Session 6 - Mathematical Modeling Part 4

Empirical calibration + simulated experiments

1 Overview

Topic Duration Notes
Homework wrapup: TCM 30
Lecture: Intro 2: What is (not) a theory? (catch up from last session) 90 Slides
Formalization: Mathematical Models 3 60 Slides, Steps 4-5

2 Homework (individually)

Read: Van Dongen et al. (2024). Productive explanation: A framework for evaluating explanations in psychological science. Psychological Review. https://doi.org/10.1037/rev0000479 (available in the /literature folder):

  • Question 1: What is the role an original authors should play when predictions are derived from a theory?

  • Question 2: Are phenomena, according to Bogen and Woodward, directly observable?

  • Question 3: What are two intermediate processes that are necessary for providing a productive explanation?

  • Question 4: According to the authors, what are the three steps of productive explanation?

  • Question 5: What does the paper identify as a limitation of verbal psychological theories compared to formal models in other scientific disciplines?

  • Question 6: What criteria are suggested for evaluating the quality of explanations in the productive explanation framework?

  • Question 7: Does Model 3 of the Regulatory Resource Theory explain the ego-depletion effect?

Deliverable: Submit answers to the guiding questions as a plain text/markdown file to the course’s Github repo (go to homework/04-Productive_explanations and upload an .md file with your name as filename). You can answer in English or in German. Most questions can be easily answered in one sentence. Feel free to copy and paste the relevant sentences from the paper.