Two principles of Bayesian epistemology

An earlier version of this paper was presented at the Colloquium on Logic, Probability, and Methodology at the A. P. A. Eastern Division Meetings in December 1987. I am indebted to all those who participated in that discussion, and especially to Teddy Seidenfeld and Bas C. van Fraassen.     

Grounding principles for inferring agency: Two cultural perspectives

The present research investigates cultural variation in grounding principles for inferring agency in order to address an important theoretical debate: does cultural diversity in agency concepts reflect an animistic overextension of (universal) folkpsychology, as many have argued, or an alternative theory of folkcommunication based on relational principles? In two experiments, mind perception measures were adapted to assess beliefs concerning the agency of non-animal kinds (plants, abiotic kinds, complex artifacts) among Indigenous Ngöbe adults in Panama and US college students. Agency attributions varied systematically, with Ngöbe ascribing greater agency to non-animal natural kinds and US college participants ascribing greater agency to complex artifacts. Analysis of explanations revealed divergent interpretations of agency as a prototypically human capacity requiring consciousness (US), versus a relational capacity expressed in directed interactions (Ngöbe). Converging measures further illuminated the inferential principles underlying these agency attributions. (1) An experimental relational framing of agency probes facilitated Ngöbe but not US agency attributions. (2) Further analysis showed that three key dimensions of agency attribution (experience, cognition, animacy) are organized differently across cultures. (3) A Bayesian approach to cultural consensus modeling confirmed the presence of two distinct consensus models rather than variations on a single (universal) model. Together, these results indicate that conceptual frameworks for agency differ across US college and Ngöbe communities. We conclude that Ngöbe concepts of agency derive from a distinct theory of folkcommunication based on an ecocentric prototype rather than overextensions of an anthropocentric folkpsychology. These observations suggest that folkpsychology and mind perception represent culture specific frameworks for agency, with significant implications for domain-specificity theory and our understanding of cognitive diversity.     

Two SPSS programs for interpreting multiple regression results

When multiple regression is used in explanation-oriented designs, it is very important to determine both the usefulness of the predictor variables and their relative importance. Standardized regression coefficients are routinely provided by commercial programs. However, they generally function rather poorly as indicators of relative importance, especially in the presence of substantially correlated predictors. We provide two user-friendly SPSS programs that implement currently recommended techniques and recent developments for assessing the relevance of the predictors. The programs also allow the user to take into account the effects of measurement error. The first program, MIMR-Corr.sps, uses a correlation matrix as input, whereas the second program, MIMR-Raw.sps, uses the raw data and computes bootstrap confidence intervals of different statistics. The SPSS syntax, a short manual, and data files related to this article are available as supplemental materials from http:// brm.psychonomic-journals.org/content/supplemental.     

Destructive and reparative transference in multiple levels of group psychotherapy

Group members are challenged to form psychologically meaningful relationships with therapists, other members, and the group as a whole. The way in which individuals perceive this challenge is based on their past experiences. Early relationships establish a perceptual frame in which fears of being hurt and concern about hurting others coexist. Balance between these two ways of generating meaning enables individuals to form relatively healthy relationships. Imbalance in this perceptual frame results in distorted perceptions and maladaptive patterns emerging as transference manifestations. Working through involves repeatedly addressing distortions as members relate to therapists, others and the group as a whole.     

Employee assistance programs: Trends and principles

This article presents an overview of how Employee Assistance Programs (EAPs) are used to identify, refer, and counsel chronically distressed and troubled employees. The developmental issues of Control Data's model EAP are presented. Finally, an argument is forwarded that an effective EAP is based on 11 guiding principles. These principles are reviewed.     

Updating geographical knowledge: principles of coherence and inertia

In 2 experiments, the authors investigated how representations of global geography are updated when people learn new location information about individual cities. Participants estimated the latitude of cities in North America (Experiment 1) and in the Old and New Worlds (Experiment 2). After making their first estimates, participants were given information about the latitudes of 2 cities and asked to make a second set of estimates. Both the first and second estimates revealed evidence for psychologically distinct geographical subregions that were coordinated, in an ordinal sense, across the Atlantic Ocean. Further, the second estimates were affected by the nature of the physical adjacency between regions (e.g., the southern U.S. and Mexico) and by accurate location information about distant, but coordinated, subregions (e.g., the southern U.S. and Mediterranean Europe). The data provide support for a framework for making geographical estimates in which people strike a balance between 2 principles: the need to keep their knowledge base coherent, and the inertial tendency to resist changing the knowledge base unless it is necessary to maintain coherence.     

Monotone regression: Continuity and differentiability properties

Least-squares monotone regression has received considerable discussion and use. Consider the residual sum of squaresQ obtained from the least-squares monotone regression ofy _i onx _i . TreatingQ as a function of they _i , we prove that the gradient Q exists and is continuous everywhere, and is given by a simple formula. (We also discuss the gradient ofd=Q ^1/2.) These facts, which can be questioned (Louis Guttman, private communication), are important for the iterative numerical solution of models, such as some kinds of multidimensional scaling, in which monotone regression occurs as a subsidiary element, so that they _i and hence indirectlyQ are functions of other variables.     

Preschoolers' counting: principles before skill

Three- to 5-year-old children participated in one of 4 counting experiments. On the assumption that performance demands can mask the young child's implicit knowledge of the counting principles, 3 separate experiments assessed a child's ability to detect errors in a puppet's application of the one-one, stable-order and cardinal count principles. In a fourth experiment children counted in different conditions designed to vary performance demands. Since children in the errror-detection experiments did not have to do the counting, we predicted excellent performance even on set sizes beyond the range a young child counts accurately. That they did well on these experiments supports the view that errors in counting—at least for set sizes up to 20—reflect performance demands and not the absence of implicit knowledge of the counting principles. In the final experiment, where children did the counting themselves, set size did affect their success. So did some variations in conditions, the most difficult of which was the one where children had to count 3-dimensional objects which were under a plexiglass cover. We expected that this condition would interfere with the child's tendency to point and touch objects in order to keep separate items which have been counted from those which have not been counted.     

Reason unbound: Kant's theory of regulative principles

It is an essential part of Kant's conception of regulative principles and ideas that those principles and ideas are in a certain sense indeterminate. The relevant sense of indeterminacy is cashed out in a section in the Antinomies where Kant says that the regress of conditions of experience forms not a “regressus in infinitum” but a “regressus in indefinitum.” The mathematics that Kant appears to rely on in making this distinction turns out to be problematic, as Jonathan Bennett showed long ago. But I suggest that despite this, there is another mathematically legitimate way to make Kant's point, one enunciated by, among others, Michael Dummett. This reading is corroborated, I suggest, by Kant's conception of reason as a radically open‐ended endeavor.