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Chapter 6 - Probability, Belief, and the Richness of Cognition

from Models of Optimal Beliefs

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 November 2022

By
Steven T. Piantadosi
Edited by
Julien Musolino ,
Joseph Sommer  and
Pernille Hemmer
Julien Musolino
Affiliation:
Rutgers University, New Jersey
Joseph Sommer
Affiliation:
Rutgers University, New Jersey
Pernille Hemmer
Affiliation:
Rutgers University, New Jersey
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Summary

Belief is often formalized using tools of probability theory. However, probability theory often focuses on simple examples – like coin flips or basic parametric distributions – and these do not describe much about actual human thinking. I highlight some basic examples of the complexity and richness of human mental representations and review some work which attempts to marry plausible types of representations with probabilistic models of belief, one of the most exciting current directions in psychology and machine learning.

Keywords

Bayesian probabilitystructurelanguage of thoughtcomputation
Type
Chapter
Information
The Cognitive Science of Belief
A Multidisciplinary Approach
 , pp. 135 - 150
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2022

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