Cognition: A Study in Mental Economy.

In this letter, we argue that an economic perspective on the mind has played-and should continue to play-a central role in the development of cognitive science. Viewing cognition as the productive application of mental resources puts cognitive science and economics on a common conceptual footing, paving the way for closer collaboration between the two disciplines. This will enable cognitive scientists to more readily repurpose economic concepts and analytical tools for the study of mental phenomena, while at the same time, enriching our understanding of the modern economy, which is increasingly driven by mental, rather than physical, production.

From Probability to Consilience: How Explanatory Values Implement Bayesian Reasoning.

Recent work in cognitive science has uncovered a diversity of explanatory values, or dimensions along which we judge explanations as better or worse. We propose a Bayesian account of these values that clarifies their function and shows how they fit together to guide explanation-making. The resulting taxonomy shows that core values from psychology, statistics, and the philosophy of science emerge from a common mathematical framework and provide insight into why people adopt the explanations they do. This framework not only operationalizes the explanatory virtues associated with, for example, scientific argument-making, but also enables us to reinterpret the explanatory vices that drive phenomena such as conspiracy theories, delusions, and extremist ideologies.