Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-dlnhk Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-24T19:06:18.754Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Can resources save rationality? “Anti-Bayesian” updating in cognition and perception

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 March 2020

Eric Mandelbaum ,
Isabel Won ,
Steven Gross  and
Chaz Firestone
Eric Mandelbaum
Affiliation:
Baruch College, CUNY Graduate Center, Department of Philosophy, New York, [email protected]://ericmandelbaum.com
Isabel Won
Affiliation:
Department of Psychological & Brain Sciences, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, [email protected]@jhu.eduhttp://perception.jhu.edu
Steven Gross
Affiliation:
Department of Philosophy, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, [email protected]://sites.google.com/site/grosssteven/
Chaz Firestone
Affiliation:
Department of Psychological & Brain Sciences, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, [email protected]@jhu.eduhttp://perception.jhu.edu
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Resource rationality may explain suboptimal patterns of reasoning; but what of “anti-Bayesian” effects where the mind updates in a direction opposite the one it should? We present two phenomena – belief polarization and the size-weight illusion – that are not obviously explained by performance- or resource-based constraints, nor by the authors’ brief discussion of reference repulsion. Can resource rationality accommodate them?

Type
Open Peer Commentary
Information
Behavioral and Brain Sciences , Volume 43 , 2020 , e16
Check for updates
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2020

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

Batson, C. D. (1975) Rational processing or rationalization? The effect of disconfirming information on a stated religious belief. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 32:176–84.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brayanov, J. B. & Smith, M. A. (2010) Bayesian and “anti-Bayesian” biases in sensory integration for action and perception in the size–weight illusion. Journal of Neurophysiology 103:1518–31.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Buckingham, G. (2014) Getting a grip on heaviness perception: A review of weight illusions and their probable causes. Experimental Brain Research 232:1623–29.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Buckingham, G. & Goodale, M. A. (2013) When the predictive brain gets it really wrong. Behavioral and Brain Sciences 36:208–09.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Charpentier, A. (1891) Analyse experimentale: De quelques elements de la sensation de poids. [Experimental analysis: On some of the elements of sensations of weight]. Archives de Physiologie Normale et Pathologique 3:122–35.Google Scholar
Festinger, L., Riecken, H. W. & Schachter, S. (1956) When prophecy fails. University of Minnesota Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gilbert, D. T., Pinel, E. C., Wilson, T. D., Blumberg, S. J. & Wheatley, T. P. (1998) Immune neglect: A source of durability bias in affective forecasting. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 75:617–38.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Jern, A., Chang, K.-M. K. & Kemp, C. (2014) Belief polarization is not always irrational. Psychological Review 121(2):206–24.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Liberman, A. & Chaiken, S. (1992) Defensive processing of personally relevant health messages. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 18:669–79.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mandelbaum, E. (2019) Troubles with Bayesianism: An introduction to the psychological immune system. Mind & Language 34:141–57.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Peters, M. A. K., Ma, W. J. & Shams, L. (2016) The size-weight illusion is not anti-Bayesian after all: A unifying Bayesian account. Peer J 4:e2124.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Plous, S. (1991) Biases in the assimilation of technological breakdowns: Do accidents make us safer? Journal of Applied Social Psychology 21:1058–82.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Taber, C. S. & Lodge, M. (2006) Motivated skepticism in the evaluation of political beliefs. American Journal of Political Science 50:755–69.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wei, X.-X. & Stocker, A. A. (2015) A Bayesian observer model constrained by efficient coding can explain “anti-Bayesian” percepts. Nature Neuroscience 18(10):1509–17. doi:10.1038/nn.4105.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Wei, X.-X. & Stocker, A. A. (2017) Lawful relation between perceptual bias and discriminability. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 114(38):10244–49. doi:10.1073/pnas.1619153114.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Won, I., Gross, S. & Firestone, C. (2019) Impossible somatosensation. PsyArXiv.CrossRefGoogle Scholar