Perception and the external world

In this paper, I argue that perception justifies belief about the external world in virtue of its phenomenal character together with its relations to the external world. But I argue that perceptual relations to the external world impact on the justifying role of perception only by virtue of their impact on its representational content. Epistemic level-bridging principles provide a principled rationale for avoiding more radically externalist theories of perceptual justification.     

South Asian women: identities and conflicts

This study investigated the effects of education, level of religiosity, ethnic identity (internal and external), and racial identity statuses (conformity, dissonance, resistance, and awareness) on cultural value conflict for first and second generation South Asian women (N = 193). Cultural value conflict was examined in two areas, intimate relations and sex-role expectations. Results revealed that level of religiosity was more predictive of intimate relations conflict for second generation than first generation women. Furthermore, higher ratings in internal ethnic identity predicted greater intimate relations conflict in first generation women, while both internal and external ethnic identity predicted intimate relations conflict in second generation women. Finally, higher dissonance scores in racial identity predicted greater conflicts in sex-role expectations for second generation women alone.     

Children's understanding of class inclusion hierarchies: the relationship between external representation and task performance

Three experiments were designed to investigate children's understanding of class inclusion hierarchies and to determine whether such understanding may be related to children's ability to construct external representations for information that was hierarchical in nature. Understanding of hierarchies was studied through tasks designed to demonstrate children's ability with subset/superset classification and knowledge of asymmetric and transitive relations. Children were asked to construct their own external representations for passages containing information that could be represented hierarchically. It was hypothesized that the quality of children's external representations would be related to their ability to respond to questions related to the passages. Children's responses to questions, as well as their external representations, suggested that children as young as second grade have substantial understanding of hierarchical relations. Although the external representations were constructed in drawing, written, or structured modes, the data revealed a strong relationship between the quality of children's external representations and their performance on question tasks requiring both recognition and reasoning. Finally, children understood the relationships expressed in tree diagrams and could construct such diagrams to respond to questions. Implications of the findings, particularly as related to note-taking skills, and suggestions for further research are discussed.     

Internal,External and Intra-Individual Relations

In this paper I argue that there are in fact external relations in Russell’s sense. The level at which we are forced to acknowledge them is, however, not the level of relations between concrete individual objects. All relations of this kind, which I will call “inter-individual” relations, can be construed as supervenient on the monadic properties of their terms. But if we pursue our ontological analysis a little bit deeper and consider the internal structure of a concrete individual, then we will inevitably find irreducible external relations. I mean for example the relation of instantiation (in the frame of a realist’s theory) or that of concurrence (in the frame of a trope theory). I will show that such “intra-individual” relations – the relations that make up the internal structure of a concrete individual out of more primitive metaphysical “building blocks” like universals or tropes – could not (even in principle) be construed as supervenient. I should like to thank David Frost for brushing up my English and the Austrian Foundation for the Promotion of Scientific Research (FWF) for the financial support.     

Using relations within conceptual systems to translate across conceptual systems

According to an "external grounding" theory of meaning, a concept's meaning depends on its connection to the external world. By a "conceptual web" account, a concept's meaning depends on its relations to other concepts within the same system. We explore one aspect of meaning, the identification of matching concepts across systems (e.g. people, theories, or cultures). We present a computational algorithm called ABSURDIST (Aligning Between Systems Using Relations Derived Inside Systems for Translation) that uses only within-system similarity relations to find between-system translations. While illustrating the sufficiency of a conceptual web account for translating between systems, simulations of ABSURDIST also indicate powerful synergistic interactions between intrinsic, within-system information and extrinsic information.     

Children's preference for body or external object on a task requiring transposition and discrimination of right-left relations.

First graders were tested on trials requiring the discrimination and transposition of right-left relations, with stimuli similar to (dolls) or different from (toy planes) the body. On an initial series of training and practice trials children were allowed to respond to body and external objects as referents providing right-left cues. A later series of test trials was then used to determine the referent the child actually preferred. Results of the test trials indicated that 24 children tested with the dolls preferred the body as referent, while 24 children tested with planes preferred the external referent. The results were interpreted as suggesting two alternative systems through which children develop an understanding of right-left relations and possibly other concepts as well.     

Italian,Bulgarian, and U.S. Children's Perceptions of Gender-Appropriateness of Occupations

Abstract

A stratified sample of 238 female business graduates in Singapore provided the data for this study. Twelve external barriers (including family-related and work/organization-related barriers) were included as predictor variables and their relations with the career success of women graduates were explored. The results showed external barriers to be important predictors of women's career success. Because the sample involved respondents at different stages of career development, the study also provided an understanding about how various external barriers interacted to impede the career development of women.     

Uniquely primate,uniquely human

Two hypotheses about primate cognition are proposed. First, it is proposed that primates, but not other mammals, understand categories of relations among external entities. In the physical domain primates have special skills in tasks such as oddity, transitivity, and relation matching that require facility with relational categories; in the social domain primates have special skills in understanding the third-party social relationships that hold among other individuals in their groups. Second, it is proposed that humans, but not other primates, understand the causal and intentional relations that hold among external entities. In the physical domain only humans understand causal forces as mediating the connection between sequentially ordered events; in the social domain only humans understand the behavior of others as intentionally directed and controlled by desired outcomes. Both these uniquely primate and these uniquely human cognitive skills are hypothesized to have their origins in adaptations for negotiating complex social interactions.     

Frequency of relation type as a determinant of conceptual combination: a reanalysis

C. L. Gagne and E. J. Shoben (1997) proposed that concepts are combined via external relations and that lexical entries include information about which relations are frequent for every modifying noun. As evidence for this view, they showed that relations associated with the modifier affected the interpretation of combinations in several studies in which subjects had to decide whether the combinations were sensible. The authors evaluated the methods and stimuli used in Gagne and Shoben's experiments and present findings suggesting that the effect of relation frequency is likely due to differences between the familiarity and plausibility of different combinations. Although relation frequency could be involved in conceptual combination, the authors concluded that better evidence is needed for this variable, controlling for other more general differences between the combinations.     

How Powers Emerge from Relations

I shall explore in this article the metaphysical possibility of powers’ strongly emerging from relations. After having provided a definition of emergent powers that is also based on the distinction between the possession and the activation of a power, I shall introduce different sorts of Relations that Ground Emergence, both external and internal. Later on, I shall discuss some examples of powers that are grounded on their instantiation. Finally, I shall examine the consequences of accepting such relations within a physicalistic ontology and I shall defend them against two objections based on the notion of bruteness.     

Susceptibility for thin ideal media and eating styles

This study examined the relations between susceptibility for thin ideal media and restrained, emotional and external eating, directly and indirectly through body dissatisfaction. Thin ideal media susceptibility, body dissatisfaction and eating styles were measured in a sample of 163 female students. Structural equation modelling was used for analyses, controlling for BMI. Higher susceptibility for thin ideal media was directly related to higher scores on all eating styles, and indirectly related to higher restrained and emotional eating through elevated levels of body dissatisfaction. So, thin ideal media susceptibility was not only related to restraint through body dissatisfaction, but also directly. Emotional eaters might be more vulnerable for negative affect, whereas external eaters might be more sensitive to external cues in general.     

Relations of factor score estimates to their use

Considerations of factor score estimates have concentrated on internal characteristics. This report considers external characteristics of four methods for determining factor score estimates; that is, relations of these estimates to measures on attributes not entered into the factor analysis. These external characteristics are important for many uses of factor score estimates. Findings are that different ones of the methods are appropriate for different uses.Supported in part by the Personnel and Training Branch of the Office of Naval Research under contract number 00014-67-A-0305-0003.     

Converging evidence of configural processing of faces in high-functioning adults with autism spectrum disorders

There is conflicting evidence about whether individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) demonstrate configural processing of faces. We examined two types of configural processing of unfamiliar faces in high-functioning adults with ASD: Holistic processing (processing a face as a gestalt percept) and processing of second-order relations (the spatial relations among facial features, e.g., distance between two eyes). Compared to age- and IQ-matched typical adults, 17 adults with ASD demonstrated normal holistic processing (as demonstrated by the composite face effect), normal sensitivity to second-order relations in upright faces, and the expected disruption of sensitivity to second-order relations in inverted faces. They were also normal in using the internal features and shape of the external contour to make same/different judgements about facial identity. The results provide converging evidence of configural processing of unfamiliar faces in high-functioning adults with ASD, and bring into question the generalizability of previous reports of abnormal face processing in individuals with ASD.     

主题关系在4~5岁儿童不同属性归纳推理发展中的作用

为探讨主题关系在儿童归纳推理中的作用,采用经典的三角归纳范式,设计了主题关系和知觉相似冲突、主题关系和分类学关系冲突两种情形,来考察4~5岁儿童在内在属性和情境性属性任务中的归纳推理。结果显示：当主题关系和知觉相似冲突时,从4.5岁开始儿童主要基于主题关系对情境性属性进行归纳推理,而对于内在属性的推论,4~5岁儿童在基于主题关系和基于知觉相似上没有显著差异。当主题关系和分类学关系冲突时,从4.5岁开始儿童主要基于主题关系对情境性属性进行归纳推理,从5岁开始儿童主要基于分类学关系对内在属性进行归纳推理。两个实验结果均发现5岁和5.5岁儿童能够依据不同的属性使用不同的关系推理,表现出归纳灵活性     

Parental control in child rearing and multidimensional locus of control.

272 French-Canadian adolescent boys and 286 girls took part in a study of the association between parental control in child-rearing and Levenson's locus of control dimensions. Analysis showed relations between parental control and the two external dimensions but not with the internal one. Age and gender did not contribute to the various relationships.     

Prototypes of the “natural” concepts discovery

In works of Eleanor Rosch “natural” concepts was introduced that reflect a high correlated structure of features of objects of the external world. Prototypes of the “natural” concepts are clearest cases of objects that reflect this highly correlated structure. The same high correlated structure manifested in the “natural” phenotypical classification. To formalize this highly correlated structure, we define a special type of probabilistic causal relations and then probabilistic formal concepts as a cyclically connected probabilistic causal relations. Based on these definitions, we developed a method of prototypes discovery and illustrate it on the example of digits’ prototypes discovery.     

Causal cognition and causal realism

Recent research on “causal cognition” in adults and infants shows that we can perceive singular causal relations not previously experienced. In particular, infants that are able to perceive causality seem to rely on innate beliefs and principles that allow a priori inference of a connection between cause and effect. Can causal cognition in infants justify the thesis of causal realism? On the one hand, it weakens the central pillar of the Humean arguments: the impossibility of a synthetic a priori causal inference. On the other hand, if perception is the privileged way of justifying the reality of objects of the external world, that is valid in the case of causal relations as well. Moreover, the perception of causal relations, based on innate principles and beliefs, reflects the selective results of the interaction between the real constraints of the physical structure of the world and the evolution of the human mind.     

Thematic relations in adults' concepts

Concepts can be organized by their members' similarities, forming a kind (e.g., animal), or by their external relations within scenes or events (e.g., cake and candles). This latter type of relation, known as the thematic relation, is frequently found to be the basis of children's but not adults' classification. However, 10 experiments found that when thematic relations are meaningful and salient, they have significant influence on adults' category construction (sorting), inductive reasoning, and verification of category membership. The authors conclude that concepts function closely with knowledge of scenes and events and that this knowledge has a role in adults' conceptual representations.