The epistemic innocence of clinical memory distortions

The epistemic innocence of motivated delusions

Delusions are defined as irrational beliefs that compromise good functioning. However, in the empirical literature, delusions have been found to have some psychological benefits. One proposal is that some delusions defuse negative emotions and protect one from low self-esteem by allowing motivational influences on belief formation. In this paper I focus on delusions that have been construed as ...

Implicit bias, confabulation, and epistemic innocence

In this paper I explore the nature of confabulatory explanations of action guided by implicit bias. I claim that such explanations can have significant epistemic benefits in spite of their obvious epistemic costs, and that such benefits are not otherwise obtainable by the subject at the time at which the explanation is offered. I start by outlining the kinds of cases I have in mind, before char...

Memory and epistemic conservatism

Distortions in Memory for Maps

Evidence is presented for systematic errors in memory for real and artificial maps, local environments, and visual forms. These errors are attributed to two heuristics that are derived from principles of perceptual organization. Maps of countries or localities are conceived of as figures in backgrounds. Remembering the absolute location of figures is difficult, and is facilitated by remembering...

The Anatomy of Innocence

We reveal a symmetric structure in the ho/n games model of innocent strategies, introducing rigid strategies, a concept dual to bracketed strategies. We prove a direct definability theorem of general innocent strategies with respect to a simply typed language of extended Böhm trees, which gives an operational meaning to rigidity in call-byname. A corresponding factorization of innocent strategi...