A non-linear dynamical approach to belief revision in cognitive behavioral therapy

Abstract

Belief revision is the key change mechanism underlying the psychological intervention known as cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT). It both motivates and reinforces new behavior. In this review we analyze and apply a novel approach to this process based on AGM theory of belief revision, named after its proponents, Carlos Alchourrón, Peter Gärdenfors and David Makinson. AGM is a set-theoretical model. We reconceptualize it as describing a non-linear, dynamical system that occurs within a semantic space, which can be represented as a phase plane comprising all of the brain's attentional, cognitive, affective and physiological resources. Triggering events, such as anxiety-producing or depressing situations in the real world, or their imaginal equivalents, mobilize these assets so they converge on an equilibrium point. A preference function then evaluates and integrates evidentiary data associated with individual beliefs, selecting some of them and comprising them into a belief set, which is a metastable state. Belief sets evolve in time from one metastable state to another. In the phase space, this evolution creates a heteroclinic channel. AGM regulates this process and characterizes the outcome at each equilibrium point. Its objective is to define the necessary and sufficient conditions for belief revision by simultaneously minimizing the set of new beliefs that have to be adopted, and the set of old beliefs that have to be discarded or reformulated. Using AGM, belief revision can be modeled using three (and only three) fundamental syntactical operations performed on belief sets, which are expansion; revision; and contraction. Expansion is like adding a new belief without changing any old ones. Revision is like adding a new belief and changing old, inconsistent ones. Contraction is like changing an old belief without adding any new ones. We provide operationalized examples of this process in action.

The Truth is in There: Belief Processes in the Human Brain

“…In OCD, dysfunctional beliefs are a key component of the disorder (Alonso et al, 2013). On a more general level, belief revision is one of the central components of cognitive behavioral therapy (Kronemyer & Bystritsky, 2014), and the dynamics of beliefs and belief updating play an important role in the treatment of mental disorders (Pott & Schilbach, 2022).…”

A cognitive account of belief: a tentative road map

“…Beliefs, or perhaps more realistically belief systems, provide the ‘mental scaffolding’ for appraising the environment, explaining new observations, and constructing a shared meaning of the world ( Halligan, 2007 ). Consider, for example, the fundamental and widespread effects of the transition from Ptolemaic astronomy to Copernican astronomy, from Newtonian physics to Einsteinian physics, or from a miasmatic theory to a germ theory of disease (see Kronemyer and Bystritsky, 2014 ). In a more immediate sense, beliefs allow us to interpret and appraise our ongoing experience, and to place our experience within a wider meaningful context involving the past and future.…”

“…Beliefs also provide a basis for action by providing both a representation of the environment and a framework of goals and actions ( Tullett et al, 2013 ). Given this overarching influence of belief on our experience, beliefs that are considered dysfunctional or inaccurate are often the target of psychological interventions ( Beck, 1976 ; Young et al, 2003 ; Hofmann et al, 2012 ; Kronemyer and Bystritsky, 2014 ).…”

Robust sequential working memory recall in heterogeneous cognitive networks

“…Results exist related to anxiety and depression (Bystritsky et al, 2014 ), and to obsessive-compulsive disorder (Bystritsky et al, 2012 ; Schiepek et al, 2013 ). Some psychiatrists anticipate that analysis of non-linear sequential dynamics will lead to changes in cognitive behavioral therapies (Kronemyer and Bystritsky, 2014 ).…”