Clustering Qualitative Data Based on Binary Equivalence Relations: Neighborhood Search Heuristics for the Clique Partitioning Problem

The clique partitioning problem (CPP) requires the establishment of an equivalence relation for the vertices of a graph such that the sum of the edge costs associated with the relation is minimized. The CPP has important applications for the social sciences because it provides a framework for clustering objects measured on a collection of nominal or ordinal attributes. In such instances, the CPP incorporates edge costs obtained from an aggregation of binary equivalence relations among the attributes. We review existing theory and methods for the CPP and propose two versions of a new neighborhood search algorithm for efficient solution. The first version (NS-R) uses a relocation algorithm in the search for improved solutions, whereas the second (NS-TS) uses an embedded tabu search routine. The new algorithms are compared to simulated annealing (SA) and tabu search (TS) algorithms from the CPP literature. Although the heuristics yielded comparable results for some test problems, the neighborhood search algorithms generally yielded the best performances for large and difficult instances of the CPP.     

Mixture Model Tests Of Hierarchical Clustering Algorithms: The Problem Of Classifying Everybody

Due to the effects of outliers, mixture model tests that require all objects to be classified can severely underestimate the accuracy of hierarchical clustering algorithms. More valid and relevant comparisons between algorithms can be made by calculating accuracy at several levels in the hierarchical tree and considering accuracy as a function of the coverage of the classification. Using this procedure, several algorithms were compared on their ability to resolve ten multivariate normal mixtures. All of the algorithms were significantly more accurate than a random linkage algorithm, and accuracy was inversely related to coverage. Algorithms using correlation as the similarity measure were significantly more accurate than those using Euclidean distance (p < .001). A subset of high accuracy algorithms, including single, average, and centroid linkage using correlation, and Ward's minimum variance technique, was identified.     

算术应用题的分类结果与数学成绩关系研究

以算术应用题为材料,探讨了不同年级、不同数学成绩学生对算术应用题的分类结果及其与数学成绩的关系。结果表明:不同年级学生对算术应用题分类结果差异显著;数学成绩优生与数学成绩差生对算术应用题分类结果存在差异。     

解释学分类及其他

本文之所以要讲解释学分类,因为研究、实施解释学的人往往有三个忽略:(一)不注意海德格尔为什么要中断解释学循环;(二)不反省现代人比古代人更好的理解古代人的启蒙教条;(三)还原解释经验比作为知识学的解释学更能面向事物(文本)本身.     

分类的样例观及其研究进展

分类研究近年来已成为认知科学研究的一个重点,样例观是基于相似性表征的,自从产生以来获得了很大发展。该文对于样例观及其近年来出现的样例模型进行了比较全面的介绍,然后介绍了心理学界针对样例观的争论,最后提出各种分类模型的整合是未来样例观的发展趋势。     

The Generality Problem for Reliabilism

Philosophical Studies -     

Categorization and affect: evidence for intra-hemispheric interactions

Both emotional reactivity and categorization have long been studied within the framework of hemispheric asymmetry. However, little attempt has been made to integrate both research areas using any form of neuropsychological research, despite behavioral data suggesting a consistent relationship between affective and categorization processes. The primary goal of the current study was to examine the possibility of a laterally mediated interaction between emotional reactivity and the cognitive process of categorization. Using a split visual fields categorization task combined with affect inducing procedures, we hypothesized that the relationship between state affect and categorization would be dependent on the nature of state affect and on the hemisphere targeted. Results offered support for this hypothesis, showing that state affect related changes in categorization appeared only in the hemisphere commonly associated with both a specific affective state and categorization strategy employed. Findings are discussed in terms of possible evidence for a hemispheric arousal effect underlying the relationship between affect and categorization.     

The Value of Heterogeneous Pleasures

Pleasure is one of the most obvious candidates for directly improving wellbeing. Hedonists claim it is the only feature that can intrinsically make life better for the one living it, and that all of wellbeing derives from the relative pleasantness and unpleasantness of conscious experience. But Hedonism is incompatible with the ‘heterogeneity’ of pleasure: it cannot allow that distinct pleasures can feel completely differently, if experiences count as pleasant due to how they feel. I argue that a pluralistic variant of Hedonism can match its theoretical attractions while also accommodating the heterogeneity of pleasure. This has interesting implications for both the philosophical debate over the nature of wellbeing and psychological theories of how to measure and aggregate positive affect. In particular, my argument implies that there is no single dimension of ‘valence’ or ‘intensity’ on which pleasantness can be measured.     

归类不确定时人们的推理方式研究

该研究采用集中呈现样例的研究范式,探讨了归类不确定情况下,人们的推理方式。实验1控制特征联结频次,考察人们的推理方式是否是基于类别的推理。实验2控制类别中特征的基本概率,考察人们推理方式是否是基于特征联结的推理。实验结果表明,特征推理前不预先归类直接推理时,人们的推理根据目标特征与预测特征联结的频次进行,是基于特征联结的推理;特征推理前预先要求被试归类时,人们的特征推理是基于类别的推理。     

分类活动对归纳推理多样性效应的影响

归纳推理多样性效应被证实为普遍存在的,然而研究者Heit和Medin却对多样性效应的普遍性存在分歧。本文通过三个实验针对两位学者的分歧展开研究。结果发现:1.两位学者之间的分歧是由不同的分类活动引起的。当分类活动为外显时,被试的推理结果既不支持Medin,也不支持Heit;当分类活动内隐时,被试的推理结果支持Heit的观点。2.人们在日常生活及现实情境中,往往是根据直觉对事物进行分类及多样性推理。     

Adult Attachment Style and Cognitive Reactions to Positive Affect: A Test of Mental Categorization and Creative Problem Solving

Three studies examined the moderating effect of attachment style on cognitive reactions to positive affect inductions. In Study 1 (N = 110), participants completed attachment style scales, were asked to retrieve a happy or a neutral memory, and, then, performed a categorization task. Study 2 (N = 120) used the same affect induction, while examining creative problem solving in the Remote Associates Test. Study 3 (N = 120) replicated Study 2, while using another affect induction (watching a comedy film) and controlling for trait anxiety scores. Overall, securely attached persons reacted to positive affect with broader categorization and better performance in creative problem-solving tasks. Anxious–ambivalent persons showed an opposite pattern of cognitive reactions to positive affect, and avoidant persons showed no difference in their cognitive reactions to positive and neutral affect inductions. The discussion emphasizes the role that attachment-related strategies of affect regulation may play in episodes of positive affect.     

Social Categorization and Stereotyping In vivo: The VUCA Challenge

A substantial literature has examined the nature of social categorization, a fundamental process having important implications for a wide variety of social phenomena. The great majority of this research has focused on the role of particular, clearly identified social categories (e.g. race, nationality, etc.) while ignoring or holding constant other identity dimensions. This approach has afforded considerable leverage for understanding how salient social identities influence perception, judgment, and behavior. However, it leaves unaddressed many questions about how particular social identities become salient and how (and whether) identities might be inferred when category membership is ambiguous or unknown. Everyday social perception often occurs under conditions of volatility (dynamic contexts), uncertainty (missing information), complexity (multiple bases for categorization), and ambiguity (unclear meaning of available cues). As a consequence, research must address how these factors might qualify basic processes of social categorization. Available evidence is reviewed, and directions for future research are discussed.     

Categorization versus distance: Hemispheric differences for processing spatial information

It has been hypothesized that the brain computes two different kinds of spatial-relation representations: one used to assign a spatial relation to a category and the other used to specify metric distance with precision. The present visual half-field experiment offers support for this distinction by showing that the left and right cerebral hemispheres make more effective use of the categorization and metric distance representations, respectively. Furthermore, the inclusion of a bilateral stimulus presentation condition permits the computation of a reversed association that offers additional support for the distinction between two types of spatial-relation representation.     

The Problem of Ethical Vagueness for Expressivism

Ethical vagueness has garnered little attention. This is rather surprising since many philosophers have remarked that the science of ethics lacks the precision that other fields of inquiry have. Of the few philosophers who have discussed ethical vagueness the majority have focused on the implications of vagueness for moral realism. Because the relevance of ethical vagueness for other metaethical positions has been underexplored, my aim in this paper is to investigate the ramifications of ethical vagueness for expressivism. Ultimately, I shall argue that expressivism does not have the resources to adequately account for ethical vagueness, while cognitivism does. This demonstrates an advantage that cognitivism holds over expressivism.     

The Clustering and Contagion of Suicide

Two general types of suicide cluster have been discussed in the literature; roughly, these can be classified as mass clusters and point clusters. Mass clusters are media related, and the evidence for them is equivocal; point clusters are local phenomena, and these do appear to occur. Contagion has not been conceptually well developed nor empirically well supported as an explanation for suicide clusters. An alternative explanation for why suicides sometimes cluster is articulated: People who are vulnerable to suicide may cluster well before the occurrence of any overt suicidal stimulus, and when they experience severe negative events, including but not limited to the suicidal behavior of one member of the cluster, all members of the cluster are at increased risk for suicidality (a risk that may be offset by good social support).     

The minimal group paradigm: Categorization into two versus three groups

The minimal group paradigm (Tajfel, Billig, Bundy and Flament, 1971) has been influential in the study of intergroup relations. Thus far, most minimal group experiments have divided the subjects either into two groups, or have categorized them on two separate dichotomous dimensions in cross-categorization experiments. This study examines the minimal group paradigm using three distinct and independent groups. Comparison of the results with three minimal groups with those of a baseline two-group experiment shows that with a three-group structure there is no significant ingroup bias. It is suggested that the two-group minimal group experiment shows ingroup bias because subjects access a dichotomous categorization, and that this dichotomous categorization primes a competitive orientation. A two-group context may be particularly efective in evoking an ‘us versus them’ contrast. Self-categorization as a group member is more likely to occur in the presence of two groups whereas three minimal groups renders an ‘us–them’ contrastive orientation less salient. The absence of intergroup discrimination found in the present minimal group study may be limited to the behaviour of minimal or artificially created groups. In the real world of intergroup relations discrimination towards multiple outgroups is a well-known phenomenon. While this study should be regarded as only preliminary research, further elaboration and specification of the conditions under which multiple group contexts may hinder intergroup discrimination is required.     

Categorization by People and Pigeons: The Twenty-second Bartlett Memorial Lecture

In one set of experiments, the experience of categorizing sets of variable exemplars of two categories enhanced subjects' ability to discriminate between two new instances of one of these categories. In a second set, subjects that had categorized two sets of exemplars responded more accurately to the hitherto unseen prototype than to a new exemplar close to the category boundary; but in some cases they responded even more accurately to a new exemplar, even further from the category boundary, than to the prototype. In both sets of experiments, people and pigeons behaved in similar ways. The implication is that at least in some situations human behaviour is controlled by a relatively simple set of associative processes, whose operations have been elucidated by conditioning experiments in animals.     

Categorization,attitude and memory for the source of attitude statements

In a study of factors influencing recognition-memory for the sources of attitude statements, a final sample of 107 subjects, aged 15–16, first rated their agreement with 24 statements concerning drug-use, 12 of which were attributed to one, and 12 to another, fictitiously named newspaper. Later, the statements were re shown to subjects with half the names altered, and subjects had to indicate which names were correct (i.e., unaltered). Discrimination sensitivity was very significantly higher in a condition where the initial relationship between the sources and the statements was systematic, so that the 12 most pro-drug statements were attributed to one newspaper and the 12 most anti-drug statements to the other, than in two conditions where the initial relationship was random, in which discrimination was at chance level. In the first of these conditions, subjects were also more likely to claim that the attributed source was correct if they had previously agreed with the statement. overall, subjects were more accurate in discriminating correct and incorrect sources for statements to which they had previously given a more moderate, or a more negative response on the agreement scale.     

At face value: Categorization goals modulate vigilance for angry faces

The present research demonstrates that the attention bias to angry faces is modulated by how people categorize these faces. Since facial expressions contain psychologically meaningful information for social categorizations (i.e., gender, personality) but not for non-social categorizations (i.e., eye-color), angry facial expression should especially capture attention during social categorization tasks. Indeed, in three studies, participants were slower to name the gender of angry compared to happy or neutral faces, but not their color (blue or green; Study 1) or eye-color (blue or brown; Study 2). Furthermore, when different eye-colors were linked to a personality trait (introversion, extraversion) versus sensitivity to light frequencies (high, low), angry faces only slowed down categorizations when eye-color was indicative of a social characteristic (Study 3). Thus, vigilance for angry facial expressions is contingent on people's categorization goals, supporting the perspective that even basic attentional processes are moderated by social influences.