Aidan Feeney - Profile on Academia.edu (original) (raw)
Papers by Aidan Feeney
The time course of conflict on the Cognitive Reflection Test
Cognition, 2016
Reasoning that is deliberative and reflective often requires the inhibition of intuitive response... more Reasoning that is deliberative and reflective often requires the inhibition of intuitive responses. The Cognitive Reflection Test (CRT) is designed to assess people's ability to suppress incorrect heuristic responses in favour of deliberation. Correct responding on the CRT predicts performance on a range of tasks in which intuitive processes lead to incorrect responses, suggesting indirectly that CRT performance is related to cognitive control. Yet little is known about the cognitive processes underlying performance on the CRT. In the current research, we employed a novel mouse tracking methodology to capture the time-course of reasoning on the CRT. Analysis of mouse cursor trajectories revealed that participants were initially drawn towards the incorrect (i.e., intuitive) option even when the correct (deliberative) option was ultimately chosen. Conversely, participants were not attracted to the correct option when they ultimately chose the incorrect intuitive one. We conclude t...
The development of regret and relief about the outcomes of risky decisions
Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 2016
Although a number of studies have examined the developmental emergence of counterfactual emotions... more Although a number of studies have examined the developmental emergence of counterfactual emotions of regret and relief, none of these has used tasks that resemble those used with adolescents and adults, which typically involve risky decision making. We examined the development of the counterfactual emotions of regret and relief in two experiments using a task in which children chose between one of two gambles that varied in risk. In regret trials they always received the best prize from that gamble but were then shown that they would have obtained a better prize had they chosen the alternative gamble, whereas in relief trials the other prize was worse. We compared two methods of measuring regret and relief based on children's reported emotion on discovering the outcome of the alternative gamble: one in which children judged whether they now felt the same, happier, or sadder on seeing the other prize and one in which children made emotion ratings on a 7-point scale after the other prize was revealed. On both of these methods, we found that 6- and 7-year-olds' and 8- and 9-year-olds' emotions varied appropriately depending on whether the alternative outcome was better or worse than the prize they had actually obtained, although the former method was more sensitive. Our findings indicate that by at least 6 or 7years children experience the same sorts of counterfactual emotions as adults in risky decision-making tasks, and they also suggest that such emotions are best measured by asking children to make comparative emotion judgments.
Party Distinctiveness and the Nature of Party Categories
ABSTRACT
Journal of experimental child psychology, Jan 2, 2015
In line with the claim that regret plays a role in decision making, O'Connor, McCormack, and ... more In line with the claim that regret plays a role in decision making, O'Connor, McCormack, and Feeney (Child Development, 85 (2014) 1995-2010) found that children who reported feeling sadder on discovering they had made a non-optimal choice were more likely to make a different choice the next time around. We examined two issues of interpretation regarding this finding: whether the emotion measured was indeed regret and whether it was the experience of this emotion, rather than the ability to anticipate it, that affected decision making. To address the first issue, we varied the degree to which children aged 6 or 7 years were responsible for an outcome, assuming that responsibility is a necessary condition for regret. The second issue was addressed by examining whether children could accurately anticipate that they would feel worse on discovering they had made a non-optimal choice. Children were more likely to feel sad if they were responsible for the outcome; however, even if they...
Thinking & Reasoning, Jan 1, 2000
In this paper we argue that it is often adaptive to use one's background beliefs when interpretin... more In this paper we argue that it is often adaptive to use one's background beliefs when interpreting inform ation that, from a norm ative point of view , is incomplete. In both of the experiments reported here participants were presented with an item possessing two features and were asked to judge, in the light of som e evidence concerning the features, to which of two categories it was more likely that the item belonged. It was found that when participants received evidence relevant to just one of these hypothesised categories (i.e. evidence that did not form a Bayesian likelihood ratio) they used their background beliefs to interpret this inform ation. In Experiment 2, on the other hand, participants behaved in a broadly Bayesian manner when the evidence they received constituted a completed likelihood ratio. W e discuss the circumstances under which participants, when making their judgements, consider the alternative hypothesis. W e conclude with a discussion of the implications of our results for an understanding of hypothesis testing, belief revision, and categorisation.
Structured and unstructured knowledge underlie category-based inductive reasoning
PsycEXTRA Dataset, 2010
The story of some: everyday pragmatic inference by children and adults
Canadian journal of experimental psychology = Revue canadienne de psychologie expérimentale, 2004
The statement, some elephants have trunks, is logically true but pragmatically infelicitous. Whil... more The statement, some elephants have trunks, is logically true but pragmatically infelicitous. Whilst some is logically consistent with all, it is often pragmatically interpreted as precluding all. In Experiments 1 and 2, we show that with pragmatically impoverished materials, sensitivity to the pragmatic implicature associated with some is apparent earlier in development than has previously been found. Amongst 8-year-old children, we observed much greater sensitivity to the implicature in pragmatically enriched contexts. Finally, in Experiment 3, we found that amongst adults, logical responses to infelicitous some statements take longer to produce than do logical responses to felicitous some statements, and that working memory capacity predicts the tendency to give logical responses to the former kind of statement. These results suggest that some adults develop the ability to inhibit a pragmatic response in favour of a logical answer. We discuss the implications of these findings for...
The Quarterly journal of experimental psychology. A, Human experimental psychology, 2003
In this paper we report on our attempts to fit the optimal data selection (ODS) model (Oaksford &... more In this paper we report on our attempts to fit the optimal data selection (ODS) model (Oaksford & Chater, 1994; Oaksford, Chater, & Larkin, 2000) to the selection task data reported in Feeney and Handley (2000) and Handley, Feeney, and Harper (2002). Although Oaksford (2002b) reports good fits to the data described in Feeney and Handley (2000), the model does not adequately capture the data described in Handley et al. (2002). Furthermore, across all six of the experiments modelled here, the ODS model does not predict participants' behaviour at the level of selection rates for individual cards. Finally, when people's probability estimates are used in the modelling exercise, the model adequately captures only 1 out of 18 conditions described in Handley et al. We discuss the implications of these results for models of the selection task and claim that they support deductive, rather than probabilistic, accounts of the task.
According to the diversity principle, diverse evidence is strong evidence. There has been conside... more According to the diversity principle, diverse evidence is strong evidence. There has been considerable evidence that people respect this principle in inductive reasoning. However, exceptions may be particularly informative. Medin, Coley, Storms, and Hayes introduced a relevance theory of inductive reasoning, and used this theory to predict exceptions, including the non-diversity by property reinforcement effect. A new experiment that investigated this phenomenon is reported here. Subjects made inductive strength judgments and similarity judgments for stimuli from Medin et al. The inductive strength judgments showed the same pattern as in Medin et al., however the similarity judgments suggested that the pattern should be interpreted as a diversity effect rather than non-diversity.
Open-Ended Category-Based Induction: The Influence of Associative Strength and Structured Knowledge Representations
Previous work suggests that inductive and deductive reasoning may be accomplished by different pr... more Previous work suggests that inductive and deductive reasoning may be accomplished by different processes. Here, we examine whether different phenomena of inductive reasoning, previously explained in the same way, may rely on different types of processes. In Experiment 1 we show that trials which examine sensitivity to sample size in inductive reasoning have greater effects on secondary task performance than do trials examining sensitivity to the diversity of the sample. In Experiment 2 we show that in a surprise recognition memory test, participants have significantly better memory for the content of diversity trials than for sample size trials. Both findings are consistent with the suggestion that some phenomena of inductive reasoning may be rule-based, whereas others may depend on feature-level processing.
We use the literature on mechanical reasoning to derive predictions about how people will test a ... more We use the literature on mechanical reasoning to derive predictions about how people will test a mechanical rule. In the presence of a single rule we predict significantly more selections of tests in which the hypothesized cause is manipulated than in the presence of two rules: the original and one casting doubt on the sufficiency of the hypothesized cause for the effect. We describe an experiment using Wason's selection task that confirms our predictions and go on to discuss the implications of our results for recent work on causal cognition.
Beyond the resemblance fallacy: Effects of figure on representing and reasoning about graphs
Etc. frequency processing and cognition
ABSTRACT
Semifactual: Byrne's account of even-if
ABSTRACT
Hypothetical Thinking: Dual Processes in Reasoning and Judgement
... For this reason, I am very grateful to the ESRC who supported this work with the award of an ... more ... For this reason, I am very grateful to the ESRC who supported this work with the award of an extended research fellowship (RES000270184), thus freeing me from all normal university duties. Jonathan Evans Plymouth, March 2007 Page 10. ...
have demonstrated that children have better recognition memory for the items they generalise to t... more have demonstrated that children have better recognition memory for the items they generalise to than do adults. Based on this finding, Sloutsky and Fisher (2004 a&b) have claimed that children and adults use different mechanisms for inductive generalizations. They argue that while adults focus on shared category membership, children project properties on the basis of perceptual similarity. Under this view, children's enhanced recognition memory is a by-product of the more detailed processing required by a similarity-based mechanism. The present study proposes an alternative explanation for these findings. We demonstrate that when children are given just 250ms to inspect stimulus items they remain capable of making accurate inferences, but that their subsequent memory for those items decreases significantly. These findings suggest that there are no necessary conclusions to be drawn about the nature of generalization processes from rates of recognition memory.
The suppression of card selections in Wason's selection task: Evidence that inference plays a role
The Suppression of Card Selections in Wason's Selection Task: Evidence that Inference Pl... more The Suppression of Card Selections in Wason's Selection Task: Evidence that Inference Plays a Role Aidan Feeney & Simon J. Handley Centre ... accounts of the indicative selection task, we will also present two inferential accounts: the first offered by Sperber, Cara and Girotto ...
Party Systems and the Nature of Partisan Categories
Abstract will be provided by author.
The time course of conflict on the Cognitive Reflection Test
Cognition, 2016
Reasoning that is deliberative and reflective often requires the inhibition of intuitive response... more Reasoning that is deliberative and reflective often requires the inhibition of intuitive responses. The Cognitive Reflection Test (CRT) is designed to assess people's ability to suppress incorrect heuristic responses in favour of deliberation. Correct responding on the CRT predicts performance on a range of tasks in which intuitive processes lead to incorrect responses, suggesting indirectly that CRT performance is related to cognitive control. Yet little is known about the cognitive processes underlying performance on the CRT. In the current research, we employed a novel mouse tracking methodology to capture the time-course of reasoning on the CRT. Analysis of mouse cursor trajectories revealed that participants were initially drawn towards the incorrect (i.e., intuitive) option even when the correct (deliberative) option was ultimately chosen. Conversely, participants were not attracted to the correct option when they ultimately chose the incorrect intuitive one. We conclude t...
The development of regret and relief about the outcomes of risky decisions
Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 2016
Although a number of studies have examined the developmental emergence of counterfactual emotions... more Although a number of studies have examined the developmental emergence of counterfactual emotions of regret and relief, none of these has used tasks that resemble those used with adolescents and adults, which typically involve risky decision making. We examined the development of the counterfactual emotions of regret and relief in two experiments using a task in which children chose between one of two gambles that varied in risk. In regret trials they always received the best prize from that gamble but were then shown that they would have obtained a better prize had they chosen the alternative gamble, whereas in relief trials the other prize was worse. We compared two methods of measuring regret and relief based on children's reported emotion on discovering the outcome of the alternative gamble: one in which children judged whether they now felt the same, happier, or sadder on seeing the other prize and one in which children made emotion ratings on a 7-point scale after the other prize was revealed. On both of these methods, we found that 6- and 7-year-olds' and 8- and 9-year-olds' emotions varied appropriately depending on whether the alternative outcome was better or worse than the prize they had actually obtained, although the former method was more sensitive. Our findings indicate that by at least 6 or 7years children experience the same sorts of counterfactual emotions as adults in risky decision-making tasks, and they also suggest that such emotions are best measured by asking children to make comparative emotion judgments.
Party Distinctiveness and the Nature of Party Categories
ABSTRACT
Journal of experimental child psychology, Jan 2, 2015
In line with the claim that regret plays a role in decision making, O'Connor, McCormack, and ... more In line with the claim that regret plays a role in decision making, O'Connor, McCormack, and Feeney (Child Development, 85 (2014) 1995-2010) found that children who reported feeling sadder on discovering they had made a non-optimal choice were more likely to make a different choice the next time around. We examined two issues of interpretation regarding this finding: whether the emotion measured was indeed regret and whether it was the experience of this emotion, rather than the ability to anticipate it, that affected decision making. To address the first issue, we varied the degree to which children aged 6 or 7 years were responsible for an outcome, assuming that responsibility is a necessary condition for regret. The second issue was addressed by examining whether children could accurately anticipate that they would feel worse on discovering they had made a non-optimal choice. Children were more likely to feel sad if they were responsible for the outcome; however, even if they...
Thinking & Reasoning, Jan 1, 2000
In this paper we argue that it is often adaptive to use one's background beliefs when interpretin... more In this paper we argue that it is often adaptive to use one's background beliefs when interpreting inform ation that, from a norm ative point of view , is incomplete. In both of the experiments reported here participants were presented with an item possessing two features and were asked to judge, in the light of som e evidence concerning the features, to which of two categories it was more likely that the item belonged. It was found that when participants received evidence relevant to just one of these hypothesised categories (i.e. evidence that did not form a Bayesian likelihood ratio) they used their background beliefs to interpret this inform ation. In Experiment 2, on the other hand, participants behaved in a broadly Bayesian manner when the evidence they received constituted a completed likelihood ratio. W e discuss the circumstances under which participants, when making their judgements, consider the alternative hypothesis. W e conclude with a discussion of the implications of our results for an understanding of hypothesis testing, belief revision, and categorisation.
Structured and unstructured knowledge underlie category-based inductive reasoning
PsycEXTRA Dataset, 2010
The story of some: everyday pragmatic inference by children and adults
Canadian journal of experimental psychology = Revue canadienne de psychologie expérimentale, 2004
The statement, some elephants have trunks, is logically true but pragmatically infelicitous. Whil... more The statement, some elephants have trunks, is logically true but pragmatically infelicitous. Whilst some is logically consistent with all, it is often pragmatically interpreted as precluding all. In Experiments 1 and 2, we show that with pragmatically impoverished materials, sensitivity to the pragmatic implicature associated with some is apparent earlier in development than has previously been found. Amongst 8-year-old children, we observed much greater sensitivity to the implicature in pragmatically enriched contexts. Finally, in Experiment 3, we found that amongst adults, logical responses to infelicitous some statements take longer to produce than do logical responses to felicitous some statements, and that working memory capacity predicts the tendency to give logical responses to the former kind of statement. These results suggest that some adults develop the ability to inhibit a pragmatic response in favour of a logical answer. We discuss the implications of these findings for...
The Quarterly journal of experimental psychology. A, Human experimental psychology, 2003
In this paper we report on our attempts to fit the optimal data selection (ODS) model (Oaksford &... more In this paper we report on our attempts to fit the optimal data selection (ODS) model (Oaksford & Chater, 1994; Oaksford, Chater, & Larkin, 2000) to the selection task data reported in Feeney and Handley (2000) and Handley, Feeney, and Harper (2002). Although Oaksford (2002b) reports good fits to the data described in Feeney and Handley (2000), the model does not adequately capture the data described in Handley et al. (2002). Furthermore, across all six of the experiments modelled here, the ODS model does not predict participants' behaviour at the level of selection rates for individual cards. Finally, when people's probability estimates are used in the modelling exercise, the model adequately captures only 1 out of 18 conditions described in Handley et al. We discuss the implications of these results for models of the selection task and claim that they support deductive, rather than probabilistic, accounts of the task.
According to the diversity principle, diverse evidence is strong evidence. There has been conside... more According to the diversity principle, diverse evidence is strong evidence. There has been considerable evidence that people respect this principle in inductive reasoning. However, exceptions may be particularly informative. Medin, Coley, Storms, and Hayes introduced a relevance theory of inductive reasoning, and used this theory to predict exceptions, including the non-diversity by property reinforcement effect. A new experiment that investigated this phenomenon is reported here. Subjects made inductive strength judgments and similarity judgments for stimuli from Medin et al. The inductive strength judgments showed the same pattern as in Medin et al., however the similarity judgments suggested that the pattern should be interpreted as a diversity effect rather than non-diversity.
Open-Ended Category-Based Induction: The Influence of Associative Strength and Structured Knowledge Representations
Previous work suggests that inductive and deductive reasoning may be accomplished by different pr... more Previous work suggests that inductive and deductive reasoning may be accomplished by different processes. Here, we examine whether different phenomena of inductive reasoning, previously explained in the same way, may rely on different types of processes. In Experiment 1 we show that trials which examine sensitivity to sample size in inductive reasoning have greater effects on secondary task performance than do trials examining sensitivity to the diversity of the sample. In Experiment 2 we show that in a surprise recognition memory test, participants have significantly better memory for the content of diversity trials than for sample size trials. Both findings are consistent with the suggestion that some phenomena of inductive reasoning may be rule-based, whereas others may depend on feature-level processing.
We use the literature on mechanical reasoning to derive predictions about how people will test a ... more We use the literature on mechanical reasoning to derive predictions about how people will test a mechanical rule. In the presence of a single rule we predict significantly more selections of tests in which the hypothesized cause is manipulated than in the presence of two rules: the original and one casting doubt on the sufficiency of the hypothesized cause for the effect. We describe an experiment using Wason's selection task that confirms our predictions and go on to discuss the implications of our results for recent work on causal cognition.
Beyond the resemblance fallacy: Effects of figure on representing and reasoning about graphs
Etc. frequency processing and cognition
ABSTRACT
Semifactual: Byrne's account of even-if
ABSTRACT
Hypothetical Thinking: Dual Processes in Reasoning and Judgement
... For this reason, I am very grateful to the ESRC who supported this work with the award of an ... more ... For this reason, I am very grateful to the ESRC who supported this work with the award of an extended research fellowship (RES000270184), thus freeing me from all normal university duties. Jonathan Evans Plymouth, March 2007 Page 10. ...
have demonstrated that children have better recognition memory for the items they generalise to t... more have demonstrated that children have better recognition memory for the items they generalise to than do adults. Based on this finding, Sloutsky and Fisher (2004 a&b) have claimed that children and adults use different mechanisms for inductive generalizations. They argue that while adults focus on shared category membership, children project properties on the basis of perceptual similarity. Under this view, children's enhanced recognition memory is a by-product of the more detailed processing required by a similarity-based mechanism. The present study proposes an alternative explanation for these findings. We demonstrate that when children are given just 250ms to inspect stimulus items they remain capable of making accurate inferences, but that their subsequent memory for those items decreases significantly. These findings suggest that there are no necessary conclusions to be drawn about the nature of generalization processes from rates of recognition memory.
The suppression of card selections in Wason's selection task: Evidence that inference plays a role
The Suppression of Card Selections in Wason's Selection Task: Evidence that Inference Pl... more The Suppression of Card Selections in Wason's Selection Task: Evidence that Inference Plays a Role Aidan Feeney & Simon J. Handley Centre ... accounts of the indicative selection task, we will also present two inferential accounts: the first offered by Sperber, Cara and Girotto ...
Party Systems and the Nature of Partisan Categories
Abstract will be provided by author.