Dispossessing Defeat

Higher-order evidence can make an agent doubt the reliability of her reasoning. When this happens, it seems rational for the agent to adopt a cautious attitude towards her original conclusion, even in cases where the higher-order evidence is misleading and the agent's original reasons were actually perfectly good. One may think that recoiling to a cautious attitude in the face of misleading self-doubt involves a failure to properly respond to one's reasons. My aim is to show that this is not so. My proposal is that (misleading) higher-order evidence can undermine the agent's possession of her first-order reasons, constituting what I call a dispossessing defeater. After acquiring the higher-order evidence, the agent is no longer in a position to rely competently on the relevant first-order considerations as reasons for her original conclusion, so that such reasons stop being available to her (even if they remain as strong as in the absence of the higher-order evidence). In this way, an agent with misleading higher-order evidence can adopt a cautious stance towards her original conclusion, while properly responding to the set of reasons that she possesses–a set that is reduced due to the acquisition of higher-order dispossessing defeaters.     

Egocentrism, allocentrism, and Asperger syndrome

In this paper, we attempt to make a distinction between egocentrism and allocentrism in social cognition, based on the distinction that is made in visuo-spatial perception. We propose that it makes a difference to mentalizing whether the other person can be understood using an egocentric ("you") or an allocentric ("he/she/they") stance. Within an egocentric stance, the other person is represented in relation to the self. By contrast, within an allocentric stance, the existence or mental state of the other person needs to be represented as independent from the self. We suggest here that people with Asperger syndrome suffer from a disconnection between a strong na?ve egocentric stance and a highly abstract allocentric stance. We argue that the currently used distinction between first-person and third-person perspective-taking is orthogonal to the distinction between an egocentric and an allocentric stance and therefore cannot serve as a critical test of allocentrism.     

Intact retrieval inhibition in children’s episodic recall

Young children are assumed to be inefficient inhibitors in a number of cognitive tasks. In two experiments, we examined whether such deficits extend to children's episodic recall. We used two inhibition paradigms: retrieval-induced forgetting, the detrimental effect of retrieval practice with a subset of learned items on recall of the unpracticed items, and part-list cuing, the detrimental effect of the presentation of a subset of learned items on recall of the remaining items. In both experiments, the inhibitory effects were compared across three age groups: first or second graders, fourth graders, and young adults. The two children groups showed the same amounts of retrieval-induced forgetting and part-list cuing as the adult group, pointing to intact retrieval inhibition in young children's episodic recall. These results parallel very recent results on older adults' episodic recall, suggesting that both retrieval-induced forgetting and part-list cuing develop early in life and remain intact for the greater part of the lifespan.     

When and why leaders put themselves first: leader behaviour in resource allocations as a function of feeling entitled

In this article, we examine how being assigned the role of leader affects behaviour in resource sharing tasks. Previous research has shown that group members anchor their decision on the equal division rule prescribing that resources should be distributed equally. Following notions of equity theory and the literature on role schemas, we expected that adherence to the equal division rule would be moderated by role assignment. In particular, we expected leaders to take more than followers from a common resource and that this effect would be explained in terms of feelings of entitlement. The results of two experimental studies corroborate this reasoning. Study 1 demonstrated that leaders took more than followers and that leaders deviated more strongly from the equal division rule. In Study 2, it was found that legitimate leaders took more from the resource and deviated more strongly from the equal division rule than non‐legitimate leaders. Additional analyses suggest that the leaders' tendency to make higher allocations to the self can be explained by feelings of entitlement. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The Future of the New World that Was Supposed to Be

Abstract :  "North‐South" divides usually overlook the fact that Latin America was also part of the New World. It was only after WW II that these countries were lumped together in a large bunch called "third world." For the sake of simplicity, this paper restricts itself to the period when Liberation Theology made its appearance until now. Even though the seventies devised an autonomous Christianity, with its own traits and purposes, nowadays the churches are back in the mainstream. Issues that engage Christians there are not unlike their counterparts in "the North," thanks to globalization. Demographic changes are still more important than cultural ones, and economic prospects are more likely to interfere in the shape of Christianity than the will and emotions of leaders and the faithful alike.     

The use of experimenter-given cues by South African fur seals (<Emphasis Type="Italic">Arctocephalus pusillus</Emphasis>)

Dogs can use a variety of experimenter-given cues such as pointing, head direction, and eye direction to locate food hidden under one of several containers. Some authors have proposed that this is a result of the domestication process. In this study we tested four captive fur seals in a two alternative object choice task in which subjects had to use one of the following experimenter-given cues to locate the food: (1) the experimenter pointed and gazed at one of the objects, (2) the experimenter pointed at only one of the objects, (3) the experimenter gazed at only one of the objects, (4) the experimenter glanced at only one of the objects, (5) the experimenter pointed and gazed at one of the objects but was sitting closer to one object than to the other, (6) the experimenter pointed only with the index finger at one of the objects, (7) the experimenter presented a replica of one of the objects. The fur seals were able to use cues which involved a fully exposed arm or a head direction, but failed to use glance only, the index finger pointing and the object replica cues. The results showed that a domestication process was not necessary to develop receptive skills to cues given by an experimenter. Instead, we hypothesize that close interactions with humans prior to testing enabled fur seals to use some gestural cues without formal training. We also analyzed the behavior of the seals depending on the level of difficulty of the task. Behavioral signs of hesitation increased with task difficulty. This suggests that the fur seals were sensitive to task difficulty.     

Visual kin recognition and family resemblance in chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes)

The male-offspring biased visual kin recognition in chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) reported by L. A. Parr and F. B. M. de Waal (1999) was replicated with human (Homo sapiens) participants and a principal components analysis (PCA) of pixel maps of the chimpanzee face photos. With the same original materials and methods, both humans and the PCA produced the same asymmetry in kin recognition as found with the chimpanzees. The PCA suggested that the asymmetry was a function of differences in the distribution of global characteristics associated with the framing of the faces in the son and daughter test sets. Eliminating potential framing biases, either by cropping the photos tightly to the faces or by rebalancing the recognition foils, eliminated the asymmetry but not human participants' ability to recognize chimpanzee kin.     

Updating mental models in predictive reasoning

Abstract

A mental model account for predictive judgement is proposed. According to this view, solving a predictive task involves the foundation ad updating of a mental he work as the relevant data are provided. The final model state determines the subject's predictive outcome. Two experiments examine the temporal course of reasoning in novices (Experiment 1) and experts (Experiment 2). Each task provided in succession a quantitative source (e.g. “Last year, of the vehidts that stopped at the cafe, 80% were cars and 20% were trucks”), a diagnostic source (e.g. “This vehide is mksy”) and a categorical choice (e.g. “What kind of vehicle was it?”). Two factors were manipulated: The order of sources aimed at analysing the contextual dependence of the updating processes, and the between-sources congruence (congruent or incongruent) in order to explore the integrative processes in model building. The pattern of the sources reading times, the choice times and the categorical choices suggested that: (1) the processing of a source depends on the previous one, (2) subjects try to integrste both sources into a single mental framework, and (3) experts and novices have a similar performance, although experts give more importance to the quantitative source in the diagnostic-quantitative order. These results are better accounted for by the mental model framework than both the heuristic and the formal view of prediction.     

Investigating metrical and structural aspects of visual completion: Priming versus searching

Earlier research on visual occlusion showed some flexibility in the formation of visual completions, as long as the structural aspects (e.g., symmetry) of the visible part of the partly occluded shape were preserved in the completion (de Wit & van Lier, ). In this study, we examined whether changing the overall size of the occluded shape would preserve the overall structure. In Experiment 1, using the primed‐matching paradigm, we found evidence for relative size invariance in the completion process. To investigate whether changes in the structural aspects of shape are generally more salient than those of size, we employed the same stimuli in visual search and change detection paradigms. Experiment 2 demonstrated effects of completion in both paradigms. Experiment 3 showed that the metrical aspects of the shapes used in Experiment 1 are nevertheless detected faster than the structural aspects under search conditions. Because the variation in structural aspects is not more salient than in metrical aspects, we conclude that for these shapes, visual completion is indeed size‐invariant. The relations between performances in the three paradigms are discussed.     

Gambling primates: reactions to a modified Iowa Gambling Task in humans,chimpanzees and capuchin monkeys

Humans will, at times, act against their own economic self-interest, for example, in gambling situations. To explore the evolutionary roots of this behavior, we modified a traditional human gambling task, the Iowa Gambling Task (IGT), for use with chimpanzees, capuchin monkeys and humans. We expanded the traditional task to include two additional payoff structures to fully elucidate the ways in which these primate species respond to differing reward distributions versus overall quantities of rewards, a component often missing in the existing literature. We found that while all three species respond as typical humans do in the standard IGT payoff structure, species and individual differences emerge in our new payoff structures. Specifically, when variance avoidance and reward maximization conflicted, roughly equivalent numbers of apes maximized their rewards and avoided variance, indicating that the traditional payoff structure of the IGT is insufficient to disentangle these competing strategies. Capuchin monkeys showed little consistency in their choices. To determine whether this was a true species difference or an effect of task presentation, we replicated the experiment but increased the intertrial interval. In this case, several capuchin monkeys followed a reward maximization strategy, while chimpanzees retained the same strategy they had used previously. This suggests that individual differences in strategies for interacting with variance and reward maximization are present in apes, but not in capuchin monkeys. The primate gambling task presented here is a useful methodology for disentangling strategies of variance avoidance and reward maximization.