Cognition And Chance

Lack of ability to think probabilistically makes one prone to a variety of irrational fears and vulnerable to scams designed to exploit probabilistic naiveté, impairs decision making under uncertainty, facilitates the misinterpretation of statistical information, and precludes critical evaluation of likelihood claims. Cognition and Chance presents an overview of the information needed to avoid such pitfalls and to assess and respond to probabilistic situations in a rational way. Dr. Nickerson investigates such questions as how good individuals are at thinking probabilistically and how consistent their reasoning under uncertainty is with principles of mathematical statistics and probability theory. He reviews evidence that has been produced in researchers' attempts to investigate these and similar types of questions. Seven conceptual chapters address such topics as probability, chance, randomness, coincidences, inverse probability, paradoxes, dilemmas, and statistics. The remaining five chapters focus on empirical studies of individuals' abilities and limitations as probabilistic thinkers. Topics include estimation and prediction, perception of covariation, choice under uncertainty, and people as intuitive probabilists. Cognition and Chance is intended to appeal to researchers and students in the areas of probability, statistics, psychology, business, economics, decision theory, and social dilemmas.

An overview of the information needed to make educated assumptions about the statistical or probabilistic characteristics of a situation, this text shows how to make intelligent assessments of risk, enhance decision making under uncertainty, facilitate the understanding of statistical information and critically evaluate the likelihood of claims.

"The conditional, if ... then, is probably the most important term in natural language and forms the core of systems of logic and mental representation. It occurs in all human languages and allows people to express their knowledge of the causal or law-like structure of the world and of others' behaviour, e.g., if you turn the key the car starts, if John walks the dog he stops for a pint of beer; to make promises, e.g., if you cook tonight, I'll wash up all week; to regulate behaviour, e.g., if you are drinking beer, you must be over 18 years of age; to suggest what would have happened had things been different, e.g., if the match had been dry it would have lit, among many other possible uses. The way in which the conditional is modelled also determines the core of most logical systems. Unsurprisingly, it is also the most researched expression in the psychology of human reasoning. Cognition and Conditionals is the first volume for over 20 years (On Conditionals, 1986, CUP) that brings together recent developments in the cognitive science and psychology of conditional reasoning. Over the last 10 to 15 years, research on conditionals has come to dominate the psychology of reasoning providing a rich seam of results that have created new theoretical possibilities. This book shows how these developments have led researchers to view people's conditional reasoning behaviour more as succesful probabilistic reasoning rather than as errorful logical reasoning. It shows how the multifarious, and apparently competing, theoretical positions developed over the last 50 years in this area - mental logics, mental models, heuristic approaches, dual process theory, and probabilistic approaches-have responded to these insights. Its organisation reflects the view that an integrative approach is emerging that may need to exploit aspects of all these theoretical positions to explain the rich and complex phenomenon of reasoning with conditionals. It includes an introductory chapter relating the development of the psychology of reasoning to developments in the logic and semantics of the conditional. It also includes chapters by many of the leading figures in this field. Cognition and Conditionals will be a valuable resource for cognitive scientists, psychologists and philosophers interested how people actually reason with conditionals"--Provided by publisher.

This book offers a comprehensive philosophical investigation of ignorance. Using a set of cognitive tools and models, it discusses features that can describe a state of ignorance if linked to a particular type of cognition affecting the agent’s social behavior, belief system, and inferential capacity. The author defines ignorance as a cognitive condition that can be either passively (and unconsciously) borne by an agent or actively nurtured by him or her, and a condition that entails epistemic limitations (which can be any lack of knowledge, belief, information or data) that affect the agent’s behavior, belief system, and inferential capacity. The author subsequently describes the ephemeral nature of ignorance, its tenacity in the development of human inferential and cognitive performance, and the possibility of sharing ignorance among human agents within the social dimension. By combining previous frameworks such as the naturalization of logic, the eco-cognitive perspective in philosophy and concepts from Peircean epistemology, and adding original ideas derived from the author’s own research and reflections, the book develops a new cognitive framework to help understand the nature of ignorance and its influence on the human condition.

The Probabilistic Mind is a follow-up to the influential and highly cited Rational Models of Cognition (OUP, 1998). It brings together developmetns in understanding how, and how far, high-level cognitive processes can be understood in rational terms, and particularly using probabilistic Bayesian methods.

A mechanistic theory of the representation and use of semantic knowledge that uses distributed connectionist networks as a starting point for a psychological theory of semantic cognition.

Written by a team of leading international researchers under the guidance of Frank Durso, the second edition of the Handbook of Applied Cognition brings together the latest research into this challenging and important field, and is presented across thirty stimulating and accessible chapters. Stewarded by experiences editors from around the globe, the handbook has been fully updated with eleven new chapters covering materials that focus on the topics critical to understanding human mental functions in complex environments. It is an essential single-source reference for researchers, cognitive engineers and applied cognitive psychologists, as well as advanced students in the flourishing field of applied cognition.

For some time now, the study of cognitive development has been far and away the most active discipline within developmental psychology. Although there would be much disagreement as to the exact proportion of papers published in developmen tal journals that could be considered cognitive, 50% seems like a conservative estimate. Hence, a series of scholarly books to be devoted to work in cognitive development is especially appropriate at this time. The Springer Series in Cognitive Development contains two basic types of books, namely, edited collections of original chapters by several authors, and original volumes written by one author or a small group of authors. The flagship for the Springer Series will be a serial publication of the "advances" type, carrying the subtitle Progress in Cognitive Development Research. Each volume in the Progress sequence will be strongly thematic, in that it will be limited to some well-defined domain of cognitive-developmental research (e. g. , logical and mathematical de velopment, semantic development). All Progress volumes will be edited collec tions. Editors of such collections, upon consultation with the Series Editor, may elect to have their books published either as contributions to the Progress sequence or as separate volumes. All books written by one author or a small group of authors will be published as separate volumes within the series. A fairly broad definition of cognitive development is being used in the selection of books for this series.