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  1. Fallacy and controversy about base rates.Isaac Levi - 1996 - Behavioral and Brain Sciences 19 (1):31-32.
    Koehler's target article attempts a balanced view of the relevance of knowledge of base rates to judgments of subjective or credal probability, but he is not sensitive enough to the difference between requiring and permitting the equation of probability judgments with base rates, the interaction between precision of base rate and reference class information, and the possibility of indeterminate probability judgment.
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  • First things first: What is a base rate?Clark McCauley - 1996 - Behavioral and Brain Sciences 19 (1):33-34.
    The fallacy beneath the base rate fallacy is that we know what a base rate is. We talk as if base rates and individuating information were two different kinds of information. From a Bayesian perspective, however, the only difference between base rate and individuating information is – which comes first.
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  • Which reference class is evoked?Craig R. M. McKenzie & Jack B. Soll - 1996 - Behavioral and Brain Sciences 19 (1):34-35.
    Any instance (i.e., event, behavior, trait) belongs to infinitely many reference classes, hence there are infinitely many base rates from which to choose. People clearly do not entertain all possible reference classes, however, so something must be limiting the search space. We suggest some possible mechanisms that determine which reference class is evoked for the purpose of judgment and decision.
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  • Throwing out the baby with the bathwater? Let's not overstate the overselling of the base rate fallacy.Cynthia J. Thomsen & Eugene Borgida - 1996 - Behavioral and Brain Sciences 19 (1):39-40.
    Koehler's summary and critique of research on the base rate fallacy is cogent and persuasive. However, he may have overstated the case, and his suggestions for future research may be too restrictive. We agree that methodological approaches to this topic should be broadened, but we argue that experimental laboratory research and the Bayesian normative standard are useful and should not be abandoned.
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  • Base rates do not constrain nonprobability judgments.Paul D. Windschitl & Gary L. Wells - 1996 - Behavioral and Brain Sciences 19 (1):40-41.
    Base rates have no necessary relation to judgments that are not themselves probabilities. There is no logical imperative, for instance, that behavioral base rates must affect causal attributions or that base rate information should affect judgments of legal liability. Decision theorists should be cautious in arguing that base rates place normative constraints on judgments of anything other than posterior probabilities.
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  • The purpose of experiments: Ecological validity versus comparing hypotheses.Robyn M. Dawes - 1996 - Behavioral and Brain Sciences 19 (1):20-20.
    As illustrated by research Koehler himself cites (Dawes et al. 1993), the purpose of experiments is to choose between contrasting explanations of past observations – rather than to seek statistical generalizations about the prevalence of effects. True external validity results not from sampling various problems that are representative of “real world” decision making, but from reproducing an effect in the laboratory with minimal contamination (including from real world factors).
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  • Strategies in Syllogistic Reasoning.Monica Bucciarelli & P. N. Johnson-Laird - 1999 - Cognitive Science 23 (3):247-303.
    This paper is about syllogistic reasoning, i.e., reasoning from such pairs of premises as, All the chefs are musicians; some of the musicians are painters. We present a computer model that implements the latest account of syllogisms, which is based on the theory of mental models. We also report four experiments that were designed to test this account. Experiments 1 and 2 examined the strategies revealed by the participants' use of paper and pencil as aids to reasoning. Experiment 3 used (...)
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  • How Diagrams Can Support Syllogistic Reasoning: An Experimental Study.Yuri Sato & Koji Mineshima - 2015 - Journal of Logic, Language and Information 24 (4):409-455.
    This paper explores the question of what makes diagrammatic representations effective for human logical reasoning, focusing on how Euler diagrams support syllogistic reasoning. It is widely held that diagrammatic representations aid intuitive understanding of logical reasoning. In the psychological literature, however, it is still controversial whether and how Euler diagrams can aid untrained people to successfully conduct logical reasoning such as set-theoretic and syllogistic reasoning. To challenge the negative view, we build on the findings of modern diagrammatic logic and introduce (...)
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  • Judgment under uncertainty: Evolution may not favor a probabilistic calculus.Lev R. Ginzburg, Charles Janson & Scott Ferson - 1996 - Behavioral and Brain Sciences 19 (1):24-25.
    The environment in which humans evolved is strongly and positively autocorrelated in space and time. Probabilistic judgments based on the assumption of independence may not yield evolutionarily adaptive behavior. A number of “faults” of human reasoning are not faulty under fuzzy arithmetic, a nonprobabilistic calculus of reasoning under uncertainty that may be closer to that underlying human decision making.
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  • The Concept of Noise.Steven Sands & John J. Ratey - 2023 - Angelaki 28 (3):16-24.
    Abstract“NOISE” is a term we are using to describe a complex and distressing aspect of the bodily and cognitive experience of many very ill psychiatric patients. By “noise,” we mean an internally experienced state of crowding and confusion created by a variety of stimuli, the quantity, intensity and unpredictability of which make it difficult for individuals so afflicted to tolerate and organize their experience. Attempts to do so may only add to confusion and psychotic phenomena.
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  • Probabilistic representation in syllogistic reasoning: A theory to integrate mental models and heuristics.Masasi Hattori - 2016 - Cognition 157 (C):296-320.
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  • The need for a theory of evidential weight.L. Jonathan Cohen - 1996 - Behavioral and Brain Sciences 19 (1):18-19.
    There is a familiar risk of antinomy if fromxisEand p(xisH/xisE) =rit is permissible to infer p(xisH) =r, and what Carnap (1950) called “The requirement of total evidence” will not prevent such antinomies satisfactorily. What is needed instead is a properly developed theory of evidential weight.
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  • Are base rates a natural category of information?Terry Connolly - 1996 - Behavioral and Brain Sciences 19 (1):19-20.
    The base rate fallacy is directly dependent on a particular judgment paradigm in which information may be unambiguously designated as either “base rate” or “individuating,” and in which subjects make two-stage sequential judgments. The paradigm may be a poor match for real world settings, and the fallacy may thus be undefined for natural ecologies of judgment.
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  • The base rate fallacy reconsidered: Descriptive, normative, and methodological challenges.Jonathan J. Koehler - 1996 - Behavioral and Brain Sciences 19 (1):1-17.
    We have been oversold on the base rate fallacy in probabilistic judgment from an empirical, normative, and methodological standpoint. At the empirical level, a thorough examination of the base rate literature (including the famous lawyer–engineer problem) does not support the conventional wisdom that people routinely ignore base rates. Quite the contrary, the literature shows that base rates are almost always used and that their degree of use depends on task structure and representation. Specifically, base rates play a relatively larger role (...)
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  • How our brains reason logically.Markus Knauff - 2007 - Topoi 26 (1):19-36.
    The aim of this article is to strengthen links between cognitive brain research and formal logic. The work covers three fundamental sorts of logical inferences: reasoning in the propositional calculus, i.e. inferences with the conditional “if...then”, reasoning in the predicate calculus, i.e. inferences based on quantifiers such as “all”, “some”, “none”, and reasoning with n-place relations. Studies with brain-damaged patients and neuroimaging experiments indicate that such logical inferences are implemented in overlapping but different bilateral cortical networks, including parts of the (...)
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  • The role of pragmatic rules in the conjunction fallacy.Giuseppe Mosconi & Laura Macchi - 2001 - Mind and Society 2 (1):31-57.
    We here report the findings of our investigation into the validity of the conjunction fallacy (Tversky & Kahneman, 1983), bearing in mind the role of conversational rules. Our first experiment showed that subjects found a logically correct answer unacceptable when it implied a violation of the conversational rules. We argue that tautological questions, such as those which concern the relationship of inclusion between a class and its sub-class, violate conversational rules because they are not informative. In this sense, it is (...)
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  • Mental probability logic.Niki Pfeifer & Gernot D. Kleiter - 2009 - Behavioral and Brain Sciences 32 (1):98-99.
    We discuss O&C's probabilistic approach from a probability logical point of view. Specifically, we comment on subjective probability, the indispensability of logic, the Ramsey test, the consequence relation, human nonmonotonic reasoning, intervals, generalized quantifiers, and rational analysis.
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  • Mental models in cognitive science.P. N. Johnson-Laird - 1980 - Cognitive Science 4 (1):71-115.
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  • Studying the use of base rates: Normal science or shifting paradigm?Joachim Krueger - 1996 - Behavioral and Brain Sciences 19 (1):30-30.
    The underutilization of base rates is a consistent finding. The strong claim that base rates are ignored has been rejected and this needs no further emphasis. Following the path of “normal science,” research examines the conditions predicting changes in the degree of underutilization. A scientific revolution that might dethrone the heuristics and biases paradigm is not in sight.
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  • Physicians neglect base rates, and it matters.Robert M. Hamm - 1996 - Behavioral and Brain Sciences 19 (1):25-26.
    A recent study showed physicians' reasoning about a realistic case to be ignorant of base rate. It also showed physicians interpreting information pertinent to base rate differently, depending on whether it was presented early or late in the case. Although these adult reasoners might do better if given hints through talk of relative frequencies, this would not prove that they had no problem of base rate neglect.
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  • The meaning of conversion in syllogistic reasoning.Louis S. Dickstein - 1981 - Bulletin of the Psychonomic Society 18 (3):135-138.
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  • Hypothesis testing in Wason's selection task: social exchange cheating detection or task understanding.N. Liberman - 1996 - Cognition 58 (1):127-156.
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  • Nuancing should not imply neglecting.Howard Margolis - 1996 - Behavioral and Brain Sciences 19 (1):32-33.
    Koehler is right to argue for more nuanced interpretation of base rate anomalies. These anomalies are best understood in relation to a broader class of cognitive anomalies, which are important for theory and practice. Recognizing a need for more nuanced analysis should not be taken as a license for treating the effects as “explained away.”.
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  • Syllogistic reasoning with intermediate quantifiers.Niki Pfeifer & Gernot D. Kleiter - manuscript
    A system of intermediate quantifiers (“Most S are P”, “m/n S are P”) is proposed for evaluating the rationality of human syllogistic reasoning. Some relations between intermediate quantifiers and probabilistic interpretations are discussed. The paper concludes by the generalization of the atmosphere, matching and conversion hypothesis to syllogisms with intermediate quantifiers. Since our experiments are currently still running, most of the paper is theoretical and intended to stimulate psychological studies.
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  • Probabilistic fallacies.Henry E. Kyburg - 1996 - Behavioral and Brain Sciences 19 (1):31-31.
    Two distinct issues are sometimes confused in the base rate literature: Why do people make logical mistakes in the assessment of probabilities? and why do subjects not use base rates the way experimenters do? The latter problem may often reflect differences in an implicit reference class rather than a disinclination to update a base rate by Bayes' theorem. Also important are considerations concerning the interaction of several potentially relevant base rates.
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  • Quasi-cose che spariscono e ritornano, senza che però si possa domandare dove siano state nel frattempo. Appunti per un’estetica-ontologia delle atmosfere.Tonino Griffero - 2006 - Rivista di Estetica 33 (33):45-68.
    1 Segmentando In psicologia da tempo si parla dell’“effetto atmosfera” eventualmente creato da certi sillogismi, segnatamente da quelli che “sentiamo” come maggiormente persuasivi del tutto indipendentemente dalla loro validità logica. Da due premesse particolari e affermative (alcuni A sono B, alcuni B sono C), ad esempio, molti sono indotti, appunto in virtù di questo effetto “atmosferico”, a trarre un’affermazione altrettanto particolare e affermativa ancorché erronea (alcuni A sono C), la...
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  • Reasoning logically in cognitive domains.Claudia Casadio - 2016 - Logic Journal of the IGPL 24 (4):628-638.
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  • The interpretation of universal affirmative propositions.Wilma Bucci - 1978 - Cognition 6 (1):55-77.
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  • Base rates, stereotypes, and judgmental accuracy.David C. Funder - 1996 - Behavioral and Brain Sciences 19 (1):22-23.
    The base rate literature has an opposite twin in the social psychological literature on stereotypes, which concludes that people use their preexisting beliefs about probabilistic category attributes too much, rather than not enough. This ironic discrepancy arises because beliefs about category attributes enhance accuracy when the beliefs are accurate and diminish accuracy when they are not. To determine the accuracy of base rate/stereotype beliefs requires research that addresses specific content.
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  • Can any ostrich fly?: some new data on belief bias in syllogistic reasoning.P. Cherubini - 1998 - Cognition 69 (2):179-218.
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  • How to reconsider the base rate fallacy without forgetting the concept of systematic processing.Pablo Fernandez-Berrocal, Julian Almaraz & Susana Segura - 1996 - Behavioral and Brain Sciences 19 (1):21-22.
    Abstract(1) There is enough contradictory evidence regarding the role of base rates in category learning to confirm the nonexistence of biases in such learning. (2) It is not always possible to activate statistical reasoning through frequentist representation. (3) It is necessary to use the concept of systematic processing in reconsidering the published work on biases.
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  • Syllogistic inference.P. N. Johnson-Laird & Bruno G. Bara - 1984 - Cognition 16 (1):1-61.
    This paper reviews current psychological theories of syllogistic inference and establishes that despite their various merits they all contain deficiencies as theories of performance. It presents the results of two experiments, one using syllogisms and the other using three-term series problems, designed to elucidate how the arrangement of terms within the premises affects performance. These data are used in the construction of a theory based on the hypothesis that reasoners construct mental models of the premises, formulate informative conclusions about the (...)
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  • Classes and collections: Principles of organization in the learning of hierarchical relations.Ellen M. Markman, Marjorie S. Horton & Alexander G. McLanahan - 1980 - Cognition 8 (3):227-241.
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  • Conservatism revisited: Base rates, prior probabilities, and averaging strategies.Nancy Paule Melone & Timothy W. McGuire - 1996 - Behavioral and Brain Sciences 19 (1):36-37.
    Consistent with Koehler's position, we propose a generalization of the base rate fallacy and earlier conservatism literatures. In studies using both traditional tasks and new tasks based on ecologically valid base rates, our subjects typically underweight individuating information at least as much as they underweight base rates. The implications of cue consistency for averaging heuristics are discussed.
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  • Cognitive algebra versus representativeness heuristic.Norman H. Anderson - 1996 - Behavioral and Brain Sciences 19 (1):17-17.
    Cognitive algebra strongly disproved the representativeness heuristic almost before it was published; and therewith it also disproved the base rate fallacy. Cognitive algebra provides a theoretical foundation for judgment-decision theory through its joint solution to the two fundamental problems – true measurement of subjective values, and cognitive rules for integration of multiple determinants.
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  • Base rates in the applied domain of accounting.Lisa Koonce - 1996 - Behavioral and Brain Sciences 19 (1):29-30.
    Koehler's call for a reanalysis of the base rate fallacy is particularly important in the applied domain of accounting, since base rate data appear to be an important input for many accounting tasks. In this commentary I discuss the use of base rates in accounting and explain why more flexible standards of performance are important when judging the use of base rates.
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  • Quantifier interpretation and syllogistic reasoning.Maxwell J. Roberts, Stephen E. Newstead & Richard A. Griggs - 2001 - Thinking and Reasoning 7 (2):173 – 204.
    Many researchers have suggested that premise interpretation errors can account, at least in part, for errors on categorical syllogisms. However, although it is possible to show that people make such errors in simple inference tasks, the evidence for them is far less clear when actual syllogisms are administered. Part of the problem is due to the lack of clear predictions for the solutions that would be expected when using modified quantifiers, assuming that correct inferences are made from them. This paper (...)
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  • Modeling Human Syllogistic Reasoning: The Role of “No Valid Conclusion”.Nicolas Riesterer, Daniel Brand, Hannah Dames & Marco Ragni - 2020 - Topics in Cognitive Science 12 (1):446-459.
    After 100+ years of studying syllogistic reasoning, what have we learned? Well, Riesterer and colleagues suggest that we have learned to throw away most of the data! If that seems like a bad idea to you then, be assured, that the authors agree with you. The sad fact is that the conclusion of “No Valid Conclusion” (NVC) is one of the most frequently selected responses in syllogistic reasoning but these “majority data” have been ignored by most researchers. Riesterer and colleagues (...)
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  • Two modes of mental representation and problem solution in syllogistic reasoning.Marilyn Ford - 1995 - Cognition 54 (1):1-71.
    In this paper, the theory of syllogistic reasoning proposed by Johnson-Laird is shown to be inadequate and an alternative theory is put forward. Protocols of people attempting to solve syllogistic problems and explaining to another person how they reached their conclusions were obtained. Two main groups of subjects were identified. One group represented the relationship between classes in a spatial manner that was supplemented by a verbal representation. The other group used a primarily verbal representation. A detailed theory of the (...)
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  • Issues for the next generation of base rate research.Jonathan J. Koehler - 1996 - Behavioral and Brain Sciences 19 (1):41-53.
    Commentators agree that simple conclusions about a general base rate fallacy are not appropriate. It is more constructive to identify conditions under which base rates are differentially weighted. Commentators also agree that improving the ecological validity of the research is desirable, although this is less important to those interested exclusively in psychological processes. The philosophers and ecologists among the commentators offer a kinder perspective on base rate reasoning than the psychologists. My own perspective is that the interesting questions (both psychological (...)
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  • Markers of social group membership as probabilistic cues in reasoning tasks.Gary L. Brase - 2001 - Thinking and Reasoning 7 (4):313 – 346.
    Reasoning about social groups and their associated markers was investigated as a particular case of human reasoning about cue-category relationships. Assertions that reasoning involving cues and associated categories elicits specific probabilistic assumptions are supported by the results of three experiments. This phenomenon remains intact across the use of categorical syllogisms, conditional syllogisms, and the use of social groups that vary in their perceived cohesiveness, or entitativity. Implications are discussed for various theories of reasoning, and additional aspects of social group/coalitional reasoning (...)
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  • Critical and natural sensitivity to base rates.Gernot D. Kleiter - 1996 - Behavioral and Brain Sciences 19 (1):27-29.
    This commentary discusses three points: (1) The implications of the fact that it is rational to ignore base rates if probabilities are estimated by frequencies from samples without missing data (natural sampling); (2) second order probabilities distributions are a plausible way to model imprecise probabilities; and (3) Bayesian networks represent a normative reference for multi-cue models of probabilistic inference.
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  • Differential difficulty of categorical syllogisms.Louis S. Dickstein - 1976 - Bulletin of the Psychonomic Society 8 (4):330-332.
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  • Human reasoning: Some possible effects of availability.P. Pollard - 1982 - Cognition 12 (1):65-96.
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  • Improving decision accuracy where base rates matter: The prediction of violent recidivism.Vernon L. Quinsey - 1996 - Behavioral and Brain Sciences 19 (1):37-38.
    Base rates are vital in predicting violent criminal recidivism. However, both lay people given simulated prediction tasks and professionals milking real life predictions appear insensitive to variations in the base rate of violent recidivism. Although there are techniques to help decision makers attend to base rates, increased decision accuracy is better sought in improved actuarial models as opposed to improved clinicians.
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  • Why do frequency formats improve Bayesian reasoning? Cognitive algorithms work on information, which needs representation.Gerd Gigerenzer - 1996 - Behavioral and Brain Sciences 19 (1):23-24.
    In contrast to traditional research on base-rate neglect, an ecologically-oriented research program would analyze the correspondence between cognitive algorithms and the nature of information in the environment. Bayesian computations turn out to be simpler when information is represented in frequency formats as opposed to the probability formats used in previous research. Frequency formats often enable even uninstructed subjects to perform Bayesian reasoning.
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  • The perils of reconstructive remembering and the value of representative design.Kim J. Vicente - 1996 - Behavioral and Brain Sciences 19 (1):40-40.
    Abstract(1) The miscitations of seminal experiments in the base rate literature adds to the existing database of systematic miscitations of wellknown psychological experiments. These miscitations may be caused by a process of reconstructive remembering. (2) Representative design should be the methodological core of Koehler's call for ecologically valid research. This approach can benefit both basic and applied research.
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  • Where do you stand on the base rate issue?Douglas Stalker - 1996 - Behavioral and Brain Sciences 19 (1):38-39.
    This commentary presents a self-assessment inventory that will allow readers to determine their own attitude toward the base rate fallacy and its literature. The inventory is scientifically valid but not Medicare/Medicaid reimbursable.
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  • The implicit use of base rates in experiential and ecologically valid tasks.Barbara A. Spellman - 1996 - Behavioral and Brain Sciences 19 (1):38-38.
    When base rates are learned and used in an experiential manner subjects show better base rate use, perhaps because the implicit learning system is engaged. A causal framework in which base rates are relevant might also be necessary. Humans might thus perform better on more ecologically valid tasks, which are likely to contain those three components.
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  • The psychologic of implication.T. A. Nosanchuk - 1980 - Journal for the Theory of Social Behaviour 10 (1):39–55.
    This paper is a preliminary inquiry into the nature of implication; how things are seen as ‘going together’ or following one from another. The argument presented here is that implication is non-logical and is central to the routine process of reason, induction and generalization. The organizing force underlying implication and practical inference is argued to be Von Domarus’ Principle , by which similarity on some dimension of interest ‘carries over’ to some other dimension of interest.One major difficulty with this formulation (...)
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