Inhibiting beliefs demands attention
Thinking and Reasoning 15 (3):250 – 267 (2009)
| Abstract | Research across a variety of domains has found that people fail to evaluate statistical information in an atheoretical manner. Rather, people tend to evaluate statistical information in light of their pre-existing beliefs and experiences. The locus of these biases continues to be hotly debated. In two experiments we evaluate the degree to which reasoning when relevant beliefs are readily accessible (i.e., when reasoning with Belief-Laden content) versus when relevant beliefs are not available (i.e., when reasoning with Non-Belief-Laden content) differentially demands attentional resources. In Experiment 1 we found that reasoning with scenarios that contained Belief-Laden content required fewer attentional resources than reasoning with scenarios that contained Non-Belief-Laden content, as evidenced by smaller costs on a secondary memory load task for the former than the latter. This trend was reversed in Experiment 2 when participants were instructed to ignore their beliefs when reasoning with Belief-Laden and Non-Belief-Laden scenarios. These findings provide evidence that beliefs automatically influence reasoning, and attempting to ignore them comes with an attentional cost | |||||||||
| Keywords | No keywords specified (fix it) | |||||||||
| Categories | ||||||||||
| Options |
|
|||||||||
Download options| PhilPapers Archive |
Upload a copy of this paper Check publisher's policy on self-archival Papers currently archived: 5,709 |
| External links |
 |
| Through your library | Configure |
Similar books and articlesDr Simon J. Handley, A. Capon, M. Beveridge, I. Dennis & J. St BT Evans (2004). Working Memory, Inhibitory Control and the Development of Children's Reasoning. Thinking and Reasoning 10 (2):175 – 195.
Jill G. de Villiers & Peter A. de Villiers (2002). Why Not LF for False Belief Reasoning? Behavioral and Brain Sciences 25 (6):682-683.
Isaac Levi (1996). For the Sake of the Argument: Ramsey Test Conditionals, Inductive Inference, and Nonmonotonic Reasoning. Cambridge University Press.
Guy Politzer & Laure Carles (2001). Belief Revision and Uncertain Reasoning. Thinking and Reasoning 7 (3):217 – 234.
David J. Chalmers (2003). The Content and Epistemology of Phenomenal Belief. In Quentin Smith & Aleksandar Jokic (eds.), Consciousness: New Philosophical Perspectives. Oxford University Press.
Jonathan A. Fugelsang, Valerie A. Thompson & Kevin N. Dunbar (2006). Examining the Representation of Causal Knowledge. Thinking and Reasoning 12 (1):1 – 30.
Kevin Barton, Jonathan Fugelsang & Daniel Smilek (2011). Inhibiting Beliefs Demands Attention. Thinking and Reasoning 15 (3):250-267.
Kevin Barton, Jonathan Fugelsang & Daniel Smilek (2011). Inhibiting Beliefs Demands Attention. Thinking and Reasoning 15 (3):250-267.
Analytics
Monthly downloads |
Added to index2010-05-07Total downloads6 ( #145,761 of 549,699 )Recent downloads (6 months)1 ( #63,425 of 549,699 )How can I increase my downloads? |
My notes
Discussion
