When reasoning about a claim, it makes sense to be more persuaded if lots of other people agree. But, there are many factors that make weighing the evidence behind a consensus complicated. For example, a consensus might be more or less informative …
When people use samples of evidence to make inferences, they consider both the sample contents and how the sample was generated (“sampling assumptions”). The current studies examined whether people can update their sampling assumptions – whether they …
Sampling assumptions — the assumptions people make about how an example of a category or concept has been chosen — help us learn from examples efficiently. One context where sampling assumptions are particularly important is in social contexts, where …
Making inferences about claims we do not have direct experience with is a common feature of everyday life. In these situations, it makes sense to consult others: an apparent consensus may be a useful cue to the truth of a claim. This strategy is not …
Efficient communication leaves gaps between message and meaning. Interlocutors, by reasoning about how each other reasons, can help to fill these gaps. To the extent that such meta-inference is not calibrated, communication is impaired, raising the …
A growing body of literature suggests that making different sampling assumptions about how data are generated can lead to qualitatively different patterns of inference based on that data. However, relatively little is known about how sampling …