The readings will be available as pdf files on the web at least one week before class. Readings can be accessed using the CLIPS system at UT. You will need to use your Texas EID to access these articles. On most weeks, a student may be asked to lead the discussion. Leaders for a particular class may have to read one or two additional articles to get a better background in the topic for that week. The class leader for that week should prepare a brief (30-40 min.) presentation on the topic for the week, and should come prepared with discussion questions.
In order to get into class each week, everyone has to turn in a `ticket'. Tickets are 1-2 page reactions to the readings for the week. The tickets should not be a summary of what you read. Rather, I'd like your opinions. Is the theory or the studies presented by the authors sufficient to explain what the authors would like to explain? Are there things that are not well explained by the theory presented? Is there other evidence you know about that would suggest a problem with the authors' approach? What do you think are the main advances of the work, or how does it fail to take into account other work. Feel free to draw on your own expertise in other areas of psychology or from other disciplines. If you think a particular theory would be helpful for some problem you have been thinking about, say so. If you felt a particular article was confusing, say that too.
For those of you taking this class for credit, your grade will depend primarily on two things: your tickets and a paper. For the paper, you have a number of options. One possibility is to find an area of research that you think is interesting. If you are currently involved in a research project, you may use that area. Trace the evolution of the representation-process pairs that have been used to study that area. Then, describe what you think is an adequate representation for that area. You might also want to sketch a set of empirical studies that you might run to test your hypotheses. Another possibility would be to outline the simulation of a process. This option is well suited to people with some background in computational modeling or programming. The main idea is to expand succinctly on a good research question. I expect that the papers will be about 20 pages long. In order to facilitate writing the paper, everyone should turn in a paper proposal no later than October 13. The proposal should be at least a couple of paragraphs describing what you would like to do.
| Date | Topic | Presenter | Readings |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sept. 8 | Introduction | ||
| Sept. 15 | Causal Reasoning | Cheng, P.W. (1997). From covariation to causation: A causal power theory. Psychological Review, 104(2), 367-405.
Cohen, L.B., & Oakes, L.M. (1993). How infants perceive a simple causal event. Developmental Psychology, 29(3), 421-433. Kim, N.S., & Ahn, W.K. (2002). Clinical psychologists' theory-based representations of mental disorders predict their diagnostic reasoning and memory. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 131(4), 451-476. Spellman, B.A. (1996). Acting as intuitive scientists: Contingency judgments are made while controlling for alternative potential causes. Psychological Science, 7(6), 337-342. |
|
| Sept. 22 | Bayesian Networks | Glymour, C. (2000). Bayes nets as psychological models. In F.C. Keil & R.A. Wilson (Eds.) Explanation and Cognition. (pp. 169-198). Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.
Gopnik, A., Sobel, D. M., Schulz, L E; Glymour, C. (2001). Causal learning mechanisms in very young children: Two-, three-, and four-year-olds infer causal relations from patterns of variation and covariation. Developmental Psychology, 37(5), 620-629. Tenenbaum, J.B., & Griffiths, T.L. (2001). Generalization, similarity, and Bayesian inference. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 24(4), 629-640. |
|
| Sept. 29 | Induction | Coley, J.D., Medin, D.L., Proffitt, J.B., Lynch, E., Atran, S. (1999). Inductive reasoning in folkbiological thought. In D.L. Medin & S. Atran (Eds.) Folkbiology (pp. 205-232). Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.
Heit, E., & Rubinstein, J. (1994). Similarity and property effects in inductive reasoning. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 20(2), 411-422. Lassaline (1996). Structural alignment in induction and similarity. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 22(3), 754-770. Osherson, D.N., Smith, E.E., Wilkie, O., Lopez, A., Shafir, E. (1990). Category-based induction. Psychological Review, 97(2), 185-200. |
|
| Oct. 6 | No Class, Yom Kippur |
||
| Oct. 13 | Explanation and Scientific Reasoning | Koehler, J.J. (1993). The influence of prior beliefs on scientific judgments of evidence quality. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 56, 28-55.
Kuhn, D. (1997). Is good thinking scientific thinking? In D.R. Olson & N. Torrance (Eds.) Modes of thought: Explorations in culture and cognition (pp. 261-281). New York: Cambridge University Press McGill, A.L. (2002). Alignable and nonalignable differences in causal explanations. Memory and Cognition, 30(3), 456-468. Rosenblit, L., & Keil, F.C. (2002). The misunderstood limits of folk science: An illusion of explanatory depth. Cognitive Science, 26, 521-562. |
|
| Oct. 20 | Analogical Reasoning | Dunbar, K. (1995). How scientists think: On-line creativity and conceptual change in science. In T.B. Ward, S.M. Smith, & J. Vaid (Eds.) Creative Thought: An investigation of conceptual structures and processes (pp. 461-493). Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.
Gentner, D. (1983). Structure-mapping: A theoretical framework for analogy. Cognitive Science, 7, 155-170. Gentner, D., & Markman, A.B. (1997). Structural alignment in analogy and similarity. American Psychologist, 52(1), 45-56. Reeves, L.M., & Weisberg, R.W. (1994). The role of content and abstract information in analogical transfer. Psychological Bulletin, 115(3), 381-400. |
|
| Oct. 27 | Rationality | Gigerenzer, G., & Goldstein, D.G. (1996). Reasoning the fast and frugal way: Models of bounded rationality. Psychological Review, 103(4), 650-669.
Kahneman, D., & Tversky, A. (1984). Choices, values, and frames. American Psychologist, 39(4), 341-350. Kahneman, D., Knetsch, J.L., & Thaler, R.H. (1991). Anomalies: The endowment effect, loss aversion and status quo bias. Journal of Economic Perspectives, 5(1), 193-206. Shafir, E., & LeBoeuf, R.A. (2002). Rationality. Annual Review of Psychology, 53, 491-517. Stanovich, K.E., & West, R.F. (1998). Individual differences in rational thought. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 127(2), 161-188. |
|
| Nov. 3 | Similarity and choice | Kaplan, A.S., & Medin, D.L. (1997). The coincidence effect in similarity and choice. Memory and Cognition, 25, 570-576.
Medin, D.L., Goldstone, R.L., & Markman (1995). Comparison and choice: Relations between similarity processing and decision processing. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 2(1), 1-19. Moreau, C.P., Markman, A.B., & Lehman, D.R. (2001). 'What is it?' Categorization flexibility and consumers' responses to really new products. Journal of Consumer Research, 27, 489-498. Zhang, S., & Markman, A.B. (1998). Overcoming the early entrant advantage: The role of alignable and nonalignable differences. Journal of Marketing Research, 35, 413-426. |
|
| Nov. 10 | Interaction during preference formation | Holyoak, K.J., & Simon, D. (1999). Bidirectional reasoning in decision making. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 128(1), 3-31.
Read, S.J., Vanman, E.J., & Miller, L.C. (1997). Connectionism, parallel constraint satisfaction processes, and Gestalt principles: (Re)introducing cognitive dynamics to social psychology. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 1(1), 26-53. Russo, J.E., Meloy, M.G., & Medvec, V.H. (1998). Predecisional distortion of product information. Journal of Marketing Research, 35, 438-452. |
|
| Nov. 17 | Reasons and evaluation | Carmon, Z., Ariely, D. (2000). Focusing on the forgone: How value can appear so different to buyers and sellers. Journal of Consumer Research, 27, 360-370.
Hsee, C. (1996). The evaluability hypothesis: An explanation for preference reversals between joint and separate evaluations of alternatives. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 67(3), 247-257. Shafir, E., Simonson, I., & Tversky, A. (1993). Reason-based choice. Cognition, 49, 11-36. Wilson, T.D., Lisle, D.J., Schooler, J.W., Hodges, S.D., Klaaren, K.J., LaFleur, S.J. (1993). Introspecting about reasons can reduce post-choice satisfaction. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 19(3), 331-339. |
|
| Nov. 24 | Self-regulation and preference | Aaker, J. L., & Lee, A. Y. (2001). "I" seek pleasures and "we" avoid pains: The role of self-regulatory goals in information processing and persuasion. Journal of Consumer Research, 28(1), 33-49.
Brendl, C. M., Markman, A. B., & Messner, C. (2003). Devaluation of goal-unrelated choice options. Journal of Consumer Research, 29, 463-473. Higgins, E. T. (1997). Beyond pleasure and pain. American Psychologist, 52(12), 1280-1300. Shah, J., & Higgins, E. T. (1997). Expectancy * value effects: Regulatory focus as determinant of magnitude and direction. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 73(3), 447-458. |
|
| Dec. 1 | Culture and decision making |
Baron, J., & Spranca, M. (1997). Protected values. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 70(1), 1-16. Briley, D. A., & Wyer, R. S. (2002). The effect of group membership salience on the avoidance of negative outcomes: Implications for social and consumer decisions. Journal of Consumer Research, 29, 400-415. Nisbett, R. E., Peng, K., Choi, I., & Norenzayan, A. (2001). Culture and systems of thought: Holistic versus analytic cognition. Psychological Review, 108(2), 291-310. Tetlock, P. E., Kristel, O. V., Elson, S. B., Green, M. C., & Lerner, J. S. (2000). The psychology of the unthinkable: Taboo trade-offs, forbidden base rates, and heretical counterfactuals. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 78(5), 853-870. |