The ‘conjunction fallacy’ revisited: how intelligent inferences look like reasoning errors

Human agents happen to judge that a conjunction of two terms is more probable than one of the terms, in contradiction with the rules of classical probabilities---this is the conjunction fallacy. One of the most discussed accounts of this fallacy is currently the quantum-like explanation, which relies on models exploiting the mathematics of quantum mechanics. The aim of this paper is to investigate the empirical adequacy of major quantum-like models which represent beliefs with quantum states. We first argue that they can be tested in three different ways, in a question order effect configuration which is different from the traditional conjunction fallacy experiment. We then carry out our proposed experiment, with varied methodologies from experimental economics. The experimental results we get are at odds with the predictions of the quantum-like models. This strongly suggests that this quantum-like account of the conjunction fallacy fails. Future possible research paths are discussed.

The Difficulty of the Linda Conjunction Problem Can Be Attributed to Its Simultaneous Concrete and Unnatural Representation, and Not to Conversational Implicature

Making the seemingly impossible appear possible: Effects of conjunction fallacies in evaluations of bets on football games

The present research is aimed to: (i) characterize the ability of human visual system to define the objects' slant on the base of combination of visual stimulus characteristics, that in general are uncertain and even conflicting. (ii) evaluate the influence of human age on visual cues assessment and processing; (iii) estimate the process of human visual cue integration based on the well known Normalized Conjunctive Consensus and Averaging fusion rules, as well on the base of more efficient probabilistic Proportional Conflict Redistribution rule no.5 defined within Dezert-Smarandache Theory for plausible and paradoxical reasoning. The impact of research is focused on the ability of these fusion rules to predict in adequate way the behavior of individuals, as well as age-contingent groups of individuals in visual cue integration process.

The paper presents a study on the human learning process during the classification of stimuli, defined by motion and color visual cues and their combination. Because the classification dimension and the features that define each category are uncertain, we model the learning curves using Bayesian inference and more precisely the Normalized Conjunctive Consensus rule, and also on the base of the more efficient probabilistic Proportional Conflict Redistribution rule No 5 (pPCR5) defined within Dezert-Smarandache Theory (DSmT) of plausible and paradoxical reasoning. Our goal is to study how these rules succeed to model consistently both: human individual and group behaviour during the learning of the associations between the stimuli and the responses in categorization tasks varying by the amount of relevant stimulus information. The effect of age on this process is also evaluated.

Language is often regarded as a defining trait of our species, but what are its core properties? In 1960, Hockett published 'The origin of speech' enumerating 13 design features presumed to be common to all languages, and which, taken together, separate language from other communication systems. Here. we review which features still hold true in light of new evidence from cognitive science, linguistics, animal cognition, and anthropology, and demonstrate how a revised understanding of language highlights three core aspects: that language is inherently multimodal and semiotically diverse; that it functions as a tool for semantic, pragmatic, and social inference, as well as facilitating categorization; and that the processes of interaction and transmission give rise to central design features of language.

We propose the use of the equate-to-differentiate model (Li, S. (2004), Equate-to-differentiate approach, Central European Journal of Operations Research, 12) to explain the occurrence of both the conjunction and disjunction fallacies. To test this model, we asked participants to judge the likelihood of two multi-statements and their four constituents in two modified versions of the Linda problem in two experiments. The overall results underpin this pragmatic model’s inference and also reveal that (1) single conjunction and disjunction fallacies are most prevalent, (2) the incidence of the conjunction fallacy is proportional to the distance between the constituent probabilities, and (3) some participants misinterpreted A ∧ B either as ¬ A ∧ B or A ∨ B. The findings were generally consistent with the configural weighted average model (Nilsson, H., Winman, A., Juslin, P., & Hansson, G. (2009), Linda is not a bearded lady, Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 138) and the potential surprise conceptual framework (Fisk, J. E. (2002), Judgments under uncertainty, British Journal of Psychology, 93).

The abuse of opioids is a serious and prevalent problem and research is needed on factors that may place individuals at risk for misusing opioids. Depression is a common co-morbid mental health problem among opioid users. Theory and research suggest that early maladaptive schemas may underlie mental health problems including depression and substance abuse. The current study sought to determine whether early maladaptive schemas were associated with depression among a treatment seeking sample of male and female opioid users (n = 194). We also examined whether depression, as assessed by the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory, Second Edition, varied by gender and whether gender differences in depression remained after controlling for early maladaptive schemas. Results showed that women scored significantly higher than men on three of the five early maladaptive schema domains and that gender did not predict depression after controlling for schema domains. Early maladaptive schemas were also more strongly associated with depression for men than women. Implications of these findings for interventions and future research are discussed. Individuals with opioid dependence have a number of early maladaptive schemas that may be contributing to the onset and maintenance of substance use. Although there are generally broad gender differences in major depression, findings from the current study suggest that early maladaptive schemas are a better predictor of depressive symptoms than gender among opioid dependent adults. The treatment of opioid dependence, with or without co-morbid depressive symptoms, should target early maladaptive schemas.

Recent research has found that the gender of children in the family influences the stability of their parents' marriage. Analyzing data from divorced couples, Morgan, Lye, and Condran (1988) reported that couples with only daughters run a greater risk of marital dissolution than couples with only sons. Morgan and his colleagues (1988) suggested that fathers are perceived as having a more important role to play in socializing sons than in socializing daughters. This argument is consistent with research findings that fathers are indeed more involved with children when there are sons in the family (Harris & Morgan, 1991; Marsiglio, 1991). When fathers participate more in family activities, mothers perceive less disadvantage in their marital relationship and are more satisfied (Blair & Johnson, 1992) and, hence, marriages are more stable (Heaton & Albrecht, 1991). Researchers also have found that marriages are less likely to be stable and satisfying when partners hold more nontraditional attitudes regarding marriage, family, and gender relations (Heaton & Albrecht, 1991; Lye & Biblarz, 1993). Although there has not been any systematic research in this area, one study has found that women with only daughters show greater support for equitable gender roles than those having only sons (Warner, 1991). If having only daughters also increases the likelihood of holding nontraditional family values, then this type of family composition would increase marital instability. Evidence about the effects of child gender on marital dissolution has come from couples who have experienced divorce, but no studies to date have attempted to isolate its influence before divorce occurs. Our study focuses on the predivorce process and evaluates the effects of child gender on maternal perceptions of the likelihood that the marriage will end in divorce. We have limited our investigation to mothers because the factors that lead partners to think about divorce vary by gender (Blair, 1993; Guttentag & Secord, 1983; White, 1991), indicating that separate conceptual models for men and women should be developed. PERCEPTIONS OF MARITAL INSTABILITY From a social exchange perspective, marital quality evolves from the partners' evaluations of the costs and benefits of the relationship. When outcomes consistently fall below expectations, spouses become dissatisfied (Sabatelli, 1988). While marriages of low quality are not necessarily unstable (Booth, Johnson, & Edwards, 1983; Heaton & Albrecht, 1991), recent research has shown a strong relationship between measures of marital quality, satisfaction, and the propensity to divorce (Blair, 1993). We argue that when a wife perceives disadvantage in her marital relationship, the greater her dissatisfaction will be, and the more likely she is to foresee an eventual separation. Equity theory suggests that persons who participate in inequitable relationships are likely to feel dissatisfied with the relationship (Walster, Walster, & Bertheid, 1978). When comparing a situation of personal disadvantage to one of equity, individuals find the former to be less satisfying and are more likely to consider ending the relationship (Blair, 1993). But what of a relationship in which a partner is advantaged and experiences a situation of being overbenefited? Research shows that while individuals are less satisfied with relationships, and marriages are more likely to be distressed when there is inequity in either direction, the tolerance for inequity is greater when the power is on the side of the perceiver (Michaels, Edwards, & Acock, 1984; Peterson, 1990). For women with children, feeling disadvantaged in marriage may result from having to do a disproportionate amount of domestic work and child care, or from unmet expectations when fathers spend little time with children. Wives are more satisfied and perceive a greater degree of fairness when husbands share household chores, particularly those that are traditionally considered women's work (Benin & Agostinelli, 1988; Blair & Johnson, 1992; Keith & Schafer, 1987). …

Recent research has considerably improved the recognition and recording of rickets and osteomalacia in archaeological human bone, but the recognition and recording of residual deformities of rickets present in adults is still limited. The aim of this study was to assist with differential diagnosis of residual rickets deformities and determine which of the deformities that are characteristic of rickets could be identified in the adult skeleton. Long bone deformities were investigated, with research focusing on deformities of the leg bones. One hundred and thirty‐five adults from the historic cemetery of St Martin's, Birmingham, where vitamin D deficiency was known to have been widespread, were analysed. Deformities of leg bones were three times as frequent as arm bone deformities, and deformity of both the femur and tibia was the most frequently recorded combination of leg bones. Medial bending of the tibiae and anterior bending of femora, both at the proximal end, were the most frequently recorded types of deformities. A review of a range of conditions that can cause bowing deformities, and comparison of bowing recorded in children with rickets and the present cases, concluded that the most likely cause of the deformities recorded was residual changes linked to rickets. In this community, bowing deformities linked to rickets were quite common amongst adults and probably did not have adverse social consequences, but further studies are required to determine whether this attitude to deformity was more widespread. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

The popularity of the first edition of this important work is evidenced by the necessity of a new edition at the end of six years. Still, the progress in medicine is so rapid that a text-book needs revision at the end of such a period. In the present case, the revision has been thorough and the present volume presents matured conclusions based on the most recent researches. Certain topics were deemed of somewhat minor importance and liable to so little change that they have been omitted from the present edition, the reader being referred to the previous edition for their consideration. The articles are written by specialists who have carefully revised the text, condensing in some parts, but giving special attention to diagnosis and treatment. New sections have been written on a number of subjects. It is promised that the succeeding volumes of the new edition will follow promptly. It

With the technological benefits and challenges computer-mediated communication provides, interactants in social network service (SNS) communication are driven to use language creatively, overcoming the disadvantages and exploiting advantages. This creative language use leads to innovative language change that often extends beyond SNS environments. In this regard, the medium is not merely a restrictive but also a facilitative factor. Communicative acts are fundamentally bound by the interactants’ desire to express politeness, especially in face-threatening acts, well articulated in Brown and Levinson’s (1987) model. In recent research, however, the issues of the norms of politeness and impoliteness as well as those of appropriateness have been highlighted (Locher Watts 2005, Locher Bousfield 2008). Interactants employ not only mitigating strategies to alleviate face-threatening but also use impoliteness strategies, which are often disguised politeness. Drawing upon the data from a 26-million-word corpus of synchronous SNS communication, involving two or more participants, in 3,836 instances, developed by the National Institute of the Korean Language, this paper addresses how SNS interactants make use of diverse elements of language to show their polite and impolite stances in interpersonal negotiation. For instance, interactants use fragments, interjections, letter-based ideophones and emoticons, exaggerated punctuations for emotiveness, omission of regular punctuation marks, intentional violation of orthographic rules, prolific slang expressions, deviated spelling to create cuteness or intimacy, among numerous others. All these creative strategies lead to language change at lexical, grammatical and discourse levels.

Many religious associations exhibit internal norms that differ from liberal norms and rules. Such norms often directly contradict the non-discrimination norms and rules that are part and parcel of the liberal democracies in which these associations operate. Religious associations often are considered, in both legal and scholarly writings, exempt from at least some of these norms and rules. This tension between broad societal non-discrimination1 rules and the norms of specific religious associations has won the attention of scholars and courts.2 In many such debates, the background assumption is that these religious groups are voluntary associations functioning within a model of separation between religion and state; that is, such associations operate through the free choices of their members and individuals are as free to leave the associations as they were to form them.3 While theorizing about non-discrimination rules and whether they apply to religious associations that are funded via the contributions of their members is of obvious importance, this article examines a distinct problem: that of discrimination within religious associations that are directly supported by democratic governments. Recent research on religion-state relations4 has pointed out that, in many democratic countries, religious associations are funded by the government to a considerable extent. The tension between non-discrimination norms and the presumed rights of the state-funded religious associations to be exempted from such rules, however, is neglected in the literature. Perhaps this is because the most prominent legal cases of this kind were tried at the European Court of Human Rights5 and the U.K. Supreme Court,6 rather than the more conspicuous U.S. Supreme Court. This article asks the following question: in what way, if at all, does receiving governmental funding change the presumed right of religious associations to be exempted from non-discrimination rules? The ‘immunity thesis’—the idea that religious associations enjoy the right to be exempted from non-discrimination rules—is not challenged here: this article argues that if there is such a right to immunity, receiving governmental funding does not necessarily eliminate it. Much depends on how each case maintains the balance between the autonomy of religious associations7 and the protection of individual citizens from discrimination that impacts important civil interests such as access to jobs or high-quality education. Of the suggested variables identified to test this balance, three are internal to the associations’ structure: the centrality of the potentially illiberal norm to the funded religious association; the kind of violation of non-discrimination rules (either internal or external discrimination, see below); and the willingness of the religious association to internalize the cost of the discrimination. Two additional variables that can be used to test the balance of competing social values are external to the association and depend on the political-legal environment in which the association functions: the quantity of funding that the government makes available to the association, and the process by which potentially competing religious associations can become eligible for recognized and funded status. A multivariable ‘test’ is required in order to determine whether and how governmental funded religious associations can still claim immunity when practicing discriminatory norms.

Are there more same-sex (SS) than opposite-sex (OS) pairs among dizygotic twins? In violation of Weinberg's Differential Rule, there are significantly more SS than OS pairs among dizygotic twins in nationally representative samples both in the UK and the USA. Since at least 1874, twin researchers have assumed that dizygotic twins were equally likely to be SS or OS (later formalized as Weinberg's Differential Rule). However, recent research on the sex-specific nature of breastmilk suggests that OS twins might be at a developmental disadvantage relative to SS twins. There may therefore be evolutionary selection for the tendency to have SS twins and against the tendency to have OS twins. We analyze two population samples (not subject to Lykken's rule of two-thirds): the National Child Development Study in the UK (n = 17 419) from 1958 to present, and the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health in the USA (n = 20 745) from 1994 to present. We performed a one-sample t-test of the proportion of SS dizygotic twins against the theoretical null value of 0.5022. The proportion of SS pairs among dizygotic twins was 0.6043 (t(325) = 3.838, P = 0.00015) in the UK and 0.5739 (t(520) = 3.398, P = 0.00073) in the USA. Twin type (monozygotic versus dizygotic) was classified by the mother, not by DNA typing, although supplementary data suggest that misclassification was negligible and supplementary analysis shows that potential misclassifications do not change our main conclusions. Weinberg's Differential Rule may be incorrect in its assumption of independence of sexes within dizygotic pairs, and there may be evolutionary selection for SS, and against OS, dizygotic pairs. None.

In this paper we study the cohomological Conley index of arbitrary isolated invariant continua for continuous maps $$f :U \subseteq {\mathbb {R}}^d \rightarrow {\mathbb {R}}^d$$ by analyzing the topological structure of their unstable manifold. We provide a simple dynamical interpretation for the first cohomological Conley index, describing it completely, and relate it to the cohomological Conley index in higher degrees. A number of consequences are derived, including new computations of the fixed point indices of isolated invariant continua in dimensions 2 and 3. Our approach exploits a certain attractor–repeller decomposition of the unstable manifold, reducing the study of the cohomological Conley index to the relation between the cohomology of an attractor and its basin of attraction. This is a classical problem that, in the present case, is particularly difficult because the dynamics is discrete and the topology of the unstable manifold can be very complicated. To address it we develop a new method that may be of independent interest and involves the summation of power series in cohomology: if Z is a metric space and $$K \subseteq Z$$ is a compact, global attractor for a continuous map $$g :Z \rightarrow Z$$, we show how to interpret series of the form $$\sum _{j \ge 0} a_j (g^*)^j$$ as endomorphisms of the cohomology group of the pair (Z, K).