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Cognition Dec 2021Statistical concepts (e.g., mean, variance, correlation) offer powerful ways to characterize the structure of the environment. To what extent do statistical concepts...
Statistical concepts (e.g., mean, variance, correlation) offer powerful ways to characterize the structure of the environment. To what extent do statistical concepts also play a role for people assessing the environment? Previous work on the mind as "intuitive statistician" has mainly focused on the judgment of means and correlations (Peterson & Beach, 1967). Much less is known about how people conceptualize and judge variance. In a survey and three experimental studies, we explored people's intuitive understanding of variance as a concept and investigated the factors affecting people's judgments of variance. The survey findings showed that most people hold concepts of variance that they can articulate; these concepts, however, reflect not only statistical variance (i.e., deviations from the average) but also the pairwise distance between stimuli, their range, and their variety. The experimental studies revealed that although people's judgments of variance are sensitive to the statistical variance of stimuli, variety and range also play an important role. The results can inform psychological models of judgments of variance.
Topics: Concept Formation; Humans; Judgment; Models, Psychological; Perception
PubMed: 34583131
DOI: 10.1016/j.cognition.2021.104906 -
Psychological Science Dec 2017How do people make causal judgments? What role, if any, does counterfactual simulation play? Counterfactual theories of causal judgments predict that people compare what...
How do people make causal judgments? What role, if any, does counterfactual simulation play? Counterfactual theories of causal judgments predict that people compare what actually happened with what would have happened if the candidate cause had been absent. Process theories predict that people focus only on what actually happened, to assess the mechanism linking candidate cause and outcome. We tracked participants' eye movements while they judged whether one billiard ball caused another one to go through a gate or prevented it from going through. Both participants' looking patterns and their judgments demonstrated that counterfactual simulation played a critical role. Participants simulated where the target ball would have gone if the candidate cause had been removed from the scene. The more certain participants were that the outcome would have been different, the stronger the causal judgments. These results provide the first direct evidence for spontaneous counterfactual simulation in an important domain of high-level cognition.
Topics: Adult; Eye Movement Measurements; Eye Movements; Female; Humans; Judgment; Logic; Male; Middle Aged; Young Adult
PubMed: 29039251
DOI: 10.1177/0956797617713053 -
The International Journal of... Aug 2021Our social activities are quite often erroneous and irrational, based on biased judgements and decision-making, known as social biases. However, the cognitive and...
BACKGROUND
Our social activities are quite often erroneous and irrational, based on biased judgements and decision-making, known as social biases. However, the cognitive and affective processes that produce such biases remain largely unknown. In this study, we investigated associations between social schemas, such as social judgment and conformity, entailing social biases and psychological measurements relevant to cognitive and affective functions.
METHOD
This study recruited 42 healthy adult subjects. A psychological test and a questionnaire were administered to assess biased social judgements by superficial attributes and social conformity by adherence to social norms, respectively, along with additional questionnaires and psychological tests for cognitive and affective measurements, including negative affects, autistic traits, and Theory of Mind (ToM). Associations of social judgment and conformity with cognitive and affective functions were examined using a multiple regression analysis and structural equation modeling.
RESULTS
Anxiety and the cognitive realm of ToM were mutually associated with both social judgments and conformity, although social judgements and conformity were still independent processes. Social judgements were also associated with autistic traits and the affective realm of ToM, whereas social conformity was associated with negative affects other than anxiety and an intuitive decision-making style.
CONCLUSIONS
These results suggest that ToM and negative affects may play important roles in social judgements and conformity, and the social biases connoted in these social schemas.
Topics: Adult; Affect; Female; Humans; Judgment; Male; Social Conformity; Social Perception; Theory of Mind; Young Adult
PubMed: 33929492
DOI: 10.1093/ijnp/pyab022 -
Proceedings of the National Academy of... Oct 2020To explain why an action is wrong, we sometimes say, "What if everybody did that?" In other words, even if a single person's behavior is harmless, that behavior may be...
To explain why an action is wrong, we sometimes say, "What if everybody did that?" In other words, even if a single person's behavior is harmless, that behavior may be wrong if it would be harmful once universalized. We formalize the process of universalization in a computational model, test its quantitative predictions in studies of human moral judgment, and distinguish it from alternative models. We show that adults spontaneously make moral judgments consistent with the logic of universalization, and report comparable patterns of judgment in children. We conclude that, alongside other well-characterized mechanisms of moral judgment, such as outcome-based and rule-based thinking, the logic of universalizing holds an important place in our moral minds.
Topics: Adult; Child; Child, Preschool; Decision Making; Humans; Judgment; Middle Aged; Models, Psychological; Moral Development; Morals; Social Perception
PubMed: 33008885
DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2014505117 -
Experimental Psychology Mar 2017A number of people believe that results from neuroscience have the potential to settle seemingly intractable debates concerning the nature, practice, and reliability of...
A number of people believe that results from neuroscience have the potential to settle seemingly intractable debates concerning the nature, practice, and reliability of moral judgments. In particular, Joshua Greene has argued that evidence from neuroscience can be used to advance the long-standing debate between consequentialism and deontology. This paper first argues that charitably interpreted, Greene's neuroscientific evidence can contribute to substantive ethical discussions by being part of an epistemic debunking argument. It then argues that taken as an epistemic debunking argument, Greene's argument falls short in undermining deontological judgments. Lastly, it proposes that accepting Greene's methodology at face value, neuroimaging results may in fact call into question the reliability of consequentialist judgments. The upshot is that Greene's empirical results do not undermine deontology and that Greene's project points toward a way by which empirical evidence such as neuroscientific evidence can play a role in normative debates.
Topics: Humans; Judgment; Morals; Neurosciences
PubMed: 28497720
DOI: 10.1027/1618-3169/a000352 -
Acta Psychologica May 2023Despite evidence often showing differences between groups with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) and neurotypical controls in moral judgment, the precise nature of these...
Despite evidence often showing differences between groups with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) and neurotypical controls in moral judgment, the precise nature of these differences has been difficult to establish. At least two reasons for this are (1) that ASD (and its associated characteristics) is difficult to define and (2) that morality, and the inclinations that undergird it, are hard to measure empirically. These challenges have made conclusive associations between ASD and particular patterns of moral judgment hard to come by. Thus, in the current study, participants levels of a traits associated with ASD were assessed by their responses to a questionnaire (i.e., the Iowa Screener) before they made moral judgments across a set of 20 moral dilemmas that independently assess utilitarian and deontological processing. Interestingly, results indicated that increased levels of autistic traits were associated with fewer moral judgments corresponding to either moral theory; that is, higher levels of autistic traits were associated with atypical patterns of moral judgment. In addition, and consistent with some prior methods (e.g., Gaeth et al., 2016), participant scores on the Iowa Screener, as well as their self-identification, were used to categorize participants between two groups (i.e., ASD and Typical) for exploratory purposes. Taken together, this research better informs the relationship between ASD and its associated traits with moral judgment and can inform certain discrepant findings in the field. Implications and ideas for future research are discussed, such as whether traits associated with ASD might relate to alternative moral inclinations, beyond deontology and utilitarianism.
Topics: Humans; Judgment; Autism Spectrum Disorder; Autistic Disorder; Morals; Ethical Theory
PubMed: 36958201
DOI: 10.1016/j.actpsy.2023.103895 -
Journal of Experimental Child Psychology Oct 2015A rational strategy to update and revise one's uncertain beliefs is to take advice by other agents who are better informed. Adults routinely engage in such advice taking...
A rational strategy to update and revise one's uncertain beliefs is to take advice by other agents who are better informed. Adults routinely engage in such advice taking in systematic and selective ways depending on relevant characteristics such as reliability of advisors. The current study merged research in social and developmental psychology to examine whether children also adjust their initial judgment to varying degrees depending on the characteristics of their advisors. Participants aged 3 to 6 years played a game in which they made initial judgments, received advice, and subsequently made final judgments. They systematically revised their judgments in light of the advice, and they did so selectively as a function of advisor expertise. They made greater adjustments to their initial judgment when advised by an apparently knowledgeable informant. This suggests that the pattern of advice taking studied in social psychology has its roots in early development.
Topics: Child; Child Behavior; Child Development; Child, Preschool; Decision Making; Female; Humans; Judgment; Male; Social Perception
PubMed: 26037403
DOI: 10.1016/j.jecp.2015.04.007 -
Trends in Cognitive Sciences May 2015Our representation of the physical world requires judgments of magnitudes, such as loudness, distance, or time. Interestingly, magnitude estimates are often not... (Review)
Review
Our representation of the physical world requires judgments of magnitudes, such as loudness, distance, or time. Interestingly, magnitude estimates are often not veridical but subject to characteristic biases. These biases are strikingly similar across different sensory modalities, suggesting common processing mechanisms that are shared by different sensory systems. However, the search for universal neurobiological principles of magnitude judgments requires guidance by formal theories. Here, we discuss a unifying Bayesian framework for understanding biases in magnitude estimation. This Bayesian perspective enables a re-interpretation of a range of established psychophysical findings, reconciles seemingly incompatible classical views on magnitude estimation, and can guide future investigations of magnitude estimation and its neurobiological mechanisms in health and in psychiatric diseases, such as schizophrenia.
Topics: Bayes Theorem; Brain; History, 19th Century; Humans; Judgment; Neuroimaging; Perception; Psychophysics; Regression, Psychology
PubMed: 25843543
DOI: 10.1016/j.tics.2015.03.002 -
Translational Psychiatry Mar 2022Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is characterized by difficulties in social processes, interactions, and communication. Yet, the neurocognitive bases underlying these...
Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is characterized by difficulties in social processes, interactions, and communication. Yet, the neurocognitive bases underlying these difficulties are unclear. Here, we triangulated the 'trans-diagnostic' approach to personality, social trait judgments of faces, and neurophysiology to investigate (1) the relative position of autistic traits in a comprehensive social-affective personality space, and (2) the distinct associations between the social-affective personality dimensions and social trait judgment from faces in individuals with ASD and neurotypical individuals. We collected personality and facial judgment data from a large sample of online participants (Nā=ā89 self-identified ASD; Nā=ā307 neurotypical controls). Factor analysis with 33 subscales of 10 social-affective personality questionnaires identified a 4-dimensional personality space. This analysis revealed that ASD and control participants did not differ significantly along the personality dimensions of empathy and prosociality, antisociality, or social agreeableness. However, the ASD participants exhibited a weaker association between prosocial personality dimensions and judgments of facial trustworthiness and warmth than the control participants. Neurophysiological data also indicated that ASD participants had a weaker association with neuronal representations for trustworthiness and warmth from faces. These results suggest that the atypical association between social-affective personality and social trait judgment from faces may contribute to the social and affective difficulties associated with ASD.
Topics: Autism Spectrum Disorder; Empathy; Humans; Judgment; Personality; Sociological Factors
PubMed: 35292617
DOI: 10.1038/s41398-022-01870-9 -
Experimental Psychology Mar 2017Knowledge of intention and outcome is integral to making judgments of responsibility, blame, and causality. Yet, little is known about the effect of conflicting...
Knowledge of intention and outcome is integral to making judgments of responsibility, blame, and causality. Yet, little is known about the effect of conflicting intentions and outcomes on these judgments. In a series of four experiments, we combine good and bad intentions with positive and negative outcomes, presenting these through everyday moral scenarios. Our results demonstrate an asymmetry in responsibility, causality, and blame judgments for the two incongruent conditions: well-intentioned agents are regarded more morally and causally responsible for negative outcomes than ill-intentioned agents are held for positive outcomes. This novel effect of an intention-outcome asymmetry identifies an unexplored aspect of moral judgment and is partially explained by extra inferences that participants make about the actions of the moral agent.
Topics: Adolescent; Adult; Female; Humans; Intention; Judgment; Male; Middle Aged; Morals; Social Behavior; Young Adult
PubMed: 28497723
DOI: 10.1027/1618-3169/a000359