Cognitive, cortical and computational correlates of belief revision in spatial reasoning
Humans and artificial agents frequently must change their existing beliefs about the way how objects are arranged in space, in order to take into account a new piece of spatial information. So, how do humans revise their beliefs if a new piece of spatial information is inconsistent with earlier assumptions? When do they hold on to a belief and when do they change their mind? What are the neural correlates of belief revision in human spatial reasoning?
We answer these questions by combining experimental methods from cognitive psychology, functional brain imaging studies, and computational investigations. In the psychological experiments, human subjects are confronted with spatial reasoning problems in which an incontrovertible fact falsifies an earlier model. We explore how the individuals recreate consistency and which piece of information they are inclined to retract. The brain imaging studies determine what happens in the brain during the revision of beliefs in spatial reasoning. The computational investigations will result in a detailed algorithmic reconstruction of the information processing during belief revision in spatial reasoning.
Contact: M.Sc. Andreas Reis, Prof. Dr. Markus Knauff
Projektnummer 465/6-1 & 465/6-2