If You Can't Change What You Believe,You Don't Believe It

I develop and defend the view that subjects are necessarily psychologically able to revise their beliefs in response to relevant counter-evidence. Specifically, subjects can revise their beliefs in response to relevant counter-evidence, given their current psychological mechanisms and skills. If a subject lacks this ability, then the mental state in question is not a belief, though it may be some other kind of cognitive attitude, such as a supposition, an entertained thought, or a pretense. The result is a moderately revisionary view of belief: while most mental states we thought were beliefs are beliefs, some mental states which we thought were beliefs are not beliefs. The argument for this view draws on two key claims: First, subjects are rationally obligated to revise their beliefs in response to relevant counter-evidence. Second, if some subject is rationally obligated to revise one of her mental states, then that subject can revise that mental state, given her current psychological mechanisms and skills. Along the way to defending these claims, I argue that rational obligations can govern activities which reflect on one's rational character, whether or not those activities are under one's voluntary control. I also show how the relevant version of epistemic ‘ought’ implies ‘can’ survives an objection which plagues other variants of the principle.     

It's Fascinating Research: The Cognition of Verbal Irony

ABSTRACT— Verbal irony is nonliteral language that makes salient a discrepancy between expectations and reality. For researchers who study verbal irony, a critical question is: How do we grasp the meaning of ironic language? The parallel-constraint-satisfaction approach holds promise as an answer to this question. By this account, multiple cues to ironic intent, such as tone of voice, incongruity, and knowledge of the speaker, are processed rapidly and in parallel and this information is coordinated with the utterance itself in order to construct a coherent interpretation that is the best fit for the activated information. Recently, research with individuals who struggle with irony comprehension (typically developing children, individuals with autism-spectrum disorder, individuals with brain injury) has provided new clues about the complex process by which ironic meaning is inferred.     

What You Don't Know Can Help You: The Ethics of Placebo Treatment

Is it permissible for a doctor or nurse to knowingly administer a placebo in a clinical setting? There is certainly something suspicious about it: placebos are typically said to be ‘sham’ treatments, with no ‘active’ properties and so giving a placebo is usually thought to involve tricking or deceiving the patient who expects a genuine treatment. Nonetheless, some physicians have recently suggested that placebo treatments are sometimes the best way to help their patients and can be administered in an honest way. These physicians conclude that placebo treatments are a perfectly acceptable, and ethically unproblematic, mode of treatment. While I grant the common idea that placebos are deceptive is correct, I argue that widespread misunderstandings concerning why this is so has led proponents of placebo treatments to respond to the charge of deception in a way that misses the mark entirely. My goal in this paper, then, is to develop a precise conception of what makes something a placebo, which in turn will clarify the central charge concerning the ethics of placebo treatment, viz. that it is deceptive.     

Sincerely Asserting What You Do Not Believe

I offer examples showing that, pace G. E. Moore, it is possible to assert ‘Q and I don't believe that Q’ sincerely, truly, and without any absurdity. The examples also refute the following principles: (a) justification to assert p entails justification to assert that one believes p (Gareth Evans); (b) the sincerity condition on assertion is that one believes what one says (John Searle); and (c) to assert (to someone) something that one believes to be false is to lie (Don Fallis).     

Novel figurative phrases and idioms: phrase characteristics over multiple presentations

In a series of three studies, characteristics of novel figurative phrases were compared with those of established idioms. Studies 1 and 2 found that certain correlations were found to be strong and in one direction for familiar idioms and comparably strong but in the opposite direction for novel figurative phrases, with the correlations for less familiar idioms usually falling partway between these extremes. Study 2 also noted that written or auditory presentation had minimal effects on characteristic ratings. In Study 3 the correlations among characteristics stayed relatively constant for familiar idioms after one, three, or six presentations, but for the novel figurative phrases, after multiple presentations the correlations changed in the direction of the established idioms.     

Conceptual clusters in figurative language production

Although most prior research on figurative language examines comprehension, several recent studies on the production of such language have proved to be informative. One of the most noticeable traits of figurative language production is that it is produced at a somewhat random rate with occasional bursts of highly figurative speech (e.g., Corts & Pollio, 1999). The present article seeks to extend these findings by observing production during speech that involves a very high base rate of figurative language, making statistically defined bursts difficult to detect. In an analysis of three Baptist sermons, burst-like clusters of figurative language were identified. Further study indicated that these clusters largely involve a central root metaphor that represents the topic under consideration. An interaction of the coherence, along with a conceptual understanding of a topic and the relative importance of the topic to the purpose of the speech, is offered as the most likely explanation for the clustering of figurative language in natural speech.     

On Being Cited for Saying Nearly the Opposite of What You Said: A Comment on Duus (1988)

The Psychological Record - This note begins with a review of the particulars of my case: namely, a brief synopsis of my prior research on feedback, and the facts concerning the extent to which my...     

Eye See What You Are Saying: Testing Conversational Influences on the Information Gleaned from Home‐Loan Disclosure Forms

The federal government mandates the use of home‐loan disclosure forms to facilitate understanding of offered loans, enable comparison shopping, and prevent predatory lending. Predatory lending persists, however, and scant research has examined how salespeople might undermine the effectiveness of these forms. Three eye‐tracking studies (a laboratory simulation and two controlled experiments) investigated how conversational norms affect the information consumers can glean from these forms. Study 1 was a laboratory simulation that recreated in the laboratory; the effects that previous literature suggested is likely happening in the field, namely, that following or violating conversational norms affects the information that consumers can glean from home‐loan disclosure forms and the home‐loan decisions they make. Studies 2 and 3 were controlled experiments that isolated the possible factors responsible for the observed biases in the information gleaned from these forms. The results suggest that attentional biases are largely responsible for the effects of conversation on the information consumers get and that perceived importance plays little to no role. Policy implications and how eye‐tracking technology can be employed to improve decision‐making are considered. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Racial Differences in Work Attitudes: What You See Depends on What You Study

Differences in a constellation of work attitudes were studied with respect to black and white employees using a sample of healthcare workers. Preliminary analyses using MANOVA indicated that blacks had more positive work attitudes than did whites. However, systematic analyses of set of covariates including personal, lifestyle, and organizational variables eliminated all racial differences in work attitudes. Implications of these findings and directions for future research were discussed.     

Sometimes You Feel Like a Nut, Sometimes You Don't: Citizens' Ambivalence About Abortion

Recent research has recognized that many people simultaneously hold positive and negative attitudes about important political issues. This paper reviews the concept of attitudinal ambivalence and introduces a survey measure of ambivalence adapted from the experimental literature. An analysis of two statewide telephone surveys of Florida voters reveals that (1) a number of voters have ambivalent attitudes about abortion rights; (2) the amount of ambivalence varies according to the circumstances (elective versus traumatic) under which an abortion is obtained; (3) ambivalence about elective abortions is essentially unrelated to ambivalence about traumatic abortions; (4) voters who support abortion rights are more ambivalent about elective abortions than about traumatic abortions, whereas the pattern is reversed for abortion rights opponents; and (5) extreme views in support of or opposition to abortion rights can sometimes mitigate the amount of ambivalence felt by voters.     

Variations in Figurative Language Use as a Function of Mode of Communication

Various studies have demonstrated that the mode by which people communicate affects the content of their messages. The present study examines the ways in which one aspect of language use, namely figurative language, differs as a function of mode of communication. Subjects worked together in pairs to build a small household appliance, with an expert directing a novice in the construction. Subjects communicated in one of four modes: full copresence, separated by a screen, through an intercom system, or through e-mail. Differences between modes were found on a number of measures of figurative language types, including what the author has described as interrogative analogies. These differences are discussed in terms of costs, constraints, and affordances associated with different media, and the role figurative language plays in communication.