Triangulating Surprise: Expectations, Uncertainty, and Making Sense

Surprise is a ubiquitous phenomenon that both draws on cognition and affects cognition , in a number of different ways. For example , in artificial intelligence an agent in a changing and imperfectly - known environment has been argued to need a surprise mechanism to survive. This symposium brings together researchers in education, computer science, cognitive psychology, and business to explore the relationship between surprise and cognition , and how it might be harnessed across domains. We will open with a touchstone challenge: How can surpris ing information be recruited to promote learning ? (Munnich & Ranney) Then we will explore several perspectives on surprise, ranging from violation of expectations created through repetition (Loewenstein) to a focus on the information content of surprising events (Maguire & Maguire) , to the apparently conflicting roles surprise may play in judgment (May, Smith - Rodden, & Ash). Our final speakers (Foster & Keane) will synthesize these approaches , and present a broad framework for future research on surprise within the cognitive sciences