Date of Award
11-16-2022
Degree Type
Thesis
Degree Name
Master of Science (MS)
Department
Psychology
Advisor(s)
Kalish, Michael
Keywords
Heuristics and biases, Inherence bias, Item response theory, Psychological essentialism
Subject Categories
Cognitive Psychology
Abstract
Understanding the cognitive processes that help people generate explanations is one of the fundamental questions in cognitive science and philosophy. In this study, we try to examine the extent to which working memory capacity can predict peoples’ preference for scientific explanations under uncertainty. Specifically, we distinguish between possible explanations in terms of their focus on inherent vs. extrinsic entities associated with an observation. According to past findings, inherent vs. extrinsic properties of a phenomenon are different in terms of the ease of accessibility for cognitive processes. The results of this research indicate a significant association between people’s tendencies to choose inherent properties of scientific observations and their working memory capacity as measured by operation span task.
Access
Open Access
Recommended Citation
Namvarrad, Sepideh, "Does working memory predict preference to use inherent explanations in scientific observations? A Bayesian Item Response Theory Approach" (2022). Theses - ALL. 650.
https://surface.syr.edu/thesis/650
