The instantiation principle re-evaluated

Three experiments are presented in which different aspects concerning Heit and Barsalou's (1996) instantiation principle were investigated. Mean typicalities of subordinate categories within superordinates were predicted very accurately for all investigated concepts. Multiple instantiations were shown to yield somewhat better predictions than single instantiation. The instantiation principle also successfully predicted mean typicalities on a different level (i.e., in lower-level concepts). An alternative account of Heit and Barsalou's findings was also proven wrong. Finally, correspondence between empirically obtained and predicted standard deviations is argued to be dubious, because of several possible sources of bias in the observed and predicted values.     

Against instantiation as identity

Some people object to realism about universals because they think that instantiation, the connection between something and the universals that characterize it, is too mysterious. Baxter and Armstrong try to make instantiation less mysterious by taking it to be a kind of partial identity. However, I argue that their accounts of instantiation, and any similar ones, fail.     

Property instantiation in conceptual combination

In four experiments, I examined how a property in one concept is transferred to a second concept during conceptual combination. The results suggest that people instantiate properties: that is, they use a specific representation of a property in the modifier concept to construct a new version of that property that is specific to the combination. If people are instantiating properties, then the modifier property should match its counterpart in the combination to the extent that the modifier and head noun are similar. This observation leads to a variety of predictions (supported by the experiments) about interpretations of similar and dissimilar combinations and about plausibility, preference, and similarity judgments associated with such interpretations. The results argue against an alternative view of transfer that posits that, in general, abstract representations of properties are copied from one concept to another. In this paper, I describe various processing accounts of instantiation and discuss the implications of the instantiation view for theories of metaphor, conceptual combination, and induction.     

The role of imagery,analogy, and instantiation in proverb comprehension

The role of imagery, analogy, and instantiation in understanding proverbs was examined in the light of the Conceptual Base Theory (CBT). The CBT proposes that proverb comprehension involves four phases and that (a) after Problem Recognition, imagery is often used during the Literal Transformation Phase with the intention of constructing a figurative meaning but that imagery does not enter into this meaning; (b) figurative meaning is the solution to a four-part, a:b::c:d, analogy, which occurs during the Figurative Phase; (c) the Instantiation Phase can be entered only if a figurative meaning is constructed, but once instantiation occurs it serves to refine this meaning. A transfer paradigm was used to test these hypotheses. During acquisition, the subjects were presented proverbs and given rating tasks in connection with one of the following: pictures that illustrated the literal proverb information (picture groups), instructions to image the literal proverb information (imagery groups), or analogies involving literala andb terms drawn from the proverb andc andd terms that constituted an interpretation of the proverb (analogy group), concrete verbal instances that illustrated the proverbs' figurative meanings (instance group), or an analogy and an instance (analogy-instance group). During transfer, all subjects attempted to distinguish between novel sentences that were either positive or negative instances of the figurative meaning of the acquisition proverbs. The picture and imagery groups, which were assumed to have used imagery without the intention of constructing a figurative meaning, performed at chance. The analogy group performed above chance and on a par with the instance group subjects, who theoretically had constructed and solved an implicit analogy. The analogy-instance group showed superior performance. Discussion centered on the pattern of the results in relation to the CBT and on the role of imagery and analogy in understanding proverbs as opposed to metaphors.The authors wish to thank Suzanne Leake for help in designing the experiment, preparing materials, and running subjects.     

Connectionism and the problem of multiple instantiation

Multiple instantiation is the ability to handle different instances of the same concept simultaneously. For example, from the following two facts: `Pepin the Short was the son of Charles Martel' and `Charlemagne was the son of Pepin the Short', one can infer that Charles Martel was the grandfather of Charlemagne. This inference requires two instantiations of `Pepin the Short', the first in the role of son, the second in the role of father. For a connectionist model that does not use a working area receiving copies of items from a long-term knowledge base, the problem of multiple instantiation is a particularly thorny one. People are able to deal with multiple instances, unlike most connectionist models, but nonetheless their performance when doing so is reduced. On the other hand, there is no decrease in performance for symbolic models doing multiple instantiation. A good cognitive model should reflect both human competence and human limitations. This review proposes several connectionist solutions to the problem of multiple instantiation and examines their merits.     

The effects of similarity of theme and instantiation in analogical reasoning.

The influence of 2 types of structural similarity on analogical reasoning was examined. The theme of a story is a structural component that constrains other relationships in the story. Another structural component is the way in which the theme is implemented. Participants received pairs of stories that varied in the similarity of these two components. Participants in Experiment 1 judged stories containing similar themes as more analogous than stories with dissimilar themes. Likewise, stories with similar implementations were judged as more analogous than stories with dissimilar implementations. Experiment 2 revealed a similar pattern when participants had the opportunity to transfer information from source to target stories. Greater transfer was seen for stories with similar themes than for stories with dissimilar themes. Greater transfer was also seen for stories with similar implementations of different themes than for stories with different implementations.     

Typicality in logically defined categories: Exemplar-similarity versus rule instantiation

A rule-instantiation model and a similarity-to-exemplars model were contrasted in terms of their predictions of typicality judgments and speeded classifications for members of logically defined categories. In Experiment 1, subjects learned a unidimensional rule based on the size of objects. It was assumed that items that maximally instantiated the rule were those farthest from the category boundary that separated small and large stimuli. In Experiment 2, subjects learned a disjunctive rule of the form "x or y or both". It was assumed that items that maximally instantiated the rule were those with both positive values (x and y). In both experiments, the frequency with which different exemplars were presented during classification learning was manipulated across conditions. These frequency manipulations exerted a major impact on subjects' postacquisition goodness-of-example judgments, and they also influenced reaction times in a speeded classification task. The results could not be predicted solely on the basis of the degree to which the rules were instantiated. The goodness judgments were predicted fairly well by a mixed exemplar model involving both relative-similarity and absolute-similarity components. It was concluded that even for logically defined concepts, stored exemplars may form a major component of the category representation.     

The genetic difference principle

In the newly emerging debates about genetics and justice three distinct principles have begun to emerge concerning what the distributive aim of genetic interventions should be. These principles are: genetic equality, a genetic decent minimum, and the genetic difference principle. In this paper, I examine the rationale of each of these principles and argue that genetic equality and a genetic decent minimum are ill-equipped to tackle what I call the currency problem and the problem of weight. The genetic difference principle is the most promising of the three principles and I develop this principle so that it takes seriously the concerns of just health care and distributive justice in general. Given the strains on public funds for other important social programmes, the costs of pursuing genetic interventions and the nature of genetic interventions, I conclude that a more lax interpretation of the genetic difference principle is appropriate. This interpretation stipulates that genetic inequalities should be arranged so that they are to the greatest reasonable benefit of the least advantaged. Such a proposal is consistent with prioritarianism and provides some practical guidance for non-ideal societies--that is, societies that do not have the endless amount of resources needed to satisfy every requirement of justice.     

The wastefulness principle. A burden-sharing principle for climate change

The prominent burden-sharing principles in the emerging literature of the political theory of climate change fail to sufficiently tackle the task they set out to solve. This paper sets out properties that an alternative principle should aim to meet. Based on these properties, it develops a consequentialist moral principle – the wastefulness principle. This principle holds that it is wrong to waste a shared, scarce resource. The paper argues that this principle can be used to solve the question of who should bear the burdens of anthropogenic climate change in a more suitable way than existing principles. After developing the wastefulness principle, this paper discusses in a non-exhaustive manner how it can be employed in the real world, which challenges it might meet, and how additional principles might solve them.