Abstract
Original language | English |
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Title of host publication | Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society |
Number of pages | 6 |
Volume | 31 |
Publication status | Published - 2009 |
Externally published | Yes |
Publication series
Name | Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society |
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Volume | 31 |
ISSN (Electronic) | 1069-7977 |
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Explanations of comparative facts : A shift in focus. / Aldrovandi, Silvio; Hampton, James A.; Heussen, Daniel ; Kusev, Petko.
Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society. Vol. 31 2009. (Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society; Vol. 31).Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Conference contribution
TY - GEN
T1 - Explanations of comparative facts
T2 - A shift in focus
AU - Aldrovandi, Silvio
AU - Hampton, James A.
AU - Heussen, Daniel
AU - Kusev, Petko
PY - 2009
Y1 - 2009
N2 - A comparative fact can be presented in two ways. ‘Among white evangelical Christians, Obama had 40% fewer votes than McCain.’ or ‘Among white evangelical Christians, McCain had 40% more votes than Obama.’ Focusing on why Obama had fewer votes than McCain may result in a different explanation from focusing on why McCain had more votes than Obama, although it is the same fact. Thus what determines whether we focus in our explanation on Obama or McCain? In two studies, we show that people generally focused more on the first part of the comparative fact. However, when the comparative fact is presented in a negative frame (‘less … than’) there was a shift in focus from the first to the second part of the fact. For neutral items this moderating effect did not occur. The Principle of Lexical Marking (Clark, 1969) and Loss Aversion (Kahneman & Tversky, 1979) are discussed as possible accounts for this shift in focus.
AB - A comparative fact can be presented in two ways. ‘Among white evangelical Christians, Obama had 40% fewer votes than McCain.’ or ‘Among white evangelical Christians, McCain had 40% more votes than Obama.’ Focusing on why Obama had fewer votes than McCain may result in a different explanation from focusing on why McCain had more votes than Obama, although it is the same fact. Thus what determines whether we focus in our explanation on Obama or McCain? In two studies, we show that people generally focused more on the first part of the comparative fact. However, when the comparative fact is presented in a negative frame (‘less … than’) there was a shift in focus from the first to the second part of the fact. For neutral items this moderating effect did not occur. The Principle of Lexical Marking (Clark, 1969) and Loss Aversion (Kahneman & Tversky, 1979) are discussed as possible accounts for this shift in focus.
KW - Explanation
KW - Reasoning
KW - Mental Representation
M3 - Conference contribution
VL - 31
T3 - Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society
BT - Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society
ER -