Modality, expected utility, and hypothesis testing

Chung, Woojin; Mascarenhas, Salvador

doi:10.1007/s11229-023-04191-6

Cited by 3 publications

(1 citation statement)

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“…THE CONJUNCTION FALLACY: CONFIRMATION OR RELEVANCE? 4 Recently, Tentori et al (2013) have argued against any kind of explanation based on high posteriors (see also Chung & Mascarenhas, 2023;Crupi et al, 2008;Mangiarulo et al, 2021;Tenenbaum & Griffiths, 2001;Tentori & Crupi, 2012). Tentori et al argue instead that what drives the conjunction fallacy is the fact that the description of Linda in the vignette (e) confirms the claim that she is active in the feminist movement, i.e.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The conjunction fallacy: confirmation or relevance?

Chung,

Dorst,

Mandelkern

et al. 2024

Thinking & Reasoning

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The conjunction fallacy is the well-documented reasoning error on which people rate a conjunction A ∧ B as more probable than one of its conjuncts, A. Many explanations appeal to the fact that B has a high probability in the given scenarios, but Tentori et al.(2013) have challenged such approaches. They report experiments suggesting that degree of confirmation-rather than probability-is the central determinant of the conjunction fallacy. In this paper, we have two goals. First, we address a confound in Tentori et al.'s (2013) experiments: they failed to control for the fact that in their stimuli where B is confirmed, it is also conversationally relevant in the sense that it fits with the topic or question under discussion (Roberts, 2012). Conversely, when B has a high probability but is not confirmed, it is conversationally irrelevant. Consequently, it is possible that conversational relevance, rather than confirmation, is responsible for the differences they found between confirmed and probable hypotheses. Second, inspired by recent theoretical work, we aim to give the first empirical investigation of the hypothesis that this type of conversational relevance on its own-independently of degree of confirmation-can be an important factor in the conjunction fallacy. We report on two experiments that vary Tentori et al.'s (2013) design by making B relevant without changing its degree of probability or confirmation. We found that doing so increases the rate of the conjunction fallacy, suggesting that relevance plays an important role in the conjunction fallacy.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The conjunction fallacy: confirmation or relevance?

Chung,

Dorst,

Mandelkern

et al. 2024

Thinking & Reasoning

Self Cite

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Reasoning From Quantified Modal Premises

Quelhas,

Rasga,

Johnson‐Laird

2024

Cognitive Science

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Quantified modal inferences interest logicians, linguists, and computer scientists, but no previous psychological study of them appears to be in the literature. Here is an example of one: All those artists are businessmen. Paulo is possibly one of the artists. What follows?People tend to conclude: Paulo is possibly a businessman (Experiment 1). It seems plausible, and it follows from an intuitive mental model in which Paulo is one of a set of artists who are businessmen. Further deliberation can yield a model of an alternative possibility in which Paulo is not one of the artists, which confirms that the conclusion is only a possibility. The snag is that standard modal logics, which deal with possibilities, cannot yield a particular conclusion to any premises: Infinitely many follow validly (from any premises) but they do not include the present conclusion. Yet, further experiments corroborated a new mental model theory's predictions for various inferences (Experiment 2), for the occurrence of factual conclusions drawn from premises about possibilities (Experiment 3) and for inferences from premises of modal syllogisms (Experiment 4). The theory is therefore plausible, but we explore the feasibility of a cognitive theory based on modifications to modal logic.

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Reasoning about possibilities: Modal logics, possible worlds, and mental models

Johnson-Laird,

Ragni

2024

Psychon Bull Rev

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Everyone reasons about possibilities. This article explains how they could do so using mental models. The theory makes four major claims: 1. Correct inferences are necessary, referring only to facts or possibilities to which the premises refer and not ruling any of them out, for example: She left or hid; Therefore, it’s possible that she left and possible that she hid. 2. A possibility such as that she hid, which is represented in an intuitive model, presupposes the possibility that it did not occur, she did not hide, which, if reasoners deliberate, is represented in the resulting model. 3. Reasoners condense consistent possibilities, such as the earlier pair, into one possibility: it is possible that she left and she hid. 4. Inconsistencies, such as she left or hid, and she neither left nor hid, refer to no possibilities whatsoever – they have an empty model – and so their only effects are local. Hence, any inference can be withdrawn with impunity if there is knowledge to the contrary. Experiments have corroborated each of these principles. They are incompatible with four essentials of standard modal logics, which concern deductions based on “possible” or “necessary”. Their formal deductions correspond to valid inferences, which have no counterexamples in which the premises are true but the conclusion is false. And so the article examines the differences between the two approaches, and explores the adaptation of a modal logic to account for correct human reasoning. Its feasibility is an open question.

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Modality, expected utility, and hypothesis testing

Cited by 3 publications

References 65 publications

The conjunction fallacy: confirmation or relevance?

The conjunction fallacy: confirmation or relevance?

Reasoning From Quantified Modal Premises

Reasoning about possibilities: Modal logics, possible worlds, and mental models

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