Hostname: page-component-7c8c6479df-hgkh8 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-03-28T09:36:05.033Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Norms and high-level cognition: Consequences, trends, and antidotes

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 October 2011

Simon McNair
Affiliation:
School of Psychology, Queen's University Belfast, University Road, Belfast BT7 1NN, United Kingdom. a.feeney@qub.ac.uksmcnair01@qub.ac.ukhttp://www.psych.qub.ac.uk/Staff/Profiles/feeney/index.aspx
Aidan Feeney
Affiliation:
School of Psychology, Queen's University Belfast, University Road, Belfast BT7 1NN, United Kingdom. a.feeney@qub.ac.uksmcnair01@qub.ac.ukhttp://www.psych.qub.ac.uk/Staff/Profiles/feeney/index.aspx

Abstract

We are neither as pessimistic nor as optimistic as Elqayam & Evans (E&E). The consequences of normativism have not been uniformly disastrous, even among the examples they consider. However, normativism won't be going away any time soon and in the literature on causal Bayes nets new debates about normativism are emerging. Finally, we suggest that to concentrate on expert reasoners as an antidote to normativism may limit the contribution of research on thinking to basic psychological science.

Type
Open Peer Commentary
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2011

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Barbey, A. K. & Sloman, S. A. (2007) Base rate respect: From ecological rationality to dual processes. Behavioral and Brain Sciences 30:241–97.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Bornstein, B. H. & Emler, A. C. (2001) Rationality in medical decision making: A review of the literature on doctors' decision making biases. Journal of Evaluation in Clinical Practice 7:97107.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
De Neys, W. & Glumicic, T. (2008) Conflict monitoring in dual process theories of thinking. Cognition 106:1248–99.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Evans, J. St. B. T., Handley, S. J., Perham, N., Over, D. E. & Thompson, V. A. (2000) Frequency versus probability formats in statistical word problems. Cognition 77:197213.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Feeney, A. & Heit, E., eds. (2007) Inductive reasoning: Experimental, developmental and computational approaches. Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Fernbach, P. M., Darlow, A. & Sloman, S. A. (2011) Asymmetries in predictive and diagnostic reasoning. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General 140:168–85.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Gigerenzer, G., Hell, W. & Blank, H. (1988) Presentation and content: The use of base rates as a continuous variable. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance 14:513–25.Google Scholar
Girotto, V. & Gonzalez, M. (2001) Solving probabilistic and statistical problems: A matter of information structure and question form. Cognition 78(3):247–76.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Jones, M. & Love, B. C. (2011) Bayesian Fundamentalism or Enlightenment? On the explanatory status and theoretical contributions of Bayesian models of cognition. Behavioral and Brain Sciences 34(4):169231.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Kahneman, D. & Tversky, A. (1973) On the psychology of prediction. Psychological Review 80:237–51.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kemp, C. & Tenenbaum, J. B. (2009) Structured statistical models of inductive reasoning. Psychological Review 116:2058.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Krynski, T. R. & Tenenbaum, J. B. (2007) The role of causality in judgement under uncertainty. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General 136:430–50.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Murphy, G. L. (2002) The big book of concepts. MIT Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Oaksford, M. & Chater, N. (2007) Bayesian rationality: The probabilistic approach to human reasoning. Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Peterson, C. R. & Beach, L. R. (1967) Man as an intuitive statistician. Psychological Bulletin 68:2946.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sloman, S. A. (2007) Taxonomising induction. In: Inductive reasoning, ed. Feeney, A. & Heit, E., pp. 328–43. Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar