Hypothesis: The nasal fatigue reflex

Natural selection results in adaptations. I suggest that unexplained fatigue may be an adaptive response to nasal impairment. For macrosmatic animals, intact olfaction is necessary to detect predators. In such animals, any reflex (e.g., fatigue) triggered by nasal dysfunction that limited exposure would offer great survival advantage. The “fatigued” animal would remain in its protected environment, unexposed to hungry carnivores, while the nose healed. In humans, clinical syndromes associated with unexplained fatigue (chronic fatigue syndrome, tension fatigue syndrome, allergic fatigue, neurasthenia, etc.) are characterized by symptoms that, in part, are nasal in origin. The older medical literature does describe the resolution of fatigue in neurasthenia after nasal treatments. Nasal reflexes in animals do cause significant systemic effects, including an inhibition of muscle action potentials that is, perhaps, analogous to the “heavy-limbed” sensation of those with fatigue.     

The Convergence-Divergence Hypothesis

I propose a hypothesis, called the systems convergence-divergence hypothesis, which attempts to explain how the existence and evolution of supraindividual systems (social, political or economic) might be predicted from an analysis of the basic structures that make up their individual entities (molecules and cells) and how, reciprocally, study of these individuals and of their evolution might be approached from knowledge of such systems.     

Psychophysics of Remembering: The Discrimination Hypothesis

In a psychophysical approach to remembering, the events to be remembered are discriminated from other possibilities at the time of remembering, and not at the time of encoding or learning. The discrimination is specific to the retention interval at which remembering occurs, as shown by experiments demonstrating that discriminability and response bias are delay–specific. This article discusses a discrimination model for remembering that emphasizes the individual's history of learning about reward payoffs in similar experiences in the past. This model predicts the two characteristics of forgetting functions, initial discriminability and rate of forgetting.     

The Tree of Knowledge: Good and Evil: Conflicting Interpretations

This article examines a debate concerning the exegesis of the story of the garden of Eden and the tree of knowledge, as told in Genesis. Two contradictory interpretations of the garden narrative are examined, the first as the story is elucidated by the psychoanalyst and social theorist Erich Fromm and the alternative interpretation by the Talmudic scholar and philosopher Rabbi Joseph Soloveitchik. This article compares and contrasts their exegeses and the respective implications of each view. The controversy, which has profound implications, reflects differences in world views concerning the good life, autonomy and relatedness, assertion and submission, will and surrender, obedience and rebellion, independence and interdependence, subjectivity and intersubjectivity. Links are drawn to a variety of contemporary psychoanalytic theories, developments, and controversies.     

On Probabilistic Computer-based Test Interpretations and Other Expert Systems

Computer-based test interpretation (C.B.T.I.) reports are becoming well established in psychology. To date, most C.B.T.I. reports have been focused on selecting the correct global paragraph to apply to a given client. An alternative approach is to use C.B.T.I. services to provide highly technical and sophisticated statistical summaries of the individual client's responses. Such summaries can be tests of major hypotheses about the individual client resulting in probabilistic statements about the likelihood of a client being a member of a group or being accurately described by the statement. Such probabilistic C.B.T.I. reports may represent a major contribution to the individual clinician's tool-kit.
Les compte-rendus ďinterprétation des tests utilisant les ordinateurs (C.B.T.I.) sont un fait bien établi en psychologic Jusqu'à cette date, la phipart ďentre eux se centraient sur le choix de la séquence globale correcteà appliquer a un client donné. Une alternative consiste à utiliser les services du C.B.T.I. pour obtenir des résumés de réponses de clients hautement techniques et sophistiqués sur le plan statistique. De tels résumés peuvent fournir des hypothèses majeures sur un client, en apportant des données probabilistes sur sa participation à un groupe ou sur des détails précis du rapport. Ce genre de compte-rendus probabilistes C.B.T.I. pourraient représenter une contribution majeure à la panoplie du clinicien.     

亚里士多德逻辑的现代意义

亚里士多德是逻辑的创始人,也是形而上学的开拓者,他的逻辑为西方哲学提供了一种工具和眼界,一直促进和影响西方哲学的发展.因此,理解亚里士多德逻辑,不仅有助于理解他本人的逻辑观和哲学思想,也有助于理解西方人的逻辑观念和哲学.对照亚里士多德逻辑和现代逻辑,则有助于深入地理解逻辑的本质,有助于清楚地认识西方传统哲学和现代哲学的同异,有助于揭示为什么说西方哲学的主要特征是逻辑分析的,从而有助于更加深刻地理解哲学的本质.     

The Levels Hypothesis: A Re-Examination and Reorientation

The levels-hypothesis appears to be derived from psychoanalytic theory, and in its most popular interpretation is concerned with levels of consciousness. However, it is argued that a gradient of consciousness has no application to projective techniques, essentially because there are no principles of differentiation. It is for this reason that the studies which have been done have concerned themselves with such concepts as pathology, concepts which have a tenuous relation to the original levels-hypothesis. The paper has proposed that consciousness in the sense of awareness can more meaningfully be applied to projective material, and that when it is used in this sense a levels-hypothesis can be derived which is both testable and has an adequate rationale.     

“钩子”假说:一种发展神经心理学假设

功能脑与解剖脑相对独立发展.解剖脑不断发展完善解剖结构单元,功能脑不断产生并发展新的功能结构单元.每一个新产生的功能结构单元通过一把“钩子”钧连到相应的解剖结构单元上,功能脑与解剖脑通过“钩子”钩连在一起.这种钧连关系是功能脑发展过程中逐渐产生发展的.若在一种钩连关系产生时,功能结构单元对应的解剖结构单元已经损失,则功能结构单元会寻找并钩连另外的解剖结构单元,而不影响此钩连关系的产生.     

The Second Incompleteness Theorem and Bounded Interpretations

In this paper we formulate a version of Second Incompleteness Theorem. The idea is that a sequential sentence has ‘consistency power’ over a theory if it enables us to construct a bounded interpretation of that theory. An interpretation of V in U is bounded if, for some n, all translations of V-sentences are U-provably equivalent to sentences of complexity less than n. We call a sequential sentence with consistency power over T a pro-consistency statement for T. We study pro-consistency statements. We provide an example of a pro-consistency statement for a sequential sentence A that is weaker than an ordinary consistency statement for A. We show that, if A is ${{\sf S}^{1}_{2}}$ , this sentence has some further appealing properties, specifically that it is an Orey sentence for EA. The basic ideas of the paper essentially involve sequential theories. We have a brief look at the wider environment of the results, to wit the case of theories with pairing.     

On Extracting Variable Herbrand Disjunctions

Studia Logica - Some quantitative results obtained by proof mining take the form of Herbrand disjunctions that may depend on additional parameters. We attempt to elucidate this fact through an...     

The novelty effect: support for the Novelty-Encoding Hypothesis

In two experiments, we examined the "Novelty-Encoding Hypothesis" proposed by Tulving and Kroll (1995), suggesting that the encoding of online information into long-term memory is influenced by its novelty and that novelty increases recognition performance. In Phase 1 (familiarization phase), subjects participated in a standard memory experiment in which different types of materials (verbs and nouns) were studied under different encoding conditions (enactment and non-enactment) and were tested by an expected recognition test. In Phase 2 (critical phase), subjects evaluated the materials (both familiar materials which were encoded earlier in Phase 1, and novel materials which were not presented earlier in Phase 1) in a frequency judgment task and were given an unexpected recognition test. The results of both experiments showed that novel items were recognized better than familiar items. This result held true for both hit rates - false alarms and hit rates. The novelty effect was observed for different subjects (Swedish and Japanese), different materials (verbs and nouns; high frequency and low frequency), and different types of encoding in Phase 1 (enactment and non-enactment). These findings provide support for the "Novelty-Encoding Hypothesis" stating that the effect is based on the encoding of target items at the time of the critical study (Phase 2). A comparison between the present experiments and the Tulving and Kroll (1995), Dobbins, Kroll, Yonelinas & Liu (1998) and Greene (1999) studies suggests that the novelty effect is more pronounced under incidental encoding than under intentional encoding.     

The Medium of Haptic Perception: A Tensegrity Hypothesis

ABSTRACT

For any given animal, the sources of mechanical disturbances inducing tissue deformation define environment from the perspective of the animal's haptic perceptual system. The system's achievements include perceiving the body, attachments to the body, and the surfaces and substances adjacent to the body. Among the perceptual systems, it stands alone in having no defined medium. There is no articulated functional equivalent to air and water, the media that make possible the energy transmissions and diffusions underpinning the other perceptual systems. To identify the haptic system's medium the authors focus on connective tissue and the conjunction of muscular, connective tissue net, and skeletal (MCS) as the body's proper characterization. The challenge is a biophysical formulation of MCS as a continuum that, similar to air and water, is homogeneous and isotropic. The authors hypothesized a multifractal tensegrity (MFT) with the shape and stability of the constituents of each scale, from individual cell to whole body, derivative of continuous tension and discontinuous compression. Each component tensegrity of MFT is an adjustive-receptive unit, and the array of tensions in MFT is information about MCS. The authors extend the MFT hypothesis to body-brain linkages, and to limb perception phenomena attendant to amputation, vibration, anesthesia, neuropathy, and microgravity.     

The Delay Hypothesis: The Manifestation of Media Effects Over Time

A between‐participants experiment (N = 147) tested for the presence of a delayed effect following exposure to an episode of a legal drama that contained false information. Participants were more likely to endorse false beliefs if they were queried two weeks after watching the program rather than immediately following exposure. The relationship between time and false belief endorsement was found to be moderated by perceived reality of the program. Consistent with the delay hypothesis, those who perceived the legal drama to be unrealistic following exposure had significantly higher false belief scores at Time 2.     

基于文献的科学假说

科学假说是形成和发展科学理论的必经途径.探讨了一种从非相关文献间的隐含联系中建立假说的方法,对其研究背景、哲学基础及建立假说的模式作了介绍.     

人格分化假设:大学生样本的证据

基于智力差异的人格分化假设认为,高智力者比低智力者有更多可变的、更分化的人格。该研究在653名大学生样本中检验了这一假设,结果表明:(1)高IQ组比低IQ组倾向于获得更极端的人格分数,在大多数人格维度上,尤其是外倾性和开放性维度,高IQ组的人格结构更加分化。(2)除神经质与宜人性、外倾性与开放性的相关外,高IQ组在其他特质维度中都比低IQ组有更低的相关和更多的人格结构。(3)没有充分证据表明高IQ组比低IQ组在人格测量中有更高的信度。     

行为决策中的描述–经验差距:信息加工角度的解释

选项信息获取过程会影响决策,描述–经验差距简称D-E差距,是指个体进行决策时根据概括性描述信息得到的结果与依据序列体验信息的经验得到的结果之间的差异。文章以认知因素在决策范式演进过程中的角色为线索,梳理了D-E差距的提出及最新的研究发现。参考决策认知过程框架从信息加工角度探讨D-E差距影响因素,从整体上解释D-E差距的原因。未来需要从全面对比两种决策范式,改进经验决策研究方法等角度进行深入探讨。     

On Certain Limitations Accompanying Readers' Interpretations of Corrections in Episodic Text

Where information concerning an ongoing event is acquired piecemeal over time, it may become necessary to correct a particular item of information after it is first encountered. Previous work (Johnson & Seifert, 1994; Wilkes & Leatherbarrow, 1988) has shown that if the content targeted for correction is thematically salient, neither a delayed nor an immediate correction may be sufficient to suppress its influence when subjects are subsequently tested for their comprehension of the message sequence as a whole. The present experiments are aimed at clarifying the conditions under which corrections fail to achieve their intended effects. In Experiment 1, message sequences were prepared in which the correction occurred midway in the text. It was found that the pre- or post-correction status of a message had no bearing on how it was interpreted on a later test of comprehension; both types of statements were equally likely to be associated with inferences based on the discredited message. In Experiment 2 the message targeted for correction could be directly linked to only one other message in the overall sequence. Despite this reduction in the scope of the correction, illegitimate inferences based on the discredited source continued to be made during comprehension testing. These results suggest that the critical inferences were made at the time of comprehension testing and are interpreted as providing support for the minimalist stance on the incidence of on-line inferencing during normal reading.     

Anti-Realist Interpretations of Plato: Paul Natorp

The paper considers Paul Natorp's Kantian reading of Plato's theory of ideas, as developed in his monumental work, Platos Ideenlehre, eine Einführung in den Idealismus (1903, 1921). Central to Natrop's reading are, I argue, the following two claims: (1) Plato's ideas are laws, not things; and (2) Plato's theory of ideas in the first instance a theory about the possibility and nature of thought - in particular cognitive and indeed scientific or explanatory thought - and only as a consequence is it a theory about the nature of reality. Natrop thus argues that Plato's theory of ideas is at its heart a transcendental theory, and that Plato's metaphysics is built on this basis. The paper considers these claims - and their textual basis in Plato - in some detail, and attempts an initial evaluation of their plausibility as a reading of Plato. I am on the whole sympathetic to Natorp's reading, though a proper assessment goes beyond the present paper. The wider interest of this idealist or anti-realist reading of Plato ought to be obvious, especially in view of the commonly accepted assumption these days that both Plato and Aristotle, and indeed the Greeks in general, took realism entirely for granted (see e.g. M. Burnyeat). Natorp argues that this is true of Aristotle, but quite untrue of Plato. But he is quite clear that the idealism he ascribes to Plato is not Berkeleyan or metaphysical idealism, but a certain kind of transcendental or epistemological idealism. Natorp, however, is no uncritical follower of Kant, and the version of trascendental idealism that he ascribes to Plato is, I argue, very different from Kant's.