• Media type: E-Article
  • Title: Probabilistic models as theories of children's minds
  • Contributor: Gopnik, Alison
  • imprint: Cambridge University Press (CUP), 2011
  • Published in: Behavioral and Brain Sciences
  • Language: English
  • DOI: 10.1017/s0140525x11000288
  • ISSN: 0140-525X; 1469-1825
  • Keywords: Behavioral Neuroscience ; Physiology ; Neuropsychology and Physiological Psychology
  • Origination:
  • Footnote:
  • Description: <jats:title>Abstract</jats:title><jats:p>My research program proposes that children have representations and learning mechanisms that can be characterized as causal models of the world – coherent, structured hypotheses with consistent relationships to probabilistic patterns of evidence. We also propose that Bayesian inference is one mechanism by which children learn these models from data. These proposals are straightforward psychological hypotheses and far from “Bayesian Fundamentalism.”</jats:p>