Real rules

Wright is correct in surmising that Wittgenstein’s refusal to be drawn into the metaphysical and epistemological questions that his own discussion of rules allegedly raises results from his rejection of the assumptions that pit the Platonist against the communitarian. This paper shows why the entire idea (which continues to dazzle philosophers)—that in speaking a language or in engaging in other normative practices we are operating a calculus according to strict rules—has to be rejected. It results, in part, from the conflation of different understandings of ‘knowing the rules’: one in which rules can be ‘read off’ from the practice by a theorist and those in which expressions of rules are consulted within the course of the practice.     

Sticky rules: integration between abstract rules and specific actions

The authors manipulated repetitions and/or changes of abstract response rules and the specific stimulus- response (S-R) associations used under these rules. Experiments 1 and 2, assessing trial-to-trial priming effects, showed that repetition of complete S-R couplings produced only benefits when the rule also repeated (i.e., rule-S-R conjunctions) but costs when identical S-R couplings repeated while rules changed. In Experiments 3 and 4, the authors manipulated amount of experience with specific rule-S-R conjunctions and demonstrated integration between rules and S-R couplings in terms of cumulative practice effects. However, unlike short-term priming effects, cumulative practice supported generalization of experience with specific S-R couplings across rule boundaries (Experiment 4). Results are discussed in terms of constraints on models of hierarchical control and in terms of qualitatively different ways in which people profit from very recent experiences (i.e., all-or-none access to working memory representations) versus cumulative experience (i.e., similarity-based retrieval from long-term memory).     

Changing personal rules

This article examines the characteristics and types of personal rules and traditions, and illustrates how they may be maladaptive to the individual. Suggestions are given to improve methods of assessment and intervention strategies for the development of more adequate rules, by a combination of cognitive and operant approaches, which take into account both environmental consequences and feedback.The author is grateful to Joseph A. Himle for his constructive editorial comments.     

Testing response generation rules

Robbins (1988) reported data that he viewed as inconsistent with Miller and Schachtman's (1985a) comparator hypothesis of conditioned response generation. Here we explain why we do not find his experiments a compelling test of the comparator hypothesis. We also briefly review other studies that tested the same predictions of the comparator hypothesis that Robbins examined. We conclude that there is considerable evidence that following excitatory or inhibitory conditioning with a target conditioned stimulus (CS) and unconditioned stimulus (US), extinction of other cues that were present during CS training ordinarily increases excitatory responding and decreases inhibitory responding to the CS. However, consistent with Robbins's conclusion, there is scant evidence that after CS-US training, enhancing the associative value of other cues that were present during CS training influences excitatory or inhibitory responding to the CS. The implications of these conclusions for the comparator hypothesis as an explanation of differences in acquired behavior and as a heuristic tool are considered.     

Inhibition of action rules

Inhibition is often proposed as an important executive-control process, but its existence is difficult to establish empirically. Recently, Mayr and Keele (2000) reported that it takes longer to switch to a recently disengaged task set (i.e.,n−2 task-set repetitions) than to a less recently disengaged task set. Thissetalternation cost may indicate inhibition of the disengaged task set. The primary goal of the present study was to test the inhibition account of set-alternation costs against an important alternative account based on automatic episodic retrieval. The episodic retrieval account predicts reaction time facilitation instead of costs for the special case ofcomplete n−2 repetitions of both task sets and all stimulus— response aspects. A new task-switching paradigm, in which action rules varied on a trial-by-trial basis while the relevant stimulus dimension remained invariant, allowed the implementation of a high proportion of completen−2 repetitions. Consistent with the inhibition view, set-alternation costs were obtained even for these constellations.     

Bayesian rules of updating

This paper discusses the Bayesian updating rules of ordinary and Jeffrey conditionalisation. Their justification has been a topic of interest for the last quarter century, and several strategies proposed. None has been accepted as conclusive, and it is argued here that this is for a good reason; for by extending the domain of the probability function to include propositions describing the agent's present and future degrees of belief one can systematically generate a class of counterexamples to the rules. Dynamic Dutch Book and other arguments for them are examined critically. A concluding discussion attempts to put these results in perspective within the Bayesian approach.This paper was completed with assistance from a Mind Association Fellowship. I would like to thank the Mind Association, and also Paul Castell for his patient advice on previous drafts.     

From synapses to rules

We consider an integrated subsymbolic–symbolic procedure for extracting symbolically explained classification rules from data. A multilayer perceptron maps features into propositional variables and a set of subsequent layers operated by a PAC-like algorithm learns boolean expressions on these variables. The peculiarities of the whole procedure are: (i) we do not know a priori the class of formulas these expressions belong to, rather from time to time we get some information about the class and reduce uncertainty about the current hypothesis; (ii) the mapping from features to variables varies also over time to improve the suitability of the desired classification rules; and (iii) the final shape of the learnt expressions is determined by the learner who can express his preferences both in terms of an error function to be backpropagated along all layers of the proposed architecture and through the choice of a set of free parameters. We review the bases of the first point and then analyze the others in depth. The theoretical tools supporting the analysis are: (1) a new statistical framework that we call algorithmic inference; (2) a special functionality of the sampled points in respect to the formulas, denoted sentineling; and (3) entropy measures and fuzzy set methods governing the whole learning process. Preliminary numerical results highlight the value of the procedure.     

Basic rules of change

Journal for General Philosophy of Science - A small step is made in the direction of defining some general basic rules which can serve as a framework for research in several fields of the social...     

An examination of within-person variance in contextual display rules and deviation from display rules

Contextual display rules refer to perceptions of the particular emotions that should be displayed in a specific set of circumstances. As such, it is important to examine within-person variance in such perceptions within the dynamic context of real-life organizations. To this end, experience sampling methodology was used to highlight within-person variance in display rules and examine event-level predictors of these contextual display rules. Thirty-nine university staff members were surveyed four times per day about their most recent interaction. Employee momentary affect (pleasantness and activation) and relationship with the interaction target (solidarity and relative power) were examined as predictors of both contextual display rule perceptions and deviation from those display rules. Pleasantness of affect related positively to the level of expression allowed by the display rule, whereas activation of affect and target solidarity related positively to deviation from display rules. Complex interactions were also found between the predictors, further highlighting the complexity of the emotional labour process.     

Formal systems of dialogue rules

Section 1 contains a survey of options in constructing a formal system of dialogue rules. The distinction between material and formal systems is discussed (section 1.1). It is stressed that the material systems are, in several senses, formal as well. In section 1.2 variants as to language form (choices of logical constants and logical rules) are pointed out. Section 1.3 is concerned with options as to initial positions and the permissibility of attacks on elementary statements. The problem of ending a dialogue, and of infinite dialogues, is treated in section 1.4. Other options, e.g., as to the number of attacks allowed with respect to each statement, are listed in section 1.5. Section 1.6 explains the concept of a chain of arguments.From section 2 onward four types of dialectic systems are picked out for closer study: D, E, Di and Ei. After a preliminary section on dialogue sequents and winning strategies, the equivalence of derivability in intuitionistic logic and the existence of a winning strategy (for the Proponent) on the strength of Ei is shown by simple inductive proofs.Section 3 contains a — relatively quick — proof of the equivalence of the four systems. It follows that each of them yields intuitionistic logic.     

Natural deduction rules for English

A system of natural deduction rules is proposed for an idealized form of English. The rules presuppose a sharp distinction between proper names and such expressions as the c, a (an) c, some c, any c, and every c, where c represents a common noun. These latter expressions are called quantifiers, and other expressions of the form that c or that c itself, are called quantified terms. Introduction and elimination rules are presented for any, every, some, a (an), and the, and also for any which, every which, and so on, as well as rules for some other concepts. One outcome of these rules is that Every man loves some woman is implied by, but does not imply, Some woman is loved by every man, since the latter is taken to mean the same as Some woman is loved by all men. Also, Jack knows which woman came is implied by Some woman is known by Jack to have come, but not by Jack knows that some woman came.