ABSTRACT
This chapter explores some of the cognitive ways in which information may become attached to our information network. The cognitive needs that are most obviously related to adaptation concern the needs for information, understanding, prediction, and control concerning our environment. Anchoring mechanisms facilitate the embedding of our beliefs into our information network. In general, this involves constructing a new belief and integrating it with preexisting knowledge. One internal contextual factor that affects the anchoring of a belief is the amount of knowledge the person possesses in the domain in question. Epistemic commitment shares with emotional and social commitments the trusting, obligation, or binding to a belief. In the case of epistemic commitment, the difference is that the holder has a sense that the belief is true, and is supported by available evidence and/or reason. That is, epistemic commitment is characterized by the sense the belief is desirable because it is true, rather than because it entails desirable consequences.
