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Mechanistic curiosity will not kill the Bayesian cat

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 August 2011

Denny Borsboom ,
Eric-Jan Wagenmakers  and
Jan-Willem Romeijn
Denny Borsboom
Affiliation:
Department of Psychology, University of Amsterdam, 1018 WB Amsterdam, The Netherlands. dennyborsboom@gmail.comej.wagenmakers@gmail.comhttp://sites.google.com/site/borsboomdenny/dennyborsboomhttp://www.ejwagenmakers.com/
Eric-Jan Wagenmakers
Affiliation:
Department of Psychology, University of Amsterdam, 1018 WB Amsterdam, The Netherlands. dennyborsboom@gmail.comej.wagenmakers@gmail.comhttp://sites.google.com/site/borsboomdenny/dennyborsboomhttp://www.ejwagenmakers.com/
Jan-Willem Romeijn
Affiliation:
Department of Philosophy, University of Groningen, 9712 GL Groningen, The Netherlands. j.w.romeijn@rug.nlhttp://www.philos.rug.nl/~romeyn
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Abstract

Jones & Love (J&L) suggest that Bayesian approaches to the explanation of human behavior should be constrained by mechanistic theories. We argue that their proposal misconstrues the relation between process models, such as the Bayesian model, and mechanisms. While mechanistic theories can answer specific issues that arise from the study of processes, one cannot expect them to provide constraints in general.

Type
Open Peer Commentary
Information
Behavioral and Brain Sciences , Volume 34 , Issue 4 , August 2011 , pp. 192 - 193
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2011

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