Imperfect Cognitions

In December 2016 an exciting volume entitled Cognitive Confusions: Dreams, Delusions and Illusions in Early Modern Culture has been published by Legenda. The book, edited by Ita McCarthy, Kirsty Sellevold and Olivia Smith, contains a chapter authored by Ema Sullivan-Bissett, Rachel Gunn and myself on the challenges we face when we want to tell delusional beliefs apart from other beliefs. We start with the standard DSM definition of delusions, and explain that clinical delusions are characterised by surface features of two kinds, epistemic (fixity, implausibility) and psychological (negative impact on functioning). Then we ask whether we can decide whether a type of belief is delusional by using those criteria. We consider three cases of belief that match at least some of the criteria: the belief that some thoughts have been inserted in one's mind by a third party; the belief that one has been abducted by aliens; and the belief that one is better than average at just about ...

Together with Ema Sullivan-Bissett , Matteo Mameli and Matthew Broome , I have written a chapter on delusions for a new volume on gradualism in psychiatry: Vagueness in Psychiatry , edited by Geert Keil, Laura Keuck and Rico Hauswald for Oxford University Press. Matteo Mameli In the paper we argue that it is difficult to distinguish pathological and non-pathological beliefs on the basis of their epistemic features. Then we consider some of the moral and legal implications of our thesis, focusing in particular on the role of beliefs in the attribution of moral responsibility and legal accountability for criminal actions that are motivated by those beliefs. Ema Sullivan-Bissett Delusions fail to meet many epistemic standards. It might look like they are not beliefs which are aimed at truth or governed by a norm of truth, that they are not responsive to evidence in the ways which ordinary beliefs typically are. But non-delusional beliefs also share such features. For instan...

This post is the final one in our series summarizing the contributions to the special issue on unrealistic optimism 'Unrealistic Optimism -Its nature, causes and effects' . The paper by Anneli Jefferson , Lisa Bortolotti and Bojana Kuzmanovic looks at the nature of unrealistically optimistic cognitions and the extent to which they are irrational. Anneli Jefferson We know that people have a tendency to expect that their future will be better than that of others or better than seems likely on an objective measure of probability. But are they really expressing a belief that the future will be good, or should we see these expressions of optimism as hopes or possibly even just expression of desires for the future? Maybe when I say ‘My marriage has an 85% likelihood of lasting ‘til death do us part’’, what I am actually saying is ‘I really, really want my marriage to last.’ If what is expressed is a desire rather than a belief, we do not need to worry that we are systemati...

This post is by James Shepperd , Gabrielle Pogge and Jennifer Howell who recently authored a paper entitled, " Assessing the Consequences of Unrealistic Optimism: Challenges and Recommendations ", to be published in a special issue of Consciousness & Cognition on unrealistic optimism , guest-edited by Anneli Jefferson, Bojana Kuzmanovic and Lisa Bortolotti. In this post, James, Gabrielle and Jennifer summarise the content of their new paper. James Researchers have argued that unrealistic optimism (UO) can have both desirable and undesirable consequences. Yet, understanding the consequences of UO is a remarkably difficult. We identified eight challenges faced by researchers wanting to understand the consequences of UO. Gabrielle Unrealistic comparative optimism might be overstated . Recent evidence suggests that measurement decisions may exaggerate both the frequency and magnitude of UO in research—UO may neither be as common or sizable as once believed....

The Annual Conference of the British Society for the Philosophy of Science was held at the University of Cardiff Business School (pictured below), on 7th and 8th July 2016. The conference featured four keynote lectures and several papers in parallel sessions. Here I am briefly reporting from the two keynote lectures delivered on the second day of the conference. Samir Okasha (University of Bristol), pictured below, discussed in his keynote lecture the use of intentional language in describing the work of evolution. For instance, sometimes we say that the gene “knows” that it was inherited, or that an organism has a preference for a certain outcome to be selected. How should we understand the use of intentional language in this context? Is the intentionality of the language of biology something we can dispense with if we choose to, is it just a shorthand? Samir argues that it is more than a shorthand and delivers insights into evolution. Darwinian evolution is described in ter...

Recently I have become interested in the effects of optimism on relationship satisfaction. Unrealistic optimism about romantic relationships is very widespread. Even people who are aware of divorce rates in the society in which they live tend to overestimate the longevity of their relationships. Unrealistically optimistic predictions about the future of our romantic relationships may be supported by other positive illusions, for instance, the superiority illusion and the love-is-blind illusion . According to the superiority illusion, which is a form of self-enhancement, we tend to perceive our relationship as better than most relationships. According to the love-is-blind illusion, we tend to be blind to our partner’s faults, and perceive the partner as better than average in a number of domains including intelligence and attractiveness.  But for  Murray and colleagues (1996)  such illusions are not obviously a bad thing, as people who have an optimistic ...

The AISB Convention is an annual conference covering the range of Artificial Intelligence and Cognitive Science, organised by the Society for the Study of Artificial Intelligence and Simulation of Behaviour. The convention is structured as a number of co-located symposia on a wide variety of topics, together with a number of plenary talks and events. This year’s convention took place on 4-6 April at the University of Sheffield and included a most interesting symposium on new approaches to depression. Below I briefly summarise the content of the symposium talks.   Joel Parthemore (University of Skövde, Sweden, pictured above) opened the symposium with his talk ‘Depression viewed from an enactive perspective: It’s the context, stupid.’ He pointed at some most commonly spread myths about depression, which contribute to the popular misunderstanding of the illness and may lead to stigmatization. These include a belief that depression always involves anhedonia or a belief that c...

A belief is epistemically rational if it is well supported by evidence and responsive to counter-evidence. But do epistemically rational beliefs contribute to our psychological wellbeing? Some believe that epistemic rationality contributes to psychological wellbeing, and that epistemic irrationality is often responsible for psychological distress (for a version of the  traditional view,  see  Healthy Personality,  by Jourard and Landsman, 1980). Others believe that psychological wellbeing requires epistemic  irrationality , and that there are circumstances in which epistemic rationality is responsible for psychological distress (for a version of the  trade-off view, see e.g. Positive Illusions, by Taylor, 1989). The traditional view tells us that people who are psychologically healthy have cognitions that are constrained by evidence and are accurate, that is, they track how things actually are. Their memory reports are reliable, their beliefs wel...

I’m Neil Garrett , a PhD student at the Affective Brain Lab, University College London. I investigate biases in human decision making using a combination of approaches from psychology, economics and neuroscience. The term “depressive realism” was born out of a study conducted by the psychologists Alloy and Abramson in 1979. In this study they examined how people judged contingency between their actions (pressing a button, in this instance) and outcomes that subsequently materialized (a light flickering on). The crucial aspect was that there was often little or no contingency between actions and outcome; a light would flicker on sporadically and independently of any button pressing by the participant. Their results revealed however that whilst depressed patients were wise to this fact, non-depressed individuals displayed a tendency to overestimate how instrumental they were in causing the light to illuminate. Hence depressed individuals were seemingly more “realistic” than their ...

On 4 th  and 5 th  February project  PERFECT  hosted their first major event, PERFECT 2016, a two day workshop on  False but Useful Beliefs . The workshop was held in the Herringham Hall at Regent’s Conferences and Events (pictured above) in London. In this post I give a brief overview of the ten papers presented at the workshop.  Anandi Hattiangadi  (Stockholm), pictured above, opened the workshop with a paper entitled: ‘Radical Interpretation and Implicit Cognition’. Anandi considered the prospects for the possibility of Lewisian radical interpretation which requires an entailment from the physical truths about some subject to intentional truths about her. In light of recent work in experimental psychology, in particular, work on heuristics which lead to irrational actions from the point of view of decision theory, she concluded that radical interpretation is impossible.  In discussion time, there was an opportunity for Anandi to clari...

In this post, Allan Hazlett , Assistant Professor of Philosophy at the University of New Mexico , presents his book, A Luxury of the Understanding (Oxford University Press, 2013). Allan (in the picture above)  works on the value of accurate representation, deference and disagreement, and political epistemology. Philosophers have for some time acknowledged the possibility of irrational and false beliefs that are nonetheless beneficial to the believer. A familiar case is that of the over-confident athlete: it is easy to imagine that Karen is better off over-estimating her tennis abilities, than she would be were her evaluation of her abilities accurate, given the boost to her confidence that this over-estimation provides. However, it is standard for philosophers to argue that, since Karen’s belief is irrational and false, although it may be all-things-considered best for her, it is nevertheless “epistemically” bad. In A Luxury of the Understanding (cover pictured below), I a...

This post is by Anneli Jefferson, Research Fellow at the University of Birmingham, working on the Costs and Benefits of Optimism project. On June 27th, Nils Kürbis and Dan Adams hosted a workshop on falsity entitled ' Falsity – Not just Truth’s Poor Relation ' at Birkbeck (see picture of venue above). The lively workshop approached falsity in a number of thought-provoking ways. Those of us who don’t work in metaphysics take the concept of falsity for granted. But once you start thinking about what falsity is, numerous puzzles arise. If you assert that something is false, in other words, it is not the case, what makes that claim true? When we speak truly, we say how things are. If we speak falsely, things aren’t how we say they are. But doesn’t that mean that what we say is there is not there at all? So what are we talking about? It seems as if we are talking about nothing at all, so how can what we said even make sense? One response to this problem is that there ...

After having studied relatively rare irrational beliefs, those that are also considered symptoms of psychiatric disorders and 'marks of madness', I have recently become interested in the irrationality of everyday beliefs and in particular in those beliefs and predictions that seem to betray excessive optimism. On 15th January 2015, I was asked to give a  talk  to the public at Modern Art Oxford, a gallery hosting at the time an exhibition called " Love is Enough ", with artwork by William Morris and Andy Warhol. The brief for the talk was to think about the creation of myths, something that interested both artists. I took the opportunity to examine the everyday myths that we all create when we think about our own character traits, talents, skills, and come to believe that we are better than average at everything. When we imagine what our future will be like, we see it as free of failure, drama and illness, and exemplifying a continuous progress, moving from asp...

Jennifer Radden This week we feature an interview with Jennifer Radden. Jennifer is a Professor of Philosophy at the University of Massachusetts Boston. Her teaching and research interests include philosophy of mental health and the ethics of psychiatry. She is the author of ‘Divided Minds and Successive Selves: Ethical Issues in Disorders of Identity and Personality’, and ‘The Nature of Melancholy’. MA: In our project we investigate the idea that mental imperfections may carry some important epistemic benefits. Do you find it plausible to say that depression may carry some benefits of this kind, even if it is a harmful experience? JR: Answer: Harmful? Or painful? If it’s harmful also, then we’d need to do some weighing of relative harms and goods, I’d guess, for an overall assessment of the right kind, and my answer is: I don’t know… If you meant something more like painful, then yes, this is certainly the way people sometimes speak about these episodes, even using ‘no pain, ...