医生以“疾病脚本”的方式组织起来的知识结构。“适应性专长”代表了未来医学专长研究的新方向     

道德判断中的情绪因素——从认知神经科学的角度进行探讨

道德判断中的情绪与认知因素是社会认知神经科学研究的重要议题。本文对近年来社会认知神经科学领域中有关情绪影响道德判断的研究发现和相关理论进行了回顾和总结。介绍了外源性情绪影响道德判断的行为研究证据,大脑情绪功能障碍者在道德判断中的异常表现以及道德两难任务所对应的大脑激活模式,着重探讨了情绪因素影响道德判断的神经机制和道德判断中情绪加工与认知加工相互作用的过程。揭示了情绪是道德判断的必要因素,道德判断是情绪加工和认知加工协同作用的结果,并在此基础上提出了该领域未来发展的设想。