148 research outputs found
Thinking About Other Minds
No full textEvery day, we engage in countless interactions with others. Navigating these interactions requires us to think about others’ minds. We use our observations to make inferences about the beliefs, desires, and goals of the people with whom we are interacting, and shape our own behavior accordingly. Psychologists call this “theory of mind.”
While scientific understanding of theory of mind is broadening, a number of ways in which people think about other minds still lie outside its scope. What inferences do people draw about others’ minds when the others are not specific, observable individuals? Or are not people at all? What inferences do people make about others’ capacities? What cognitive processes are deployed in making these inferences?
This dissertation explores these questions in three different contexts. Chapters 1 and 2 of this dissertation focus on two relevant legal settings. Law affords a particularly interesting avenue for investigating these questions, as law routinely asks people to reason about unseen causes of events.
Chapter 1 examines how people think about the abstract mind of the "reasonable person" when applying tort law’s reasonable person standard. Chapter 2 investigates how people conceptualize the "minds" of non-human technologies, such as self-driving cars, and how those conceptualizations affect legal decisions and policy opinions. Finally, Chapter 3 explores people’s puzzling inclination to spontaneously adopt the visual perspective of pictorial representations of agents, even when there is no communicative value in doing so
Defending a Social Learning Explanation: A Comment on the Origins of Shared Intuitions of Justice
No full text\u3cem\u3eKatz\u3c/em\u3e\u27s Imperfect Circle: An Empirical Study of Reasonable Expectations of Privacy
No full textUnder Katz v. United States, the Fourth Amendment restricts government actions that infringe upon expectations of privacy that society recognizes as reasonable. This foundational test has long been criticized as circular, both because courts can shape the very expectations they seek to identify through their decisions and because governments can manipulate those expectations to expand the reach of their own power. But how do members of society decide what expectations are reasonable, and how do judges ascertain those expectations? And are expectations of privacy malleable even without deliberate manipulation?
This Article shows that the circularity critique is both understated and overstated. We identify six different potential elements of Katzian circularity, some of which have never been examined—particularly those relating to the stickiness of precedent concerning changing technology. To test the import of these circularity elements, we conducted two empirical studies, one survey and one experiment. We found that individuals’ beliefs about whether expectations of privacy are reasonable are highly influenced by data about what others think. Telling a person that a majority (versus a minority) of people believe a privacy right exists significantly increases their belief in that right to privacy. We also found evidence that people tend to view the investigative uses of new technologies as particularly violative of privacy expectations. Yet, we found little evidence beliefs are influenced by legal precedent or government action—with one important exception. It seems court decisions do not commonly shape society’s expectations, nor do they reflect society’s expectations.
The larger problem is that judges are likely to conflate society’s expectations with their own expectations. We show how turning the reasonable expectation of privacy inquiry into one hinging on scientifically-based research, rather than on judges’ unsound intuitions, would better fulfill Katz’s mandate and reflect societal consensus on these most fundamental constitutional principles. Altogether, this Article comprehensively charts the theoretical possibilities of Katzian circularity, empirically shows why and how the problem is likely to arise, and supplies a solution
\u3ci\u3eKatz\u3c/i\u3e\u27s Imperfect Circle: An Empirical Study of Reasonable Expectations of Privacy
No full textUnder Katz v. United States, the Fourth Amendment restricts government actions that infringe upon expectations of privacy that society recognizes as reasonable. This foundational test has long been criticized as circular, both because courts can shape the very expectations they seek to identify through their decisions and because governments can manipulate those expectations to expand the reach of their own power. But how do members of society decide what expectations are reasonable, and how do judges ascertain those expectations? And are expectations of privacy malleable even without deliberate manipulation?
This Article shows that the circularity critique is both understated and overstated. We identify six different potential elements of Katzian circularity, some of which have never been examined—particularly those relating to the stickiness of precedent concerning changing technology. To test the import of these circularity elements, we conducted two empirical studies, one survey and one experiment. We found that individuals’ beliefs about whether expectations of privacy are reasonable are highly influenced by data about what others think. Telling a person that a majority (versus a minority) of people believe a privacy right exists significantly increases their belief in that right to privacy. We also found evidence that people tend to view the investigative uses of new technologies as particularly violative of privacy expectations. Yet, we found little evidence beliefs are influenced by legal precedent or government action—with one important exception. It seems court decisions do not commonly shape society’s expectations, nor do they reflect society’s expectations.
The larger problem is that judges are likely to conflate society’s expectations with their own expectations. We show how turning the reasonable expectation of privacy inquiry into one hinging on scientifically-based research, rather than on judges’ unsound intuitions, would better fulfill Katz’s mandate and reflect societal consensus on these most fundamental constitutional principles. Altogether, this Article comprehensively charts the theoretical possibilities of Katzian circularity, empirically shows why and how the problem is likely to arise, and supplies a solution
Law and Order
No full textWhen we hear about a transgression, we may consider whether the perpetrator’s individual circumstances make their transgression more understandable or excusable. Mitigating circumstances may reduce the severity of what punishment is deemed appropriate, both intuitively and legally. But importantly, in courts of public opinion and of law, mitigating information is typically presented only after information about a perpetrator’s transgression. We explore whether this sequence influences the force of mitigating evidence. Specifically, in two studies, we examined whether presenting evidence about a perpetrator’s background before or after evidence of their violation influenced how severely U.S. participants punished perpetrators. In Study 1 (N=132), evidence about the perpetrator’s mitigating circumstances reduced punishment only when it was presented before evidence about the perpetrator’s violation. Study 2 (N=316) revealed this moderating effect of presentation order across a variety of premeditated and impulsive violations. These findings are consistent with person-centered theories of punishment and with the Story Model of adjudication
Law and Order
No full textWhen we hear about a transgression, we may consider whether the perpetrator’s individual circumstances make their transgression more understandable or excusable. Mitigating circumstances may reduce the severity of what punishment is deemed appropriate, both intuitively and legally. But importantly, in courts of public opinion and of law, mitigating information is typically presented only after information about a perpetrator’s transgression. We explore whether this sequence influences the force of mitigating evidence. Specifically, in two studies, we examined whether presenting evidence about a perpetrator’s background before or after evidence of their violation influenced how severely U.S. participants punished perpetrators. In Study 1 (N=132), evidence about the perpetrator’s mitigating circumstances reduced punishment only when it was presented before evidence about the perpetrator’s violation. Study 2 (N=316) revealed this moderating effect of presentation order across a variety of premeditated and impulsive violations. These findings are consistent with person-centered theories of punishment and with the Story Model of adjudication
Law and Order
No full textWhen we hear about a transgression, we may consider whether the perpetrator’s individual circumstances make their transgression more understandable or excusable. Mitigating circumstances may reduce the severity of what punishment is deemed appropriate, both intuitively and legally. But importantly, in courts of public opinion and of law, mitigating information is typically presented only after information about a perpetrator’s transgression. We explore whether this sequence influences the force of mitigating evidence. Specifically, in two studies, we examined whether presenting evidence about a perpetrator’s background before or after evidence of their violation influenced how severely U.S. participants punished perpetrators. In Study 1 (N=132), evidence about the perpetrator’s mitigating circumstances reduced punishment only when it was presented before evidence about the perpetrator’s violation. Study 2 (N=316) revealed this moderating effect of presentation order across a variety of premeditated and impulsive violations. These findings are consistent with person-centered theories of punishment and with the Story Model of adjudication
The interrelationship between concepts about agency and students’ use of teachable-agent learning technology
No full textAbstract To successfully interact with software agents, people must call upon basic concepts about goals and intentionality and strategically deploy these concepts in a range of circumstances where specific entailments may or may not apply. We hypothesize that people who can effectively deploy agency concepts in new situations will be more effective in interactions with software agents. Further, we posit that interacting with a software agent can itself refine a person’s deployment of agency concepts. We investigated this reciprocal relationship in one particularly important context: the classroom. In three experiments we examined connections between middle school students’ concepts about agency and their success learning from a teachable-agent-based computer system called “Betty’s Brain”. We found that the students who made more intentional behavioral predictions about humans learned more effectively from the system. We also found that students who used the Betty’s Brain system distinguished human behavior from machine behavior more strongly than students who did not. We conclude that the ability to effectively deploy agency concepts both supports, and is refined by, interactions with software agents
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