Graded semantic and phonological similarity effects in priming: evidence for a distributed connectionist approach to morphology

A considerable body of empirical and theoretical research suggests that morphological structure governs the representation of words in memory and that many words are decomposed into morphological components in processing. The authors investigated an alternative approach in which morphology arises from the interaction of semantic and phonological codes. A series of cross-modal lexical decision experiments shows that the magnitude of priming reflects the degree of semantic and phonological overlap between words. Crucially, moderately similar items produce intermediate facilitation (e.g., lately-late). This pattern is observed for word pairs exhibiting different types of morphological relationships, including suffixed-stem (e.g., teacher-teach), suffixed-suffixed (e.g., saintly-sainthood), and prefixed-stem pairs (preheat-heat). The results can be understood in terms of connectionist models that use distributed representations rather than discrete morphemes.     

The case for regularity in mechanistic causal explanation

How regular do mechanisms need to be, in order to count as mechanisms? This paper addresses two arguments for dropping the requirement of regularity from the definition of a mechanism, one motivated by examples from the sciences and the other motivated by metaphysical considerations regarding causation. I defend a broadened regularity requirement on mechanisms that takes the form of a taxonomy of kinds of regularity that mechanisms may exhibit. This taxonomy allows precise explication of the degree and location of regular operation within a mechanism, and highlights the role that various kinds of regularity play in scientific explanation. I defend this regularity requirement in terms of regularity??s role in individuating mechanisms against a background of other causal processes, and by prioritizing mechanisms?? ability to serve as a model of scientific explanation, rather than as a metaphysical account of causation. It is because mechanisms are regular, in the expanded sense described here, that they are capable of supporting the kinds of generalizations that figure prominently in scientific explanations.     

Abstract versus Causal Explanations?

In the recent literature on causal and non-causal scientific explanations, there is an intuitive assumption (which we call the ‘abstractness assumption’) according to which an explanation is non-causal by virtue of being abstract. In this context, to be ‘abstract’ means that the explanans in question leaves out many or almost all causal microphysical details of the target system. After motivating this assumption, we argue that the abstractness assumption, in placing the abstract and the causal character of an explanation in tension, is misguided in ways that are independent of which view of causation or causal explanation one takes to be most accurate. On major accounts of causation, as well as on major accounts of causal explanation, the abstractness of an explanation is not sufficient for it being non-causal. That is, explanations are not non-causal by dint of being abstract.     

Childhood physical and emotional abuse by a parent: transference effects in adult interpersonal relations

Extending research on transference and the relational self (Andersen & Chen, 2002), female undergraduates with or without a history of physical and emotional abuse by a loved parent participated in an experiment manipulating parental resemblance and threat-relevant interpersonal context in a new person. Transference elicited differences not evident in the control condition between abused and nonabused participants' responses, with greater rejection expectancy, mistrust, dislike, and emotional indifference reported by abused participants. Immediate implicit affect was more positive in transference than in the control condition regardless of abuse history. Yet, abused participants in transference also reported increased dysphoria that was markedly attenuated when interpersonal threat was primed, and no such pattern occurred among nonabused participants. Evidence that interpersonally guarded and affectively complex responses are triggered in transference among previously abused individuals suggests that this social-cognitive process may underlie long-term interpersonal difficulties associated with parental abuse.