Outgrowing the Procrustean Bed of Normality: The Utility of Bayesian Modeling for Asymmetrical Data Analysis

Martin, Stephen R.; Williams, Donald R.

doi:10.31234/osf.io/26m49

Cited by 15 publications

(13 citation statements)

References 36 publications

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“…quadratic) relationship between situational and dispositional anthropomorphism and theory‐of‐mind. We used a skew‐normal distribution model, as visualising the data showed the data was not symmetric and normally distributed (Martin & Williams, 2017 ). Anthropomorphism ratings during the film and IDAQ score served as linear and quadratic predictors of effectance ratings during the film and false belief accuracy.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Exploring the relationship between anthropomorphism and theory‐of‐mind in brain and behaviour

Hortensius

Kent

Darda

et al. 2021

Human Brain Mapping

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The process of understanding the minds of other people, such as their emotions and intentions, is mimicked when individuals try to understand an artificial mind. The assumption is that anthropomorphism, attributing human‐like characteristics to non‐human agents and objects, is an analogue to theory‐of‐mind, the ability to infer mental states of other people. Here, we test to what extent these two constructs formally overlap. Specifically, using a multi‐method approach, we test if and how anthropomorphism is related to theory‐of‐mind using brain (Experiment 1) and behavioural (Experiment 2) measures. In a first exploratory experiment, we examine the relationship between dispositional anthropomorphism and activity within the theory‐of‐mind brain network (n = 108). Results from a Bayesian regression analysis showed no consistent relationship between dispositional anthropomorphism and activity in regions of the theory‐of‐mind network. In a follow‐up, pre‐registered experiment, we explored the relationship between theory‐of‐mind and situational and dispositional anthropomorphism in more depth. Participants (n = 311) watched a short movie while simultaneously completing situational anthropomorphism and theory‐of‐mind ratings, as well as measures of dispositional anthropomorphism and general theory‐of‐mind. Only situational anthropomorphism predicted the ability to understand and predict the behaviour of the film's characters. No relationship between situational or dispositional anthropomorphism and general theory‐of‐mind was observed. Together, these results suggest that while the constructs of anthropomorphism and theory‐of‐mind might overlap in certain situations, they remain separate and possibly unrelated at the personality level. These findings point to a possible dissociation between brain and behavioural measures when considering the relationship between theory‐of‐mind and anthropomorphism.

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Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Exploring the relationship between anthropomorphism and theory‐of‐mind in brain and behaviour

Hortensius

Kent

Darda

et al. 2021

Human Brain Mapping

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show abstract

“…Although B HS t overcomes these challenges and provides a general method that can be applied to common research designs, it should not be considered a default for psychology. Future studies should compare B HS t to a skew-normal model (Martin & Williams, 2017), or a combination of the two (e.g., a skew-T distribution), from which a general default may be recommended.…”

Section: Bayesian Robust Methods In Practicementioning

confidence: 99%

“…This would account for uncertainty by characterizing performance measures across a hypothesized distribution. It should also be noted that B HS t is explicitly for reasonably symmetric data and investigating performance for skewed data is an important future direction (Martin & Williams, 2017).…”

Section: Areas For Improvementmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The inherent flexibility of Bayesian modeling allows for self-calibration to the observed data, including data otherwise considered "outliers". These models do not require assumptions such as normality, homogeneous variances, or distortion of the observed data (Martin & Williams, 2017). However, Bayesian robust meth-ods are not common in practice and there are few methodological papers on this topic (Kruschke, 2013;Fonseca, Ferreira, & Migon, 2008;Fernández & Steel, 1998).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Rethinking Robust Statistics with Modern Bayesian Methods

Williams¹,

Martin²

2017

Preprint

Self Cite

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Developing robust statistical methods is an important goal for psychological science. Whereas classical methods (i.e., sampling distributions, p-values, etc.) have been thoroughly characterized, Bayesian robust methods remain relatively uncommon in practice and methodological literatures. Here we propose a robust Bayesian model (BHS t ) that accommodates heterogeneous (H) variances by predicting the scale parameter on the log scale and tail-heaviness with a Student-t likelihood (S t). Through simulations with normative and contaminated (i.e., heavy-tailed) data, we demonstrate that BHS t has consistent frequentist properties in terms of type I error, power, and mean squared error compared to three classical robust methods. With a motivating example, we illustrate Bayesian inferential methods such as approximate leave-one-out cross-validation and posterior predictive checks. We end by suggesting areas of improvement for BHS t and discussing Bayesian robust methods in practice.

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“…quadratic) relationship between situational and dispositional anthropomorphism and Theory-of-Mind. We used a skew-normal distribution model, as visualising the data showed the data was not symmetric and normally distributed (Martin & Williams, 2017).…”

Section: Analysesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Exploring the relationship between anthropomorphism and Theory-of-Mind in brain and behaviour

Hortensius¹,

Kent²,

Darda³

et al. 2020

Preprint

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The process of understanding the minds of other people, such as their emotions and intentions, is mimicked when individuals try to understand an artificial mind. The assumption is that anthropomorphism, attributing human-like characteristics to non-human agents and objects, is an analogue to Theory-of-Mind, the ability to infer mental states of other people. Here, we test to what extent these two constructs formally overlap. Specifically, using a multi-method approach, we test if and how anthropomorphism is related to Theory-of-Mind using brain (Experiment 1) and behavioural (Experiment 2) measures. In a first exploratory experiment, we examine the relationship between dispositional anthropomorphism and activity within the Theory-of-Mind brain network (n = 108). Results from a Bayesian regression analysis showed no consistent relationship between dispositional anthropomorphism and activity in regions of the Theory-of-Mind network. In a follow-up, pre-registered experiment, we explored the relationship between Theory-of-Mind and situational and dispositional anthropomorphism in more depth. Participants (n = 311) watched a short movie while simultaneously completing situational anthropomorphism and Theory-of-Mind ratings, as well as measures of dispositional anthropomorphism and general Theory-of-Mind. Only situational anthropomorphism predicted the ability to understand and predict the behaviour of the film’s characters. No relationship between situational or dispositional anthropomorphism and general Theory-of-Mind was observed. Together, these results suggest that while anthropomorphism and Theory-of-Mind might share some overlap in certain situations, they are separate and possibly unrelated at the personality level. These findings point to a possible dissociation between brain and behavioural measures when considering the relationship between Theory-of-Mind and anthropomorphism.

show abstract

Outgrowing the Procrustean Bed of Normality: The Utility of Bayesian Modeling for Asymmetrical Data Analysis

Cited by 15 publications

References 36 publications

Exploring the relationship between anthropomorphism and theory‐of‐mind in brain and behaviour

Exploring the relationship between anthropomorphism and theory‐of‐mind in brain and behaviour

Rethinking Robust Statistics with Modern Bayesian Methods

Exploring the relationship between anthropomorphism and Theory-of-Mind in brain and behaviour

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