Leandra Bucher

Spatial belief revision

Belief revision is the process of changing ones beliefs when a newly acquired fact contradicts the existing belief set. Psychological research on belief revision mostly used conditional reasoning problems in which an inconsistency arises between a fact, contradicting a valid conclusion, and the conditional and categorical premises. In this paper, we present a new experimental paradigm in which we explore how people change their mind about the location of objects in space. The participants received statements that described the spatial relations between a set of objects. From these premises they drew a conclusion which then, in the next step, was contradicted by a new, irrefutable fact. The participants’ task was to decide which of the objects to relocate and which one to leave at its initial position. We hypothesised that this spatial revision process is based on mental models and is affected by the functional asymmetry between reference objects (RO) and the located objects (LO) of spatial relations. The results from two experiments corroborate this hypothesis. We found that individuals have a strong preference to relocate the LO of the premises, but avoid relocating the RO. This is a novel finding and opens up new avenues of research on how humans mentally revise their beliefs about spatial relations between entities in the world.

Belief revision and way-finding

Belief revision is required when veridical information surfaces that contradicts what was previously thought to be the case. In way-finding, belief revision frequently occurs, for example, when the travelled route has led one astray, instead of to one’s chosen destination. In past cognitive research, the topics of belief revision and way-finding have been treated in isolation. Here, we introduce an approach for linking the two fields and assess belief revision as it occurs in the process of way-finding. We report the results of two experiments that put participants in (virtual) situations where elements of a previously learned route description do not match the actual environment (thereby requiring the revision of a previously held belief). Experiment 1 puts participants in a highly artificial virtual environment where the landmarks to be used in navigation have a low degree of semantic salience (houses of various color). Experiment 2 puts subjects in a photorealistic environment where the objects to be used in navigation are well-known landmarks (such as the Eiffel Tower) and thus have a high degree of semantic salience. In both experiments, participants are confronted with T-junctions, where a landmark that was expected to indicate the correct route is discovered to be in an unexpected location. The results of the experiments show that a participant’s choice of route, in such cases, is affected by differences in the structure of the relevant initial instruction. More precisely, the route chosen by participants is affected by whether the relevant landmark was described as being on the same side of the path as they were instructed to turn (congruent case) or as located on the opposite side of the path as they were instructed to turn (incongruent case).

Explanatory Judgment, Moral Offense and Value-Free Science

A popular view in philosophy of science contends that scientific reasoning is objective to the extent that the appraisal of scientific hypotheses is not influenced by moral, political, economic, or social values, but only by the available evidence. A large body of results in the psychology of motivated-reasoning has put pressure on the empirical adequacy of this view. The present study extends this body of results by providing direct evidence that the moral offensiveness of a scientific hypothesis biases explanatory judgment along several dimensions, even when prior credence in the hypothesis is controlled for. Furthermore, it is shown that this bias is insensitive to an economic incentive to be accurate in the evaluation of the evidence. These results contribute to call into question the attainability of the ideal of a value-free science.

The construction of spatial mental models—A new view on the continuity effect

Many studies show that spatial reasoning with information that describe relations between two or more objects relies on the construction and inspection of mental models. This article mainly focuses on the phenomenon that humans have more difficulties in processing spatial information that is not directly related to each other—for example, presented discontinuously—what is also known as the continuity effect. The article investigates how humans integrate such information into one unified mental model. In four experiments, we investigated the question whether (a) reasoners construct more than one (preliminary) model, with the first two premises presented in a discontinuous description, and integrate the models afterwards, or alternatively (b) construct one preliminary model that is later modified in the light of the last parts of problem description. The results support the second assumption and offer a new view on the continuity effect and the fundamental principles of model construction and variation in human spatial reasoning.

Grounded spatial belief revision.

Beliefs frequently undergo revisions, especially when new pieces of information are true but inconsistent with current beliefs. In previous studies, we showed that linguistic asymmetries provided by relational statements, play a crucial role in spatial belief revision. Located objects (LO) are preferably revised compared to reference objects (RO), known as the LO-principle. Here we establish a connection between spatial belief revision and grounded cognition. In three experiments, we explored whether imagined physical object properties influence which object is relocated and which remains at its initial position. Participants mentally revised beliefs about the arrangements of objects which could be envisaged as light and heavy (Experiment 1), small and large (Experiment 2), or movable and immovable (Experiment 3). The results show that intrinsic object properties are differently taken into account during spatial belief revision. Object weight did not alter the LO-principle (Experiment 1), whereas object size was found to influence which object was preferably relocated (Experiment 2). Object movability did not affect relocation preferences but had an effect on relocation durations (Experiment 3). The findings support the simulation hypothesis within the grounded cognition approach and create new connections between the spatial mental model theory of reasoning and the idea of grounded cognition.

Relocating multiple objects during spatial belief revision

Reasoners need to revise their beliefs about the state of the world when confronted with contradicting evidence. In the spatial context, belief revision is assumed to be accomplished by variation of initially constructed spatial mental models. The revision process includes decisions about which part of a model to retain and which one to modify. Usually, there are several alternatives for model variation that re-establish consistency within belief sets. Frequently, these alternatives are logically equivalent. Nevertheless, human reasoners show clear preferences for certain alternatives. The assumption is that the preferences result from the application of principles that are cognitively more economic compared to others. In two experiments, we investigate how the number of objects involved in model variation processes affects preferences in model variations during spatial belief revision. We discuss whether the results can be explained in terms of cognitive economy.