Experiential Explanation

Aronowitz, Sara; Lombrozo, Tania

doi:10.1111/tops.12445

Cited by 18 publications

(10 citation statements)

References 62 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…The brain mechanisms involved in prospective thought about the future overlap with those used for episodic memory about the past (Schacter, Addis, & Buckner, 2008) and may even be subsystems of a broader mental time travel faculty (Suddendorf & Corballis, 1997, 2007). This is consistent with our view that the same representations – narratives – underlie explanations of the past and simulations of the future (Aronowitz & Lombrozo, 2020). Moreover, simulation can rely on step-by-step reasoning using causal mechanisms.…”

Section: Simulationsupporting

confidence: 91%

Conviction Narrative Theory: A theory of choice under radical uncertainty

Johnson

Bilovich²,

Tuckett

2022

Behav Brain Sci

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Conviction Narrative Theory (CNT) is a theory of choice under radical uncertainty—situations where outcomes cannot be enumerated and probabilities cannot be assigned. Whereas most theories of choice assume that people rely on (potentially biased) probabilistic judgments, such theories cannot account for adaptive decision-making when probabilities cannot be assigned. CNT proposes that people use narratives—structured representations of causal, temporal, analogical, and valence relationships—rather than probabilities, as the currency of thought that unifies our sense-making and decision-making faculties. According to CNT, narratives arise from the interplay between individual cognition and the social environment, with reasoners adopting a narrative that feels ‘right’ to explain the available data; using that narrative to imagine plausible futures; and affectively evaluating those imagined futures to make a choice. Evidence from many areas of the cognitive, behavioral, and social sciences supports this basic model, including lab experiments, interview studies, and econometric analyses. We propose 12 principles to explain how the mental representations (narratives) interact with four inter-related processes (explanation, simulation, affective evaluation, communication), examining the theoretical and empirical basis for each. We conclude by discussing how CNT can provide a common vocabulary for researchers studying everyday choices across areas of the decision sciences.

show abstract

Section: Simulationsupporting

confidence: 91%

Conviction Narrative Theory: A theory of choice under radical uncertainty

Johnson

Bilovich²,

Tuckett

2022

Behav Brain Sci

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…The brain mechanisms involved in prospective thought about the future overlap with those used for episodic memory about the past (Schacter, Addis, & Buckner, 2008) and may even be subsystems of a broader mental time travel faculty (Suddendorf & Corballis, 1997. This is consistent with our view that the same representationsnarrativesunderlie explanations of the past and simulations of the future (Aronowitz & Lombrozo, 2020). Moreover, simulation can rely on step-by-step reasoning using causal mechanisms.…”

Section: Imagined Futures Are Simulated By Projecting a Narrative For...supporting

confidence: 90%

The ephemeral stories of our lives

Chater¹

2023

Behav Brain Sci

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…12 To say that imaginative processes can "tap into" (Gendler 1998) imaginative constrainers is to say that imaginative processes have access to, and are governed by, the imaginative constrainers. 13 INACCESSIBILITY is not our original invention; similar ideas have been expressed by Mach (1883Mach ( /1960 and Gendler (1998); see also Miščević (1992), Nersessian (2017), Lombrozo (2019), Aronowitz & Lombrozo (2020), and Cushman (2020). Mach and Gendler argue that only thought experiment can tap into a body of prior information ("a treasure-store" of "accumulated experiences"; Mach, 1883Mach, /1960; "stores of unarticulated knowledge of the world"; Gendler, 1998, 415) that is not in a propositional format ("uncomprehended and unanalyzed"; Mach, 1883Mach, /1960 "not propositionally available"; Gendler, 1998, 415).…”

Section: Inaccessibilitymentioning

confidence: 85%

“…Perhaps core cognition, intuitive physics, and forward models, etc. all serve as imaginative (B) Aronowitz and Lombrozo's (2020;Lombrozo, 2019) "representational extraction" model of simulation and Cushman's (2020) "representational exchange" model of simulation (and rationalization) provide architectural support of INACCESSIBILITY. These models share the basic idea that the main job of simulation is to change the accessibility of information.…”

Section: Mental Simulation Researchmentioning

confidence: 99%

Imagination as a generative source of justification

Miyazono

Tooming

2023

Nous

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

One of the most exciting debates in philosophy of imagination in recent years has been over the epistemic use of imagination where imagination epistemically contributes to justifying beliefs and acquiring knowledge. This paper defends “generationism about imagination” according to which imagination is a generative source, rather than a preservative source, of justification. In other words, imagination generates new justification above and beyond prior justification provided by other sources. After clarifying the generation/preservation distinction (Section 2), we present an argument for generationism about imagination, which can be divided into two parts; the philosophical part and the empirical part. In the philosophical part of our argument (Section 3), we claim that generationism about imagination follows from what we call “INACCESSIBILITY”. According to INACCESSIBILITY, imagination is properly constrained by the imaginative constrainers (i.e., the prior representations that constrain the development of a scenario in imagination) to which non‐imaginative belief‐forming processes do not have access. In the empirical part of our argument (Section 4), we claim that INACCESSIBILITY is plausible in light of relevant studies and theories in the empirical literature, especially the literature on mental simulation (Section 4.1), core cognition (Section 4.2), and intuitive physics (Section 4.3).

show abstract

Experiential Explanation

Cited by 18 publications

References 62 publications

Conviction Narrative Theory: A theory of choice under radical uncertainty

Conviction Narrative Theory: A theory of choice under radical uncertainty

The ephemeral stories of our lives

Imagination as a generative source of justification

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About