scholarly journals Reasoning Through the Disjunctive Syllogism in Monkeys

2021 ◽  
Vol 32 (2) ◽  
pp. 292-300
Author(s):  
Stephen Ferrigno ◽  
Yiyun Huang ◽  
Jessica F. Cantlon
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Food Choice ◽  
Human Learning ◽  
Choice Task ◽  
Logical Inference ◽  
Critical Aspect ◽  
Disjunctive Syllogism ◽  
Symbolic Thought ◽  
Dependent Relation ◽  
Nonhuman Animals

The capacity for logical inference is a critical aspect of human learning, reasoning, and decision-making. One important logical inference is the disjunctive syllogism: given A or B, if not A, then B. Although the explicit formation of this logic requires symbolic thought, previous work has shown that nonhuman animals are capable of reasoning by exclusion, one aspect of the disjunctive syllogism (e.g., not A = avoid empty). However, it is unknown whether nonhuman animals are capable of the deductive aspects of a disjunctive syllogism (the dependent relation between A and B and the inference that “if not A, then B” must be true). Here, we used a food-choice task to test whether monkeys can reason through an entire disjunctive syllogism. Our results show that monkeys do have this capacity. Therefore, the capacity is not unique to humans and does not require language.

scholarly journals Risky decision-making after exposure to a food-choice task in excess weight adolescents: Relationships with reward-related impulsivity and hunger

PLoS ONE ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 13 (8) ◽  
pp. e0202994 ◽  
Author(s):  
María Moreno-Padilla ◽  
María José Fernández-Serrano ◽  
Gustavo A. Reyes del Paso
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Food Choice ◽  
Choice Task ◽  
Excess Weight ◽  
Risky Decision Making ◽  
Risky Decision

scholarly journals Uncovering the spatio-temporal dynamics of value-based decision-making in the human brain: a combined fMRI–EEG study

2014 ◽  
Vol 369 (1655) ◽  
pp. 20130473 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tobias Larsen ◽  
John P. O'Doherty
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Prefrontal Cortex ◽  
Temporal Dynamics ◽  
Brain Regions ◽  
Choice Task ◽  
Binary Choice ◽  
Intraparietal Sulcus ◽  
Trial Onset ◽  
Eeg Data ◽  
Spatio Temporal

While there is a growing body of functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) evidence implicating a corpus of brain regions in value-based decision-making in humans, the limited temporal resolution of fMRI cannot address the relative temporal precedence of different brain regions in decision-making. To address this question, we adopted a computational model-based approach to electroencephalography (EEG) data acquired during a simple binary choice task. fMRI data were also acquired from the same participants for source localization. Post-decision value signals emerged 200 ms post-stimulus in a predominantly posterior source in the vicinity of the intraparietal sulcus and posterior temporal lobe cortex, alongside a weaker anterior locus. The signal then shifted to a predominantly anterior locus 850 ms following the trial onset, localized to the ventromedial prefrontal cortex and lateral prefrontal cortex. Comparison signals between unchosen and chosen options emerged late in the trial at 1050 ms in dorsomedial prefrontal cortex, suggesting that such comparison signals may not be directly associated with the decision itself but rather may play a role in post-decision action selection. Taken together, these results provide us new insights into the temporal dynamics of decision-making in the brain, suggesting that for a simple binary choice task, decisions may be encoded predominantly in posterior areas such as intraparietal sulcus, before shifting anteriorly.

scholarly journals A Semantic Web-based Representation of Human-logical Inference for Solving Bongard Problems

2020 ◽  
Vol 26 (10) ◽  
pp. 1343-1363
Author(s):  
Jisha Maniamma ◽  
Hiroaki Wagatsuma
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Semantic Web ◽  
Description Logic ◽  
Logical Reasoning ◽  
Hierarchical Level ◽  
Logical Inference ◽  
Learning Abilities ◽  
Web Based ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Target Frame

Bongard Problems (BPs) are a set of 100 visual puzzles introduced by M. M. Bongard in the mid-1960s. BPs have been established as benchmark puzzles for understanding the human context-based learning abilities to solve ill- posed problems. The puzzle requires the logical explanation as the answer to distinct two classes of figures from redundant options, which can be obtained by a thinking process to alternatively change the target frame (hierarchical level of analogy) of thinking from a wide range concept networks as D. R. Hofstadter suggested. Some minor research results to solve a limited set of BPs have reported based a single architecture accompanied with probabilistic approaches; however the central problem on BP's difficulties is the requirement of flexible changes of the target frame, therefore non-hierarchical cluster analyses does not provide the essential solution and hierarchical probabilistic models needs to include unnecessary levels for learning from the beginning to prevent a prompt decision making. We hypothesized that logical reasoning process with limited numbers of meta-data descriptions realizes the sophisticated and prompt decision-making and the performance is validated by using BPs. In this study, a semantic web-based hierarchical model to solve BPs was proposed as the minimum and transparent system to mimic human-logical inference process in solving of BPs by using the Description Logic (DL) with assertions on concepts (TBox) and individuals (ABox). Our results demonstrated that the proposed model not only provided individual solutions as a BP solver, but also proved the correctness of Hofstadter's idea as the flexible frame with concept networks for BPs in our actual implementation, which no one has ever achieved. This fact will open the new horizon for theories for designing of logical reasoning systems especially for critical judgments and serious decision-making as expert humans do in a transparent and descriptive way of why they judged in that manner.

scholarly journals Attentional mechanisms drive systematic exploration in young children

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nathaniel J. Blanco ◽  
Vladimir Sloutsky
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Young Children ◽  
Information Gathering ◽  
Choice Task ◽  
Attention Allocation ◽  
Top Down ◽  
Distributed Attention ◽  
Systematic Exploration ◽  
The World ◽  
Attentional Mechanisms

Exploration is critical for discovering how the world works. Exploration should be particularlyvaluable for young children, who have little knowledge about the world. Theories of decision- making describe systematic exploration as being primarily driven by top-down cognitive control, which is immature in young children. Recent research suggests that a type of systematic exploration predominates in young children’s choices, despite immature control, suggesting that it may be driven by different mechanisms. We hypothesize that young children’s tendency to distribute attention widely promotes elevated exploration, and that interrupting distributed attention allocation through bottom-up attentional capture would also disrupt systematic exploration. We test this hypothesis by manipulating saliency of the options in a simple choice task. Saliency disrupted systematic exploration, thus indicating that attentional mechanisms may drive children’s systematic exploratory behavior. We suggest that both may be part of a larger tendency toward broad information gathering in young children.

How a Focus on Learning Mechanisms Can Change Our Understanding of Mental Disorders

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andreas Heinz
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Mental Disorders ◽  
Human Behavior ◽  
Human Learning ◽  
Learning Mechanisms ◽  
Computational Approaches ◽  
Human Creativity

The last chapter summarizes the previous findings and suggests that focusing on learning mechanisms can help to appreciate the malleability and diversity of human behavior. It is suggested that dimensional and computational approaches can foster a new understanding of mental disorders and create classifications based on basic dimensions of human learning and decision making. This chapter emphasizes that a focus on learning mechanisms should help to reduce the stigma of mental disorders, as it emphasized human creativity and resilience when dealing with stressful situations.

7. Deducing

2020 ◽  
pp. 74-88
Author(s):  
Timothy Williamson
Keyword(s):  
Modal Logic ◽  
Classical Logic ◽  
Logical Inference ◽  
Disjunctive Syllogism ◽  
Philosophical Concept ◽  
The Law ◽  
The Difference ◽  
Excluded Middle

Detective work is an important tool in philosophy. ‘Deducing’ explains the difference between valid and sound arguments. An argument is valid if its premises are true but is only sound if the conclusion is true. The Greek philosophers identified disjunctive syllogism—the idea that if something is not one thing, it must be another. This relates to another philosophical concept, the ‘law of the excluded middle’. An abduction is a form of logical inference which attempts to find the most likely explanation. Modal logic, an extension of classical logic, is a popular branch of logic for philosophical arguments.

scholarly journals Critical Computation: Digital Automata and General Artificial Thinking

2019 ◽  
Vol 36 (2) ◽  
pp. 89-121 ◽  
Author(s):  
Luciana Parisi
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Information Processing ◽  
Inductive Method ◽  
Logical Thinking ◽  
Logical Inference ◽  
Critical Reasoning ◽  
Learning From Data ◽  
Human Thinking ◽  
Computational Systems ◽  
Adaptive Practice

As machines have become increasingly smart and have entangled human thinking with artificial intelligences, it seems no longer possible to distinguish among levels of decision-making that occur in the newly formed space between critical reasoning, logical inference and sheer calculation. Since the 1980s, computational systems of information processing have evolved to include not only deductive methods of decision, whereby results are already implicated in their premises, but have crucially shifted towards an adaptive practice of learning from data, an inductive method of retrieving information from the environment and establishing general premises. This shift in logical methods of decision-making does not simply concern technical apparatuses, but is a symptom of a transformation in logical thinking activated with and through machines. This article discusses the pioneering work of Katherine Hayles, whose study of the cybernetic and computational infrastructures of our culture particularly clarifies this epistemological transformation of thinking in relation to machines.

My owner, right or wrong: the effect of familiarity on the domestic dog’s behavior in a food-choice task

2013 ◽  
Vol 17 (2) ◽  
pp. 461-470 ◽  
Author(s):  
Amy Cook ◽  
Jennifer Arter ◽  
Lucia F. Jacobs
Keyword(s):  
Food Choice ◽  
Choice Task
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