From mere coincidences to meaningful discoveries

Griffiths, Thomas L.; Tenenbaum, Joshua B.

doi:10.1016/j.cognition.2006.03.004

Cited by 94 publications

(114 citation statements)

References 29 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

107

Contrasting

Unclassified

Order By: Relevance

“…Some probability theorists argue that it is the contrasting probabilities between prior and posterior belief distributions, alternative causal models, or the expected outcome, that should predict surprise (e.g., Baldi & Itti, 2010;Griffiths & Tenenbaum, 2007;Teigen & Keren, 2003). Maguire et al checked this contrasting-probability account and found that it did not predict surprise ratings (r =.30, p > .05).…”

Section: Formulating a Probabilistic Accountmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…One option would be to adopt a Bayesian framework. Itti and Baldi (2005, Baldi & Itti, 2010 have proposed such an account in AI to account for surprise, albeit largely for simple perceptual stimuli, and Griffiths & Tenenbaum (2007) have proposed a Bayesian theory of how people handle coincidences, that is not irrelevant to surprise. Clearly, some form of belief-updating within a Bayesian framework could be advanced to explain the effects of enabling conditions or, perhaps, even the effect of explaining the outcome.…”

Section: Shaping a New Probability Theory Of Surprisementioning

confidence: 99%

“…Here we consider briefly what these questions mean for the two best Bayesian accounts in the literature. Griffiths and Tenenbaum (2007) formally defined a probabilistic account for coincidences, which do not always correspond to simple low probability events, using a sophisticated Bayesian framework for causal induction. However, this theory relies on situations for which alternative theories (i.e., expectations) have been developed, so that prior beliefs and likelihoods can be calculated.…”

Section: Shaping a New Probability Theory Of Surprisementioning

confidence: 99%

See 2 more Smart Citations

Why some surprises are more surprising than others: Surprise as a metacognitive sense of explanatory difficulty

Foster

Keane

2015

Cognitive Psychology

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The UCD community has made this article openly available. Please share how this access benefits you. Your story matters! (@ucd_oa) Some rights reserved. For more information, please see the item record link above. TitleWhy some surprises are more surprising than others: Surprise as a metacognitive sense of explanatory difficulty Publisher's statement This is the author's version of a work that was accepted for publication in Cognitive Psychology. Changes resulting from the publishing process, such as peer review, editing, corrections, structural formatting, and other quality control mechanisms may not be reflected in this document. Changes may have been made to this work since it was submitted for publication. A definitive version was subsequently published in Cognitive Psychology (VOL 81, ISSUE 2015, (2015 Early theories of surprise, including Darwin's, argued that it was predominantly a basic emotion. Recently, theories have taken a more cognitive view of surprise, casting it as a process of "making sense of surprising events". The current paper advances the view that the essence of this sense-making process is explanation; specifically, that people's perception of surprise is a metacognitive estimate of the cognitive work involved in explaining an abnormal event. So, some surprises are more surprising because they are harder toexplain. This proposal is tested in eight experiments that explore how (i) the contents of memory can influence surprise, (ii) different classes of scenarios can retrieve more/less relevant knowledge from memory to explain surprising outcomes, (iii) how partial explanations constrain the explanation process reducing surprise, (iv) how, overall, any factor that acts to increase the cognitive work in explaining a surprising event, results in higher levels of surprise (e.g., task demands to find several rather than just one explanation). Across the present studies, using a many different materials, paradigms and measures, it is consistently and repeatedly found that the difficulty of explaining a surprising outcome is the best predictor for people's perceptions of the surprisingness of events. Alternative accounts of these results are considered, as are future directions for this research.

show abstract

Section: Formulating a Probabilistic Accountmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Shaping a New Probability Theory Of Surprisementioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Shaping a New Probability Theory Of Surprisementioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Why some surprises are more surprising than others: Surprise as a metacognitive sense of explanatory difficulty

Foster

Keane

2015

Cognitive Psychology

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…So, the next natural question is: what is not a coincidence? For an event to be considered as a coincidence, it is necessary for it to be rare, but not the other way [30]. For example, rolling twenty dice on a board will produce a particular set of numbers with each dice showing a particular integer between 0 and 7, but this particular set won't be considered to be a coincidence until there is an event like all twenty dice showing the same number.…”

Section: On Coincidencesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Linking coincidence with causality has been one of the major approaches by researchers. Quoting Griffiths and Tenenbaum [30]: "Coincidences arise when there is a conflict between the evidence an event provides for a theory and our prior beliefs about the plausibility of that theory. More precisely, a coincidence is an event that provides support for an alternative [possibly paranormal] to a current theory, but not enough support to convince us to accept that alternative.…”

Section: On Coincidencesmentioning

confidence: 99%

On Redundant Hypotheses in Inductive Fields of Inquiry

R¹

2017

IJP

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Abstract:The history of human intellectual pursuit is replete with examples containing many redundant hypotheses. Here, an attempt has been made to theorize and analyze the philosophical status of redundant hypotheses along with an understanding from psychological and evolutionary perspective. The entire range of human explorations, ranging from the "God" hypothesis to the paradigm of scientific thinking has been carefully explored. A detailed assessment of redundant hypotheses and the role these play in the human psychology, is done. Further, the situation has been studied that what possibilities exist when a hypothesis becomes redundant. One such phenomenon, namely that of coincidence, has been reviewed and illustrated that how it can play a significant role in causal induction and fill the void created by scrapping off the redundant hypotheses.

show abstract

References

2009

Understanding Criminal Investigation

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

From mere coincidences to meaningful discoveries

Cited by 94 publications

References 29 publications

Why some surprises are more surprising than others: Surprise as a metacognitive sense of explanatory difficulty

Why some surprises are more surprising than others: Surprise as a metacognitive sense of explanatory difficulty

On Redundant Hypotheses in Inductive Fields of Inquiry

References

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About