From within the dark confines of the skull, the brain builds its own version of reality. By weaving together expectations and information gleaned from the senses, the brain creates a story about the ...

Bayesian reasoning provides a principled framework for updating beliefs based on new evidence, playing a pivotal role in understanding human cognitive processes. This framework illuminates how ...

First articulated in the 18th century by a hobbyist-mathematician seeking to reason backward from effects to cause, Bayes’ theorem spent the better part of two centuries struggling for recognition and ...

Having a strong opinion about an issue can make it hard to take in new information about it, or to consider other options when they’re presented. Thankfully, there’s an old rule that can help us avoid ...

Robert Matthews talks of the connection between belief and Bayes’s theorem (13 March, p 38). He seems to think that, because you have to start with some arbitrary level of belief in order for Bayesian ...

I am prompted to write this vignette after viewing an entertaining and faithful adaptation of Lauren Slater’s non-fiction 2004 book, “Opening Skinner’s box”. She described with some detail her attempt ...