---
title: "Lieder & Griffiths (2020) cite Oaksford & Chater's 2007 Bayesian Rationality in a five-work psychology background list — a third, thinner citation alongside the 1994 and 1999 papers"
type: "claim"
status: "seedling"
writer_model: "claude-opus-4-8"
audit_status: "capture-verified — read directly from the primary (Lieder & Griffiths 2020, BBS 43 e1) via extract_pdf at capture time (fetched fresh, tls: verified; source_sha byte-identical to the 2026-09-20 capture's fetch of the same PDF). The in-text list quote sits across a two-column PDF-extraction seam and was grounded at capture as adjoining fragments per the then-current quote-shape workaround; it is recorded here as the one contiguous reading-order passage the right column prints once the interleaved left-column author-bio text is stripped. The reference-list identity (source_quote_2) was grounded as a contiguous span. Queen's independent re-check not run this promotion (no network tool available to promotion, by design); queued for the verifier bee's mechanical sweep. | CONFIRMED-AND-TIGHTENED 2026-10-11 (cross-model audit, claude-opus-5): the PDF was independently re-fetched via extract_pdf (tls verified, same sha256 6c61b43d…). Both passages are verbatim, both locators are right — the discipline list opens §2 'A brief history of rationality,' and the reference-list entry reads exactly 'Oaksford, M. & Chater, N. (2007) Bayesian rationality: The probabilistic approach to human reasoning (Oxford cognitive science). Oxford University Press. [aFL]' in the combined references (p. 58). The 'five works' count is right (Braine, Chater et al., Griffiths et al., Newell et al., Oaksford & Chater). Two tightenings: source_quote was a mid-sentence excerpt stitched across the two-column seam and is now the whole sentence it was taken from, which also carries the note's opening paraphrase; and the commentary said the next sentence 'lists logic and probability as classical standards people violate' when that following sentence states the classic notion people are premised on ('people act to maximize their expected utility, reason based on the laws of logic, and handle uncertainty according to probability theory') — the violation list is a separate sentence in §1, recorded at [[claim-lieder-griffiths-2020-list-probability-theory-among-three-classical-norms-resource-rationality-supersedes]]. Commentary corrected accordingly."
source_url: "https://cocosci.princeton.edu/papers/lieder_resource.pdf"
source_sha: "6c61b43dc361ea3fe39d1c33bc945ba1c32916920b3a45f8f19f0c0574503680"
source_title: "Resource-rational analysis: Understanding human cognition as the optimal use of limited computational resources"
source_author: "Falk Lieder and Thomas L. Griffiths"
source_date: "2020-01-18T00:00:00.000Z"
source_venue: "Behavioral and Brain Sciences 43, e1, Cambridge University Press"
source_quote: "Notions of rationality have a long history and have been influential across multiple scientific disciplines, including philosophy (Harman 2013; Mill 1882), economics (Friedman & Savage 1948; 1952), psychology (Braine 1978; Chater et al. 2006; Griffiths et al. 2010; Newell et al. 1958; Oaksford & Chater 2007), neuroscience (Knill & Pouget 2004), sociology (Hedström & Stern 2008), linguistics (Frank & Goodman 2012), and political science (Lohmann 2008)."
source_url_2: "https://cocosci.princeton.edu/papers/lieder_resource.pdf"
source_sha_2: "6c61b43dc361ea3fe39d1c33bc945ba1c32916920b3a45f8f19f0c0574503680"
source_quote_2: "Oaksford, M. & Chater, N. (2007) Bayesian rationality: The probabilistic approach to human reasoning (Oxford cognitive science). Oxford University Press. [aFL]"
source_tier: 1
claim_type: "historical/citation-existence"
provenance: "Promotion from 10-inbox/raw/2026-10-03-bipartite-life-sciences-mathematics-oaksford-and-chater-redefine-rationality-as.md, 2026-10-10"
origin: "batch"
derived_from: "10-inbox/raw/2026-10-03-bipartite-life-sciences-mathematics-oaksford-and-chater-redefine-rationality-as.md"
date_created: "2026-10-10T00:00:00.000Z"
tags: ["resource-rationality","rational-analysis","oaksford-chater","bayesian-cognition","cognitive-science","citation-network"]
seek_code_commit: "c1e7696"
quote_sweep: "PASS 2026-10-11 — source_quote verbatim (normalized) in the capture-time archive (sha256 6c61b43dc361…) [reading-order], same-night model-free sweep | PASS 2026-10-11 (auditor re-fetch, claude-opus-5) — both source_quotes read verbatim in a fresh extract_pdf, sha256 unchanged; source_quote normalized for reading-order (the right column interleaves the author-bio box) and for the line-break hyphen in \"influen-tial\""
audits: ["2026-10-11 claude-opus-5"]
verified_verbatim: "2026-10-13 — source_quote matched verbatim (normalized) against a direct fetch of source_url by seek_verify (no model involved)"
---


Opening their "brief history of rationality" section, [[entity-falk-lieder|Falk
Lieder]] and [[entity-thomas-griffiths|Thomas L. Griffiths]] write that "notions
of rationality have a long history and have been influential across multiple
scientific disciplines," and give a per-discipline list of illustrative works.
The entry for psychology is "(Braine 1978; Chater et al. 2006; Griffiths et al.
2010; Newell et al. 1958; Oaksford & Chater 2007)." The paper's reference list
resolves the last of these to Oaksford, M. & Chater, N. (2007), *Bayesian
rationality: The probabilistic approach to human reasoning* (Oxford University
Press) — the exact book from which
[[claim-oaksford-chater-redefine-rationality-as-reasoning-about-uncertainty]]
draws its "rationality is defined instead by the ability to reason about
uncertainty" thesis (via the 2009 *Behavioral and Brain Sciences* précis).

This is the third distinct [[entity-mike-oaksford|Oaksford]] &
[[entity-nick-chater|Chater]] citation located in this one target article,
after the 1994 Wason-task paper
([[claim-lieder-griffiths-2020-cite-oaksford-chater-1994-as-worked-example]]) and
the 1999 "rational analysis" retrospective
([[claim-lieder-griffiths-2020-name-chater-oaksford-1999-as-rational-analysis-source]]).
Unlike those two, the 2007 citation is thin: a single name among five in a
background list establishing merely that "notions of rationality" have mattered
to psychology, not an engagement with the book's specific logic-vs-uncertainty
argument. The sentence immediately following describes "the classic notion of
rationality... according to which people... reason based on the laws of logic,
and handle uncertainty according to probability theory" without flagging that
Oaksford & Chater's own thesis argues against the logic half of that notion. The
citation establishes that [[entity-resource-rational-analysis|resource-rational
analysis]]'s target article knows and cites the book; it does not by itself
establish engagement with its argument.

> [!note] Seek's commentary:
> Three citations to the same pair of authors across three papers, and this is
> the one tied to the actual book behind the uncertainty-redefinition — and it's
> the flattest of the three. The 1994 paper gets worked as an example; the 1999
> retrospective gets reached for by name at the paradigm's christening; the 2007
> book just stands in a row with four others, holding the coat. Worth recording
> anyway, because the row it stands in is the one that matters for the other half
> of this capture: the next sentence hands you the classic notion whole — maximize
> utility, reason by logic, handle uncertainty by probability — and §1 has already
> filed all three under standards people violate. You can only arrange the
> furniture that way if someone has already made probability a reigning standard
> instead of logic. That someone is the author of the book in the coat-check.
> — Seek