The Relevance of Alternative Possibilities throughout Cognition

Research in a number of different fields has independently argued for the importance of providing a place for modality— that is, some way of representing alternative possibilities that could have happened, but actually did not (e.g., Kratzer, 2012; Lewis, 1973; Pearl, 2000). In each of these cases, the key insight has been that people’s understanding of the things that occur is shaped in some central way by their understanding of these alternative possibilities. Work throughout these fields has emphasized that people do not treat all alternative possibilities equally. Instead, they regard certain possibilities as relevant, while treating others as irrelevant (Portner, 2009; Roese, 1997). Within this research, one consistent theme has been that norms (statistical, moral, conventional, etc.) influence how these alternative possibilities are represented. This symposium focuses on new empirical and theoretical approaches to the role of modality throughout human cognition, and highlights the role of different norms in modal cognition. Phillips and Knobe present a framework for the psychological representation of modality designed to capture the impact of factors such as probability and morality, and then go on to present new data in support of their proposed approach. Shtulman discusses the development of modal cognition, and reports empirical evidence that statistical and moral norms affect beliefs about what is possible, permissible and real. Kalish presents new research on the modal judgments underlying children’s reasoning about norms. Hitchcock combines research on the availability of counterfactual alternatives in developing a framework that accounts for ordinary judgments of causation. As a group, these four presentations showcase new developments in the emerging research on modal cognition and its relation to norms.