Mike Oaksford

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After an undergraduate degree in philosophy and psychology at the University of Durham as a mature student, in 1985 I went to the University of Edinburgh to study for a PhD at the Centre for Cognitive Science (then called the School of Epistemics). I held a post-doctoral ESRC Fellowship at the Centre for a year before moving to Bangor University (then University College of North Wales) as a Lecturer in 1989. In 1994, I moved to Warwick University as a Senior Lecturer, and in 1996, I was appointed Professor of Experimental Psychology at Cardiff University. In 2005 I moved to Birkbeck, University of London as Professor of Psychology and Head of Department. I stepped down as Head of Department in 2021. I am now Emeritus Professor of Cognitive Science at Birkbeck, University of London.

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The results of Experiments 1 and 2

PLOS ONE, 2016

<p>Expt. 1 (EC-AND, CE-OR), means and 95% confidence intervals (CIs) based on Model 3 in &l... more

Could Bayesian cognitive science undermine dual-process theories of reasoning?

Behavioral and Brain Sciences

Computational-level models proposed in recent Bayesian cognitive science predict both the “biased... more Computational-level models proposed in recent Bayesian cognitive science predict both the “biased” and correct responses on many tasks. So, rather than possessing two reasoning systems, people can generate both possible responses within a single system. Consequently, although an account of why people make one response rather than another is required, dual processes of reasoning may not be.

A Rational Analysis of the Selection Task IV: Implications

Rationality In An Uncertain World, 2004

Emotion as an argumentative strategy: how induced mood affects the evaluation of neutral and inflammatory slippery slope arguments

Book synopsis: The interaction between emotion and cognition is a fundamental issue which has onl... more Book synopsis: The interaction between emotion and cognition is a fundamental issue which has only recently been reintroduced as a legitimate object of study in experimental psychology. This book examines the significant impact that affective processes have on reasoning, and demonstrates how emotional reasoning cannot simply be equated with faulty reasoning. Emotion and Reasoning presents contributions from leading researchers from a variety of disciplines, including experimental cognitive psychology, cognitive neuroscience, clinical neuropsychology, and experimental psychopathology. The opening chapters consider how emotions affect reasoning processes in individuals living with psychopathology. A second section focuses upon experimental investigations of emotion and basic reasoning processes, and a final section explores the physiological bases of emotion-reasoning interaction. Together, the chapters in this volume provide a multidisciplinary overview of key topics on emotion and r...

The Effect of Probability Anchors in Moral Decision Making

Cognitive Science, 2015

The role of probabilistic reasoning in moral decision making has seen relatively little research,... more The role of probabilistic reasoning in moral decision making has seen relatively little research, despite having potentially profound consequences for our models of moral cognition. To rectify this, two experiments were undertaken in which participants were presented with moral dilemmas with additional information designed to anchor judgements about how likely the dilemma’s outcomes were. It was found that these anchoring values significantly altered how permissible the dilemmas were found when they were presented both explicitly and implicitly. This was the case even for dilemmas typically seen as eliciting deontological judgements. Implications of this finding for cognitive models of moral decision making are discussed.

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Source Reliability in the Development of Children's Understanding of Causal Systems

Children have been shown to discriminate between reliable and unreliable sources from as young as... more Children have been shown to discriminate between reliable and unreliable sources from as young as 3 or 4 ye ars old using the selective trust paradigm (Koenig, Clement & Harris, 2004). However, it is unclear whether children are discriminating between informants because they have some epistemic awareness regarding the knowledge of the informants, or because they regard the behaviour of the unreliable informants as bizarre. Th e current experiment manipulates source reliability in a more naturalistic way (science teacher vs. nursery child), and looks at the effects of age (6 - 7, 8 - 9, 10 - 11 years old) on children’s’ predictions relating to a familiar causal system - cars on an in clined plane , where height, surface friction, and starting point on the slope, as well as the weight of the car, can be changed . Children are either told unintuitive information coming from a differentially reliable source, or no information, regarding the effect of weight . They are then asked to make...

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The elusive odness of or-introduction

Cognitive Science, 2017

Feeling low but learning faster: the long term effects of emotion on human cognition

This study examined the effects of emotion on the long-term acquisition of a procedural skill ove... more This study examined the effects of emotion on the long-term acquisition of a procedural skill over a five-day period. Two tasks were employed: a word association task (WAT) and a visual discrimination task (VDT). Over the initial four days of the study participants went through a mood induction procedure (MIP) then subsequently completed both tasks. Both tasks showed a reduction in reaction time consistent with the power law of learning. No significant change in reaction time between day four and day five (one week later) was noted suggesting the change in reaction time was robust. These data further suggest that emotion modifies the rate at which the VDT is acquired.

Paradigms, possibilities, and probabilities: Comment on Hinterecker, Knauff, and Johnson-Laird (2016)

Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 2019

compared the adequacy of the probabilistic new paradigm in reasoning with the recent revision of ... more compared the adequacy of the probabilistic new paradigm in reasoning with the recent revision of mental models theory (MMT) for explaining a novel class of inferences containing the modal term "possibly". For example, the door is closed or the window is open or both, therefore, possibly the door is closed and the window is open (A or B or both, therefore, possibly(A & B)). They concluded that their results support MMT. In this comment, it is argued that Hinterecker et al. ( ) have not adequately characterised the theory of probabilistic validity (p-validity) on which the new paradigm depends. It is unclear how p-validity can be applied to these inferences, which are anyway peripheral to the theory. It is also argued that the revision of MMT is not well motivated and its adoption leads to many logical absurdities. Moreover, the comparison is not appropriate because these theories are defined at different levels of computational explanation. In particular, revised MMT lacks a provably consistent computational level theory that could justify treating these inferences as valid. It is further argued that the data could result from the non-colloquial locutions used to express the premises. Finally, an alternative pragmatic account is proposed based on the idea that a conclusion is possible if what someone knows cannot rule it out. This account could be applied to the unrevised mental model theory rendering the revision redundant.

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Cognition and Inquiry: The Pragmatics of Conditional Reasoning

I also owe an enormous debt of gratitude to my friends and colleagues at the Centre for Cognitive... more I also owe an enormous debt of gratitude to my friends and colleagues at the Centre for Cognitive Science. They fall roughly into two categories, those who have agreed and those who have disagreed. Both are helpful but the latter perhaps essential. All the following have fitted into both categories at various times: Nick Chater, Mike Malloch, Jon Oberlander, Jerry Seligman. I would also like to thank Robert Dale for his unremitting good humour in the face of my computational illiteracy. I also thank the Centre's secretaries, Peggy Coonagh and Betty Hughes, for all the support and assistance they have provided over the last three years. Finally, I thank Becki, Julia and Joanne, without whose love, tolerance and understanding this thesis would not have been written.

Schizotypy and Conditional Reasoning

Schizophrenia Bulletin, 2005

This study investigated the role of reasoning biases in delusion formation and maintenance. Reaso... more This study investigated the role of reasoning biases in delusion formation and maintenance. Reasoning judgments have been shown to be influenced by prior knowledge, beliefs, and experience-that is, information stored in semantic memory. It was hypothesized that high schizotypes would exhibit a ''jump to conclusions'' style of reasoning as a result of not using implicit information concerned with cause-effect relationships. Research into human reasoning has traditionally adopted logic as a normative framework to assess human reasoning. Conditional inference tasks are direct tests of logical performance, and we employed an established design that depends upon the reasoner's ability to access and use implicit information. In an effort to negate some of the difficulties of research with schizophrenia patients, schizotypy measures were employed in a normal population. The results confirmed that high scorers on one dimension of schizotypy (Impulsive Nonconformity) failed to take account of the number of counterexamples that characterized the cause-effect conditional statement. These observations supported previous research demonstrating a jump to conclusions style of reasoning that it has been suggested plays a role in the formation and maintenance of delusions. Furthermore, these findings suggest a possible link between semantic memory and reasoning biases.

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Logicism and Everyday Reasoning: Mental Models and Mental Logic

A Rational Analysis of the Selection Task I

Taylor & Francis eBooks, Feb 16, 2010

Conclusion: where next?

Oxford University Press eBooks, Mar 27, 2008

Current Developments and Future Directions

Taylor & Francis eBooks, Feb 16, 2010

Logic and the Western concept of mind

Oxford University Press eBooks, Feb 22, 2007

Causal Models and Conditional Reasoning

Oxford University Press eBooks, May 10, 2017

There are deep intuitions that the meaning of conditional statements relate to probabilistic law-... more There are deep intuitions that the meaning of conditional statements relate to probabilistic law-like dependencies. In this chapter it is argued that these intuitions can be captured by representing conditionals in causal Bayes nets (CBNs) and that this conjecture is theoretically productive. This proposal is borne out in a variety of results. First, causal considerations can provide a unified account of abstract and causal conditional reasoning. Second, a recent model (Fernbach &amp; Erb, 2013) can be extended to the explicit causal conditional reasoning paradigm (Byrne, 1989), making some novel predictions on the way. Third, when embedded in the broader cognitive system involved in reasoning, causal model theory can provide a novel explanation for apparent violations of the Markov condition in causal conditional reasoning (Ali et al, 2011). Alternative explanations are also considered (see, Rehder, 2014a) with respect to this evidence. While further work is required, the chapter concludes that the conjecture that conditional reasoning is underpinned by representations and processes similar to CBNs is indeed a productive line of research.

Bayesian Rationality

Book synopsis: Are people rational? This question was central to Greek thought and has been at th... more Book synopsis: Are people rational? This question was central to Greek thought and has been at the heart of psychology and philosophy for millennia. This book provides a radical and controversial reappraisal of conventional wisdom in the psychology of reasoning, proposing that the Western conception of the mind as a logical system is flawed at the very outset. It argues that cognition should be understood in terms of probability theory, the calculus of uncertain reasoning, rather than in terms of logic, the calculus of certain reasoning

Against Logicist Cognitive Science I

Taylor & Francis eBooks, Feb 16, 2010

Rational Models of Cognition

1. An introduction to rational models of cognition Section 1: General Issues 2. Connectionist mod... more 1. An introduction to rational models of cognition Section 1: General Issues 2. Connectionist models and Bayesian inference 3. Normative and descriptive models of decision making: time discounting and risk sensitivity Section 2: Memory 4. The effectiveness of retrieval from memory 5. Predictions of a Bayesian recognition memory model (and a class of mdels including it) 6. Cueing for context: an alternative to global matching models of recognition memory 7. Sorting out core memory processes 8. Rational and non-rational aspects of forgetting 9. Adaptive analysis of sequential behaviour: oscillators as rational mechanisms Section 3: Categorization & Induction 10. The rational analysis of categorization and the ACT-R architecture 11. Optimum performance and exemplar models of classificaiton 12. A Bayesian analysis of some forms of inductive reasoning 13. Dynamics of dimension weight distribution and flexibility in categorization Section 4: Reasoning 14. Causal mechanism and probability: a normative approach 15. The rational analysis of human contingency judgement 16. Rationality assumption of game theory and the backward induction paradox 17. A revised rational analysis of the selection task: exceptions and sequential sampling 18. Rational analysis of causal conditionals and the selection task 19. The practice of mathematics and science: from calculus to the clothesline problem Section 5: Search 20. The rational analysis of inquiry: the case of parsing 21. Rational analysis of exploratory choice 22. Rationality as optimised cognitive self-regulation

Mike Oaksford

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