The Metatheoretical Nature of the Violation of Expectation Paradigm

GINNOBILI, SANTIAGO

Madrid

Workshop; Life, Evolution, Sentience: A Philosophical Colloquium.; 2024

UNED

One of the most widely used procedures applied to non-human animals or pre-linguistic humans is the “violation of expectation paradigm”. Curiously there is no reflection in the philosophical literature about it. Our objective will be to provide a first approach to the meta-theoretical nature of the assumptions behind the procedure that appeals to the violation of expectation and to extract some consequences. We show that behind them exist a factual principle that affirms that the violation of the expectation of certain mental rules generates surprise. We then proceeded to discuss the nature of these "mental rules". We show that, as is often the case with theoretical concepts proposed by theories, it does not have a fixed interpretation. This allows us to show that the usual relationship between this experimental paradigm and cognitive approaches is not necessary. Finally, we relate this experimental design with the mark test and the unequal pay test and discuss the possible ampliation of the application of the factual principle of violation of expectation.