#xphi — Public Fediverse posts

There’s something new and exciting on the X-Phi Blog: »Where Should I Publish My X-Phi? A New Resource« https://xphi.net/2026/04/22/where-should-i-publish-my-x-phi-a-new-resource/ #xphi #philosophy

What helps people understand conversational cues?

Correctly identifying implications correlated not just with "theory of mind", but also reflective and logical reasoning. Short-term memory? Not so much.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0339899

#communication #cogSci #linguistics #xPhi #logic

Is moral advice more compelling if it includes an argument? What if it's from an #AI?

Advice strongly influenced decisions to sacrifice-one-to-save-five, regardless of whether advice
- came from #chatGPT (3.5).
- included an argument.

https://doi.org/10.1007/s43681-026-01005-6

#xPhi #ethics #edu

How can researchers overcome #AcquiescenceBias?

In a #questionnaire, acquiescence is a tendency to agree with statements or answer affirmatively regardless of survey content.

Alvarado-Leiton et al. report simple ways to mitigate it.

https://doi.org/10.1093/jssam/smaf022

#PsychMethods #xPhi

https://philpapers.org/browse/experimental-philosophy

#xPhi #ExperimentalPhilosophy #papers

"a movement that is blurring the lines between philosophy and psychology. This new approach, called experimental philosophy, aims to apply the practical tools and findings of the cognitive sciences to philosophical problems"

https://thenewjournalatyale.com/2012/04/we-started-the-fire/

#xPhi #ExperimentalPhilosophy

https://vimeo.com/showcase/8267237?video=1167686450

"Ethics in the Lab: Experimental

Philosophy between Is and Ought"

by https://www.philosophie.uzh.ch/de/seminar/people/research/snf_willemsen/willemsen.html

#xphi

Can we assume research participants accept the stipulations of vignettes?

This paper reports that moral dilemma decisions varied according to how much people seemed to believe stipulations (e.g., that intervening would actually save five people).

https://doi.org/10.1017/S1930297500006501 #xPhi

#xphi

There are three new calls on the X-Phi Blog: »6th European Experimental Philosophy Conference«, »Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Linguistic Justice«, and »The Armchair on Trial«. Read more at https://xphi.net! #philosophy #xphi #experimentalphilosophy

Do neuroscientists' claims about #freeWill impact students' #ethics?

A "deterministic passage ...from Crick" sometimes reduced decisions to proactively intervene in moral thought experiments compared to a "neutral #neuroscience text".

https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2026.1748028

#xPhi #cogSci #edu

Another #failedReplication of a reflection test priming effect on the #sideEffectEffect: https://doi.org/10.1111/mila.12558

But our data above cast doubt on this paper's expectation that reflection test primes actually cause reflection (we saw *less* reflection in the test-first group).

#cogSci #xPhi #Psych

We've found recruiting people for online #research via #onlineAdvertising yielded good results on overt and covert #dataQuality measures (perhaps because participation incentives aren't financial):

Attention checks passed ≅ 2.6 out of 3

ReCAPTCHA (v3) ≅ 0.94 out of 1.0

Sample size > 5000 (from six continents)

https://doi.org/10.1017/S0034412525000198

#surveyMethods #cogSci #psychology #xPhi #QualityControl #econ #marketing

People DID find formal explanations more satisfying when the category seemed unknown!

But only the most reflective thinkers realized tautological (uninformative) formal explanations were less satisfying than informative ones.

https://doi.org/10.1111/cogs.70101

#xPhi #cogSci #SciComm
2/2

Does #morality of a violation depend on your relationship to the wrongdoer?

People from #China and the #UnitedStates rated transgressions involving parents less immoral than transgressions involving a #sales person or superiors (N > 1200).

https://doi.org/10.3390/bs15081097

#ethics #xPhi

There’s a new journal in town: Experimental Philosophy. Read about it at the X-Phi Blog: https://xphi.net/2025/11/15/journal-experimental-philosophy/ #xphi #philosophy

The first sessions of this season’s “XPHI UK Work in Progress Workshop Series” have been announced by James Andow and Eugen Fischer. Take a look at the X-Phi Blog: https://xphi.net/2025/11/15/workshop-xphi-uk-work-in-progress-workshop-series-3/ #xphi #philosophy

There’s a new job announcement on the X-Phi Blog: Eugen Fischer is looking for a 6-month Research Associate to work in the research project »Experimental argument analysis«. Check it out at https://xphi.net/2025/10/27/job-experimental-argument-analysis-norwich-uk/! #xphi #philosophy

This week I share a text message and infographic that improved decisions about #existentialRisk: https://osf.io/preprints/psyarxiv/d2pc4

#AntibioticResistance kills many.

Misusing #antibiotics makes matters worse.

IAPHS: https://iaphs.org/conference/conference-program

#Nudges in #Healthcare: https://nudgeunit.my.canva.site/symposium-2025-webpage

#medicine #health #psychology #ethics #Philosophy #xPhi #BioXPhi

How can #AI and #cognitiveScience improve #healthcare?

We got some answers from the #NudgesInHealthcare Symposium at #UPenn.

Check out this summary of some themes in the write-up below:

https://ldi.upenn.edu/our-work/research-updates/in-the-loop-or-on-the-loop-the-conundrum-of-ai-clinical-decision-support/

#medicine #psych #econ #compSci #tech #LLM #edu #bioethics #xPhi

I started Day 2 of #Atheism Explained? in another #Secularization session.

First, highlights of interviews about non-#religiosity in #Estonia from Atko Remmel (https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Atko-Remmel)

Then Piotr Paweł Laskowski shared that in an expanded DIM-R dataset (https://doi.org/10.1080/2153599X.2024.2305447) there were — among other things — intermediate relationships between analytic thinking and (lower) odds of #religion in a large sample of people from #Poland — more on this tomorrow, I'm told.

#replication #xPhi #psych

Great day at the #STEM icon #BellLabs (now #BellWorks) for the #NewJersey Undergrad. #Research Symposium!

Olivia Parlow presented our latest experiment on reducing people’s intentions to overuse #antibiotics — fantastic work and encouraging results!

More students from #StevensTech, #Caldwell #University, #FairleighDicksinson, and more presented interesting and actionable #science!

Thanks to NJcolleges.org for organizing!

#publicHealth #medicine #existentialRisk #bioethics #xPhi #philSci

Good news in our preprint about #polarization:

Demand for BIPARTISAN #news analysis was strong!

People in the #US preferred fact-checking teams that engaged in #AdversarialCollaboration at least as much as copartisan and/or professional teams.

Follow the manuscript or authors on #GoogleScholar: https://scholar.google.com/scholar?oi=bibs&hl=en&cluster=1017561778629165218

If you prefer a link directly to our preprint: https://doi.org/10.31219/osf.io/gp9w7

#journalism #socialMedia #decisionScience #collectiveIntelligence #socialPsychology #politicalPsychology #epistemology #xPhi

Excited for 2025 presentations in #NYC at the #APA (January 8 to 11): apaonline.org/mpage/2025eastern?utm_source=mastodon&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=fedica-Text-posts

The talk: https://researchgate.net/publication/370132037?utm_source=mastodon&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=fedica-Text-posts
The poster: https://researchgate.net/publication/371248872?utm_source=mastodon&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=fedica-Text-posts

#decisionScience #philosophy #xPhi #epistemology #bioethics #cognitiveScience #surveyMethods #DualProcessTheory

Excited to share YEARS of research about how to get people to think reflectively and how reflection impacts philosophical judgments at the 2025 #APA in #NewYorkCity (January 8 to 11): https://www.apaonline.org/mpage/2025eastern

Can't make it?
- More about my talk: https://researchgate.net/publication/370132037
- More about my poster: https://researchgate.net/publication/371248872

Thanks to the #APA, James Beebe, and the Experimental Philosophy Society for the opportunity!

#decisionScience #philosophy #xPhi #epistemology #bioethics #cognitiveScience #mTurk #Prolific #UniversityParticipants #surveyMethods #DualProcessTheory

Reflective thinking often improves judgment and decisions, but across three experiments reflective thinking didn't seem to predict FEELING better about one's decision: https://doi.org/10.1017/S1930297500009414

This may help explain why we so often underrate reflective thinking.

#logic #criticalThinking #decisionScience #epistemology #xPhi #psychology

Turns out large language models also exhibit "groupthink", but uncertainty doesn't seem to help them mitigate it.

What can you do about it?
1. Increase diversity (via Devil's Advocacy)
2. Reduce redundancies (via Distillation)

Free paper via @tomstafford et al.: https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2410.12428

#AI #LLM #Tech #decisionScience #psychology #epistemology #xPhi #logic #CriticalThinking

Do small groups produce better #argumentation?

A multi-country study of pre-primary, primary, and secondary students (N > 4000) found whole class discussions were more complex and explicit, in aggregate.

#openAccess paper: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10212-024-00914-6

#edu #logic #teaching #xPhi

Adopted and donor-conceived children were way less likely to confound nature and nurture than traditionally-conceived kids (ages 4 to 8).

👨‍👩‍👧‍👦 And this difference wasn’t explained by differences in parents.

📄 Here's the free preprint (otherwise paywalled in Developmental Psychology): https://doi.org/10.31234/osf.io/3e8rj

#parenting #psychScience #childDevelopment #genetics #Adoption #IVF #donorConception #essentialism #xPhi #philMind #philSci

What was the most potent predictor of making so-called essentialist judgments about thought experiments?

😳THE SURVEY MEDIUM?!

Across 10 countries, people who completed the survey with paper and pencil (vs. online) were WAY more likely to exhibit the so-called essentialist judgment.

Why? Exclusion criteria weren't the same for each medium. Sooo 🤷‍♂️.

https://doi.org/10.1111/cogs.13292

#xPhi #Culture #Psychology #Essentialism

Will momentary reflection on a divisive issue change minds?

"At least 45" seconds of reflection on facts about #vaccines, #abortion, #GMOs, #surrogacy, etc. didn't seem to shift people's views from the prior week (N ≅ 800, k = 2).

https://doi.org/10.1111/cogs.70009

#ethics #xPhi #psych

Autistic adults weren't more likely to report lying in everyday situations than non-autistic adults (p - 0.259).

Age and theory of mind predicted fewer lies from non-autistic adults, but not autistics adults.

Lie acceptability predicted more lies in both groups.

https://doi.org/10.1177/13623613231183911

#devPsych #ethics #autism #ASD #moralPsych #xPhi 

Teresa McCormack closed the #SPP2023 #preconference on #memory with “The value of remembering and anticipating experiences: a developmental perspective”

It was—as Teresa put it—dangerously close to an #xPhi talk. It adapted a famous thought experiment (from Derek Parfit?) to test kids’ and adults’ intuitions about how much we care about past, present, or future versions of us.

Follow Dr. McCormack on gScholar: https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=g9T7yn8AAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao

#personalIdentity #PhilMind #psychology #devPsych #P4C

Tamar Kushnir’s #SPP2023 presidential address tried to answer, “When do children become responsible for moral decisions?”

Evidence suggests people’s opinions vary by culture, as do laws, but there’s evidence that kids develop the ability to understand moral aspects of decisions (including that some decisions seem to be moral).

Find/follow Dr. Kushnir on gScholar: https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=TMuSMXoAAAAJ&hl=en

#DevPsych #Ethics #PhilMind #cogSci #xPhi

“Norm Emergence from Cognitive Biases and Cultural Transmission” presented by Scott Partington


Three experiments suggest that people
- Infer impermissibility from imprudence
- that impermissibility can be retained

Why care? Cuz we see biased pedagogy that caused this deontic inference in many developmental contexts (like teaching and parenting).


Collaborators: Rachana Kamtekar, Shaun Nichols

Scott’s on gScholar: https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=jAq0UGIAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao

#DevPsych #xPhi #ethics #teaching #cogSci #SPP2023

Andrew Shtulman's “Reflecting on Possibility: Cognitive Reflection Facilitates the Development of Modal Cognition" replicated and extended finding that kinds think wrong actions are improbable, are improbable events are wrong!

Kids’ reflection test performance predicted kids possibility and permissibility judgments (above and beyond age and executive function).

Follow on gScholar to learn when article is up: https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=Cz8bTrkAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao

#cogSci #decisionScience #DevPsych #ethics #probability #xPhi

Melissa Kibbe shared “Function Arithmetic Computations Over Pre-Symbolic Representations of Quantity in Infants and Children” at #SPP2023:

Research with Cheng empirically distinguished nonsymbolic arithmetic (noticing one physical object is placed next to another) from symbolic arithmetic (1+1=2) are algorithmically distinct, which may limit transfer from nonsymbolic arithmetic formal math.

Find/follow Dr. Kibbe on gScholar: https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=NN4GKo8AAAAJ&hl=en

#DevPsych #math #xPhi #CogSci #PhilMind

There are some new calls and announcements on the X-Phi Blog! Take a look at https://xphi.net/! #xphi #experimentalphilosophy #philosophy

Is solipsism measurable?

Seven studies developed a self-report scale of how much one doubts that others exist (beyond one's own mind).

It correlated with loneliness, social disconnection, aggression, and problematic gaming.

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2025.113463?utm_source=mastodon&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=fedica-Text-posts

#xPhi #psychometrics.#psych

There is something new in the X-Phi Blog’s »Hot Off The Press« series. My book »Empirical Studies on Questions of Need-Based Distributive Justice« has just been published! https://xphi.net/2025/10/08/hot-off-the-press-empirical-studies-on-questions-of-need-based-distributive-justice/ #philosophy #xphi #distributivejustice #justice

Thousands of people in a dozen countries thought reflective reasoning was usually the best way to make a decision in ordinary dilemmas.

Runners up were intuition, friends' advice, and the wisdom of a crowd (in that order).

https://doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2025.1355

#cogSci #epistemology #xPhi

Might the concept of "good judgment" vary by framing or social roles?

Five studies of four countries (🇺🇸🇨🇦🇬🇧🇨🇳) found some words and roles were more associated with "rational" than "reasonable" (and vice versa).

https://doi.org/10.1162/opmi.a.24

#CogSci #xPhi #linguistics #dataViz

Can #AI chatbots handle student discussion better than teachers?

In a controlled study of 83 Chinese adolescents, dialogue with a #generativeAI resulted in more learning than dialogue with a human teacher.

https://doi.org/10.1080/10494820.2025.2521339

#edu #LLM #tech #teaching #policy #CogSci #xPhi

"We do not assume [system 2 is] always better ...than [system 1], or vice versa, .... Some tasks might be better handled by S1..., especially once the system has acquired enough experience": https://doi.org/10.1145/3715709

Amen! https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2505.22987

#cogSci #AI #xPhi #epistemology

There’s a new announcement on the X-Phi Blog: On Tuesday, Nicole Gotzner and Kevin Reuter will give a talk about »Intentionality and Discrimination« on Zoom. Find out more: https://xphi.net/2025/08/31/talk-intentionality-and-discrimination/ #philosophy #xphi

There are three new calls on the X-Phi Blog: »Moral Epistemology and Social Progress«, »Philosophers on Philosophy«, and »Folk Epistemology«. Take a look: https://xphi.net/ #philosophy #xphi

There is some news on the X-Phi Blog, including a call for a conference on »Law’s Many Users« as well as announcements for a workshop and a hackathon on »Data-Driven Methods for Philosophy«! Take a look: https://xphi.net/ #philosophy #xphi

SEP:ssä tykkänään uutena entry taiteen ja estetiikan kokeellisesta filosofiasta, https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/experimental-aesthetics/

Mikä ihmeen X-phi, selviää ensimmäisen hyperlinkin takaa, ja voi siitä vilkaista vaikka täältäkin, http://experimental-philosophy.yale.edu/ExperimentalPhilosophy.html

#taide #estetiikka #art #aesthetics #filosofia #philosophy #experimental #xPhi #sep #new

Does studying economics turn students "into unscrupulous calculating machines"?

In "a sample of #Polish undergraduate students of #Economics (N=408) and #Sociology (N=123) ...we observed that the choices of more advanced #economists-to-be [we]re more #deontological (grounded in norms) than #utilitarian (grounded in benefits) [suggesting] that economic education does not...."

http://dx.doi.org/10.14254/2071-789X.2024/17-2/5

#ethics #moralPsychology #xPhi #higherEd

🚨 Free book alert!

Reason and Less: Pursuing Food, Sex, and Politics via #MITpress: https://doi.org/10.7551/mitpress/12811.001.0001

Dr. Goel follows arguments and evidence from multiple fields in cognitive science to some challenging conclusions about common beliefs. An #openAccess gem!

#neuroscience #psychology #cogSci #epistemology #decisionScience #xPhi #politics #religion #diet