A second-order relevance logic with modality

In this paper a system, RPF, of second-order relevance logic with S5 necessity is presented which contains a defined, notion of identity for propositions. A complete semantics is provided. It is shown that RPF allows for more than one necessary proposition. RPF contains primitive syntactic counterparts of the following semantic notions: (1) the reflexive, symmetrical, transitive binary alternativeness relation for S5 necessity, (2) the ternary Routley-Meyer alternativeness relation for implication, and (3) the Routley-Meyer notion of a prime intensional theory, as well as defined syntactic counterparts, of the semantic notions of a possible world and the Routley-Meyer ^* operator.     

Symmetry and transitivity assumptions about a nonspecified logical relation

Twenty-five subjects were presented with eight problems involving a non-specified relation, devoid of its concrete content. This relation was signified by the symbol (--), thus logically precluding any knowledge about the properties of the relation. The problems were so designed that the truth evaluation of their solution statements reflected assumptions about the symmetry and transitivity properties of the relation. Six subjects assumed that the relation was both symmetrical and transitive, and 12 subjects assumed that it was symmetrical only. When these same 18 subjects were presented with problems which lent themselves to only one of these assumptions, all assumed that the relation was symmetrical rather than transitive. The remaining seven subjects made neither of these two assumptions in any of the problems. Examples of logical relations, given as part of the problems, and varying in their properties of symmetry and transitivity, had no effect on the subjects' assumptions. It is proposed that symmetrical and transitive relations are conceptual good figures which predisposed subjects to perceive the nonspecified relation as symmetrical or as transitive. The stronger tendency towards symmetry assumptions than towards transitivity assumptions suggests that symmetrical relations are better figures than transitive relations.     

Reasoning from connectives and relations between entities

This article reports investigations of inferences that depend both on connectives between clauses, such as or else, and on relations between entities, such as in the same place as. Participants made more valid inferences from biconditionals—for instance, Ann is taller than Beth if and only if Beth is taller than Cath—than from exclusive disjunctions (Exp. 1). They made more valid transitive inferences from a biconditional when a categorical premise affirmed rather than denied one of its clauses, but they made more valid transitive inferences from an exclusive disjunction when a categorical premise denied rather than affirmed one of its clauses (Exp. 2). From exclusive disjunctions, such as Either Ann is not in the same place as Beth or else Beth is not in the same place as Cath, individuals tended to infer that all three individuals could be in different places, whereas in fact this was impossible (Exps. 3a and 3b). The theory of mental models predicts all of these results.     

The effect of presentation format and encoding strategy on associative memory distortion

IntroductionPrevious studies using semantically related words revealed more accurate memory when the items were encoded visually rather than auditorily and when mental images were created during encoding. However, how the level of memory distortion is affected by the creation of different mental imagery formats or by techniques that should suppress generation of mental images has rarely been investigated.ObjectiveThe aim of the present studies was to investigate the ways in which the encoding strategy affects the accuracy of memory reports for two presentation formats of semantically related words: verbal and pictorial.MethodIn experiment 1, the participants were asked to memorize either pictures or their verbal equivalents (words) from the same category, using one of two encoding strategies: uttering the words or counting backwards. In experiment 2, pictorially or auditory presented material was encoded together with the creation of either visual or auditory mental images of the items. The results of the experimental groups were compared to control groups that received no specific instruction.ResultsHigher levels of false recognition, together with lower rates of correct recognition, were observed for words, presented either visually or auditory, relative to pictures. Moreover, self-generation of additional code during the processing of information favored the reduction of false recognitions.ConclusionEncoding strategies that engaged dual coding reduced false recognition. The results are discussed within the distinctiveness heuristic phenomenon.     

Experimental philosophers,conceptual analysts,and the rest of us

Abstract

Theories of personal identity purport to specify truth conditions for sentences of the form ‘x‐at‐t_i is the same person as y‐at‐t_j. Most philosophers nowadays agree that such truth conditions are to be stated in terms of psychological continuity. However; opinions vary as to how the notion of psychological continuity is to be understood. In a recent contribution to this journal, Slors offers an account in which psychological continuity is spelled out in terms of narrative connectedness between mental states.The present paper argues that Slors’ theory either is no theory of personal identity at all or is too weak.Towards the end of the paper, it is indicated how the problem uncovered for Slors’ theory may be avoided.     

ALL STIMULI ARE EQUAL,BUT SOME ARE MORE EQUAL THAN OTHERS: MEASURING RELATIONAL PREFERENCES WITHIN AN EQUIVALENCE CLASS

Two experiments used post‐class formation within‐class relational assessment test performances to evaluate whether participants demonstrated preference for certain members of an equivalence class based on the type of relation that existed between class members. In Experiment 1, two 5‐node 7‐member equivalence classes, consisting entirely of nonsense syllables, were established using the simultaneous protocol. Only 1 of the 6 participants in Experiment 1 formed classes. After class formation, the effects of the different relations between stimuli were evaluated using within‐class relational assessment tests, and the 1 participant showed an absolute preference for transitive over equivalence relations, and for baseline over symmetrical relations. Experiment 2 was identical to Experiment 1, except that one of the nonsense syllable stimuli in each class was replaced by a pictorial stimulus. Under these conditions, classes were formed by 5 of 13 participants. During the relational assessment tests, the 5 participants who formed classes demonstrated almost exclusive preferences for transitive relations over equivalence relations and for trained baseline relations over symmetrical relations. Thus, this research demonstrates that the members of equivalence classes are differentially related to each other based on relational type.     

Access,phenomenology and sorites

The non‐transitivity of the relation looks the same as has been used to argue that the relation has the same phenomenal character as is non‐transitive—a result that jeopardizes certain theories of consciousness. In this paper, I argue against this conclusion while granting the premise by dissociating lookings and phenomenology; an idea that some might find counter‐intuitive. However, such an intuition is left unsupported once phenomenology and cognitive access are distinguished from each other; a distinction that is conceptually and empirically grounded.     

Inexact Knowledge with Introspection

Standard Kripke models are inadequate to model situations of inexact knowledge with introspection, since positive and negative introspection force the relation of epistemic indiscernibility to be transitive and euclidean. Correlatively, Williamson’s margin for error semantics for inexact knowledge invalidates axioms 4 and 5. We present a new semantics for modal logic which is shown to be complete for K45, without constraining the accessibility relation to be transitive or euclidean. The semantics corresponds to a system of modular knowledge, in which iterated modalities and simple modalities are not on a par. We show how the semantics helps to solve Williamson’s luminosity paradox, and argue that it corresponds to an integrated model of perceptual and introspective knowledge that is psychologically more plausible than the one defended by Williamson. We formulate a generalized version of the semantics, called token semantics, in which modalities are iteration-sensitive up to degree n and insensitive beyond n. The multi-agent version of the semantics yields a resource-sensitive logic with implications for the representation of common knowledge in situations of bounded rationality.     

The Analytic Truth and Falsity of Disjunctions

Disjunctive inferences are difficult. According to the theory of mental models, it is because of the alternative possibilities to which disjunctions refer. Three experiments corroborated further predictions of the mental model theory. Participants judged that disjunctions, such as Either this year is a leap year or it is a common year are true. Given a disjunction such as Either A or B, they tended to evaluate the four cases in its ‘partition’: A and B, A and not‐B, not‐A and B, not‐A and not‐B, as ‘possible’ or ‘impossible’ in ways that bore out the difference between inclusive disjunctions (‘or both’) and exclusive disjunctions (‘but not both’). Knowledge usually concerns what is true, and so when participants judge that a disjunction is false, or contingent, and evaluate the cases in its partition, they depend on inferences that yield predictable errors. They tended to judge that disjunctions, such as follows: Either the food is cold or else it is tepid, but not both, are true, though in fact they could be false. They tended to infer ‘mirror‐image’ evaluations that yield the same possibilities for false disjunctions as those for true disjunctions. The article considers the implications of these results for alternative theories based on classical logic or on the probability calculus.     

Factors and processes in children's transitive deductions

Transitive tasks are important for understanding how children develop socio-cognitively. However, developmental research has been restricted largely to questions surrounding maturation. We asked 6-, 7- and 8-year-olds (N?=?117) to solve a composite of five different transitive tasks. Tasks included conditions asking about item-C (associated with the marked relation) in addition to the usual case of asking only about item-A (associated with the unmarked relation). Here, children found resolving item-C much easier than resolving item-A, a finding running counter to long-standing assumptions about transitive reasoning. Considering gender perhaps for the first time, boys exhibited higher transitive scores than girls overall. Finally, analysing in the context of one recent and well-specified theory of spatial transitive reasoning, we generated the prediction that reporting the full series should be easier than deducing any one item from that series. This prediction was not upheld. We discuss amendments necessary to accommodate all our earlier findings.     

Materialism and ‘the soft substance of the brain’: Diderot and plasticity

ABSTRACT

Materialism is the view that everything that is real is material or is the product of material processes. It tends to take either a ‘cosmological’ form, as a claim about the ultimate nature of the world, or a more specific ‘psychological’ form, detailing how mental processes are brain processes. I focus on the second, psychological or cerebral form of materialism. In the mid-to-late eighteenth century, the French materialist philosopher Denis Diderot was one of the first to notice that any self-respecting materialist had to address the question of the status and functional role of the brain, and its relation to our mental life. After this the topic grew stale, with knee-jerk reiterations of ‘psychophysical identity’ in the nineteenth-century, and equally rigid assertions of anti-materialism. In 1960s philosophy of mind, brain–mind materialism reemerged as ‘identity theory’, focusing on the identity between mental processes and cerebral processes. In contrast, Diderot’s cerebral materialism allows for a more culturally sedimented sense of the brain, which he described in his late Elements of Physiology as a ‘book – except it is a book which reads itself’. Diderot thus provides a lesson for materialism as it reflects on the status of the brain, science and culture.     

Expanding the conceptual range of health self-regulation research: A commentary

Abstract

In contrast to models that endeavor to link human motives to important adjustive outcomes in a largely idealized, lock-step fashion, the theory and research presented in this special issue afford the reader an opportunity to consider the advantages of various “deep structural” conceptions of health self-regulation. I discuss how the present elaborated volitional models can help potentially overcome the “problem of psycho-semanticism”, i.e., the faulty doctrine that mental contents or propositional attitudes cause behavior simply be virtue of what they represent. I also suggest several routes by which self-regulated health-promotion efforts can become derailed, including the inherent fuzziness of many health goals, conflict within the individual's system of goals, and conflicts between the goals of the would-be self-regulator and those of significant others.     

On the relation between representations constructed from text comprehension and transitive inference production

Deductive inference production from texts is a process considered to involve either the construction of an integrated mental model or the step-by-step coordination of propositional representations of the sentences. These alternative hypotheses were tested in 3 experiments using a set inclusion task paradigm in which participants had to recall the premises and to evaluate transitive inferences. Contrary to what is known about linear ordering relations, order of recalls and reaction times provide evidence that the encoding of set inclusion relations does not result in an integrated representation. These results suggest that the mental models theory needs to take account of the nature of the relation to be represented if it is to become a general theory of reasoning.     

A Review of: “Cooper,M., O'Hara,M., Schmid,P. F., & Wyatt,G. (2007). The Handbook of Person-Centered Psychotherapy and Counseling.”

Abstract

Consideration is given to our cognitive, volitional, and emotive functions as they are experienced in the I‐It and I‐Thou realms of our existence, focusing on our emotive function. Feelings in the I‐It realm are limited to the physical and psychical parts of ourselves. They are defensive and motivate our survival in the world. In the I‐Thou realm, they permeate our whole being, including that part of ourselves that is beyond phenomenological manifestation that lies at the ground of our being as potential awaiting actualization. Our ontology necessitates the experience of our primary feelings in our struggle to become what we are uniquely “created” to be. Dialogical psychotherapists consider this as crucial to our therapeutic endeavors.     

Waves,streams, states,and self: An outline of an integral psychology 1

Abstract

Although far from unanimous, there seems to be a general consensus that neither mind nor brain can be reduced without remainder to the other. This essay argues that indeed both mind and brain need to be included in a nonreductionistic way in any genuinely integral theory of consciousness. In order to facilitate such integration, this essay presents the results of an extensive cross‐cultural literature search on the “mind” side of the equation, suggesting that the mental phenomena that need to be considered in any integral theory include developmental levels or waves of consciousness, developmental lines or streams of consciousness, states of consciousness, and the self (or self‐system). A “master template” of these various phenomena, culled from over one‐hundred psychological systems East and West, is presented. It is suggested that this master template represents a general summary of the “mind” side of the brain‐mind integration. The essay concludes with reflections on the “hard problem,” or how the mind‐side can be integrated with the brain‐side to generate a more integral theory of consciousness.     

Hidden talents in harsh conditions? A preregistered study of memory and reasoning about social dominance

Although growing up in stressful conditions can undermine mental abilities, people in harsh environments may develop intact, or even enhanced, social and cognitive abilities for solving problems in high‐adversity contexts (i.e. ‘hidden talents’). We examine whether childhood and current exposure to violence are associated with memory (number of learning rounds needed to memorize relations between items) and reasoning performance (accuracy in deducing a novel relation) on transitive inference tasks involving both violence‐relevant and violence‐neutral social information (social dominance vs. chronological age). We hypothesized that individuals who had more exposure to violence would perform better than individuals with less exposure on the social dominance task. We tested this hypothesis in a preregistered study in 100 Dutch college students and 99 Dutch community participants. We found that more exposure to violence was associated with lower overall memory performance, but not with reasoning performance. However, the main effects of current (but not childhood) exposure to violence on memory were qualified by significant interaction effects. More current exposure to neighborhood violence was associated with worse memory for age relations, but not with memory for dominance relations. By contrast, more current personal involvement in violence was associated with better memory for dominance relations, but not with memory for age relations. These results suggest incomplete transfer of learning and memory abilities across contents. This pattern of results, which supports a combination of deficits and ‘hidden talents,’ is striking in relation to the broader developmental literature, which has nearly exclusively reported deficits in people from harsh conditions. A video abstract of this article can be viewed at: https://youtu.be/e4ePmSzZsuc .     

The Theory of Planned Behavior as a model for understanding sedentary behavior

ObjectivesSedentary time has emerged as an independent risk factor for numerous adverse health outcomes. However, little is known about the social-cognitive correlates of sedentary behavior. The purpose of this study was to provide preliminary evidence for the factor structure and composition of sedentary derived Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) constructs and to determine the utility of these constructs in predicting sedentary intention and sedentary time.MethodTwenty-three items were created to assess attitudes, subjective norms (SN), perceived behavioral control (PBC), and intention with respect to time spent being sedentary. Using a web-based survey, 372 adults completed a modified Sedentary Behavior Questionnaire and were then randomised to one of three TPB questionnaire packages: general, weekday, and weekend. Weekday and weekend participants completed items for work/school (less-volitional) and leisure/recreation (volitional) activities separately, resulting in five TPB models being analyzed: general, weekday work/school, weekday leisure/recreation, weekend work/school, and weekend leisure/recreation.ResultsIrrespective of model, items grouped into coherent factors consistent with TPB and explained 9–58% and 8–43% of the variance in intention and behavior, respectively. The strongest and most consistent predictor of intention and behavior were SN and intentions, respectively. Mediation analyses indicated that attitudes consistently affected sedentary time through intention.ConclusionsThere is growing evidence that the TPB is a useful framework for understanding sedentarism.     

Testing an extended theory of planned behavior to predict young people's intentions to join a bone marrow donor registry

An extended theory of planned behavior (TPB) was used to understand the factors, particularly control perceptions and affective reactions, given conflicting findings in previous research, informing younger people's intentions to join a bone marrow registry. Participants (N = 174) completed attitude, subjective norm, perceived behavioral control (PBC), moral norm, anticipated regret, self‐identity, and intention items for registering. The extended TPB (except PBC) explained 67.2% of variance in intention. Further testing is needed as to the volitional nature of registering. Moral norm, anticipated regret, and self‐identity are likely intervention targets for increasing younger people's bone marrow registry participation.     

Hardiness and mental health during naval deployment: The relation is mediated by social processes and not by self-regulatory processes

IntroductionThe aim of the present study was to investigate the mediating effects of cohesion and self-efficacy on the relation between hardiness and symptoms of anxiety and depression during naval international operations.Objective and methodIt was hypothesized that an indirect effect of both cohesion and operational self-efficacy would emerge even when controlling for pre-deployment measures of symptoms.ResultsThe results revealed a strong indirect effect of cohesion on the relationship between hardiness and scores on Hopkins Symptom Checklist – 25 items. The effect was evident for the total score and the dimensions of anxiety as well as depression. No effect was found for operational self-efficacy.ConclusionIt was concluded that the social process of cohesion outperforms the self-regulatory process of operational self-efficacy as a mediator between hardiness and mental health. Greater focus on developing crew cohesion may thus be important for maintaining mental health under stressful conditions.