Models,Models, and Models

Michael Dummett famously maintained that analytic philosophy was simply philosophy that followed Frege in treating the philosophy of language as the basis for all other philosophy (1978, 441). But one important insight to emerge from computer science is how difficult it is to animate the linguistic artifacts that the analysis of thought produces. Yet, modeling the effects of thought requires a new skill that goes beyond analysis: procedural literacy. Some of the most promising research in philosophy makes use of a variety of modeling techniques that go beyond basic logic and elementary probability theory. What unifies this approach is a focus on what Alan Perlis called procedural literacy. This essay argues that the future spoils in philosophical research will disproportionally go to those who are procedurally literate.     

Assessing Conversational Cognition Levels of Cognitive Theory and Associated Methodological Requirements

Despite the prominence of cognitively oriented research in interpersonal communication, relatively little is known about the interplay of cognitive and communicative processes during conversation. For interpersonal communication scholars or at least those interested in interaction, the study of cognition is most useful if it reveals how interactants produce, monitor, modify, and process messages while engaged in conversation. The failure to collect data about in-process conversational cognition is partially due to excessive reliance on what have been identified as “implementation level” cognitive theories and models. Such theories are primarily concerned with specifying cognitive “architectures” and provide little guidance about how cognition is adapted to conversational tasks. However, a dearth of methodological creativity is also partially to blame for the lack of data about in-process conversational cognition. On encountering the admittedly formidable methodological difficulties of collecting data about conversational cognition, researchers have tended to rely on traditional but inadequate methods, or worse, have simply ignored theoretical questions pertinent to cognition in-process. This article suggests that claims about cognition can be made at four levels—biological, implementation, algorithmic, and rational—but that theoretical claims about conversational cognition can most usefully be pursued at the rational and algorithmic levels. In an effort to promote more research at these levels, criteria for studying conversational cognition are proposed, and promising methods are reviewed.     

The perception of a face is no more than the sum of its parts

When you see a person's face, how do you go about combining his or her facial features to make a decision about who that person is? Most current theories of face perception assert that the ability to recognize a human face is not simply the result of an independent analysis of individual features, but instead involves a holistic coding of the relationships among features. This coding is thought to enhance people's ability to recognize a face beyond what would be expected if each feature were shown in isolation. In the study reported here, we explicitly tested this idea by comparing human performance on facial-feature integration with that of an optimal Bayesian integrator. Contrary to the predictions of most current notions of face perception, our findings showed that human observers integrate facial features in a manner that is no better than would be predicted by their ability to use each individual feature when shown in isolation. That is, a face is perceived no better than the sum of its individual parts.     

LEARNING THEORY APPROACHES TO PERSUASION

This review synthesizes relevant research dealing with the processes of learning and suggests its applications to compliance gaining. The two major issues addressed are: (1) to what degree can learning theories explain the acquisition of new attitudes and behaviors, and (2) to what degree are attitudinal and behavioral changes governed by learning theory principles? The learning theories discussed are grouped into three categories: stimulus-response or connectionist approaches; cognitive approaches; and stochastic, mathematical, and cybernetic approaches. The stimulus-response models, which encompass most of the research examined in this paper, are further broken down into four types: (1) classical conditioning, (2) contiguity models, (3) instrumental (or operant) conditioning and (4) models including drive and drive reduction. Principles and major research evidence from numerous learning theories are reviewed and analyzed, and suggestions are made as to how this evidence may aid in the construction of more complete theories of persuasion and attitude change.     

How Can We Do it Right? Ethical Uncertainty in Swedish Sami Research

Research related to indigenous peoples in Sweden and elsewhere has a history marked by discriminatory practice and unequal research processes. Sweden has still not been very visible in terms of openly debating, developing and implementing ethical strategies specifically suited for indigenous research. The present study explores how research ethics is discussed among scholars within the Sami research field in contemporary Sweden. Fifty-six research proposals deriving from eight different research institutions and 160 individual researchers are analyzed, discovering how scholars relate to research ethics when planning for new research projects related to the indigenous Sami. The results demonstrate that ethical guidelines for research are often referred to, but that a common view on what guidelines to use is lacking, leading to a notable variety between different researchers. Ethical discussions are present in the vast majority of the proposals, however there are notable differences between the theories around how to proceed in a culturally safe, ethical manner, and the proposed methods that are to be used to implement theory in practice. In conclusion, there exists a great uncertainty among scholars on where to seek ethical guidance, how to relate to current legislation around research ethics and at the same time act ethically in a culturally appropriate manner. This uncertainty leads to questioning whether discussions of ethics are relevant in the first place, what they are supposed to include, how they are meant to be undertaken and what consequences can be expected from the presence or absence of ethics in indigenous research.     

言语产生中的词汇通达理论

首先简单介绍了言语产生中词汇产生研究方法,然后重点介绍了言语产生中的2类重要的词汇通达理论：交互激活理论和独立阶段理论,围绕词汇通达中的3个重要问题：词汇通达的阶段、词汇通达的时间进程、词汇通达阶段是分离独立的还是交互作用的展开论述,阐述了2类理论的相同点和相异点。     

When a Man Thinks He Has Female Traits Constructing Femininity and Masculinity: Methodological Potentials and Limitations

In everyday life, people are confronted with common beliefs about how women and men differ from each other. These beliefs make them wonder about their personal femininity and masculinity. But what hides behind these constructs? In this article, we will discuss the potential and limitations of different definitions. We will focus on methodological issues which can trigger new discussions about the social implications of gender differences—which are not part of this paper. One of the major questions here is whether it is methodologically justifiable (legitimate) to make individual predictions based on group differences. An issue that is not only relevant in regards to femininity and masculinity. In general, all definitions of masculinity and femininity show more limitations than potentials. They are either neglecting certain sub-groups or are based on stereotypes (either displaying common beliefs or exaggerated group differences). Individual predictions derived from these constructs are questionable due to oversimplification/reductionism (e.g., when forming groups). By pointing out that constructs like femininity and masculinity can in fact limit an individual’s development, it is suggested to clearly differentiate between different types of differences and to clearly state what can and cannot be said when “measuring” an individual’s masculinity and femininity. Since femininity and masculinity can be seen as example constructs, and generalizations are part of many research processes, general implications beyond these concepts are being discussed.     

Progress in Psychoblography

ABSTRACT Progress in psychobiography What is it? Has there been any? And what processes contnbute to it? The issue of progress in psychobiography is pursued from two different perspectives The first section briefly reviews the historical growth of the field, including the range of disciplines involved, the rise of associated professional organizations and publication outlets, and a quantitative analysis of the increase in books, articles, and dissertations in psychobiography The second section argues that progress in psychobiographical understanding can be analyzed into eight component processes, such as the collection of additional evidence, the formulation of fresh interpretations, critical examination of prior explanations, and the application of new theoretical advances These processes are illustrated with an examination of the course of debate about the physical and psychological disturbances of King George III Personality psychology is concerned with the four basic tasks of developing general theories of personality, analyzing individual and group differences, understanding individual persons, and studying selected processes and classes of behavior In that developing a better understanding of individual persons is one of the ultimate objectives of personality psychology, progress in psychobiography is intimately related to progress in personality psychology as a whole     

When groups help and when groups harm: Origins,developments, and future directions of the “Social Cure” perspective of group dynamics

A substantial literature supports the important role that social group memberships play in enhancing health. While the processes through which group memberships constitute a “Social Cure” are becoming increasingly well defined, the mechanisms through which these groups contribute to vulnerability and act as a “Social Curse” are less understood. We present an overview of the Social Cure literature and then go beyond this to show how the processes underpinning the health benefits of group membership can also negatively affect individuals through their absence. First, we provide an overview of early Social Cure research. We then describe later research concerning the potential health benefits of identifying with multiple groups, before moving on to consider the “darker side” of the Social Cure by exploring how intra‐group dynamics can foster Curse processes. Finally, we synthesise evidence from both the Cure and Curse literatures to highlight the complex interplay between these phenomena and how they are influenced by both intra‐ and inter‐group processes. We conclude by considering areas we deem vital for future investigation within the discipline.     

Approval-directed agency and the decision theory of Newcomb-like problems

Decision theorists disagree about how instrumentally rational agents, i.e., agents trying to achieve some goal, should behave in so-called Newcomb-like problems, with the main contenders being causal and evidential decision theory. Since the main goal of artificial intelligence research is to create machines that make instrumentally rational decisions, the disagreement pertains to this field. In addition to the more philosophical question of what the right decision theory is, the goal of AI poses the question of how to implement any given decision theory in an AI. For example, how would one go about building an AI whose behavior matches evidential decision theory’s recommendations? Conversely, we can ask which decision theories (if any) describe the behavior of any existing AI design. In this paper, we study what decision theory an approval-directed agent, i.e., an agent whose goal it is to maximize the score it receives from an overseer, implements. If we assume that the overseer rewards the agent based on the expected value of some von Neumann–Morgenstern utility function, then such an approval-directed agent is guided by two decision theories: the one used by the agent to decide which action to choose in order to maximize the reward and the one used by the overseer to compute the expected utility of a chosen action. We show which of these two decision theories describes the agent’s behavior in which situations.

     

Successes and failures in producing attentional object-based cueing effects

Over 30?years of research using Posner's spatial cueing paradigm has shown that selective attention operates on representations of spatial locations, leading to space-based theories of attention. Manipulations of stimuli and methods have shown this paradigm to be sensitive to several types of object-based representations-providing evidence for theories incorporating object-based attentional selection. This paper critically evaluates the evidence demanding object-based explanations that go beyond positing spatial representations alone, with an emphasis on identifying and interpreting successes and failures in obtaining object-based cueing effects. This overview of current evidence is used to generate hypotheses regarding critical factors in the emergence and influence of object representations-their generation, strength, and maintenance-in the modulation of object-based facilitatory and inhibitory cueing effects.     

Understanding Conspiracy Theories

Scholarly efforts to understand conspiracy theories have grown significantly in recent years, and there is now a broad and interdisciplinary literature. In reviewing this body of work, we ask three specific questions. First, what factors are associated with conspiracy beliefs? Our review of the literature shows that conspiracy beliefs result from a range of psychological, political, and social factors. Next, how are conspiracy theories communicated? Here, we explain how conspiracy theories are shared among individuals and spread through traditional and social media platforms. Next, what are the societal risks and rewards associated with conspiracy theories? By focusing on politics and science, we argue that conspiracy theories do more harm than good. We conclude by suggesting several promising avenues for future research.     

Service Delivery Issues and Program Evaluation in Pediatric Psychology

Presents a framework for categorizing pediatric psychology research into practice and service system outcomes and functioning. The questions of importance are (a) who is being served, (b) what services are provided, (c) how treatments are implemented, (d) how services are organized and staffed, (e) what are the outcomes of the services, (f) how do various consumers perceive services, (g) how services are reimbursed, and (h) what are alternatives and innovations? The framework of program evaluation is detailed for domains most germane to service delivery in pediatric/child health psychology. Such domains include diagnostic information on patients, types of intervention, behavioral/psychological outcome variables, costs of treatments, service system functioning, and perceptions of satisfaction from multiple sources. This framework may be useful in directing future research on the delivery of services in pediatric psychology settings, thereby adding to the value of the field.     

Imperialism,Progress, Developmental Teleology,and Interdisciplinary Unification

In a previous article in this journal, we examined John Dupré's claim that ‘scientific imperialism’ can lead to ‘misguided’ science being considered acceptable. Here, we address criticisms raised by Ian J. Kidd and Uskali Mäki against that article. While both commentators take us to be offering our own account of scientific imperialism that goes beyond that developed by Dupré, and go on to criticise what they take to be our account, our actual ambitions were modest. We intended to ‘explicate the sense in which the term is used by Dupré’ and to ‘identify the normative content of his critique of scientific imperialism’. We made no claim to have developed our own account of scientific imperialism that went further than what was implicit in Dupré's work already. However, that said, the discussions presented by both Kidd and Mäki raise important general issues about how the idea of scientific imperialism should be understood and framed. Here, we offer our considered responses to Kidd's and Maki's discussions of scientific imperialism.     

Cognition and Emotion Lecture at the 2010 SPSP Emotion Preconference

One of the most fundamental distinctions in the field of emotion is the distinction between emotion generation and emotion regulation. This distinction fits comfortably with folk theories, which view emotions as passions that arise unbidden and then must be controlled. But is it really helpful to distinguish between emotion generation and emotion regulation? In this article, we begin by offering working definitions of emotion generation and emotion regulation. We argue that in some circumstances, the distinction between emotion generation and emotion regulation is indeed useful. We point both to citation patterns, which indicate that researchers from across a number of sub-areas within psychology are making this distinction, and to empirical studies, which indicate the utility of this distinction in many different research contexts. We then consider five ways in which the distinction between emotion generation and emotion regulation can be problematic. We suggest that it is time to move beyond debates about whether this distinction is useful to a more specific consideration of when and in what ways this distinction is useful, and in this spirit, we offer recommendations for future research.     

工作压力理论及其在研究中的重要性

有关工作压力的研究是在西方心理学和管理学界都发展较快的一个领域。然而,这一领域中具有广泛和概括意义的理论还不多。该文介绍了工作压力研究中影响较大的4种理论,特别是对Lazarus提出的交互理论做了较详细的介绍。还分析了它们的局限性并讨论了理论在研究工作中的重要性的问题。