Constructing general models of theory dynamics

This essay is an attempt to consider dynamic aspects of scientific theorising from a formal perspective. Our emphasis will be on the aims and methods for constructing formal models of theory dynamics which will be conceived from a general or ‘theoretical’ rather than ‘applied’ standpoint.     

The other side of false belief: Constructing the objectivity of reality

Young children appear not to grasp the independence between objective reality and subjective beliefs, as evidenced by their errors on false belief tasks. Whereas decades of research have examined children's developing understanding of the subjectivity of beliefs, however, almost no research has examined the other side of the issue: How do humans come to understand the objectivity of reality, and why is this understanding important? To help address this gap, this article proposes an evolutionary-developmental account of how the understanding that reality is objective may have emerged in human thinking. Three key steps are highlighted: (i) phylogenetic foundations in great ape competitive mindreading, (ii) ontogenetic foundations in preverbal infant joint attention, and (iii) key experiences of perspectival conflict in linguistic humans. Functionally, the concept of an objective reality facilitated collaborative reasoning and joint decision-making. To arrive at good joint decisions, individuals needed to recognize that both their own beliefs and others' beliefs could be wrong—with respect to the objective reality.     

Playing with reality

The authors explore the interpersonal aspects of the early development of an experience of external reality and the roots of this experience in primary intersubjectivity. They suggest some implications that this has for psychoanalytic work with the patient's experience of external reality. They argue that the external world is not an independently existing 'given', for the infant to discover, as is sometimes implicitly assumed. Infants acquire knowledge about the world not just through their own explorations of it but by using other minds as teachers. The experience of external reality is invariably shaped through subjectivities. The authors argue that at first the infant assumes that his knowledge is knowledge held by all, that what he knows is known by others and that what is known by others is accessible to him. Only slowly does the uniqueness of his own perspective differentiate so that a sense of mental self can develop. In clinical work we frequently observe the undoing of this process of differentiation, and understanding the underlying mechanisms can be helpful in managing the transference and countertransference consequences when the process has been derailed.     

Flirting with virtual reality

Psychoanalysis encourages patients to experience a virtual reality of the psychoanalytic relationship, in which both image and wish can be experimented with. Originally, the patient's awareness was supposed to move back and forth between the virtual and the actual, in a flickering and uncertain fashion. That is uncomfortable, and analysts have often preferred the domain of virtuality or of actuality, or have denied the distinction altogether. Recent philosophical developments and doubts about transference neurosis and reconstruction further tempt analysts to relax the flickering uncertainty of virtual and actual. Patient and analyst may gain comfort but lose something in the process.     

Folk theories,models and economic reality: A reply to Williams

In this article, I argue that Williams's sceptical view about the value of economic models expressed in 'The philosophy of economic modelling: a critical survey' [South African Journal of Philosophy, 18(2): 223–246, this issue], and widely shared amongst philosophers of science, is not warrented. Williams's error, I maintain, lies in his failure to adequately distinguish, (a) between theories in general and what he calls 'folk theories', and (b) between the different roles that models play in different sciences. With respect to (b), I suggest that Williams fails to recognize that scientists who lack the ability of physicists to constrain theorizing through rigorous controlled experiments must generally do a good deal of work investigating theories by means of models solely designed to test their formal implications, before further models with potentially direct applicability to the world can even be developed. Williams's central mistake, I argue, lies in confusing models of the first sort with models of the second.     

Sense of reality,reality testing and reality processing in borderline patients1

Although borderline patients are suitable for it, they often undergo repeated testing of phantasies against objective reality without success. A reason for these partial failures is that subjects have not been able to build a solid sense of reality and have found many diffi culties for processing reality demands and possibilities. The author puts forward some thoughts on this question, such as the importance of working through the depressive position and the Oedipus complex in the process of building up a solid sense of reality. A sense of reality also favours continuous reality processing. When reality processing becomes as continuous as life itself, the repetition of individual reality tests becomes less frequent and necessary, and more satisfying. The author also presents some recommendations for the psychoanalytic treatment of such patients, stressing the importance and the diffi culties of the introduction of the borderline patient into the triangular situation because primitive defences‐such as disavowal and denial‐are mobilized.     

Directing driver attention with augmented reality cues

This simulator study evaluated the effects of augmented reality (AR) cues designed to direct the attention of experienced drivers to roadside hazards. Twenty-seven healthy middle-aged licensed drivers with a range of attention capacity participated in a 54 mile (1.5 h) drive in an interactive fixed-base driving simulator. Each participant received AR cues to potential roadside hazards in six simulated straight (9 mile long) rural roadway segments. Drivers were evaluated on response time for detecting a potentially hazardous event, detection accuracy for target (hazard) and non-target objects, and headway with respect to the hazards. Results showed no negative outcomes associated with interference. AR cues did not impair perception of non-target objects, including for drivers with lower attentional capacity. Results showed near significant response time benefits for AR cued hazards. AR cueing increased response rate for detecting pedestrians and warning signs but not vehicles. AR system false alarms and misses did not impair driver responses to potential hazards.     

Route learning with augmented reality navigation aids

Current trends point towards the development and implementation of augmented reality (AR) navigation assistance systems for drivers. Previous research has found augmented reality can benefit driving performance, but the impact of AR on route learning (spatial knowledge acquisition) has received less attention. The current study used simulated driving scenarios to determine how the type of navigation aid device used (i.e., paper map, electronic map, and AR system) affected driving performance and route learning of 62 driving adults. Route learning was examined at landmark, route, and survey levels. The hypotheses tested were that AR would improve driving performance but diminish route learning compared to paper map use; and that AR would outperform electronic map use in both driving performance and route learning. Results indicated that paper map use led to poorer driving performance and greater route learning. However, map recognition may have been a confounding factor in higher level spatial knowledge acquisition with paper map use. Driving performance and route learning were similar for drivers using the electronic map and AR, but some differences suggested that drivers have reduced uncertainty and hesitation while using AR to navigate in unfamiliar areas.     

Constructing measures with maximum reliability

The scoring of response vectors to give maximum test-retest correlation is investigated. Simple sufficiency arguments show that the form of the best scores is very restricted. A general method is given for finding the best scores, deriving the best scores for the normal factor model, and showing by calculation of several particular cases that for a standard model for binary response it is easy to approximate the best scores.     

How the eye measures reality and virtual reality

If virtual reality systems are to make good on their name, designers must know how people perceive space in natural environments, in photographs, and in cinema. Perceivers understand the layout of a cluttered natural environment through the use of nine or more sources of information, each based on different assumptions—occlusion, height in the visual field, relative size, relative density, aerial perspective, binocular disparities, accommodation, convergence, and motion perspective. The relative utility of these sources at different distances is compared, using their ordinal depth-threshold functions. From these, three classes of space around a moving observer are postulated: personal space, action space, and vista space. Within each, a smaller number of sources act in consort, with different relative strengths. Given the general ordinality of the sources, these spaces are likely to be affine in character, stretching and collapsing with viewing conditions. One of these conditions is controlled by lens length in photography and cinematography or by field-of-view commands in computer graphics. These have striking effects on many of these sources of information and, consequently, on how the layout of a scene is perceived.     

Modeling reality

My aim in this paper is to articulate an account of scientific modeling that reconciles pluralism about modeling with a modest form of scientific realism. The central claim of this approach is that the models of a given physical phenomenon can present different aspects of the phenomenon. This allows us, in certain special circumstances, to be confident that we are capturing genuine features of the world, even when our modeling occurs independently of a wholly theoretical motivation. This framework is illustrated using a recent debate from meteorology.     

Appearance and reality

There is tension between the appealing idea that visual experience puts us in touch with objective reality and the doctrine of perceptual relativity, the claim that experience varies with such factors as distance, lighting, and angle of view. In this paper I present arguments for relativity, and then go on to propose that in view of relativity, we should believe that the properties presented to us in perception are relational and viewpoint‐dependent. I conclude by sketching a theory of how we nonetheless manage to achieve contact with objective properties. According to the theory, such contact is best explained in terms of perceptual representations acting in concert with cognitive and motoric representations, not in terms of perceptual representations alone.     

Countertransference and reality

The psychoanalytic situation provides many opportunities for people to observe their analysts closely. These observations are inevitably woven into the fabric of patients’ transference experience. Because the observations can be uncomfortable for the analyst, there is a constant temptation to ignore or deny the plausibility of patients’ perceptions. They can be, and often are, quickly reinterpreted as derivatives of sexual or aggressive urges. Psychoanalytic drive theory, with its emphasis on impulse rather than observation as the force behind transference experience, can encourage counter‐transferential disclaimers and lead to blind spots. Some technical suggestions are offered to avoid this tendency and are based on a relational understanding of the nature of transference.     

Medicine's symbolic reality

Modern socio‐cultural studies of medicine demonstrate the symbolic character of much of medical reality. This symbolic reality can be appreciated as mediating the traditional division of medicine into biophysical and human sciences. Comparative studies of medical systems offer a general model for medicine as a human science. These studies document that medicine, from an historical and cross‐cultural perspective, is constituted as a cultural system in which symbolic meanings take an active part in disease formation, the classification and cognitive management of illness, and in therapy. Medicine's symbolic reality also forms a bridge between cultural and psychophysiological phenomena; the basis for psychosomatic and socioso‐matic pathology and therapy. This in turn becomes a central problem for medical theory and for a philosophical reinvestigation of medicine.