Laws,causality and the intentional explanation of action

Whether or not an intentional explanation of action necessarily involves law-like statements is related to another question, namely, is it a causal explanation? The Popper-Hempel Thesis, which answers both questions affirmatively, inevitably faces a dilemma between realistic and universalistic requirements. However, in terms of W.C. Salmon’s concept of causal explanation, intentional explanation can be a causal one even if it does not rely on any laws. Based on this, we are able to refute three characteristic arguments for the claim “reason is not a cause of action,” namely, the “proper logical” argument, the “logical relation” argument, and the “rule-following” argument. This rebuttal suggests that the causal relationship between reason and action can provide a justification for intentional explanations.     

Helfen die Neurowissenschaften, besser zu „verstehen“?

Science-oriented psychotherapy researchers in particular like to stress that neuroscientific “explanations” are able to contribute to “understanding” mental disorders. In these statements the classical epistemological distinction between “explanation” and “understanding” is, however, not appropriately considered. This could lead to a flattening of the concept of understanding and ultimately undermine the demand of interpersonal communication in psychotherapy. Nevertheless, explanatory approaches to therapy can be valuable and may even play a beneficial role with regard to understanding—but only if they are correctly located epistemologically and used in the interest of the emancipation of the patient.     

The effects of self‐explaining when learning with text or diagrams

Self‐explaining is an effective metacognitive strategy that can help learners develop deeper understanding of the material they study. This experiment explored if the format of material (i.e., text or diagrams) influences the self‐explanation effect. Twenty subjects were presented with information about the human circulatory system and prompted to self‐explain; 10 received this information in text and 10 in diagrams. Results showed that students given diagrams performed significantly better on post‐tests than students given text. Diagrams students also generated significantly more self‐explanations that text students. Furthermore, the benefits of self‐explaining were much greater in the diagrams condition. To discover why diagrams can promote the self‐explanation effect, results are interpreted with reference to the multiple differences in the semantic, cognitive and affective properties of the texts and diagrams studied.     

“Looking Up” and “Looking Down”: On the Dual Character of Mechanistic Explanations

Mechanistic explanation is at present the received view of scientific explanation. One of its central features is the idea that mechanistic explanations are both “downward looking” and “upward looking”: they explain by offering information about the internal constitution of the mechanism as well as the larger environment in which the mechanism is situated. That is, they offer both constitutive and contextual explanatory information. Adequate mechanistic explanations, on this view, accommodate the full range of explanatory factors both “above” and “below” the target phenomenon. The aim of this paper is to demonstrate that mechanistic explanation cannot furnish both constitutive and contextual information simultaneously, because these are different types of explanation with distinctly different aims. Claims that they can, I argue, depend on several intertwined confusions concerning the nature of explanation. Particularly, such claims tend to conflate mechanistic and functional explanation, which I argue ought to be understood as distinct. Conflating them threatens to oversell the explanatory power of mechanisms and obscures the means by which they explain. I offer two broad reasons in favor of distinguishing mechanistic and functional explanation: the first concerns the direction of explanation of each, and the second concerns the type of questions to which these explanations offer answers. I suggest an alternative picture on which mechanistic explanation is understood as fundamentally constitutive, and according to which an adequate understanding of a phenomenon typically requires supplementing the mechanistic explanation with a functional explanation.     

Consequences of restudy choices in younger and older learners

Allowing young learners to exert metacognitive control over learning often improves memory performance; however, little research has examined the consequences of giving older adults control over learning. In this study, younger and older adults studied word pairs before choosing half of the word pairs for restudy. Learners either restudied the items they chose (in the honor condition) or the items they did not choose (the dishonor condition; Kornell & Metcalfe, Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition 32:609-622, 2006). Older and younger learners chose the same types of items for restudy, but the effectiveness of these choices differed greatly by age. For young learners, memory was superior in the honor condition, but older learners actually revealed numerically higher performance in the dishonor condition. This reveals a dramatic failure of metacognitive control, in the absence of any obvious monitoring deficit, in older adults. Implications for models of self-regulated learning are discussed.     

样例多样性和流畅性信念对类别学习判断的影响

目的:通过三个实验考查样例特征、流畅性和信念对类别学习及其元认知判断的影响。方法:实验1采用2(样例特征)×2(测试类型)的组内设计以检验样例特征的作用; 实验2采用2(样例特征)×2(测试类型)×2(流畅性)的组内设计以检验流畅性的作用; 实验3采用2(样例特征)×2(测试类型)×2(流畅性信念)的混合设计以检验信念对类别学习判断的作用。结果表明:样例特征影响学习成绩、类别学习判断和流畅感; 流畅性不会影响类别学习判断; 原理解释能够有效建立“关于流畅性的信念”,且“关于流畅性的信念”对类别学习判断起作用。即样例多样性和流畅性信念对类别学习判断起作用,支持信念假说。     

The effect of instructions to organize for good and poor learners

Two studies are reported which investigate the possibility that instructing individuals to organize their recall will differentially facilitate the performance of “fast” and “slow” learners (defined in terms of performance on a pretest). Experiment I utilized alphabetic organization in the free-recall learning of a list of unrelated words; Experiment II used a categorized word list under similar conditions. In each study, half of the individuals in each ability group received instructions, prior to the first of six learning trials, that contained information about the respective nature of organization present in the list and encouragement to use this type of organization in learning the list. In Experiment I, instructions to use alphabetic organization facilitated the performance of both ability groups to about the same extent. In Experiment II, instructions to use categorical organization in learning resulted in a substantial facilitation of performance for “slow” learners and a slight decrement in performance for “fast” learners. The results from the two studies are discussed in terms of sources of individual differences in learning.     

Emotion as Substitute Response

This study confirmed an earlier finding that two strategies, termed formula and graphic, markedly affected the speed of learning a binary task, with the former being much the superior. Both “fast” and “slow” learners were able to utilize these strategies; however, “fast” learners were superior throughout, both in terms of number of trials to criterion and total amount of time taken to learn the tasks. Evidence also was obtained suggesting that the use of the more efficient (but also more demanding) strategy by “slow” learners had a certain cost associated with it. Overall, “slow” learners exhibited much more anxious and avoidant behavior than did “fast” learners. Post hoc data obtained on the Ss suggested slow binary task learners to be more field dependent than fast learners.     

The challenges of choosing and explaining a phenomenon in epidemiological research on the “Hispanic Paradox”

According to public health data, the US Hispanic population is far healthier than would be expected for a population with low socioeconomic status. Ever since Kyriakos Markides and Jeannine Coreil highlighted this in a seminal 1986 article, public health researchers have sought to explain the so-called “Hispanic paradox.” Several candidate explanations have been offered over the years, but the debate goes on. This article offers a philosophical analysis that clarifies how two sets of obstacles make it particularly difficult to explain the Hispanic paradox. First, different research projects define the Hispanic paradox phenomenon in substantially different ways. Moreover, using Bas van Fraassen’s pragmatic theory of explanation and Sean Valles’s extension of it with the concept of “phenomenon choice,” it also becomes clear that there are also multiple ways of explaining each individual definition of the phenomenon. A second set of philosophical and methodological challenges arises during any attempt to study “Hispanic” phenomena, with one key challenge being that the “Hispanic” panethnic concept was intentionally made vague as it was developed and popularized during the 1960s–1970s. After comparing this case with similar cases in the philosophical literature, the article concludes with observations on what makes this problem unique, particularly its ethical features.     

Object‐Label‐Order Effect When Learning From an Inconsistent Source

Learning in natural environments is often characterized by a degree of inconsistency from an input. These inconsistencies occur, for example, when learning from more than one source, or when the presence of environmental noise distorts incoming information; as a result, the task faced by the learner becomes ambiguous. In this study, we investigate how learners handle such situations. We focus on the setting where a learner receives and processes a sequence of utterances to master associations between objects and their labels, where the source is inconsistent by design: It uses both “correct” and “incorrect” object‐label pairings. We hypothesize that depending on the order of presentation, the result of the learning may be different. To this end, we consider two types of symbolic learning procedures: the Object‐Label (OL) and the Label‐Object (LO) process. In the OL process, the learner is first exposed to the object, and then the label. In the LO process, this order is reversed. We perform experiments with human subjects, and also construct a computational model that is based on a nonlinear stochastic reinforcement learning algorithm. It is observed experimentally that OL learners are generally better at processing inconsistent input compared to LO learners. We show that the patterns observed in the learning experiments can be reproduced in the simulations if the model includes (a) an ability to regularize the input (and also to do the opposite, i.e., undermatch) and (b) an ability to take account of implicit negative evidence (i.e., interactions among different objects/labels). The model suggests that while both types of learners utilize implicit negative evidence in a similar way, there is a difference in regularization patterns: OL learners regularize the input, whereas LO learners undermatch. As a result, OL learners are able to form a more consistent system of image‐utterance associations, despite the ambiguous learning task.     

Three-year-old children can access their own memory to guide responses on a visual matching task

Many models of learning rely on accessing internal knowledge states. Yet, although infants and young children are recognized to be proficient learners, the ability to act on metacognitive information is not thought to develop until early school years. In the experiments reported here, 3.5-year-olds demonstrated memory-monitoring skills by responding on a non-verbal task originally developed for non-human animals, in which they had to access their knowledge states. Children learned a set of paired associates, and were given the option to skip uncertain trials on a recognition memory test. Accuracy for accepted items was significantly higher than for skipped on a subsequent memory task that included all items. Additionally, children whose memory-monitoring assessments more closely matched actual memory performance showed superior overall learning, suggesting a correlation between memory-monitoring and memory itself. The results suggest that children may have implicit access to internal knowledge states at very young ages, providing an explanation for how they are able to guide learning, even as infants.     

Conditional same/different concept learning in the short‐beaked echidna (Tachyglossus aculeatus)

Echidnas have evolved separately from other mammalian groups for around 200 million years and incorporate a mixture of reptilian and mammalian features. Because of these attributes, they have historically been considered “primitive” animals. However, they have successfully adapted to a wide variety of ecological niches and their neurophysiology demonstrates a number of unusual and apparently sophisticated characteristics, including a relatively large brain and cerebral cortex and a comparatively massive frontal cortex. Studies of learning in the echidna have thus far been limited to only a handful of experiments which demonstrated relatively basic abilities such as forming a position habit in a T‐maze, successive habit‐reversal learning, and simple visual and instrumental discrimination. This study aimed to expand on these results and test the “primitive” echidna on what are generally considered more advanced cognitive tasks—same/different and conditional same/different concept learning. The results demonstrated that echidnas are able to discriminate on the basis of a relational same/different concept, using simultaneously presented multi‐element stimuli, and transfer that discrimination to novel stimuli. After further training, they were then able to repeat the performance when the correct choice was conditional on the background color of the stimulus panels.     

LEARNING WITHIN A LEARNER CONTROL TRAINING ENVIRONMENT: THE INTERACTIVE EFFECTS OF GOAL ORIENTATION AND METACOGNITIVE INSTRUCTION ON LEARNING OUTCOMES

This study proposes that effective engagement in metacognitive activities is critical to success in high learner-control training environments. A model was developed that focuses on the interactive effects of goal orientation and a metacognitive training intervention on metacognitive activity and learning outcomes. Seventy-nine participants completed a Web-based training course on how to create Web pages. Consistent with expectations, learners reporting greater levels of metacognitive activity during training gained more declarative knowledge, performed better on a skill-based measure, and had higher levels of self-efficacy. Metacognitive activity was also found to partially mediate the relationship between goal orientation and learning outcomes. Finally, the expected goal orientation by intervention interaction was found. The metacognitive intervention was beneficial in enhancing metacognitive activity for trainees with low performance-avoidance orientations, but resulted in lower metacognitive activity among highly avoidant learners. Implications of these findings for research on self-regulation and training practice are discussed.     

Between mechanical clocks and emergent flocks: complexities in biology

Even though complexity is a concept that is ubiquitously used by biologists and philosophers of biology, it is rarely made precise. I argue that a clarification of the concept is neither trivial nor unachievable, and I propose a unifying framework based on the technical notion of “effective complexity” that allows me to do justice to conflicting intuitions about biological complexity, while taking into account several distinctions in the usage of the concept that are often overlooked. In particular, I propose a distinction between two kinds of complexity, “mechanical” and “emergent”, which can be understood as different ways of relating the effective complexity of mechanisms and of behaviors in biological explanations. I illustrate the adequacy of this framework by discussing different attempts to understand intracellular organization in terms of pathways and networks. My framework provides a different way of thinking about recent philosophical debates, for example, on the difference between mechanistic and topological explanations and about the concept of emergence. Moreover, it can contribute to a proper assessment of metascientific arguments that invoke biological complexity.

     

Contextual utility affects the perceived quality of explanations

Are explanations of different kinds (formal, mechanistic, teleological) judged differently depending on their contextual utility, defined as the extent to which they support the kinds of inferences required for a given task? We report three studies demonstrating that the perceived “goodness” of an explanation depends on the evaluator’s current task: Explanations receive a relative boost when they support task-relevant inferences, even when all three explanation types are warranted. For example, mechanistic explanations receive higher ratings when participants anticipate making further inferences on the basis of proximate causes than when they anticipate making further inferences on the basis of category membership or functions. These findings shed light on the functions of explanation and support pragmatic and pluralist approaches to explanation.     

Exploring the Effects of the Naturalistic Fallacy: Evidence That Genetic Explanations Increase the Acceptability of Killing and Male Promiscuity

The naturalistic fallacy is the erroneous belief that what is natural is morally acceptable. Two studies assessed whether people commit the naturalistic fallacy by testing whether genetic explanations for killing and male promiscuity, as compared to experiential explanations (i.e., learning/“nurture” explanations) increase acceptance of these behaviors. In Study 1, participants who read a genetic explanation for why people kill bugs viewed bug killing as more morally acceptable than participants who read an experiential explanation, although they did not reliably kill more bugs. In Study 2, men who read a genetic explanation for why men are more promiscuous than women reported decreased interest in long‐term romantic commitment compared with men who read experiential explanations and women who read either explanation.     

Domain-specific and domain-general processes underlying metacognitive judgments

Metacognition and self-awareness are commonly assumed to operate as global capacities. However, there have been few attempts to test this assumption across multiple cognitive domains and metacognitive evaluations. Here, we assessed the covariance between “online” metacognitive processes, as measured by decision confidence judgments in the domains of perception and memory, and error awareness in the domain of attention to action. Previous research investigating metacognition across task domains have not matched stimulus characteristics across tasks raising the possibility that any differences in metacognitive accuracy may be influenced by local task properties. The current experiment measured metacognition in perceptual, memorial and attention tasks that were closely matched for stimulus characteristics. We found that metacognitive accuracy across the three tasks was dissociated suggesting that domain specific networks support an individual’s capacity for accurate metacognition. This finding was independent of objective performance, which was controlled using a staircase procedure. However, response times for metacognitive judgments and error awareness were associated suggesting that shared mechanisms determining how these meta-level evaluations unfold in time may underlie these different types of decision. In addition, the relationship between these laboratory measures of metacognition and reports of everyday functioning from participants and their significant others (informants) was investigated. We found that informant reports, but not self reports, predicted metacognitive accuracy on the perceptual task and participants who underreported cognitive difficulties relative to their informants also showed poorer metacognitive accuracy on the perceptual task. These results are discussed in the context of models of metacognitive regulation and neuropsychological evidence for dissociable metacognitive systems. The potential for the refinement of metacognitive assessment in clinical populations is also discussed.     

Improved effectiveness of cueing by self‐explanations when learning from a complex animation

A major problem in learning from instructional animations is that the complex perceptual and cognitive processing exceeds the learner's limited processing capacities. Although attention cueing might help learners in focusing on essential parts of an animation, previous studies have shown that it does not necessarily improve learning performance. This study investigated whether generating self‐explanations while studying a cued or an uncued animation might engage learners in cognitive activities necessary for learning. It was hypothesized that learning from a cued animation that reduces working memory load associated with searching for specific elements might be improved by generating self‐explanations, whereas self‐explaining with an uncued animation would have no positive effect on learning. The results confirmed the hypothesized interaction between cueing and self‐explaining. They suggest that self‐explanation enhances learning if visual cues are used to structure and highlight the essential parts of an animation. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Learning the Relevance of Relevance and the Trouble with Truth: Evaluating Explanatory Relevance across Childhood

ABSTRACT

In four experiments, we investigate how the ability to detect irrelevant explanations develops. In Experiments 1 and 2, 4- to 8-year-olds and adults rated different types of explanations about “what makes cars go” individually, in the absence of a direct contrast. Each explanation was true and relevant (e.g., “Cars have engines that turn gasoline into power”), true and irrelevant (e.g., “Cars have radios that play music”), or a false statement that would be relevant if it were true (e.g., “Cars have rockets that speed them up”). Participants of all ages spontaneously indicated that false explanations were less helpful than relevant explanations. However, there was a developmental shift for irrelevant explanations: 4-year-olds only detected irrelevant explanations that did not involve internal features of cars (e.g., “Cars have parking lots that they park in”). Crucially, this shift between age 4 and 5 cannot be explained by 4-year-olds’ lack of knowledge since 4-year-olds correctly indicated that relevant explanations were more helpful than irrelevant feature explanations when given a direct contrast in Experiment 3. These results are further clarified in Experiment 4, in which we provided a different explanatory goal (“where to find cars”) and found that even young children have a nuanced understanding of explanatory relevance that is sensitive to differing explanatory goals. Together, these four experiments suggest an early-emerging ability to understand relevance, but a shift between age 4 and 5 in the ability to spontaneously use this understanding when evaluating individual explanations in isolation.     

大学生第二外语词汇学习中的测试效应

本研究采用学习-测试研究范式,以"Swahili-汉语"配对词为实验材料,考察不同实验条件测试对大学生第二外语词汇习得的促进作用。研究发现:(1)不同实验条件的累积回忆正确率相同;(2)测试效应显著,且对长时保持具有促进作用;(3)被试对不同实验条件的学习效果的预期与事实不相符。这些结果表明,自我测试既有助于学生高效习得第二外语词汇,又有助于教师改善课堂教学。