Beyond the Information Given: Causal Models in Learning and Reasoning

ABSTRACT— The philosopher David Hume's conclusion that causal induction is solely based on observed associations still presents a puzzle to psychology. If we only acquired knowledge about statistical covariations between observed events without accessing deeper information about causality, we would be unable to understand the differences between causal and spurious relations, between prediction and diagnosis, and between observational and interventional inferences. All these distinctions require a deep understanding of causality that goes beyond the information given. We report a number of recent studies that demonstrate that people and rats do not stick to the superficial level of event covariations but reason and learn on the basis of deeper causal representations. Causal-model theory provides a unified account of this remarkable competence.     

Empirical Adequacy and Virtue Ethics

Situationists contend that virtue ethics is empirically inadequate. However, it is my contention that there is much confusion over what “empirical adequacy” or “empirical inadequacy” actually means in this context. My aim in this paper is to clarify the meanings of empirical adequacy in order to see to what extent virtue ethics might fail to meet this standard. I argue that the situationists frequently misconstrue the empirical commitments of virtue ethics. More importantly, depending on what we mean by empirical adequacy, either virtue ethics has no need to be empirically adequate or where it does have such a need, the psychological evidence fails to show that it is empirically inadequate. An additional contribution the paper intends to make is to provide a more detailed discussion of the explanatory nature of virtue ethics.     

A Method for Comparing Knowledge Structures Concerning Their Adequacy

A knowledge domain is represented in knowledge space theory by a finite set Q of problems. The knowledge of a subject in the domain is described by the subset of problems from Q that the subject is able to solve. The set of all possible knowledge states of subjects is called the knowledge structure on Q. A crucial problem is how a hypothetical knowledge structure, obtained for example by querying an expert, can be evaluated empirically. We describe a method for comparing two knowledge structures concerning their ability to describe a set of empirically observed response patterns. Our comparison method is tested in two simulation studies. The results of these studies show that the method is highly accurate in its evaluation of knowledge structures. Copyright 2001 Academic Press.     

Abstract: Adequacy of Semiparametric Approximations for Growth Models with Nonnormal Random Effects

Abstract

Conventional growth models assume that the random effects describing individual trajectories are conditionally normal. In practice, this assumption may often be unrealistic. As an alternative, Nagin (2005) Nagin, D. 2005. Group-based modeling of development, Cambridge: Harvard University Press. [Crossref] , [Google Scholar] suggested a semiparametric group-based approach (SPGA) which approximates an unknown, continuous distribution of individual trajectories with a mixture of group trajectories.

Prior simulations (Brame, Nagin, &; Wasserman, 2006 Brame, R., Nagin, D. and Wasserman, L. 2006. Exploring some analytical characteristics of finite mixture models.. Journal of Quantitative Criminology, 22: 31–59. [Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]; Nagin, 2005 Nagin, D. 2005. Group-based modeling of development, Cambridge: Harvard University Press. [Crossref] , [Google Scholar]) indicated that SPGA could generate nearly-unbiased estimates of means and variances of a nonnormal distribution of individual trajectories, as functions of group-trajectory estimates. However, these studies used few random effects—usually only a random intercept. Based on the analytical relationship between SPGA and adaptive quadrature, we hypothesized that SPGA's ability to approximate (a) random effect variances/covariances and (b) effects of time-invariant predictors of growth should deteriorate as the dimensionality of the random effects distribution increases. We expected this problem to be mitigated by correlations among the random effects (highly correlated random effects functioning as fewer dimensions) and sample size (larger N supporting more groups).

We tested these hypotheses via simulation, varying the number of random effects (1, 2, or 3), correlation among the random effects (0 or .6), and N (250, 500). Results indicated that, as the number of random effects increased, SPGA approximations remained acceptable for fixed effects, but became increasingly negatively biased for random effect variances. Whereas correlated random effects and larger N reduced this underestimation, correlated random effects sometimes distorted recovery of predictor effects. To illustrate this underestimation, Figure 1 depicts SPGA's approximation of the intercept variance from a three correlated random effect generating model (N < eqid1 > 500). These results suggest SPGA approximations are inadequate for the nonnormal, high-dimensional distributions of individual trajectories often seen in practice.

Abstract: Adequacy of Semiparametric Approximations for Growth Models with Nonnormal Random Effects

All authors

Sonya K. Sterba, Ruth E. Mathiowetz &; Daniel J. Bauer

https://doi.org/10.1080/00273170802640509

Published online:

18 December 2008

FIGURE 1 SPGA-approximated intercept variance from a three correlated random effect generating model. Notes. The dashed horizontal lines denote + 10% bias. The solid horizontal line denotes the population-generating parameter value; * denotes the best-BIC selected number of groups. The vertical bars denote 90% confidence intervals.     

5.

Beyond Recommendation and Mediation: Moral Case Deliberation as Moral Learning in Dialogue     

Suzanne Metselaar  Bert Molewijk  Guy Widdershoven 《The American journal of bioethics : AJOB》2015,15(1):50-51

     

6.

Equality Beyond Needs-Satisfaction: An Empirical Investigation     

Aurélien Allard  Florian Cova 《Journal of applied philosophy》2020,37(2):273-298

The moral value of distributive equality constitutes one of the most contentious debates in political philosophy. Following Frankfurt, many philosophers have claimed that the intuitive appeal of equality is illusory and that egalitarian intuitions are fundamentally intuitions about the importance of satisfying basic needs. According to this argument, our intuitions tell us that inequality ceases to matter once a certain threshold has been reached. Despite the widespread appeal to intuitions regarding this issue, few empirical studies have tried to assess whether Frankfurt and his followers are right in claiming the lack of intuitiveness of equality per se. In a series of three experiments, we show that experimental evidence does not allow us to settle the intuitiveness of each theory: laypeople are divided in the consideration of the respective importance of needs and equality. While our results do show that laypeople attach special importance to needs-fulfilment, it also seems that they are divided when it comes to the importance they grant to equality once needs are fulfilled. No theory is unanimously backed by participants, and it seems that, fundamentally, divisions among philosophers reflect deep divisions among people.     

7.

Honoring Teachers for Their Vocation and Potential     

Raymond Brady Williams 《Teaching Theology & Religion》2007,10(3):170-171

Abstract. One goal of the Wabash Center is to honor teachers for their potential, and hospitality has been a primary means to that end. A lesson learned is that the intention and effort to honor teachers create contexts for meaningful discussions, creative learning, and personal renewal of those engaged in workshops and consultations. The lesson is valuable for those engaged in all forms of adult learning, especially in colleges and theological schools.     

8.

Moving Beyond Causes: Optimality Models and Scientific Explanation          下载免费PDF全文

Collin Rice 《No?s (Detroit, Mich.)》2015,49(3):589-615

A prominent approach to scientific explanation and modeling claims that for a model to provide an explanation it must accurately represent at least some of the actual causes in the event's causal history. In this paper, I argue that many optimality explanations present a serious challenge to this causal approach. I contend that many optimality models provide highly idealized equilibrium explanations that do not accurately represent the causes of their target system(s). Furthermore, in many contexts, it is in virtue of their independence of causes that optimality models are able to provide a better explanation than competing causal models. Consequently, our account of explanation and modeling must expand beyond the causal approach.     

9.

远程开放教育学生的学习特征及其互动策略     

毛愫璜 《应用心理学》2011,17(4)

采用自编的“互动教育效果及影响因素问卷”,对电大金融类课程的学生进行调查,考察其在远程开放环境下的学习特征及其差异.结果显示:该问卷包括“教学艺术”、“活动吸引力”、“材料丰富性”和“途径便利性”等四个因子,且具有较好的信效度；目前电大远程开放教育的整体状况有待改善.在这基础上,对如何提高电大远程开放教育互动性的问题进行了深入的讨论.     

10.

CAPS Psychology and the Empirical Adequacy of Aristotelian Virtue Ethics     

Laura?PapishEmail author 《Ethical Theory and Moral Practice》2017,20(3):537-549

For the past decade and a half, Aristotelians have tried to counter the following criticism articulated by John Doris: if we look at personality and social psychology research, we must conclude that we generally neither have, nor have the capacity to develop, character traits of the kind envisioned by Aristotle and his followers. Some defenses of Aristotelian virtue ethics proceed by trying to insulate it from this challenge, while others have tried to dissipate the force of Doris's critique by showing how virtue ethics and recent findings in personality psychology share surprisingly extensive common ground. For example, in their 2009 books, Daniel Russell and Nancy Snow both argue that the empirical research regarding character complements - not undermines - virtue ethics. Specifically, each argues that the situationally sensitive Cognitive-Affective Personality System (CAPS) developed by Walter Mischel and Yuichi Shoda can be integrated into a virtue ethical moral philosophy and theory of character. In this paper, I raise several objections to their attempts to use the CAPS model to rehabilitate Aristotelian virtue ethics and argue that, as a result, this model has not been shown to have the promise Snow and Russell allege it has.     

11.

自我调节学习:策略型学习者实现自我效能的超越   总被引：24，自引：0，他引：24  

桑青松 《心理科学》2004,27(5):1239-1241

自我调节学习与自我效能感是当今教育心理学和教学心理学的两个重要概念。自我调节学习是学习者为了保证学习的成功、提高学习的效果、达到学习的目标主动地运用与调控元认知、动机与行为的过程。自我效能感是个体对自己是否能够成功地进行某一成就行为的主观判断,它是直接影响个体自我调控的关键变量。文章在分析策略型学习者与自我调节学习的基础上,认为增强策略型学习者的自我调节学习能力,是实现教育目标的手段,也是策略型学习者实现自我效能超越的重要内容。自我调节学习也是促进学生全面发展,具备适应未来社会生活的终身学习和可持续发展的意识和能力的必然要求。     

12.

Structural Priming as Implicit Learning: A Comparison of Models of Sentence Production   总被引：6，自引：0，他引：6  

Chang F  Dell GS  Bock K  Griffin ZM 《Journal of psycholinguistic research》2000,29(2):217-230

Structural priming reflects a tendency to generalize recently spoken or heard syntactic structures to different utterances. We propose that it is a form of implicit learning. To explore this hypothesis, we developed and tested a connectionist model of language production that incorporated mechanisms previously used to simulate implicit learning. In the model, the mechanism that learned to produce structured sequences of phrases from messages also exhibited structural priming. The ability of the model to account for structural priming depended on representational assumptions about the nature of messages and the relationship between comprehension and production. Modeling experiments showed that comprehension-based representations were important for the model's generalizations in production and that nonatomic message representations allowed a better fit to existing data on structural priming than traditional thematic-role representations.     

13.

Abstract: Learning and Thinking Styles of Prospective Teachers     

CONCHITA TAN-WILLMAN  NATALIE KUZMICH 《创造性行为杂志》1985,19(3):223-224

     

14.

Cost's Influence on Attitudes and Value: Beyond Dissonance Theory     

John J. Seta  Greggory M. Hundt  Catherine E. Seta 《Basic and applied social psychology》2013,35(1-2):267-283

Subjects read a scenario regarding a future experiment that required participants to submerge their hand in a bucket filled with cold water and ice cubes for varying amounts of time. They were told that, because they had to undergo a cost experience, they would be shown a movie. Subjects then rated the enjoyment value of the movie based on experiencing different levels of cost. In the 1 sec/minimal cost and 60 sec/above-average cost conditions, subjects rated the movie's perceived value as being higher than in the 30 sec/below-average cost condition. These results can be accounted for by personal equity-comparison theory and by the related schema maintenance through compensation analysis. At the general level, we discuss the implications of these data for an understanding of how cost and other inconsistent events influence expectations, attitudes, hopes, and value.     

15.

On Latent Growth Models for Composites and Their Constituents     

Gregory R. Hancock  Xiulin Mao  Hemant Kher 《Multivariate behavioral research》2013,48(5):619-638

Over the last decade and a half, latent growth modeling has become an extremely popular and versatile technique for evaluating longitudinal change and its determinants. Most common among the models applied are those for a single measured variable over time. This model has been extended in a variety of ways, most relevant for the current work being the multidomain and the second-order latent growth models. Whereas the former allows for growth function characteristics to be modeled for multiple outcomes simultaneously, with the degree of growth characteristics' relations assessed within the model (e.g., cross-domain slope factor correlations), the latter models growth in latent outcomes, each of which has effect indicators repeated over time. But what if one has an outcome that is believed to be formative relative to its indicator variables rather than latent? In this case, where the outcome is a composite of multiple constituents, modeling change over time is less straightforward. This article provides analytical and applied details for simultaneously modeling growth in composites and their constituent elements, including a real data example using a general computer self-efficacy questionnaire.     

16.

Beyond postmodernism: Logic as rhetoric     

Joseph Margolis 《Argumentation》1995,9(1):21-31

The essay reviews the relationship between logic and rhetoric under the conditions of historicity and shows how (and why) the rules of logic may be construed as projected from the rhetorical practices of actual societies; why and how they are subject to revision; and why there is reason to think it could not be otherwise.     

17.

Beyond the Mean: A Flexible Framework for Studying Causal Effects Using Linear Models     

Gische  Christian  Voelkle  Manuel C. 《Psychometrika》2022,87(3):868-901

Psychometrika - Graph-based causal models are a flexible tool for causal inference from observational data. In this paper, we develop a comprehensive framework to define, identify, and estimate a...     

18.

Mirror Writing: Learning, Transfer, and Implications for Internal Inverse Models     

Latash ML 《Journal of motor behavior》1999,31(2):107-111

In a study of the effects of practicing mirror writing, the effects of transfer to the nonpracticed hand and to nonpracticed phrases were assessed in 185 students. Large transfer effects were observed. An interpretation of those effects is based on a suggestion that the learning led to the creation of a new internal inverse model (or a modification of a pre-existent model) mapping the space of task variables onto the space of internal variables.     

19.

Evaluation is a Dynamic Process: Moving Beyond Dual System Models     

Jay J. Van Bavel  Yi Jenny Xiao  William A. Cunningham 《Social and Personality Psychology Compass》2012,6(6):438-454

Over the past few decades, dual attitude/process/system models have emerged as the dominant framework for understanding a wide range of psychological phenomena. Most of these models characterize the unconscious and conscious mind as being built from discrete processes or systems: one that is reflexive, automatic, fast, affective, associative, and primitive, and a second that is deliberative, controlled, slow, cognitive, propositional, and more uniquely human. Although these models serve as a useful heuristic for characterizing the human mind, recent developments in social and cognitive neuroscience suggest that the human evaluative system, like most of cognition, is widely distributed and highly dynamic. Integrating these advances with current attitude theories, we review how the recently proposed Iterative Reprocessing Model can account for apparent dual systems as well as discrepancies between traditional dual system models and recent research revealing the dynamic nature of evaluation. Furthermore, we describe important implications this dynamical system approach has for various social psychological domains.     

20.

多重中介模型及其应用   总被引：8，自引：0，他引：8  

柳士顺  凌文辁 《心理科学》2009,32(2)

多重中介模型研究的是自变量与因变量之间存在多个中介变量的情形.通过对多重中介模型的解析发现,链式多重中介模型与并行多重中介模型是多重中介效应的基本构成单元.多重中介效应分析应包括总体中介效应与个别中介效应的估计与检验、个别中介效应之间的比较与检验以及个别中介效应组合间的比较与检验等内容.作为示例,运用多重中介模型分析了管理者执行力对其绩效的影响.     

Equality Beyond Needs-Satisfaction: An Empirical Investigation

The moral value of distributive equality constitutes one of the most contentious debates in political philosophy. Following Frankfurt, many philosophers have claimed that the intuitive appeal of equality is illusory and that egalitarian intuitions are fundamentally intuitions about the importance of satisfying basic needs. According to this argument, our intuitions tell us that inequality ceases to matter once a certain threshold has been reached. Despite the widespread appeal to intuitions regarding this issue, few empirical studies have tried to assess whether Frankfurt and his followers are right in claiming the lack of intuitiveness of equality per se. In a series of three experiments, we show that experimental evidence does not allow us to settle the intuitiveness of each theory: laypeople are divided in the consideration of the respective importance of needs and equality. While our results do show that laypeople attach special importance to needs-fulfilment, it also seems that they are divided when it comes to the importance they grant to equality once needs are fulfilled. No theory is unanimously backed by participants, and it seems that, fundamentally, divisions among philosophers reflect deep divisions among people.     

Honoring Teachers for Their Vocation and Potential

Abstract. One goal of the Wabash Center is to honor teachers for their potential, and hospitality has been a primary means to that end. A lesson learned is that the intention and effort to honor teachers create contexts for meaningful discussions, creative learning, and personal renewal of those engaged in workshops and consultations. The lesson is valuable for those engaged in all forms of adult learning, especially in colleges and theological schools.     

Moving Beyond Causes: Optimality Models and Scientific Explanation

A prominent approach to scientific explanation and modeling claims that for a model to provide an explanation it must accurately represent at least some of the actual causes in the event's causal history. In this paper, I argue that many optimality explanations present a serious challenge to this causal approach. I contend that many optimality models provide highly idealized equilibrium explanations that do not accurately represent the causes of their target system(s). Furthermore, in many contexts, it is in virtue of their independence of causes that optimality models are able to provide a better explanation than competing causal models. Consequently, our account of explanation and modeling must expand beyond the causal approach.     

远程开放教育学生的学习特征及其互动策略

采用自编的“互动教育效果及影响因素问卷”,对电大金融类课程的学生进行调查,考察其在远程开放环境下的学习特征及其差异.结果显示:该问卷包括“教学艺术”、“活动吸引力”、“材料丰富性”和“途径便利性”等四个因子,且具有较好的信效度；目前电大远程开放教育的整体状况有待改善.在这基础上,对如何提高电大远程开放教育互动性的问题进行了深入的讨论.     

CAPS Psychology and the Empirical Adequacy of Aristotelian Virtue Ethics

For the past decade and a half, Aristotelians have tried to counter the following criticism articulated by John Doris: if we look at personality and social psychology research, we must conclude that we generally neither have, nor have the capacity to develop, character traits of the kind envisioned by Aristotle and his followers. Some defenses of Aristotelian virtue ethics proceed by trying to insulate it from this challenge, while others have tried to dissipate the force of Doris's critique by showing how virtue ethics and recent findings in personality psychology share surprisingly extensive common ground. For example, in their 2009 books, Daniel Russell and Nancy Snow both argue that the empirical research regarding character complements - not undermines - virtue ethics. Specifically, each argues that the situationally sensitive Cognitive-Affective Personality System (CAPS) developed by Walter Mischel and Yuichi Shoda can be integrated into a virtue ethical moral philosophy and theory of character. In this paper, I raise several objections to their attempts to use the CAPS model to rehabilitate Aristotelian virtue ethics and argue that, as a result, this model has not been shown to have the promise Snow and Russell allege it has.     

自我调节学习:策略型学习者实现自我效能的超越

自我调节学习与自我效能感是当今教育心理学和教学心理学的两个重要概念。自我调节学习是学习者为了保证学习的成功、提高学习的效果、达到学习的目标主动地运用与调控元认知、动机与行为的过程。自我效能感是个体对自己是否能够成功地进行某一成就行为的主观判断,它是直接影响个体自我调控的关键变量。文章在分析策略型学习者与自我调节学习的基础上,认为增强策略型学习者的自我调节学习能力,是实现教育目标的手段,也是策略型学习者实现自我效能超越的重要内容。自我调节学习也是促进学生全面发展,具备适应未来社会生活的终身学习和可持续发展的意识和能力的必然要求。     

Structural Priming as Implicit Learning: A Comparison of Models of Sentence Production

Structural priming reflects a tendency to generalize recently spoken or heard syntactic structures to different utterances. We propose that it is a form of implicit learning. To explore this hypothesis, we developed and tested a connectionist model of language production that incorporated mechanisms previously used to simulate implicit learning. In the model, the mechanism that learned to produce structured sequences of phrases from messages also exhibited structural priming. The ability of the model to account for structural priming depended on representational assumptions about the nature of messages and the relationship between comprehension and production. Modeling experiments showed that comprehension-based representations were important for the model's generalizations in production and that nonatomic message representations allowed a better fit to existing data on structural priming than traditional thematic-role representations.     

Cost's Influence on Attitudes and Value: Beyond Dissonance Theory

Subjects read a scenario regarding a future experiment that required participants to submerge their hand in a bucket filled with cold water and ice cubes for varying amounts of time. They were told that, because they had to undergo a cost experience, they would be shown a movie. Subjects then rated the enjoyment value of the movie based on experiencing different levels of cost. In the 1 sec/minimal cost and 60 sec/above-average cost conditions, subjects rated the movie's perceived value as being higher than in the 30 sec/below-average cost condition. These results can be accounted for by personal equity-comparison theory and by the related schema maintenance through compensation analysis. At the general level, we discuss the implications of these data for an understanding of how cost and other inconsistent events influence expectations, attitudes, hopes, and value.     

On Latent Growth Models for Composites and Their Constituents

Over the last decade and a half, latent growth modeling has become an extremely popular and versatile technique for evaluating longitudinal change and its determinants. Most common among the models applied are those for a single measured variable over time. This model has been extended in a variety of ways, most relevant for the current work being the multidomain and the second-order latent growth models. Whereas the former allows for growth function characteristics to be modeled for multiple outcomes simultaneously, with the degree of growth characteristics' relations assessed within the model (e.g., cross-domain slope factor correlations), the latter models growth in latent outcomes, each of which has effect indicators repeated over time. But what if one has an outcome that is believed to be formative relative to its indicator variables rather than latent? In this case, where the outcome is a composite of multiple constituents, modeling change over time is less straightforward. This article provides analytical and applied details for simultaneously modeling growth in composites and their constituent elements, including a real data example using a general computer self-efficacy questionnaire.     

Beyond postmodernism: Logic as rhetoric

The essay reviews the relationship between logic and rhetoric under the conditions of historicity and shows how (and why) the rules of logic may be construed as projected from the rhetorical practices of actual societies; why and how they are subject to revision; and why there is reason to think it could not be otherwise.     

Beyond the Mean: A Flexible Framework for Studying Causal Effects Using Linear Models

Psychometrika - Graph-based causal models are a flexible tool for causal inference from observational data. In this paper, we develop a comprehensive framework to define, identify, and estimate a...     

Mirror Writing: Learning, Transfer, and Implications for Internal Inverse Models

In a study of the effects of practicing mirror writing, the effects of transfer to the nonpracticed hand and to nonpracticed phrases were assessed in 185 students. Large transfer effects were observed. An interpretation of those effects is based on a suggestion that the learning led to the creation of a new internal inverse model (or a modification of a pre-existent model) mapping the space of task variables onto the space of internal variables.     

Evaluation is a Dynamic Process: Moving Beyond Dual System Models

Over the past few decades, dual attitude/process/system models have emerged as the dominant framework for understanding a wide range of psychological phenomena. Most of these models characterize the unconscious and conscious mind as being built from discrete processes or systems: one that is reflexive, automatic, fast, affective, associative, and primitive, and a second that is deliberative, controlled, slow, cognitive, propositional, and more uniquely human. Although these models serve as a useful heuristic for characterizing the human mind, recent developments in social and cognitive neuroscience suggest that the human evaluative system, like most of cognition, is widely distributed and highly dynamic. Integrating these advances with current attitude theories, we review how the recently proposed Iterative Reprocessing Model can account for apparent dual systems as well as discrepancies between traditional dual system models and recent research revealing the dynamic nature of evaluation. Furthermore, we describe important implications this dynamical system approach has for various social psychological domains.     

多重中介模型及其应用

多重中介模型研究的是自变量与因变量之间存在多个中介变量的情形.通过对多重中介模型的解析发现,链式多重中介模型与并行多重中介模型是多重中介效应的基本构成单元.多重中介效应分析应包括总体中介效应与个别中介效应的估计与检验、个别中介效应之间的比较与检验以及个别中介效应组合间的比较与检验等内容.作为示例,运用多重中介模型分析了管理者执行力对其绩效的影响.