Abstract
The environment in which our cognitive processes operate is crucial for understanding their current form, their reliability, and their function. In the following pages I will look at the role the environment plays in psychological explanations of cognitive behaviour, also when the explanations are not of an evolutionary character. In particular, I will focus on how environmental considerations (broadly) help us explain the form or the function of a psychological process.77
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution.
Buying options
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Learn about institutional subscriptionsPreview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
References
Axelrod, R. (1984). The evolution of co-operation. New York NY: Basic Books.
Barkow, J. H., Cosmides, L., and Tooby, J. (1992). The adapted mind: evolutionary psychology and the generation of culture. New York: Oxford University Press.
Boyd, R., and Richerson, P. J. (1985). Culture and the evolutionary process. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.
Brunswik, E. (1944). Distal focussing of perception: size constancy in a representative sample of situations. Psychological Monographs, 56(1), Whole No.
Brunswik, E. (1955). Representative design and probabilistic theory in a functional psychology. Psychological Review 62(3): 193–217.
Cosmides, L. and Tooby, J. (1994). Origins of domain specificity: the evolution of functional organization. In L. Hirshfeld & S. Gelman (Eds.): Mapping the mind: domain specificity in cognition and culture. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press: 85–116.
Dawkins, R. (1976). The selfish gene. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Fischhoff, B. (1982). Debiasing. In D. Kahneman, P. Slovic and A. Tversky (Eds.): Judgment under uncertainty: heuristics and biases. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press: 422–444.
Gigerenzer, G. and Fiedler, K. (to appear). Minds in environments: the potential of an ecological approach to cognition. In P. Todd, G. Gigerenzer and the ABC Group: Ecological rationality (provisional title), Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Gigerenzer, G. and Goldstein, D. (1996). Reasoning the fast and frugal way: models of bounded rationality. Psychological Review 103: 650–669.
Gigerenzer, G., Hoffrage, U. and Kleinbölting, H. (1991). Probabilistic mental models: a Brunswikian theory of confidence. Psychological Review 98(4): 506–528.
Gigerenzer, G., Todd, P. M., and ABC. (1999). Simple heuristics that make us smart. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Goldstein, D. and Gigerenzer, G. (2002). Models of ecological rationality: the recognition heuristic. Psychological Review: 109(1): 75–90.
Gould, S. J. and Lewontin, R. C. (1979). The spandrels of San Marco and the panglossian paradigm: a critique of the adaptationist programme. Proceedings of the Royal Society of London 205(1161): 581–598.
Hogarth, R. (2004). Generalizing results of decision making studies: can we find ways to validate experimental studies? Paper presented at Risk, Decision and Human Error, Trento.
Juslin, P. (1994). The overconfidence phenomenon as a consequence of informal experimenter-guided selection of items. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes 57: 226–246.
Juslin, P. and Olsson, H. (2005). Capacity limitations and the detection of correlations: a comment on Kareev (2000). Psychological Review 112(1): 256–267.
Juslin, P., Winman, A. and Olsson, H. (2000). Naive empiricism and dogmatism in confidence research: a critical examination of the hard-easy effect. Psychological Review 107(2): 384–396.
Kahneman, D., Slovic, P. and Tversky, A. (1982). Judgement under uncertainty: heuristics and biases. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Kareev, Y. (1995). Through a narrow window: working memory capacity and the detection of covariation. Cognition 56: 263–269.
Kareev, Y. (2000). Seven (indeed plus or minus two) and the detection of correlations. Psychological Review 107(2): 397–402.
Kareev, Y., Lieberman, I. and Lev, M. (1997). Through a narrow window: sample size and the perception of correlation. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General 126(3): 278–287.
Krueger, J. I., & Funder, D. C. (2004). Towards a balanced social psychology: causes, consequences and cures for the problem-seeking approach to social behavior and cognition. Behavioral and Brain Sciences 27: 313–376.
Laland, K., N. and Brown, G., R. (2002). Sense and Nonsense: evolutionary perspectives on human behaviour. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Miller, G. A. (1956). Magical number seven. Psychological Review 63(2).
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2007 Springer
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
WALLIN, A. (2007). EXPLANATION AND ENVIRONMENT. In: PERSSON, J., YLIKOSKI, P. (eds) RETHINKING EXPLANATION. BOSTON STUDIES IN THE PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE, vol 252. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4020-5581-2_12
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4020-5581-2_12
Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht
Print ISBN: 978-1-4020-5580-5
Online ISBN: 978-1-4020-5581-2
eBook Packages: Humanities, Social Sciences and LawPhilosophy and Religion (R0)