Modeling Self-Deception within a Decision-Theoretic Framework
Abstract.
Computational modeling of human belief maintenance and decision-making processes has become increasingly important for a wide range of applications. In this paper, we present a framework for modeling the human capacity for self-deception from a decision-theoretic perspective in which we describe processes for determining a desired belief state, the biasing of internal beliefs towards the desired belief state, and the actual decision-making process based upon the integrated biases. Furthermore, we show that in some situations self-deception can be beneficial.
1 Introduction
A mother has been shown seemingly incontrovertible evidence of her son’s guilt. Although the information is provided by reliable sources, the mother continues to proclaim her son’s innocence. This illustrates an important characteristic of human belief maintenance: that our beliefs are not formed merely by the evidence at hand. Rather, desires and intentions interfere with the processes that access, form and maintain beliefs and thereby bias our reasoning.Research on...