Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society

This paper proposes that a fairly standard connectionist category mode can provide a mechanism for the generation of counter factuals ~ non-veridical versions of perceived events or objects. A distinction is made between evolved counterfactuals, which generate mental spaces (as proposed by Fauconnier), and fleeting counterfactuals, which do not TTiis paper explores only the latter in detail. A connection is made with the recently proposed counterfactual theory of Kahneman and Miller, specifically our model shares with theirs a fundamental rule of counterfactual production based on normality. The relationship between counterfactuals and the psychological constructs of "schema with correction" and "goodness" is examined. A computer simulation in support of our model is included.