Fleig-Goldstein, Brendan (2025) Closing the Loop in Cognitive Science: The Diachronic Evidential Strategy of Bounded Rational Analysis. [Preprint]

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Abstract

Why might a scientist want to establish a cognitive model as optimally suited to some particular environment? In this paper, I suggest that an unexamined motivation for establishing models as optimal is to uncover systematic discrepancies between idealized human behavior and observed human behavior. These discrepancies can lead to the discovery of previously unknown cognitive architecture details (e.g., resource constraints), which can then be incorporated into models and give rise to new idealized models that factor in these newly uncovered details. Further discrepancies then arise, and the process repeats itself in an iterative fashion. Most importantly, each step in this process provides evidence for descriptive claims about human cognition. The point, then, of establishing optimal models is to facilitate a particular process for marshalling evidence about the human cognitive system.

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Item Type:	Preprint
Creators:	Creators Email ORCID Fleig-Goldstein, Brendan brendan_fleig-goldstein@brown.edu
Keywords:	rationality, evidence, rational analysis, bounded rationality, bayesian cognitive modeling, optimality assumptions
Subjects:	Specific Sciences > Cognitive Science General Issues > Confirmation/Induction
Depositing User:	Dr. Brendan Fleig-Goldstein
Date Deposited:	26 Jan 2026 18:11
Last Modified:	26 Jan 2026 18:11
Item ID:	28008
Subjects:	Specific Sciences > Cognitive Science General Issues > Confirmation/Induction
Date:	January 2025
URI:	https://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/id/eprint/28008

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