Philosophical Diversity and Disagreement

Widespread and lasting consensus has not been philosophy's fate. Indeed, one of philosophy's most striking features is its ability to accommodate “not only different answers to philosophical questions” but also “total disagreement on what questions are philosophical” (Rorty 1995 , 58). It is therefore hardly surprising that philosophers' responses to this metaphilosophical predicament have been similarly varied. This article considers two recent diagnoses of philosophical diversity: Kornblith and Rescher (respectively) claim that taking philosophical disagreement seriously does not lead to metaphilosophical scepticism. The article argues that their confidence is misplaced in so far as both wrongly assume that ordinary, first‐order philosophical practice and second‐order metaphilosophical reflection are separate enterprises.     

Revisiting the agentic shift: Weakening personal control increases susceptibility to social influence

What happens when people experience a reduced sense of personal control? Among the various strategies to defend against a perception of randomness, people may show an increased acceptance of external sources of control. Indeed, in one of the most classic studies in social psychology, Stanley Milgram referred to an “agentic shift”—the tendency to relinquish personal control to an external agent—to explain his dramatic obedience effects. We propose that his account is a specific manifestation of a more general phenomenon: the tendency for increased susceptibility to various forms of external social influence when perceived personal control is reduced. In a series of (lab and field) studies using a variety of perceived control manipulations, we demonstrate that a reduction in the sense of personal control increases people's vulnerability to the bystander effect, promotes obedience to authority and fosters compliance with behavioral requests. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Lexical effects on compensation for coarticulation: a tale of two systems?

We reply to McQueen's commentary by comparing the parsimony of his account of relevant data and the computational model he favors with the explanation and model we favor. His account requires multiple independent explanations and mechanisms. Ours requires one: lexical feedback.     

Identifying the ‘if’ for ‘if-then’ plans: Combining implementation intentions with cue-monitoring targeting unhealthy snacking behaviour

Implementation intentions aimed at changing unwanted habits require the identification of personally relevant cues triggering the habitual response in order to be effective. To facilitate successful implementation intention formation, in the present study, planning was combined with cue-monitoring, a novel way to gain insight into triggers for unhealthy snacking. It was tested whether keeping a cue-monitoring diary and tailoring implementation intentions accordingly improves plan effectiveness. A 2 Monitoring (cue-monitoring, control)?×?2 Planning (implementation intention, goal intention) between subjects design was adopted. Participants (N = 161) monitored their unhealthy snacking behaviour for a week using either a cue-monitoring or a control diary. Participants then formulated a goal intention or an implementation intention tailored to their personal cue. Snacking frequency and caloric intake from unhealthy snacks were examined using a seven-day snack diary. The results did not indicate an interaction but yielded a main effect of Monitoring. Cue-monitoring either or not combined with implementation intentions reduced unhealthy snacking behaviour compared with control. Findings emphasise the effectiveness of cue-monitoring, suggesting that on the short term, cue-monitoring suffices to decrease unhealthy snacking, without additional benefit from planning. Future research should examine whether supplementing cue-monitoring with implementation intentions is required to establish long-term behaviour change maintenance.     

What information is necessary for speech categorization? Harnessing variability in the speech signal by integrating cues computed relative to expectations

Most theories of categorization emphasize how continuous perceptual information is mapped to categories. However, equally important are the informational assumptions of a model, the type of information subserving this mapping. This is crucial in speech perception where the signal is variable and context dependent. This study assessed the informational assumptions of several models of speech categorization, in particular, the number of cues that are the basis of categorization and whether these cues represent the input veridically or have undergone compensation. We collected a corpus of 2,880 fricative productions (Jongman, Wayland, & Wong, 2000) spanning many talker and vowel contexts and measured 24 cues for each. A subset was also presented to listeners in an 8AFC phoneme categorization task. We then trained a common classification model based on logistic regression to categorize the fricative from the cue values and manipulated the information in the training set to contrast (a) models based on a small number of invariant cues, (b) models using all cues without compensation, and (c) models in which cues underwent compensation for contextual factors. Compensation was modeled by computing cues relative to expectations (C-CuRE), a new approach to compensation that preserves fine-grained detail in the signal. Only the compensation model achieved a similar accuracy to listeners and showed the same effects of context. Thus, even simple categorization metrics can overcome the variability in speech when sufficient information is available and compensation schemes like C-CuRE are employed.     

Mindlessness Revisited: Sequential Request Techniques Foster Compliance by Draining Self-control Resources

The present research extends previous findings suggesting that sequential request techniques, such as the Foot-in-the-Door (FITD) or Door-in-the-Face (DITF) technique, are primarily effective under conditions conducive of mindlessness. We forward that this mindlessness may be the product of the influence technique itself. More specifically, based on the notion of self-control as a limited resource, we hypothesize that actively responding to the initial request-phase of a FITD-compliance gaining procedure drains the target of his/her self-regulatory resources, thus creating the mindlessness so often observed in social influence settings. This resource depletion opens the door for compliance with the target request. The results were in line with these expectations. More specifically, we observed that active responding to an initial request of a FITD technique reduced the availability of self-regulatory resources. This state of resource depletion mediated the effect of the technique on behavioral compliance. In addition, the results of this study ruled out the alternate explanation that the effects were attributable to mood or a general tendency for acquiescence.     

Continuous dynamics of color categorization

In order to assess whether color categorization is sensitive to within-category differences in hue, we monitored mouse trajectories in a modified categorization task. Participants saw color swatches from a blue-green continuum and categorized them with a computer mouse by selecting one of two colored regions at the top of a monitor. An analysis of the mouse trajectories showed that the deviation toward the competing category was a function of hue: As hues approached the category boundary, they increasingly deviated to the competitor. This work presents evidence for parallel activation on the level of hue and category processing for color, as well as simultaneous activation of perceptually adjacent categories. Thus, a dynamic process sensitive to fine-grained within-category detail best characterizes color categorization.