The Probabilistic Mind: Prospects for Bayesian Cognitive ScienceNick Chater, Mike Oaksford The rational analysis method, first proposed by John R. Anderson, has been enormously influential in helping us understand high-level cognitive processes. The Probabilistic Mind is a follow-up to the influential and highly cited 'Rational Models of Cognition' (OUP, 1998). It brings together developments in understanding how, and how far, high-level cognitive processes can be understood in rational terms, and particularly using probabilistic Bayesian methods. It synthesizes and evaluates the progress in the past decade, taking into account developments in Bayesian statistics, statistical analysis of the cognitive 'environment' and a variety of theoretical and experimental lines of research. The scope of the book is broad, covering important recent work in reasoning, decision making, categorization, and memory. Including chapters from many of the leading figures in this field, The Probabilistic Mind will be valuable for psychologists and philosophers interested in cognition. |
From inside the book
Results 1-3 of 68
... explanations than ones that do not appeal to optimality . If we can give an optimality - based explanation for some ... explanations — particularly in the philosophy of biology — has focused on exactly what standards must be met by ...
... explanations of X's occur- rence in terms of its optimality trace a causal sequence in phylogenetic ( i.e. , evolu- tionary ) time . The other standard route to providing the third component is through an account in ontogenetic time ...
... explanations . There is no principled barrier to providing such explanations ; rational analyses just have not typ- ically done so in practice . Mechanism - based explanations offer a very different type of explanation than opti- mality ...
Contents
prospects for a Bayesian cognitive science | 3 |
A primer on probabilistic inference | 33 |
Rational analyses instrumentalism and implementations | 59 |
Copyright | |
20 other sections not shown
Other editions - View all
The Probabilistic Mind: Prospects for Bayesian Cognitive Science Nick Chater,Mike Oaksford Limited preview - 2008 |
The Probabilistic Mind: Prospects for Bayesian Cognitive Science Nick Chater,Mike Oaksford No preview available - 2008 |