The Value of Perception

This paper develops a form of transcendental naïve realism. According to naïve realism, veridical perceptual experiences are essentially relational. According to transcendental naïve realism, the naïve realist theory of perception is not just one theory of perception amongst others, to be established as an inference to the best explanation and assessed on the basis of a cost-benefit analysis that weighs performance along a number of different dimensions: for instance, fidelity to appearances, simplicity, systematicity, fit with scientific theories, and so on. Rather, naïve realism enjoys a special status in debates in the philosophy of perception because it represents part of the transcendental project of explaining how it is possible that perceptual experience has the distinctive characteristics it does. One of the potentially most interesting prospects of adopting a transcendental attitude towards naïve realism is that it promises to make the naïve realist theory of perception, in some sense, immune to falsification. This paper develops a modest form of transcendental naïve realism modelled loosely on the account of the reactive attitudes provided by Strawson in ‘Freedom and Resentment’, and suggests one way of understanding the claim that naïve realism is immune to falsification.     

Is she the one? Personality judgments from online personal advertisements

The authors examined the linguistic cues that inform personality judgments from online personal advertisements, and whether these judgments are accurate. Advertisers reported their personality, and 2 sets of naïve judges—including one that was seeking a romantic partner—rated advertisers' personality after reading their ads. Judges' impressions of extraversion, agreeableness, and emotional stability—3 traits that are strongly desired in a romantic partner—were influenced by particular lexical cues, such as word count, emotionality, and profanity. Both sets of judges formed accurate impressions for extraversion, but not other traits. These findings suggest that online daters use linguistic cues to judge the desirability of a potential romantic partner's personality, but that the impressions driven by these cues are not always accurate.     

Children and adolescents’ understandings of family resemblance: A study of naïve inheritance concepts

This paper aims to provide developmental data on two connected naïve inheritance concepts and to explore the coherence of children's naïve biology knowledge. Two tasks examined children and adolescents’ (4, 7, 10, and 14 years) conceptions of phenotypic resemblance across kin (in physical characteristics, disabilities, and personality traits). The first task required participants to predict and explain feature outcomes in both an offspring and a sibling, in a modified version of the phenotypic similarity task. In the second task, participants offered explanations for instances of parent‐offspring dissimilarity and grandparent‐offspring resemblance (phenotypic difference task). The inclusion of two tasks and a broad age range revealed significant age trends between 4 and 10 years in naïve inheritance concepts. However, there was little consistency in children's inheritance explanations within or across tasks. The findings are discussed with reference to debates concerning the development and structure of naïve biology concepts.     

什么是智力？成年人的朴素智力理论

朴素智力理论是没有系统学习科学智力理论的成年人对智力的经验性认识。对成年人朴素智力理论的研究有助于了解个体如何建立对客观世界的理解。本文从对智力本质的理解、朴素智力理论的影响因素、对自己或他人智商的估计三个视角介绍了有关成年人朴素智力理论的研究。成人对智力本质的理解有跨文化的一致性,大多包括问题解决、言语能力、社会能力三个方面,这与科学智力理论有一定的相似;成人的朴素智力理论也受到环境、文化、“聪明人”原型年龄的影响;成人对智商的估计有中等程度的准确性。总的来说,成年人对智力的朴素认识是比较准确的。不同层面的个体经验很可能塑造了智力的朴素理论。     

The intuitive case for naïve realism

Naïve realism, the view that perceptual experiences are irreducible relations between subjects and external objects, has intuitive appeal, but this intuitive appeal is sometimes thought to be undermined by the possibility of certain kinds of hallucinations. In this paper, I present the intuitive case for naïve realism, and explain why this intuitive case is not undermined by the possibility of such hallucinations. Specifically, I present the intuitive case for naïve realism as arguing that the only way to make sense of the phenomenal character associated with perceptual experiences is by means of a naïve realist ontology. I then explain why this intuitive argument is not undermined by the possibility of hallucinatory experiences that possess the phenomenal character associated with perceptual experiences but, being hallucinations, do not have the ontological nature specified by naïve realism.     

Divergent Thinking,Intelligence, and Expertise: A Test of Alternative Models

Given the creativity inherent in advertising, one useful measure of creativity may be the advertising creativity award. Although creativity awards have been used by academics, agencies, and clients as indicators of exemplary creative work, there is surprisingly little research as to what creative elements they actually represent. Senior agency executives were selected to assess their own campaigns in terms of originality and strategy, and were also queried about whether those campaigns would win creativity, and effectiveness, awards. Findings show that the campaigns deemed worthy of creativity award recognition are usually highly original. Yet, most award-winning work is rarely regarded as being highly strategic. The results indicate that this originality bias contained in award-winning advertisements may limit their usefulness as proxy measures of creativity. Although the originality aspect of creativity is reflected, strategy and appropriateness are not adequately, nor proportionately considered. Implications for the use of creativity awards by researchers, as well as managerial issues, are discussed.     

Naïve Realism,Hallucination, and Causation: A New Response to the Screening Off Problem

This paper sets out a novel response to the ‘screening off’ problem for naïve realism. The aim is to resist the claim (which many naïve realists accept) that the kind of experience involved in hallucinating also occurs during perception, by arguing that there are causal constraints that must be met if an hallucinatory experience is to occur, ones that are never met in perceptual cases. Notably, given this response, it turns out that, contra current orthodoxy, naïve realists need not adopt any particular view about the psychological nature of hallucinatory experience to handle the screening off problem. Consequently, room opens up for naïve realists to endorse whatever theory of hallucinatory experience seems to best capture the distinctive nature of such episodes.     

Taking a naïve other's perspective to debias the hindsight bias: Did it backfire?

Hindsight bias is a phenomenon that occurs when outcome knowledge interferes with the ability to accurately recall judgments made in a previous, naïve state. Also known as the “knew it all along” bias, we aimed to diminish the bias by having individuals take the perspective of a naïve other, as a way of encouraging acceptance that they had, in fact, not known it all along. Adult participants were given blurry-to-clear images incrementally until they were able to identify the object and were then re-presented with the same sequence of images and asked to make a judgment about when they had identified the item correctly the first time. They were also asked to judge when they thought a naïve peer (Experiments 1 and 2), or a naïve child (Experiment 2) could identify the objects. Results showed a robust hindsight bias in all perspectives, and sporadic success at eliminating the bias. When taking the perspective of a naïve peer, there were failures and successes; when taking the perspective of a naïve child, there was an ultra-debiasing, or a reverse hindsight bias. However, did the manipulation backfire? We conclude that while the manipulation of thinking like a naïve child may have eliminated the bias, participants seemed to use an “adults know best” rule rather than accepting past naivete for themselves.     

Why Externalist Representationalism is a Form of Disjunctivism

Externalist representationalism is touted as a superior rival to naïve realism, and yet a careful analysis of the externalist representationalist's analysis of our ordinary perceptual experiences shows the view to be far closer to naïve realism than we might have expected. One of the central advertised benefits of representationalist views in general is that they are compatible with the idea that ordinary, illusory and hallucinatory perceptual experiences are of the same fundamental kind. Naïve realists are forced to deny the ‘common fundamental kind claim’ and adopt disjunctivism. However, I argue that externalist representationalism is also a version of disjunctivism. Consequently, one of the main rivals to naïve realism turns out not to be a rival at all.     

Naïve Realism,Seeing Stars,and Perceiving the Past

It seems possible to see a star that no longer exists. Yet it also seems right to say that what no longer exists cannot be seen. We therefore face a puzzle, the traditional answer to which involves abandoning naïve realism in favour of a sense datum view. In this article, however, I offer a novel exploration of the puzzle within a naïve realist framework. As will emerge, the best option for naïve realists is to embrace an eternalist view of time, and claim that in the relevant case, one sees a still existent star‐stage located somewhere in the distant past.     

Subjectivity in heterophenomenology

I distinguish between naïve phenomenology and really existing phenomenology, a distinction that is too often ignored. As a consequence, the weaknesses inherent in naïve phenomenology are mistakenly attributed to phenomenology. I argue that the critics of naïve phenomenology have unwittingly adopted a number of precisely those weaknesses they wish to point out. More precisely, I shall argue that Dennett’s criticism of the naïve or auto-phenomenological conception of subjectivity fails to provide a better understanding of the intended phenomenon.     

On What Empiricism Cannot Be

Bas C. van Fraassen, in his Terry Lectures at Yale University (subsequently published as The Empirical Stance), is concerned to elucidate what empiricism is, and could be, given past and current failures of characterization. He contends that naïve empiricism—the metaphilosophical position that characterizes empiricism in terms of a thesis—is self‐refuting, and he offers a reductio ad absurdum to substantiate this claim. Moreover, in place of naïve empiricism, van Fraassen endorses stance empiricism: the metaphilosophical position that characterizes empiricism in terms of certain attitudes and commitments. The present article, however, argues that van Fraassen begs the question in his reductio of naïve empiricism, and thus that his primary defense of stance empiricism is inadequate.     

Video‐game training and naïve reasoning about object motion

Naïve conceptions and associated misconceptions about object motion arise in part from limitations on perceptual experience. Certain commercial video games, such as Enigmo, provide interactive experience with realistic trajectories and practice at purposefully manipulating those trajectories. We tested the possibility that this experience could modify naïve intuitions about object motion, bringing them into closer alignment with Newtonian principles of mechanics. Fifty‐one middle‐school children were randomly assigned to play either Enigmo or a strategy game for six sessions. Only the Enigmo group improved their ability to generate realistic trajectories, but this improvement was limited to learning about the general parabolic shape of trajectories. After training, both groups received a 30‐minute tutorial on Newtonian principles which generated a much larger improvement in producing realistic trajectories than did game play. This improvement was of similar magnitude in both training groups, indicating that gaming experience provided no advantage in deriving benefits from direct instruction. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The usual and the unusual suspects: level of suspicion and counter-interrogation tactics

The present study investigated guilty mock-suspects' counter-interrogation tactics with respect to the disclosure of possibly self-incriminating information, specifically, to what extent the disclosure of this information was moderated by (1) the suspects' criminal experience (naïve versus experienced) and (2) the degree of suspicion directed towards the suspects (low versus high). We found that experienced (versus naïve) suspects volunteered less self-incriminating information in an initial free recall phase. In a similar vein, when asked crime-specific questions, naïve (versus experienced) suspects admitted having committed more actions fitting with the crime under investigation. Furthermore, experienced suspects' willingness to report information was not affected by the degree of suspicion, whereas naïve suspects in a high-suspicion (versus low-suspicion) condition were more willing to report information. The results were discussed in the light of the psychology of guilt, the Strategic Use of Evidence technique for detecting deception, and the (over)use of naïve suspects as mock-suspects in psycho-legal research. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The influence of retrieval practice on metacognition: The contribution of analytic and non-analytic processes

People may change their memory predictions after retrieval practice using naïve theories of memory and/or by using subjective experience – analytic and non-analytic processes respectively. The current studies disentangled contributions of each process. In one condition, learners studied paired-associates, made a memory prediction, completed a short-run of retrieval practice and made a second prediction. In another condition, judges read about a yoked learners’ retrieval practice performance but did not participate in retrieval practice and therefore, could not use non-analytic processes for the second prediction. In Study 1, learners reduced their predictions following moderately difficult retrieval practice whereas judges increased their predictions. In Study 2, learners made lower adjusted predictions than judges following both easy and difficult retrieval practice. In Study 3, judge-like participants used analytic processes to report adjusted predictions. Overall, the results suggested non-analytic processes play a key role for participants to reduce their predictions after retrieval practice.     

The phenomenological directness of perceptual experience

When you have a perceptual experience of a given physical object that object seems to be immediately present to you in a way it never does when you consciously think about or imagine it. Many philosophers have claimed that naïve realism (the view that to perceive is to stand in a primitive relation of acquaintance to the world) can provide a satisfying account of this phenomenological directness of perceptual experience while the content view (the view that to perceive is to represent the world to be a certain way) cannot. I argue that this claim is false. Specifically, I maintain that the only acceptable naïve realist account of the relevant phenomenology is circular and that the content view can provide a similar account. In addition, I maintain that a certain specific variety of the content view provides a non-circular and thus more satisfactory account of this phenomenology. If so, then contrary to what is commonly assumed there are powerful phenomenological grounds for preferring the content view to naïve realism.     

Creativity: Hot and cold

Cognitive theorists have frequently distinguished between two types of thinking, one associated with control and reason, and the other with emotional expression A similar distinction was made by Freud between secondary and primary process thinking This paper has investigated whether corresponding styles of creativity can be discovered A study was reported in which two types of behaviour appeared a permissive, expressive type, and a controlled, coping type Both of these correlated positively with self-reported creativity A second study contrasted the correlates of originality on tests of divergent thinking with originality on projective tests. Two clusters emerged, one representing competent, stable, resourceful personalities who scored high on divergent thinking tests of originality, the other representing impulsive, emotionally expressive, imaginative persons who scored high on projective test originality It was concluded that there are two creativity styles corresponding to the two types of cognitive process, and these styles were labelled “cold” creativity and “hot” creativity. Both styles play a part, in varying proportions, in any creativity process Performance on the divergent thinking tests of originality is more closely related to cold than hot creativity and, therefore, the distinction does not correspond with that between convergent and divergent thinking Nor does it correspond with differences between scientific and artistic interests and creativity.     

Adults' representations of the Earth: Implications for children's acquisition of scientific concepts

When children are asked to draw the Earth they often produce intriguing pictures in which, for example, people seem to be standing on a flat disc or inside a hollow sphere. These drawings, and children's answers to questions, have been interpreted as indicating that children construct naïve, theory‐like mental models of the Earth (e.g. Vosniadou & Brewer, 1992 ). However, recent studies using different methods have found little or no evidence of these mental models, and report that many young children have some scientific knowledge of the Earth. To examine the reasons for these contrasting findings, adults (N = 350) were given the drawing task previously given to 5‐year‐old children. Fewer than half of the adults' pictures were scientific, and 15% were identical to children's ‘naïve’ drawings. Up to half of the answers to questions (e.g. ‘Where do people live?’) were non‐scientific. Open‐ended questions and follow‐up interviews revealed that non‐scientific responses were given because adults found the apparently simple task confusing and challenging. Since children very probably find it even more difficult, these findings indicate that children's non‐scientific responses, like adults', often result from methodological problems with the task. These results therefore explain the discrepant findings of previous research, and support the studies which indicate that children do not have naïve mental models of the Earth.