Patricia Cheng
{{Short description|American psychologist (born 1952)}}
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| birth_date = 1952
| birth_place = Hong Kong
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| alma_mater = Barnard College, University of Michigan
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| discipline =psychology
| sub_discipline = cognitive psychology
| work_institutions = Chinese University of Hong Kong
University of California, Los Angeles
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| main_interests = understanding of causality
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Patricia Wenjie Cheng (born 1952) is a Chinese American psychologist.{{Cite web|url=http://reasoninglab.psych.ucla.edu/PatriciaChengVita.html|title=September, 2013 Vita {{!}} Patricia Wenjie Cheng|website=UCLA Reasoning Lab|access-date=2019-12-24}} She is a leading researcher in cognitive psychology who works on human reasoning. She is best known for her psychological work on human understanding of causality. Her "power theory of the probabilistic contrast model," or power PC theory (1997)Cheng, P.W. (1997). "From Covariation to Causation: A Causal Power Theory." Psychological Review 104: 367-405. posits that people filter observations of events through a basic belief that causes have the power to generate (or prevent) their effects, thereby inferring specific cause-effect relations.
Biography
Cheng was born in Hong Kong in 1952. She received her B.A. from Barnard College, and her PhD in Psychology from the University of Michigan in 1980. She then taught at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. After post-doctoral training in the Department of Computer Science at Carnegie-Mellon University, she joined the faculty of the University of California, Los Angeles in 1986, where she is now a Professor of Psychology. Cheng received a fellowship from the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation in 2000.See list of Guggenheim Fellows on the [http://www.gf.org/index.html Guggenheim Foundation website]. {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20081024032311/http://www.gf.org/index.html |date=2008-10-24 }} She is also a Fellow of the Association for Psychological Science.{{cite web |url=https://www.psychologicalscience.org/fellows/NewFellows.cfm |title=APS Fellows |website=Association for Psychological Science |access-date=2018-05-19 |archive-date=2018-05-20 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180520060116/https://www.psychologicalscience.org/fellows/NewFellows.cfm |url-status=dead }}
Selected works
- {{cite journal|ref=none|doi=10.1016/0010-0285(85)90014-3|pmid=4064622|title=Pragmatic reasoning schemas|journal=Cognitive Psychology|volume=17|issue=4|pages=391–416|year=1985|last1=Cheng|first1=Patricia W.|last2=Holyoak|first2=Keith J.|author-link2=Keith Holyoak|hdl=2027.42/25556|s2cid=5316709|hdl-access=free}}
- {{cite journal|ref=none|doi=10.1016/0010-0285(86)90002-2|pmid=3742999|title=Pragmatic versus syntactic approaches to training deductive reasoning|journal=Cognitive Psychology|volume=18|issue=3|pages=293–328|year=1986|last1=Cheng|first1=Patricia W.|last2=Holyoak|first2=Keith J.|last3=Nisbett|first3=Richard E.|author-link3=Richard E. Nisbett|last4=Oliver|first4=Lindsay M.|hdl=2027.42/26121|s2cid=10376933|hdl-access=free}}
- {{cite journal|ref=none|doi=10.1126/science.3672116|pmid=3672116|title=Teaching reasoning|journal=Science|volume=238|issue=4827|pages=625–631|year=1987|last1=Nisbett|first1=R.|last2=Fong|first2=G.|last3=Lehman|first3=D.|last4=Cheng|first4=P.|bibcode=1987Sci...238..625N}}
- {{cite journal|ref=none|doi=10.1016/0010-0277(89)90031-0|pmid=2605884|title=On the natural selection of reasoning theories|journal=Cognition|volume=33|issue=3|pages=285–313|year=1989|last1=Cheng|first1=Patricia W.|last2=Holyoak|first2=Keith J.|s2cid=26131874}}
- {{cite journal|ref=none|doi=10.1016/0010-0277(91)90047-8|title=Causes versus enabling conditions|journal=Cognition|volume=40|issue=1–2|pages=83–120|year=1991|last1=Cheng|first1=Patricia W.|last2=Novick|first2=Laura R.|pmid=1786673|s2cid=15106017}}
- {{cite journal|ref=none|doi=10.1037/0033-295X.104.2.367|title=From covariation to causation: A causal power theory|journal=Psychological Review|volume=104|issue=2|pages=367–405|year=1997|last1=Cheng|first1=Patricia W.}}
- {{cite journal|ref=none|doi=10.1037/a0013256|title=Bayesian generic priors for causal learning|journal=Psychological Review|volume=115|issue=4|pages=955–984|year=2008|last1=Lu|first1=Hongjing|last2=Yuille|first2=Alan L.|author-link2=Alan Yuille|last3=Liljeholm|first3=Mimi|last4=Cheng|first4=Patricia W.|last5=Holyoak|first5=Keith J.|pmid=18954210|s2cid=10871785 |url=http://www.escholarship.org/uc/item/2595d045}}
- {{cite journal|ref=none|doi=10.1146/annurev.psych.121208.131634|pmid=21126179|title=Causal Learning and Inference as a Rational Process: The New Synthesis|journal=Annual Review of Psychology|volume=62|pages=135–163|year=2011|last1=Holyoak|first1=Keith J.|last2=Cheng|first2=Patricia W.|s2cid=15335444}}
See also
References
{{reflist}}
External links
- [http://www.psych.ucla.edu/faculty/faculty_page?id=42&area=3/ Patricia Cheng's UCLA home page]
- [http://reasoninglab.psych.ucla.edu/ Patricia Cheng's Research Lab]
{{DEFAULTSORT:Cheng, Patricia}}
Category:American women psychologists
Category:University of California, Los Angeles faculty
Category:University of Michigan alumni
Category:Barnard College alumni
Category:American people of Chinese descent
Category:21st-century American women