Deconstructing, reconstructing, preserving Paul E. Meehl's legacy of construct validity

The question of the status of cause-and-effect explanations of human behavior that posit physically existing causative factors and those that, on the other hand, posit hypothetical entities in the form of "useful fictions" has a long history. The influence of the works of Jeremy Bentham and Hans Vaihinger, as well as the later influence of Francis Galton, is described. Issues of the validity of hypothetical constructs and related problems of measurement and definition as found in psychoanalytic theory construction and in trait theory are examined. The significant and continuing interest generated by the landmark studies of K. MacCorquodale and P. E. Meehl (1948) and L. J. Cronbach and P. E. Meehl (1955) as well as the central importance of P. E. Meehl's thinking are described.     

Exploring the space of cognitive architectures

Production systems have been proposed as a candidate for the basic architecture of the human information processor. We consider a number of dimensions along which production systems can vary, and we discuss PRISM, a production system formalism designed to aid cognitive modelers in their exploration of the space of architectures. Examples of PRISM settings are presented in the context of particular models. Finally, some heuristics are suggested for efficiently searching the space of possible architectures.     

The dynamics of cognition: An ACT-R model of cognitive arithmetic

Zusammenfassung. Forschungsarbeiten zur Kognitiven Arithmetik untersuchen die mentale Repräsentation von Zahlen und arithmetischen Fakten sowie die kognitiven Prozesse die diese generieren, abrufen und manipulieren. Das Spannungsfeld zwischen der scheinbar einfachen formalen Struktur dieses Aufgabenbereichs und den Schwierigkeiten, die Kinder bei seiner Bewältigung haben, stellt einen einzigartigen Zugang zum Studium kognitiver Prozesse dar. Der vorliegende Beitrag präsentiert einen Erklärungsansatz der zentralen Befunde des Forschungsgebietes auf der Grundlage eines ACT-R Modells zur Lebenszeit-Simulation des Erwerbs arithmetischen Wissens. Die Anwendung der Bayesischen Lernmechanismen der ACT-R Architektur zeigen auf, wie sich diese Befunde auf die statistische Struktur des Aufgabengebiets zurückführen lassen. Aus den präzisen Vorhersagen der Simulation werden sowohl Hinweise zur Vermittlung arithmetischen Wissens abgeleitet als auch Erkenntnisse über die Architektur ACT-R selbst gewonnen. Im Rahmen einer formalen Analyse wird gezeigt, daß sich die vorgestellte Simulation als dynamisches System betrachten läßt, dessen Lernergebnis unmittelbar von Parametern der Architektur abhängt. Eine Untersuchung der Sensitivität der Parameter der Simulation belegt, daß die Werte, die zur besten Anpassung an die empirischen Daten führen, auch eine in einer optimalen Performanz resultieren. Die Implikationen dieses Ergebnis für die grundlegende Adaptivität menschlicher Kognition werden diskutiert. Abstract. Cognitive arithmetic studies the mental representation of numbers and arithmetic facts and the processes that create, access, and manipulate them. The contradiction between the apparent straightforwardness of its exact formal structure and the difficulties that every child faces in mastering it provides an important window into human cognition. An ACT-R model is proposed which accounts for the central results of the field through a single simulation of a lifetime of arithmetic learning. The use of the architecture's Bayesian learning mechanisms explains how these effects arise from the statistics of the task. Because of the precise predictions of the simulation, a number of lessons are derived concerning the teaching of arithmetic and the ACT-R architecture itself. A formal analysis establishes that the simulation can be viewed as a dynamical system whose ultimate learning outcome is fundamentally dependent upon some architectural parameters. Finally, an empirical study of the sensitivity of the simulation to its parameters determines that the values that yield the best fit to the data also provide optimal performance. The implications of these findings for the fundamental adaptivity of human cognition are discussed.     

Exploring the mental space of autonomous intentional agents

The ability to infer the intentions of other agents on the basis of their motion is a critical psychological faculty. In the present study, we examine a key question underlying this process, namely: What are the psychologically natural categories of intentional agents and actions? To investigate this question empirically, we use displays containing a number of autonomous, independently programmed agents moving about a two-dimensional environment and interacting with one another. Each agent behaves according to its own simple program, controlled by a small number of parameters that define its "personality." We probe participants' impressions of the similarities among the behaviors of the various agents, and then use multidimensional scaling in an attempt to recover the subjective mental space of agent types. An important variable underlying this space turns out to be a parameter that determines how the agent reacts to a nearby agent at one critical distance. A follow-up experiment suggests that variation along this parameter ultimately contributes to modulating a more fundamental perceptual dimension that reflects how "hostile" or "friendly" the agents appear to be.     

Exploring lexical co-occurrence space using HiDEx

Hyperspace analog to language (HAL) is a high-dimensional model of semantic space that uses the global co-occurrence frequency of words in a large corpus of text as the basis for a representation of semantic memory. In the original HAL model, many parameters were set without any a priori rationale. We have created and publicly released a computer application, the High Dimensional Explorer (HiDEx), that makes it possible to systematically alter the values of these parameters to examine their effect on the co-occurrence matrix that instantiates the model. We took an empirical approach to understanding the influence of the parameters on the measures produced by the models, looking at how well matrices derived with different parameters could predict human reaction times in lexical decision and semantic decision tasks. New parameter sets give us measures of semantic density that improve the model’s ability to predict behavioral measures. Implications for such models are discussed.     

A hybrid model using neural networks and ACT-R

How do people make decisions given contradictory information? This paper presents a model of how expert DSOs (defensive system operators) on a B1 bomber examine a complex series of signals, categorize whether those signals are dangerous or not, and then make a decision on the basis of those signals. This decision is made more difficult because an automatic on-board computer sometimes identifies the signal incorrectly. Therefore, the DSO must compare the actual signal to the system ID “guess.” The proposed model is a hybrid model, combining a standard neural network and ACT-R, a production system, which achieves a high degree of success.     

Construction of illness: Deconstructing the social

This paper relates the discursive practices of teaching the concept of illness to some of the underlying metaphysical assumptions that secure an unproblematic sense of the subjective meaning of illness as a course of action. The paper explicates the normative character of the structures that form the subjectivity of theorist and patient by theorizing these statuses as qualitative relations to language.     

Exploring the space between words and meaning: Understanding the relational sensibility of surf spaces

This paper explores the potential of the written word to evoke emotional engagement with place. Through focussing on the relational sensibilities created through the act of surfing, the paper seeks to explore how these emotions are articulated by surfers in order to share their feelings with others. In doing so it draws attention to the ‘intersubjective space’ (after Thrift, 1996) between writer and reader and its potential to overcome the paradox of representation. In this space the written word has the potential to combine with readers' own experiences, however indirect or tangential, to create a currency of communicated lived experience. In this space, knowledge of surfing is co-created by writer and reader (or by surfer and non-surfer) and becomes freighted with empathic resonance. In order to explore whether the potential of this space can be realised, the paper presents examples of surf writing which seek to communicate the relational sensibility of surfing and asks the reader: can ‘only a surfer know the feeling’?     

Psychiatry in the labyrinth: Deconstructing deviancy

Abstract

Deviancy is a key concept in psychiatry and other therapeutic disciplines, because it dramatizes the way in which they depend on the establishment of norms, in order to justify their theory and practice. The writings of Derrida as well as Goethe provide a different view: that “deviation” from a “norm” can be fundamentally important to the well‐being of the norm. Thus deviancy can be viewed not as something to be “corrected” but rather as a creative possibility to be encouraged and shaped in productive ways. As a case of “deviancy” we have selected the writings of John Perceval, whose Narrative provides a critique of the mental‐health establishment of his day, particularly the asylum, and offers an alternative to 19th‐century views of “lunacy.” We see his “schizophrenic” commentary on his “psychosis” and its treatment as analogous to the deconstructive, “schizophrenic” discourse of postmodernity which is similarly critical of the reigning, modernist psychiatric order.     

Deconstructing consumer behaviour: theory and practice

This paper challenges the conventional opposition, or distinction, between consumer behaviour theory and practice. This binary dualism, it is argued, is predicated on a simplistic ‘either/or’ logic that ignores the effects theory and practice have on each other. Furthermore, it obscures a hierarchical relationship between academic researchers and marketing practitioners in which basic research is more dominant and privileged than applied research. In response to these criticisms, an alternative ‘both/and’ logic is proposed for exploring the interrelationships between consumer behaviour theory and practice and new social relations among consumer researchers. Copyright © 2001 Henry Stewart Publications.     

Deconstructing the manifest dream

A major part of the analyst's task is to discover the basis for the patient's misidentification of his present life situation with significant but threatening events of his earlier life, now repressed and inaccessible to conscious recall. Reconstructing the patient's history is a crucial step in this process of discovery, but the dynamic relation between the present and the past must be reconstructed as well. The structure of the manifest dream contains the key to this relation. The imagery of the dream is a composite of experimental materials drawn from important drive-related events of the present and the past. The complex formed by the manifest dream and the patient's associations provides the analyst with data about both of these distinct sets of drive-related experiences. As Freud's discussion of his M elusine dream illustrates, one associative thread can be traced to an experience that incorporates a conflicted current wish. Another thread will lead to an experience in which a repressed wish of childhood has been expressed. Where the two associative threads converge, in the composite imagery of the dream, the basis for the identification between the wishes of the present and the past will be exposed. An understanding of the structure of the manifest dream helps to clarify some of the important theoretical issues left unresolved in Freud's writings. These include: the function of the day residue and the mechanism through which it is formed, the relation of the screen memory to the associative process, and the differing roles of condensation and displacement in dream construction and free association. A simple procedure is described for enhancing the recovery of the significant childhood memories whose details have been incorporated into the composite imagery of the manifest dream.     

Deconstructing the Enterprise Culture

A notion as pervasive and much-used as 'enterprise' will, inevitably, have done harm as well as good. The core concepts in the notion are explored, and examples are examined of how they have been put to teachers and counsellors in careers education and guidance work. While the libertarian text of education for enterprise may be unacceptable to many, the struggle to deal with it has forced a realisation of its more valuable subtext. This illustrates how 'education for enterprise', or any other change, cannot be implemented without paying attention to the organisation and management of change as well as to its intended outcomes, and how this process may have its own sometimes more beneficial effects.     

Deconstructing the better-than-average effect

The tendency for people to evaluate themselves more favorably than an average-peer--the better-than-average effect (BTAE)--is among the most well-documented effects in the social-psychological literature. The BTAE has been demonstrated in many populations with various methodologies, and several explanations have been advanced for it. Two essential questions remain conspicuously unanswered in the BTAE literature. The first concerns the extent to which the BTAE can be represented as a social-comparative phenomenon, and the second concerns the role that strategic motivational processes play in self versus average-peer judgments. With regard to the first question, Study 1 provides direct experimental evidence that self versus average-peer judgments are made relationally rather than independently and, further, that self-ratings anchor these relational judgments. Moreover, Study 1 demonstrates that the consequence of this comparison is for judgments of average to be assimilated toward, not contrasted from, self-ratings. Studies 2-4 provide evidence that self-enhancement motives play a moderating role in the outcome of self versus average-peer judgments. We show that for dimensions on which the self is positively evaluated, enhancement motives restrict the extent to which average-peer assimilation occurs (Study 2). But for dimensions on which the self is negatively evaluated, enhancement motives amplify average-peer assimilation (Studies 3 and 4). Discussion focuses on the function of such differential assimilation, the relation of the current findings to extant perspectives, and directions for future research.     

The role of mental rotation in TetrisTM gameplay: An ACT-R computational cognitive model

The mental rotation ability is an essential spatial reasoning skill in human cognition and has proven to be an essential predictor of mathematical and STEM skills, critical and computational thinking. Despite its importance, little is known about when and how mental rotation processes are activated in games explicitly targeting spatial reasoning tasks. In particular, the relationship between spatial abilities and Tetris^TM has been analysed several times in the literature. However, these analyses have shown contrasting results between the effectiveness of Tetris-based training activities to improve mental rotation skills. In this work, we studied whether, and under what conditions, such ability is used in the Tetris^TM game by explicitly modelling mental rotation via an ACT-R based cognitive model controlling a virtual agent. The obtained results show meaningful insights into the activation of mental rotation during game dynamics. The study suggests the necessity to adapt game dynamics in order to force the activation of this process and, therefore, can be of inspiration to design learning activities based on Tetris^TM or re-design the game itself to improve its educational effectiveness.     

The duality of virtue: Deconstructing the moral hypocrite

The present study examined the processes giving rise to moral hypocrisy, a phenomenon in which individuals judge their own transgressions to be less morally objectionable than the same transgressions enacted by others. Two alternative models of the source of hypocrisy were compared to determine whether hypocrisy results from automatic or volitional biases. Findings demonstrated not only that participants viewed their own transgressions as significantly more “fair” than the same transgressions enacted by others, but also that this bias was eliminated under conditions of cognitive constraint. These findings support the view that hypocrisy stems from volitionally-guided justifications, and thereby suggest that at a more basic level, humans possess a negative response to violations of fairness norms whether enacted by themselves or others.     

Deconstructing the declaration: A case study in pragrammatology

I would like to thank Jonathan Lee, Terry Pinkard, Steven S. Schwarzschild, Jill Petzall, Bob Gibbs, Bill Hamrick and Jim Bohman for their very helpful criticisms of earlier drafts of this paper.