Is Recursive Belief Inference the Engine of Mentalizing?

Is recursive belief inference the engine of mentalizing?

Editor's Note: These short, critical reviews of recent papers in the Journal, written exclusively by graduate students or postdoctoral fellows, are intended to summarize the important findings of the paper and provide additional insight and commentary. For more information on the format and purpose of the Journal Club, please see Review of Yoshida et al. Game theorists often quote the story of ...

Inference Engine TMS Assumptions Entailments Memory Belief Contradiction Justifications

Ontological confusions but not mentalizing abilities predict religious belief, paranormal belief, and belief in supernatural purpose.

The current research tested the hypothesis that the abilities for understanding other people's minds give rise to the cognitive biases that underlie supernatural beliefs. We used structural equation modeling (N=2789) to determine the roles of various mentalizing tendencies, namely self-reported affective and cognitive empathy (i.e., mind reading), actual cognitive and affective empathic abiliti...

The Bayes Inference Engine

We are developing a computer application, called the Bayes Inference Engine, to provide the means to make inferences about models of physical reality within a Bayesian framework. The construction of complex nonlinear models is achieved by a fully object-oriented design. The models are represented by a data-flow diagram that may be manipulated by the analyst through a graphicalprogramming enviro...

Mentalizing Deficits Constrain Belief in a Personal God

Religious believers intuitively conceptualize deities as intentional agents with mental states who anticipate and respond to human beliefs, desires and concerns. It follows that mentalizing deficits, associated with the autistic spectrum and also commonly found in men more than in women, may undermine this intuitive support and reduce belief in a personal God. Autistic adolescents expressed les...