Colombo, Matteo and Lai, Jun and Crupi, Vincenzo (2015) Sleeping Beauty goes to the lab: The psychology of self-locating evidence. [Preprint]

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Abstract

The Sleeping Beauty Problem is a challenging puzzle in probabilistic reasoning, which has attracted enormous attention and still fosters ongoing debate. The problem goes as follows: Suppose that some researchers are going to put you to sleep. During the two days that your sleep will last, they will briefly wake you up either once or twice, depending on the toss of a fair coin (Heads: once; Tails: twice). After each waking, they will put you back to sleep with a drug that makes you forget that waking. When you are first awakened, to what degree should you believe that the outcome of the coin toss is Heads? Theoretically, the two candidate answers are 1/2 and 1/3, the proponents of which are known as halfers and thirders, respectively. The present study examines for the first time the descriptive adequacy of both halfers’ and thirders’ analyses. Our results show that naïve reasoning does not simply fit either. Instead, they suggest that any psychologically adequate analysis of the Sleeping Beauty Problem should take account that the impact on probabilistic reasoning of information about one’s spatio-temporal location in the world is systematically discounted.

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Item Type:	Preprint
Creators:	Creators Email ORCID Colombo, Matteo m.colombo@uvt.nl Lai, Jun Crupi, Vincenzo
Keywords:	sleeping beauty problem; probability; reasoning; self-locating evidence
Subjects:	General Issues > Confirmation/Induction Specific Sciences > Probability/Statistics Specific Sciences > Psychology
Depositing User:	Dr. Matteo Colombo
Date Deposited:	14 Dec 2015 14:53
Last Modified:	14 Dec 2015 14:53
Item ID:	11812
Subjects:	General Issues > Confirmation/Induction Specific Sciences > Probability/Statistics Specific Sciences > Psychology
Date:	December 2015
URI:	https://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/id/eprint/11812

Available Versions of this Item

• Sleeping Beauty goes to the lab: The psychology of self-locating evidence. (deposited 14 Dec 2015 14:53) [Currently Displayed]
  • Sleeping Beauty goes to the lab: The psychology of self-locating evidence. (deposited 04 Jan 2018 15:42)
  • Sleeping Beauty goes to the lab: The psychology of self-locating evidence. (deposited 07 Nov 2016 14:34)

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