Women,Education, Mathematics,and Computers: An Instance of Vocational Incongruence

A course in computer literacy was taken by 16 female elementary education majors specializing in mathematics. Results indicated that the students were dissimilar to the typical female college sample and to predicted occupational groups.     

Computers and life styles

There is a relation between people's psychological build‐up and their attraction to computers.

Flexibility and curiosity are essential qualities.

Teamwork must be encouraged and developed, as does creative imagination harnessed to method and discipline.

Semantic and syntactic knowledge are essential for solving computer problems.

The challenge, however, remains: “free man from his machine,” or at any rate, “free him somewhat from his status as slave/master to his slave.”

Keywords: education, computers, ability to adapt, wisdom of man, relations with computers, language     

Philosophy for Computers: Some Explorations in Philosophical Modeling

Philosophical modeling has a long and distinguished history, but the computer offers new and powerful prospects for the creation and manipulation of models. It seems inevitable that the computer will become a major tool in future philosophical research. Here I offer an overview of explorations in philosophical computer modeling that we in the Group for Logic and Formal Semantics at SUNY Stony Brook have undertaken: explorations regarding (1) the potential emergence of cooperation in a society of egoists, (2) self-reference and paradox in fuzzy logic, (3) a fractal approach to formal systems, and (4) on-going explorations with models for the emergence of communication. The attempt is not to give a detailed report on any of these but to give a bird s-eye view of them all, emphasizing the general form that the models take, the philosophical motivations behind them, and the kinds of philosophical results that they may have to offer.     

Computers for cognitive research: A HyperCard adventure game

For researchers interested in exploring the cognitive and metacognitive processes involved in problem-solving, one obstacle has been the difficulty of creating engaging and ecologically valid situations in which to observe these skills in practice. Computer games can provide a rich environment for research on such skills. I present a HyperCard example of an adventure game that serves as an environment for research on analogy in problem-solving. The design of the game and interface is detailed, and initial results of and suggestions for extensions to this work are presented.     

A Model for Predicting Computer Experience from Attitudes Toward Computers

This study examined the relationship between locus of control, two sets of beliefs about computers as electronic performance monitors, general computer attitudes, and computer experience. Results support a model in which computer attitudes mediate the relationship between an individual's locus of control and computer experience and between monitoring beliefs about computers and computer experience.     

Computers in spatial vision research

The original impulse for using computers in a laboratory dedicated to spatial vision research and the current role of computers in experiments are detailed. Although computers are used widely for modeling spatial vision, there is some doubt about whether conventional serial computers are the most appropriate tools for this task.     

Computers in biofeedback research and therapy

While biofeedback is being used extensively in the clinic and the laboratory, a great deal of variability exists among biofeedback users with respect to instrumentation, treatment protocols, techniques of data acquisition, and methods of data analysis. It is argued that the use of computers in biofeedback will help reduce some of this variability. Other advantages of computers in biofeedback are discussed. Several presently available automated systems are reviewed. Implications for future biofeedback research are also discussed.     

On the Moral Agency of Computers

Can computer systems ever be considered moral agents? This paper considers two factors that are explored in the recent philosophical literature. First, there are the important domains in which computers are allowed to act, made possible by their greater functional capacities. Second, there is the claim that these functional capacities appear to embody relevant human abilities, such as autonomy and responsibility. I argue that neither the first (Doman-Function) factor nor the second (Simulacrum) factor gets at the central issue in the case for computer moral agency: whether they can have the kinds of intentional states that cause their decisions and actions. I give an account that builds on traditional action theory and allows us to conceive of computers as genuine moral agents in virtue of their own causally efficacious intentional states. These states can cause harm or benefit to moral patients, but do not depend on computer consciousness or intelligence.