Re: RT list: "negative cognitive effect"?

Bonjour y'all!

Deirdre and I added 'positive' to cognitive effects in the definition of
relevance for the following reason. Relevance is a cost-benefit notion. The
cost is in term of effort (or expenditure of time and energy). The benefit
is in terms of cognitive effects (improvement of one's knowledge state).
But suppose you draw a mistaken inference, or -- looking at communication
-- that you are misled by a communicator, either intentionally or
unwittingly, then, to that extent, you are not getting from cognition or
communication the cognitive benefit that makes cognition and communication
advantageous. Instead of being informed, you are being misinformed. To the
extent that being genuinely informed is beneficial and that, because of
this, cognition is aimed at genuine information, being misinformed is
costly. It is a negative cognitive effect. At that point we had the
following alternative: to define relevance from the subjective point of
view of the individual and to consider relevant whatever causes cognitive
effects; or else define relevance from an objective point of view and
consider only cognitive effects that are genuine improvement in the
individual's state of knowledge. The subjective point of view is of course
asymmetrically dependent on the objective one. Moreover it is the objective
definition that is essential to the justification of the cognitive and
communicative principles of relevance.

Salut! Dan

2013/12/2 Edoardo Acotto <edacotto@yahoo.fr>

> Hallo, I have a question about cognitive effects.
>
> Someone has already analyzed the conceptual implications of the "cognitive
> positive effect"? I mean: someone possibly tried to conceptualize a
> "negative effect" or there is agreement that the opposite of a positive
> effect is a "null effect"?
> Note that, obviously, I'm speaking of effect, not of relevance,
> Thanks for your attention.
>
> Edoardo Acotto
>

-- 
 www.dan.sperber.fr
 www.cognitionandculture.net