TY - JOUR
T1 - Updating beliefs in light of uncertain evidence
T2 - Descriptive assessment of Jeffrey's rule
AU - Zhao, Jiaying
AU - Osherson, Daniel
N1 - Funding Information:
Correspondence should be address to Jiaying Zhao, Department of Psychology, Princeton University, Green Hall, Princeton, NJ 08540, USA. E-mail: [email protected] We thank Nick Chater, David Over, Mike Oaksford, Steven Sloman, and an anonymous reviewer for very helpful comments. The research reported here was facilitated by a grant from the Henry Luce Foundation.
PY - 2010/11
Y1 - 2010/11
N2 - Jeffrey (1983) proposed a generalisation of conditioning as a means of updating probability distributions when new evidence drives no event to certainty. His rule requires the stability of certain conditional probabilities through time. We tested this assumption ("invariance") from the psychological point of view. In Experiment 1 participants offered probability estimates for events in Jeffrey's candlelight example. Two further scenarios were investigated in Experiment 2, one in which invariance seems justified, the other in which it does not. Results were in rough conformity to Jeffrey's (1983) principle.
AB - Jeffrey (1983) proposed a generalisation of conditioning as a means of updating probability distributions when new evidence drives no event to certainty. His rule requires the stability of certain conditional probabilities through time. We tested this assumption ("invariance") from the psychological point of view. In Experiment 1 participants offered probability estimates for events in Jeffrey's candlelight example. Two further scenarios were investigated in Experiment 2, one in which invariance seems justified, the other in which it does not. Results were in rough conformity to Jeffrey's (1983) principle.
KW - Belief updating
KW - Jeffrey's rule
KW - Reasoning
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U2 - 10.1080/13546783.2010.521695
DO - 10.1080/13546783.2010.521695
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:78649902465
SN - 1354-6783
VL - 16
SP - 288
EP - 307
JO - Thinking and Reasoning
JF - Thinking and Reasoning
IS - 4
ER -