Dear Bergers, there’s a talk at the EPS meeting next Friday that might be of interest:
15:15 Josep Call
(University of St Andrews) Ape inferential reasoning.
Full program and joining links here:
https://eps.ac.uk/next-meeting/
Peter
Knowledge about the spatial and temporal continuity of objects as well as their relations with other
objects play a crucial role in inferential reasoning. Comparative approaches have mainly focused on
distinguishing inference from non-inferential processes, most notably heuristics based on attentional,
perceptual or motor predispositions, or heuristics acquired via associative processes. Comparative
researchers have devoted far less research attention to distinguishing weak from strong inferences, an
aspect that Susan Carey and her colleagues brought to my attention a few years ago. In this talk I
will classify the empirical evidence available in nonhuman primates regarding spatio-temporal
inferences (e.g., inference by exclusion) in terms of their strength. I will then use this evidence to
identify the gaps in our knowledge in this area and the connections that one can establish between
inference by exclusion and other areas of cognitive research such as probability estimation and
intuitive statistics from a comparative perspective.