Suppose that two competing norms, N1 and N2, can be identified such that a given person’s response can be interpreted as correct according to N1 but incorrect according to N2. Which of these two norms, if any, should one use to interpret such a response? In this paper we seek to address this fundamental problem by studying individual variation in the interpretation of conditionals by establishing individual profiles of the participants based on their case judgments and reflective attitudes. To investigate (...) the participants’ reflective attitudes we introduce a new experimental paradigm called the Scorekeeping Task. As a case study, we identify the participants who follow the Suppositional Theory of conditionals (N1) versus Inferentialism (N2) and investigate to what extent internally consistent competence models can be reconstructed for the participants on this basis. After extensive empirical investigations, an apparent reasoning error with and-to-if inferences was found in one of these two groups. The implications of this case study for debates on the proper role of normative considerations in psychology are discussed. (shrink)

Human agents happen to judge that a conjunction of two terms is more probable than one of the terms, in contradiction with the rules of classical probabilities—this is the conjunction fallacy. One of the most discussed accounts of this fallacy is currently the quantum-like explanation, which relies on models exploiting the mathematics of quantum mechanics. The aim of this paper is to investigate the empirical adequacy of major quantum-like models which represent beliefs with quantum states. We first argue that they (...) can be tested in three different ways, in a question order effect configuration which is different from the traditional conjunction fallacy experiment. We then carry out our proposed experiment, with varied methodologies from experimental economics. The experimental results we get are at odds with the predictions of the quantum-like models. This strongly suggests that this quantum-like account of the conjunction fallacy fails. Future possible research paths are discussed. (shrink)

This dissertation is devoted to empirically contrasting the Suppositional Theory of conditionals, which holds that indicative conditionals serve the purpose of engaging in hypothetical thought, and Inferentialism, which holds that indicative conditionals express reason relations. Throughout a series of experiments, probabilistic and truth-conditional variants of Inferentialism are investigated using new stimulus materials, which manipulate previously overlooked relevance conditions. These studies are some of the first published studies to directly investigate the central claims of Inferentialism empirically. In contrast, the Suppositional Theory (...) of conditionals has an impressive track record through more than a decade of intensive testing. The evidence for the Suppositional Theory encompasses three sources. Firstly, direct investigations of the probability of indicative conditionals, which substantiate “the Equation” (P(if A, then C) = P(C|A)). Secondly, the pattern of results known as “the defective truth table” effect, which corroborates the de Finetti truth table. And thirdly, indirect evidence from the uncertain and-to-if inference task. Through four studies each of these sources of evidence are scrutinized anew under the application of novel stimulus materials that factorially combine all permutations of prior and relevance levels of two conjoined sentences. The results indicate that the Equation only holds under positive relevance (P(C|A) – P(C|¬A) > 0) for indicative conditionals. In the case of irrelevance (P(C|A) – P(C|¬A) = 0), or negative relevance (P(C|A) – P(C|¬A) < 0), the strong relationship between P(if A, then C) and P(C|A) is disrupted. This finding suggests that participants tend to view natural language conditionals as defective under irrelevance and negative relevance (Chapter 2). Furthermore, most of the participants turn out only to be probabilistically coherent above chance levels for the uncertain and-to-if inference in the positive relevance condition, when applying the Equation (Chapter 3). Finally, the results on the truth table task indicate that the de Finetti truth table is at most descriptive for about a third of the participants (Chapter 4). Conversely, strong evidence for a probabilistic implementation of Inferentialism could be obtained from assessments of P(if A, then C) across relevance levels (Chapter 2) and the participants’ performance on the uncertain-and-to-if inference task (Chapter 3). Yet the results from the truth table task suggest that these findings could not be extended to truth-conditional Inferentialism (Chapter 4). On the contrary, strong dissociations could be found between the presence of an effect of the reason relation reading on the probability and acceptability evaluations of indicative conditionals (and connate sentences), and the lack of an effect of the reason relation reading on the truth evaluation of the same sentences. A bird’s eye view on these surprising results is taken in the final chapter and it is discussed which perspectives these results open up for future research. (shrink)

This paper examines precursors and consequents of perceived relevance of a proposition A for a proposition C. In Experiment 1, we test Spohn's assumption that ∆P = P − P is a good predictor of ratings of perceived relevance and reason relations, and we examine whether it is a better predictor than the difference measure − P). In Experiment 2, we examine the effects of relevance on probabilistic coherence in Cruz, Baratgin, Oaksford, and Over's uncertain “and-to-if” inferences. The results suggest (...) that ∆P predicts perceived relevance and reason relations better than the difference measure and that participants are either less probabilistically coherent in “and-to-if” inferences than initially assumed or that they do not follow P = P. Results are discussed in light of recent results suggesting that the Equation may not hold under conditions of irrelevance or negative relevance. (shrink)

ABSTRACTProbability judgements entail a conjunction fallacy if a conjunction is estimated to be more probable than one of its conjuncts. In the context of predication of alternative logical hypothesis, Bayesian logic provides a formalisation of pattern probabilities that renders a class of pattern-based CFs rational. BL predicts a complete system of other logical inclusion fallacies. A first test of this prediction is investigated here, using transparent tasks with clear set inclusions, varying in observed frequencies only. Experiment 1 uses data where (...) BL makes dominant predictions; Experiment 2's predictions were less clear, and we additionally investigated judgements about the second-most probable hypotheses. The results corroborated a pattern-probability account and cannot be easily explained by other theories of CFs. IFs were not limited to conjunctions, but rather occurred systematically for several logical connectives. Thus, pattern-based prob... (shrink)

Consider the following two (hypothetical) generic causal claims: “Living in a neighborhood with many families with children increases purchases of bicycles” and “living in an affluent neighborhood with many families with children increases purchases of bicycles.” These claims not only differ in what they suggest about how bicycle ownership is distributed across different neighborhoods (i.e., “the data”), but also have the potential to communicate something about the speakers’ values: namely, the prominence they accord to affluence in representing and making decisions (...) about the social world. Here, we examine the relationship between the level of granularity with which a cause is described in a generic causal claim (e.g., neighborhood vs. affluent neighborhood) and the value of the information contained in the causal model that generates that claim. We argue that listeners who know any two of the following can make reliable inferences about the third: 1) the level of granularity at which a speaker makes a generic causal claim, 2) the speaker’s values, and 3) the data available to the speaker. We present results of four experiments (N=1,323) in the domain of social categories that provide evidence in keeping with these predictions. (shrink)

Does the most common response given by participants presented with Tversky and Kahneman’s famous taxi cab problem amount to a violation of Bayes’ theorem? In other words, do they fall victim to so-called base-rate fallacy? In the present paper, following an earlier suggestion by Crupi and Girotto, we will identify the logical arguments underlying both the original diagnosis of irrationality in this reasoning task under uncertainty and a number of objections that have been raised against such a diagnosis. This will (...) enable us to show firstly that, contrary to the dismissive arguments recently put forward by Elqayam and Evans, empirical evidence turns out to be quite useful in addressing questions of this kind. Therefore, it can make a significant contribution to moving the base-rate fallacy controversy forward. Secondly, the available empirical evidence (though limited and sometimes inconclusive) seems to support the charge of irrationality levelled against the majority of participants presented with the taxi cab problem, and hence suggests that base-rate neglect is a real fallacy − that is the conclusion of our analysis. (shrink)

We introduce an expected-value theory of linguistic modality that makes reference to expected utility and a likelihood-based confirmation measure for deontics and epistemics, respectively. The account is a probabilistic semantics for deontics and epistemics, yet it proposes that deontics and epistemics share a common core modal semantics, as in traditional possible-worlds analysis of modality. We argue that this account is not only theoretically advantageous, but also has far-reaching empirical consequences. In particular, we predict modal versions of reasoning fallacies from the (...) heuristics and biases literature. Additionally, we derive the modal semantics in an entirely transparent manner, as it is based on the compositional semantics of Korean modal expressions that are morphosyntactically decomposed into a conditional and an evaluative predicate. (shrink)

The conjunction fallacy is the well-documented empirical finding that subjects sometimes rate a conjunction A&B as more probable than one of its conjuncts, A. Most explanations appeal in some way to the fact that B has a high probability. But Tentori et al. (2013) have recently challenged such approaches, reporting experiments which find that (1) when B is confirmed by relevant evidence despite having low probability, the fallacy is common, and (2) when B has a high probability but has not (...) been confirmed by relevant evidence, the fallacy is less common. They conclude that degree of confirmation, rather than probability, is the central determinant of the conjunction fallacy. In this paper, we address a confound in these experiments: Tentori et al. (2013) failed to control for the fact that their (1)-situations make B conversationally relevant, while their (2)-situations do not. Hence their results are consistent with the hypothesis that con- versationally relevant high probability is an important driver of the conjunction fallacy. Inspired by recent theoretical work that appeals to conversational relevance to explain the conjunction fallacy, we report on two experiments that control for this issue by making B relevant without changing its degree of probability or confirmation. We find that doing so increases the rate of the fallacy in (2)-situations, and leads to comparable fallacy-rates as (1)-situations. This suggests that (non-probabilistic) conversational relevance indeed plays a role in the conjunction fallacy, and paves the way toward further work on the interplay between relevance and confirmation. (shrink)

Habilitation thesis in psychology. The book consists of a collection of reasoning studies. The experimental investigations will take us from people’s reasoning about probabilities, entailments, pragmatic factors, argumentation, and causality to morality. An overarching theme of the book is norm pluralism and individual differences in rationality research.

ABSTRACTIn this paper, I review some recent treatments of Simpson's Paradox, and I propose a new rationalizing explanation of its paradoxicality.

Methodological likelihoodism is the view that it is possible to provide an adequate self-contained methodology for science on the basis of likelihood functions alone. I argue that methodological likelihoodism is false by arguing that an adequate self-contained methodology for science provides good norms of commitment vis-a-vis hypotheses, articulating minimal requirements for a norm of this kind, and proving that no purely likelihood-based norm satisfies those requirements.

Computational-level models proposed in recent Bayesian cognitive science predict both the “biased” and correct responses on many tasks. So, rather than possessing two reasoning systems, people can generate both possible responses within a single system. Consequently, although an account of why people make one response rather than another is required, dual processes of reasoning may not be.

Bayesian approaches to human cognition have been extensively advocated in the last decades, but sharp objections have been raised too within cognitive science. In this paper, we outline a diagnosis of what has gone wrong with the prevalent strand of Bayesian cognitive science (here labelled pure Bayesian cognitive science), relying on selected illustrations from the psychology of reasoning and tools from the philosophy of science. Bayesians’ reliance on so-called method of rational analysis is a key point of our discussion. We (...) tentatively conclude on a constructive note, though: an appropriately modified variant of Bayesian cognitive science can still be coherently pursued, as some scholars have noted. (shrink)

ABSTRACTThe new paradigm in the psychology of reasoning redirects the investigation of deduction conceptually and methodologically because the premises and the conclusion of the inferences are assumed to be uncertain. A probabilistic counterpart of the concept of logical validity and a method to assess whether individuals comply with it must be defined. Conceptually, we used de Finetti's coherence as a normative framework to assess individuals' performance. Methodologically, we presented inference schemas whose premises had various levels of probability that contained non-numerical (...) expressions and, as a control, sure levels. Depending on the inference schemas, from 60% to 80% of the participants produced coherent conclusions when the premises were uncertain. The data also show that except for schemas involving conjunction, performance was consistently lower with certain than uncertain premises, the rate of conjunction fallacy was consistently low (not exceeding 20%,.. (shrink)

In a series of three behavioral experiments, we found a systematic distortion of probability judgments concerning elementary visual stimuli. Participants were briefly shown a set of figures that had two features (e.g., a geometric shape and a color) with two possible values each (e.g., triangle or circle and black or white). A figure was then drawn, and participants were informed about the value of one of its features (e.g., that the figure was a “circle”) and had to predict the value (...) of the other feature (e.g., whether the figure was “black” or “white”). We repeated this procedure for various sets of figures and, by varying the statistical association between features in the sets, we manipulated the probability of a feature given the evidence of another (e.g., the posterior probability of hypothesis “black” given the evidence “circle”) as well as the support provided by a feature to another (e.g., the impact, or confirmation, of evidence “circle” on the hypothesis “black”). Results indicated that participants’ judgments were deeply affected by impact, although they only should have depended on the probability distributions over the features, and that the dissociation between evidential impact and posterior probability increased the number of errors. The implications of these findings for lower and higher level cognitive models are discussed. (shrink)

Inductive reasoning requires exploiting links between evidence and hypotheses. This can be done focusing either on the posterior probability of the hypothesis when updated on the new evidence or on the impact of the new evidence on the credibility of the hypothesis. But are these two cognitive representations equally reliable? This study investigates this question by comparing probability and impact judgments on the same experimental materials. The results indicate that impact judgments are more consistent in time and more accurate than (...) probability judgments. Impact judgments also predict the direction of errors in probability judgments. These findings suggest that human inductive reasoning relies more on estimating evidential impact than on posterior probability. (shrink)

This paper raises a principled objection against the idea that Bayesian confirmation theory can be used to explain the conjunction fallacy. The paper demonstrates that confirmation-based explanations are limited in scope and can only be applied to cases of the fallacy of a certain restricted kind. In particular; confirmation-based explanations cannot account for the inverse conjunction fallacy, a more recently discovered form of the conjunction fallacy. Once the problem has been set out, the paper explores four different ways for the (...) confirmation theorist to come to terms with the problem, and argues that none of them are successful. (shrink)

Confirmation is a graded notion: evidence can confirm a hypothesis to a greater or lesser degree. There has been debate about how to measure degree of confirmation. Starting from the observation that we would like evidence to be a discriminating indicator of truth, we conduct computer simulations to determine how well the various known measures of confirmation predict the extent to which a given piece of evidence fulfills that role, given a hypothesis of interest. The outcomes show that some measures (...) are markedly better indicators of truth than others. (shrink)

The purpose of the study was to investigate how numeracy and acuity of the approximate number system (ANS) relate to the calibration and coherence of probability judgments. Based on the literature on number cognition, a first hypothesis was that those with lower numeracy would maintain a less linear use of the probability scale, contributing to overconfidence and nonlinear calibration curves. A second hypothesis was that also poorer acuity of the ANS would be associated with overconfidence and non-linearity. A third hypothesis, (...) in line with dual-systems theory (e.g., Kahneman and Frederick, 2002 ) was that people higher in numeracy should have better access to the normative probability rules, allowing them to decrease the rate of conjunction fallacies. Data from 213 participants sampled from the Swedish population showed that: (i) in line with the first hypothesis, overconfidence and the linearity of the calibration curves were related to numeracy, where people higher in numeracy were well calibrated with zero overconfidence. (ii) ANS was not associated with overconfidence and non-linearity, disconfirming the second hypothesis. (iii) The rate of conjunction fallacies was slightly, but to a statistically significant degree decreased by numeracy, but still high at all numeracy levels. An unexpected finding was that participants with better ANS acuity gave more realistic estimates of their performance relative to others. (shrink)