Publications

Each of the following papers involves the study of, or the fostering of, the incorporation of challenging information into individuals' conceptual systems.

Reinforced Theistic Manifest Destiny and Some Evolution-Related Papers (2000-present)
Reasoning with Numbers / Numerically Driven Inferencing Papers (2003-2010)
Convince Me and ECHO Papers (1988-2010)
Selected Other Papers of Potential Interest (1980-2008)

Reinforced Theistic Manifest Destiny and Some Evolution- and Climate-Related Papers

Kihiczak, A., & Ranney, M. A. (2023). CO2 as "Carbon DiLoopy:" Boosting people's global warming acceptance and concern by explaining CO2's cognitive effects. In M. Goldwater, F. K. Anggoro, B. K. Hays, & D. C. Ong (Eds), Proceedings of the 45th Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society (pp. 1615-1623).

Senthilkumaran, A., Velautham, L., & Ranney, M. A. (2023). Explanatory refutation texts increase epistemic trust in climate scientists and anthropogenic global warming acceptance. In P. Blikstein, J. V. Aalst, R. Kizito, & K. Brennan (Eds.) Proceedings of the 17th International Conference of the Learning Sciences (pp. 513-520). International Society of the Learning Sciences.

Senthilkumaran, A., Velautham, L., & Ranney, M. A. (2023). Supplemental material about trusting scientists, etc., for Senthilkumaran, Velautham, & Ranney (2023).

Ranney, M.A., & Velautham, L. (2021). Climate change cognition and education: Given no silver bullet for denial, diverse information-hunks increase global warming acceptance. Current Opinion in Behavioral Sciences,42, 139-146. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cobeha.2021.08.001

Velautham, L., & Ranney, M. A. (2020). Global warming, nationalism, and reasoning with numbers: Toward techniques to promote the public's critical thinking about statistics. In S. Denison., M. Mack, Y. Xu, & B.C. Armstrong (Eds.), Proceedings of the 42nd Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society(pp. 1834-1840). Cognitive Science Society.

Munnich, E. L., & Ranney, M.A. (2019). Learning from surprise: Harnessing a metacognitive surprise signal to build and adapt belief networks. Topics in Cognitive Science, 11, 164-177. https://doi.org/10.1111/tops.12397

Ranney, M.A., Shonman, M., Fricke, K., Lamprey, L. N., & Kumar, P. & (2019). Information that boosts normative global warming acceptance without polarization: Toward J. S. Mill's political ethology of national character. In D. A. Wilkenfeld & R. Samuels (Eds.) Advances in experimental philosophy of science (pp. 61-96). (In Bloomsbury's Advances in Experimental Philosophy series.) New York: Bloomsbury.

Velautham, L., Ranney, M. A., Brow, Q. S. (2019). Communicating climate change oceanically: Sea level rise information increases mitigation, inundation, and global warming acceptance. Frontiers in Communication, 4, 1-17 [article 7, 17 pages].

van der Linden, S., Maibach, E., Cook, J., Leiserowitz, A., Ranney, M., Lewandowsky, S., �rvai, J., & Weber, E. (2017). Culture vs. cognition is a false dilemma. Nature Climate Change, 7. 457.

Yarnall, L., & Ranney, M. A. (2017). Fostering scientific and numerate practices in journalism to support rapid public learning, Numeracy, 10 (1), article 3. doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.5038/1936-4660.10.1.3 Also available at: http://scholarcommons.usf.edu/numeracy/vol10/iss1/art3

Ranney, M. A., Munnich, E. L., & Lamprey, L. N. (2016). Increased wisdom from the ashes of ignorance and surprise: Numerically-driven inferencing, global warming, and other exemplar realms. In B. H. Ross (Ed.), The psychology of learning and motivation, 65, 129-182. New York: Elsevier. doi:10.1016/bs.plm.2016.03.005.

Ranney, M. A., & Clark, D. (2016). Climate change conceptual change: Scientific information can transform attitudes. Topics in Cognitive Science, 8, 49-75. doi: 10.1111/tops.12187.

Clark, D., & Ranney, M. A., & Felipe, J. (2013). Knowledge Helps: Mechanistic Information and Numeric Evidence as Cognitive Levers to Overcome Stasis and Build Public Consensus on Climate Change. In M. Knauff, M. Pauen, N. Sebanz, & I. Wachsmuth (Eds.) Proceedings of 35th Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society (pp. 2070- 2075). Austin, TX: Cognitive Science Society.

Ranney, M.A., Clark, D., Reinholz, D., & Cohen, S. (2012). Changing global warming beliefs with scientific information: Knowledge, attitudes, and RTMD (Reinforced Theistic Manifest Destiny theory). In N. Miyake, D. Peebles, & R. P. Cooper (Eds.), Proceedings of the 34th Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society (pp. 2228-2233). Austin, TX: Cognitive Science Society.

Ranney, M.A., Clark, D., Reinholz, D., & Cohen, S. (2012). Improving Americans' modest global warming knowledge in the light of RTMD (Reinforced Theistic Manifest Destiny) theory. In J. van Aalst, K. Thompson, M. M. Jacobson, & P. Reimann (Eds.), The Future of Learning: Proceedings of the Tenth International Conference of the Learning Sciences, Volume 2 (pp. 2-481 to 2-482). International Society of the Learning Sciences, Inc.

Ranney, M.A. (2012). Why don't Americans accept evolution as much as people in peer nations do? A theory (Reinforced Theistic Manifest Destiny) and some pertinent evidence. In K. S. Rosengren, S. K. Brem, E. M. Evans, & G. M. Sinatra (Eds.) Evolution challenges: Integrating research and practice in teaching and learning about evolution (pp. 233-269). Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Ranney, M.A., & Thanukos, A. (2011). Accepting evolution or creation in people, critters, plants, and classrooms: The maelstrom of American cognition about biological change. In R. S. Taylor & M. Ferrari (Eds.) Epistemology and science education: Understanding the evolution vs. intelligent design controversy (pp. 143-172). New York: Routledge.

Brem, S.K., Ranney, M., & Schindel, J. (2003). Perceived consequences of evolution: College students perceive negative personal and social impact in evolutionary theory. Science Education, 87, 181-206.

Kaufman, D., Ranney, M., Lewis, E., Thanukos, A., & Brem, S. (2000). Was apatosaurus a vegan? Dinosaur knowledge rocks when learning about evolution. Proceedings of the Twenty-second Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society (pp. 741-746). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.

Reasoning With Numbers / Numerically Driven Inferencing Papers

Ranney, M. A., & Clark, D. (2016). Climate change conceptual change: Scientific information can transform attitudes. Topics in Cognitive Science, 8, 49-75. doi: 10.1111/tops.12187.

Clark, D., & Ranney, M.A. (2010). Known knowns and unknown knowns: Multiple memory routes to improved numerical estimation. In K. Gomez, L. Lyons, & J. Radinsky (Eds.), Learning in the Disciplines: Proceedings of the Ninth International Conference of the Learning Sciences, Volume 1-Full Papers (pp. 460-467). International Society of the Learning Sciences, Inc.

Ranney, M. A., Rinne, L. F., Yarnall, L., Munnich, E., Miratirx, L., & Schank, P. (2008). Designing and assessing numeracy training for journalists: Toward improving quantitative reasoning among media consumers. In P A. Kirschner, F. Prins, V. Jonker, & G. Kanselaar (Eds.), International Perspectives in the Learning Sciences: Proceedings of the Eighth International Conference for the Learning Sciences, Volume 2 (pp. 2-246-2-253). International Society of the Learning Sciences, Inc.

Munnich, E., Ranney, M.A., Song, M. (2007). Surprise, surprise: The role of surprising numerical feedback in belief change. In D.S. McNamara & G. Trafton (Eds.) Proceedings of the Twenty-ninth Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society (pp. 503-508). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.

Rinne, L.F., Ranney, M.A., & Lurie, N.H. (2006). Estimation as a catalyst for numeracy: Micro-interventions that increase the use of numerical information in decision-making. In S. Barab, K. Hay, & D. Hickey (Eds.). Proceedings of the Seventh International Conference of the Learning Sciences (pp. 571-577). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.

Munnich, E., Ranney, M., & Bachman, M. L. N. (2005). The longevities of policy-shifts and memories due to single feedback numbers. In B.G. Bara, L. Barsalou, & M. Bucciarelli (Eds.) Proceedings of the Twenty-seventh Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society (pp. 1553-1558). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.

Garcia de Osuna, J., Ranney, M., & Nelson, J. (2004). Qualitative and quantitative effects of surprise: (Mis)estimates, rationales, and feedback-induced preference changes while considering abortion. In K. Forbus, D. Gentner, & T. Regier (Eds.), Proceedings of the Twenty-Sixth Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society (pp. 422-427). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.

Garcia de Osuna, J., Ranney, M., Nelson, J., & Germine, L. (2004). Numerically Driven Inferencing about abortion: Estimation and rate feedback's diverse effects on personal policies and justifications. In Y.B. Kafai, N. Enyedy, & W. Sandoval (Eds), Proceedings of the Sixth International Conference of the Learning Sciences, 600. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.

Munnich, E., Ranney, M., & Appel, D. (2004). Numerically-Driven Inferencing in instruction: The relatively broad transfer of estimation skills. In K. Forbus, D. Gentner, & T. Regier (Eds.), Proceedings of the Twenty-Sixth Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society (pp. 987-992). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.

Munnich, E., Ranney, M., Nelson, J., Garcia de Osuna, J., & Brazil, N. (2003). Policy shift through Numerically-Driven Inferencing: An EPIC experiment about when base rates matter. In R. Alterman & D. Kirsh (Eds.), Proceedings of the Twenty-Fifth Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society (pp. 834-839). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.

Convince Me and ECHO Papers

Scheuer, O., Loll, F., Pinkwart, N., McLaren, B. (2010). Computer-supported argumentation: A review of the state of the art. International Journal of Computer-Supported Collaborative Learning, 5(1), 43-102. (Reviews Convince Me and other argumentation systems.)

Adams, S. (2003). Investigation of the "Convince Me" computer environment as a tool for critical argumentation about public policy issues. Journal of Interactive Learning Reseach 14(3), 263-283.

Siegel, M., & Ranney, M. (2003). Developing the Changes in Attitude about the Relevance of Science (CARS) questionnaire and assessing two high school science classes. Journal of Research in Science Teaching, 40(8), 757-775.

Diehl, C., Ranney, M., & Schank, P. (2001). Model-based feedback supports reflective activity in collaborative argumentation. In P. Dillenbourg, A. Eurelings, & K. Hakkarainen (Eds.), European perspectives on computer-supported collaborative learning (pp. 189-196) [Proceedings of the First European Conference on Computer-Supported Collaborative Learning], Netherlands: Universiteit Maastricht.

Diehl, C. (2001). Computers and students as instructional partners: The role of simulation feedback in collaborative argumentation. (Doctoral dissertation, University of California, Berkeley, 2001). Dissertation Abstracts International. [Won the 2001 Outstanding Dissertation Award from UC Berkeley's Graduate School of Education.]

Siegel, M. (1999). Teaching science for public understanding: Developing decision-making abilities. (Doctoral dissertation, University of California, Berkeley, 1999). Dissertation Abstracts International.

Adams, S. (1998). What is "good reasoning" about global warming? A comparison of high school students and specialists. (Doctoral dissertation, University of California, Berkeley, 1998). Dissertation Abstracts International.

Ranney, M. & Schank, P. (1998). Toward an integration of the social and the scientific: Observing, modeling, and promoting the explanatory coherence of reasoning. In S. Read and L. Miller (Eds.), Connectionist models of social reasoning and social behavior (pp. 245-274). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.

Weidner, J., Ranney, M., & Steinbach, A. (1998). Using Convince Me to assess medical reasoning skills (and vice versa). Proceedings of the International Conference of the Learning Sciences (ICLS 98; pp. 284-290). Charlottesville, VA: AACE.

Diehl, C., Ranney, M., & Schank, P. (1995). Multiple representations for improving scientific thinking. Report No. TP-024-671, ERIC Document Reproduction Service No. ED 392 842; pp. 1-36.

Ranney, M., & Schank, P. (1995). Protocol modeling, bifurcation/bootstrapping, and Convince Me: Computer-based methods for studying beliefs and their revision. Behavior Research Methods, Instruments and Computers, 27, 239-243.

Ranney, M., Schank, P., & Diehl, C. (1995). Competence Versus Performance in Critical Reasoning: Reducing the Gap by Using Convince Me. Psychology Teaching Review, 4, 2, 151-164.

Schank, P. (1995). Computational tools for modeling and aiding reasoning: Assessing and applying the Theory of Explanatory Coherence. (Doctoral dissertation, University of California, Berkeley, 1995). Dissertation Abstracts International. [Won the 1995 Outstanding Dissertation Award from UC Berkeley's Graduate School of Education.]

Schank, P, & Ranney, M. (1995). Improved reasoning with Convince Me. Human Factors in Computing Systems CHI '95 Conference Companion, 276-277. New York, NY: Association for Computing Machinery.

Hoadley, C., Ranney, M., & Schank, P. (1994). WanderECHO: A connectionist simulation of limited coherence. Proceedings of the Sixteenth Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society, 421-426, Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.

Ranney,M., Schank, P., & Diehl, C. (1994). Reducing the competence/performance gap with Convince Me, the reasoner's workbench. In A. Trapp & N. Hammond (Eds.), Computers in Psychology Handbook, 54-56. York, England: CTI Centre For Psychology, University of York. [Also to appear in Psychology Software News.]

Ranney, M., Schank, P., Hoadley, C., & Neff, J. (1994). "I know one when I see one": How (much) do hypotheses differ from evidence? In R. Fidel, B. H. Kwasnik, C. Beghtol, & P. J.Smith (Eds.) Advances in classification research: Vol. 5. (ASIS Monograph Series; pp. 141-158, etc.) Medford, NJ: Learned Information. [An earlier version appeared in the (October, 1994) Proceedings of the Fifth American Society for Information Science SIG/CR Workshop on Classification Research (pp. 139-156, etc.).]

Schank, P., Ranney, M., & Hoadley, C. (1994, 1995, 1999, etc.). Convince Me [Computer program and manual]. In J.R. Jungck, N. Peterson, & J.N. Calley (Eds.), The BioQUEST Library. College Park, MD: Academic Software Development Group, University of Maryland. [See the Convince Me software.]

Schank, P., Ranney, M., Hoadley, C., Diehl, C., & Neff, J. (1994). A reasoner's workbench for improving scientific thinking: Assessing Convince Me. Proceedings of the International Symposium on Mathematics/Science Education and Technology. Charlottesville, VA: AACE.

Ranney, M., Schank, P., Mosmann, A., & Montoya, G. (1993). Dynamic explanatory coherence with competing beliefs: Locally coherent reasoning and a proposed treatment. In T.-W. Chan (Ed.), Proceedings of the International Conference on Computers in Education: Applications of Intelligent Computer Technologies (pp. 101-106).

Schank, P. & Ranney, M. (1993). Can reasoning be taught? Educator, 7 (1), 16-21. [Special issue on Cognitive Science and Education].

Schank, P., and Ranney, M. (1992). Assessing explanatory coherence: A new method for integrating verbal data with models of on-line belief revision. Proceedings of the Fourteenth Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society, 599-604. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum. [David Marr Memorial Prize was awarded to the first author for this article.]

Schank, P., and Ranney, M. (1991). The psychological fidelity of ECHO: Modeling an experimental study of explanatory coherence. Proceedings of the Thirteenth Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society, 892-897. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.

Ranney, M., & Thagard, P. (1988). Explanatory coherence and belief revision in naive physics. Proceedings of the Tenth Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society (pp. 426-432). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum. (Also appears as Report No. SE-050-095, ERIC Document Reproduction Service No. ED 301 407; pp. 1-15.)

Selected Other Papers of Potential Interest

Ranney, M. (2008). Studies in historical replication in psychology VII: The relative utility of "ancestor analysis" from scientific and educational vantages. Science & Education, 17(5), 547-558.

Kaiser, F., Doka, G., Hofstetter, P., & Ranney, M. (2003). Ecological behavior and its environmental consequences: A life cycle assessment of a self-report measure. Journal of Environmental Psychology, 23, 11-20.

Weidner, J., & Ranney, M. (2000). Knowledge retention following problem-solving versus information-gathering. In R. Robson (Ed.) Proceedings of the 2000 International Symposium on Mathematics/Science Education and Technology (pp. 404-409), Charlottesville, VA: AACE.

Kaiser, F., Ranney, M., Hartig, T., & Bowler, P. (1999). Ecological behavior, environmental attitudes, and feelings of responsibility for the environment. European Psychologist, 4, 59-74.

Ranney, M., & Shimoda, T. (1999). Education. In R. Wilson & F. Keil (Eds.), The MIT Encyclopedia of the Cognitive Sciences (pp. 261-262). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Weidner, J., Ranney, M., & Diamond, M. (1999). Knowledge organizations resulting from pairs' problem-solving versus information gathering activities. In B. Collis & R. Oliver (Eds.) Proceedings of the World Conference on Educational Multimedia, Hypermedia & Telecommunications (pp. 593-597).

Wolfe, E.W., Kao, C.-W., & Ranney, M. (1998). Cognitive differences in proficient and non-proficient essay scorers. Written Communication, 14, 465-492.

Diehl, C., & Ranney, M. (1996). Assessing spatial navigation tools with instructional hypermedia for cognitive science. Proceedings of the Second International Conference on the Learning Sciences (pp. 36-43). Charlottesville, VA: AACE.

Ranney, M. (1996). Individual-centered vs. model-centered approaches to consistency: A dimension for considering human rationality. Vivek, A Quarterly in Artificial Intelligence, 9 (2), 35-43. [Also in the Proceedings of the Second Annual International Symposium on Cognition and Education: A Multidisciplinary Perspective.]

Wolfe, E.W., & Ranney, M. (1996). Expertise in essay scoring. Proceedings of the Second International Conference on the Learning Sciences (pp. 545-550). Charlottesville, VA: AACE.

Ranney, M. (1994a). Assessing and contrasting formal and informal/experiential understandings of trajectories. In G.H. Marks (Ed.), Proceedings of the 1994 International Symposium on Mathematics/Science Education and Technology (pp. 142-146). Charlottesville, VA: AACE.

Ranney, M. (1994b). Relative consistency and subjects' "theories" in domains such as naive physics: Common research difficulties illustrated by Cooke and Breedin. Memory & Cognition, 22, 494-502.

Merrill, D.C., Reiser, B.J., Ranney, M., & Trafton, J.G. (1992). Effective tutoring techniques: A comparison of human tutors and intelligent tutoring systems. The Journal of the Learning Sciences, 2, 277-305.

Wolfe, E.W., & Ranney, M. (1992). The manifestation of classroom experience in the problem solving of teachers. Report No. SP-034-042, ERIC Document Reproduction Service No. ED 349 299; pp. 1-106. Also accepted into the Technical Report Series of the Institute of Cognitive Studies, University of California, Berkeley (pp. 1-85). [This is an expanded version of a paper that was peer-reviewed and presented at the 1992 meeting of the American Educational Research Association.]

Ranney, M. (1989). Internally represented forces may be cognitively penetrable: A comment on Freyd, Pantzer, and Cheng (1988). Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 118, 399-402.

Ranney, M., & Reiser, B.J. (1989). Reasoning and explanation in an intelligent tutor for programming. In G. Salvendy & M.J. Smith (Eds.), Designing and using human-computer interfaces and knowledge based systems (pp. 88-95). New York: Elsevier Science Publishers.

Harman, G., Ranney, M., Salem, K., Doring, F., Epstein, J. & Jaworska, A. (1988). A theory of simplicity. Proceedings of the Tenth Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society (pp. 111-117). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.

Ranney, M. (1988). Contradictions and Reorganizations Among Naive Conceptions of Ballistics. Manuscript of the paper presented at the annual meeting of the Psychonomic Society.

Ranney, M. (1987a). The role of structural context in perception: Syntax in the recognition of algebraic expressions. Memory & Cognition, 15, 29-41.

Ranney, M. (1987b). Restructuring conceptions of motion in physics-naive students. (Report No. SE-053-227). Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pittsburgh, Learning Research and Development Center. (Also ERIC Document Reproduction Service No. ED 357 965; pp. 1-15) [This is an expanded version of a paper that was peer-reviewed and subsequently presented at the 1987 meeting of the American Educational Research Association.]

Greeno, J.G., Magone, M.E., Rabinowitz, M., Ranney, M., Strauch, C., & Vitolo, T.M. (1985). Investigations of a cognitive skill (LRDC Publication 1985/27). Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh, Learning Research and Development Center.

Fujii, G., Ranney, M.A., & Clark, A.F. (1981). Thermal expansion of multifilamentary NB3Sn and V3Ga superconductive cables and fiberglass-epoxy and cotton-phenolic composite materials. Japanese Journal of Applied Physics, 20, L267-L270.

Thomas, D.R., McKelvie, A.R., Ranney, M.A., & Moye, T.B. (1981). Interference in pigeons' long-term memory viewed as a retrieval problem. Animal Learning & Behavior, 9, 581-586.

Ranney, M.A., & Clark, A.F. (1980). Thermal expansion of cryogenic-grade glass-epoxy laminates. In R.P. Reed (Ed.), Materials studies for magnetic fusion energy applications at low temperatures - III, (pp. 407-412). Boulder, CO: National Bureau of Standards.