Do You Think What I Think You Think? Strategic and Evidential Reasoning in Context (Presentation Slides)

Abstract

This paper presents mental representation and valence theories of reasoning as introductory frameworks to understand how people represent evidence in mind. Mental representation is discussed in light of confirmation bias and the difficulties or lack thereof that people have in reasoning about evidence when they are reasoning about the self, the other and opponents. Effects of expertise and competition on mental representation and reasoning more generally are discussed in light of a series of key experimental findings on the self, the other, the expert, the opponent, and the anchor in competitive dyadic and legal contexts. The results have implications for psychological and philosophical studies of hypothesis testing, mental representation theories of reasoning, and confirmation bias in legal reasoning contexts. These results were presented as in invited talk at the Wolfson Fellows Seminar Series, University of Oxford 2009/10.

Keywords: Confirmation Bias, Mental Representation Frameworks, Competitive Reasoning, Legal Reasoning