Leitung: Prof. Dr. Gerhard Schurz
Beteiligt: Christian Feldbacher,
Dr. Paul Thorn
Institution: Heinrich-Heine-Universität Düsseldorf
Abstract
The general background of this project is a dualistic theory of cognition which maintains that specialized and locally adapted strategies
taken together with general-purpose strategies are essential for effective cognition. While local strategies are typically involved in
object-level tasks (e.g., the prediction of certain kinds of events), general strategies are important at the meta-level, where one aims
to select optimal object-level strategies or a mixture of object-level strategies that yield optimal performance. A meta-strategy of
outstanding importance is meta-induction which selects and combines object-level strategies on the basis of their past success rates.
In earlier work, it was demonstrated that meta-induction is a universally optimal prediction method under very general conditions. In
an extension of past work, the present project focuses on the role and efficiency of meta-induction in two new areas of application:
(1) the domain of cultural evolution under varying environments and environment-dependent success rates, and (2) the domain of social
learning in populations where access to the success records of other persons is restricted to local neighbourhoods. Both research problems
(1) and (2) are being investigated (a) at the theoretical level, on the basis of computer simulations and mathematical analysis, and (b) at
the empirical level, based on a retrieval of the data of a 16 years running prediction tournament, and on experiments on social learning in
a prediction game administered to test subjects.
Projektrelevante Veröffentlichungen
Thorn, P. D., & Schurz, G. (2014). A Utility based evaluation of
logico-probabilistic systems. Studia Logica, 102, 867-890.
Schurz, G. (2012). Meta-Induction in Epistemic Networks and Social Spread of Knowledge. Episteme, 9, 151-170.
Schurz, G., & Thorn, P. (2012). Reward versus
Risk in Uncertain Inference: Theorems and Simulations. Review of Symbolic Logic, 5(4), 574-612.
Thorn, P., & Schurz, G. (2012). Meta-Induction and the Wisdom of Crowds. Analyse & Kritik, 34(2), 339-366.
Weitere Publikationen sind auf dieser Seite zu finden.
Bezug zur zweiten Förderperiode des SPP1516
Dieses Projekt wird in der zweiten Förderperiode fortgesetzt.
Zur Projektseite...