Deliberative coherence

Choosing the right plan is often choosing the more coherent plan: but what is coherence? We argue that coherence-directed practical inference ought to be represented computationally. To that end, we advance a theory of deliberative coherence, and describe its implementation in a program modelled on Thagard's ECHO. We explain how the theory can be tested and extended, and consider its bearing on instrumentalist accounts of practical rationality.     

Working through the Problems of Study Abroad Using the Methodologies of Religious Studies

After illustrating the joys of teaching religious studies abroad with an anecdote from my trip to China, I warn of some of its inherent pedagogical and ethical challenges. I argue that teaching some of the “new directions” in religious studies scholarship might address these challenges. These include a turning away from the abstract (texts, beliefs, theologies) and towards the concrete (bodies, places, rituals); moving away from teaching religions as unchanging, ancient verities and instead emphasizing the impact that colonialism, modernization, and secularism have had; moving from searching for authenticity to questioning it; and emphasizing methodological self‐consciousness. Keeping these new directions in mind will help ensure the study abroad experience is educationally successful. This essay serves as an introduction to a series of six additional essays comprising a special section of the journal (see Teaching Theology and Religion 18:1, January 2015).     

The powers of noise-fitting: reply to Barth and Paladino

Barth and Paladino (2011) argue that changes in numerical representations are better modeled by a power function whose exponent gradually rises to 1 than as a shift from a logarithmic to a linear representation of numerical magnitude. However, the fit of the power function to number line estimation data may simply stem from fitting noise generated by averaging over changing proportions of logarithmic and linear estimation patterns. To evaluate this possibility, we used conventional model fitting techniques with individual as well as group average data; simulations that varied the proportion of data generated by different functions; comparisons of alternative models' prediction of new data; and microgenetic analyses of rates of change in experiments on children's learning. Both new data and individual participants' data were predicted less accurately by power functions than by logarithmic and linear functions. In microgenetic studies, changes in the best fitting power function's exponent occurred abruptly, a finding inconsistent with Barth and Paladino's interpretation that development of numerical representations reflects a gradual shift in the shape of the power function. Overall, the data support the view that change in this area entails transitions from logarithmic to linear representations of numerical magnitude.     

Hostility patterns and health implications: correlates of Cook-Medley Hostility Scale scores in a national survey

Correlated Cook-Medley Hostility Scale (Ho) scores with sociodemographic variables in a national survey of 2,536 adults. Multiple regression models revealed that Ho scores were associated with race (p less than .0001), years of education (p less than .001), sex (p less than .001), occupation (p = .0002), and income (p = .0025). Higher scores were found in non-Whites, men, and those of lower socioeconomic status. There was a Race x Income interaction (p less than .005), such that the greatest Ho score differences between the races occurred among those with the lowest incomes. Age was related to Ho scores in a curvilinear fashion: higher scores in the youngest and oldest age groups than in the middle-aged groups (p = .025). Marital status was unrelated to Ho scores. These patterns of hostility are similar to the patterns of health indicators in the population. Because hostility has been found to be associated with adverse health outcomes, hostility may account for some of the demographic variations in health status. However, it is argued that research must first establish the generality of the hostility-health relationship across subgroups of the population.     

Psychophysiological mediators of caregiver stress and differential cognitive decline

The authors examined relationships between chronic stress and cognitive decline and whether such relationships were mediated by psychophysiological factors. Ninety-six caregivers of spouses with Alzheimer's disease (AD) were compared with 95 similar noncaregiver spouses. All were free of diabetes. Although the groups started similarly, over 2 years caregivers declined by a small but significant amount (1 raw score point and 4 percentile points, each p<.05) on Shipley Vocabulary. In contrast, noncaregivers did not change. Higher hostile attribution (beta=-.09; p<.05) and metabolic risk (beta=-.10; p<.05) in caregivers mediated the cognitive decline. This is the first study of cognitive decline and mediators in caregivers. This work has implications for caregiver and care-recipient health and for research on cognition, psychophysiology, diabetes, and AD.     

Children's learning

A new field of children's learning is emerging. This new field differs from the old in recognizing that children's learning includes active as well as passive mechanisms and qualitative as well as quantitative changes. Children's learning involves substantial variability of representations and strategies within individual children as well as across different children. The path of learning involves the introduction of new approaches as well as changes in the frequency of prior ones. The rate and the breadth of learning tend to occur at a human scale, intermediate between the extremes depicted by symbolic and connectionist models. Learning has many sources; one that is particularly promising for educational purposes is self-explanations. Overall, contemporary analyses show that learning and development have a great deal in common.     

The development of a proportionality concept: Judging relative fullness

Six experiments were performed to investigate children's understanding of a proportionality concept, the concept of fullness. Experiments 1 and 2 were intended to rigorously test Bruner and Kenney's (1966) hypothesized developmental progression for the fullness of a water jar task. The results of the experiments supported Bruner and Kenney's contention that 6-year-olds base their spontaneous judgments of fullness on the relative heights of liquid columns, that 10-year-olds base their judgments on the relative volumes, and that neither age group relies on the proportion of filled to empty space. Experiments 3 through 6 were devoted to testing a variety of possible explanations for why children did not use the Proportionality Rule. These experiments failed to support the hypotheses that nonuse of the Proportionality Rule was due to: (a) misunder-standing of instructions; (b) failure to attend to both filled and empty space within each glass; (c) inability to apply appropriate labels to proportions; or (d) inability to compare the magnitudes of proportions. Instead, it appeared that children of both ages could execute all of these component operations, but did not know how to put them together; simple instruction in how to combine the components led to 90% of the children of each age mastering the Proportionality Rule. The results pointed to the importance of distinguishing between the processes of learning and invention.     

Subjective organization of U.S. presidents

College students appear to subjectively organize U.S. presidents into three groups and to use this organization to help them learn new information. Results of a paired comparison task in Experiment 1 suggested that subjects organized the presidents into Founding Fathers (Washington through John Quincy Adams), post-World War II presidents (Truman through Reagan), and noncontemporary presidents (Jackson through Franklin Roosevelt). This hypothesized organization was tested in Experiment 2 by presenting subjects with several lists with alternative organizations of the presidents. Difficulty of learning classifications of particular presidents within each list was predicted on the basis of the relation between that president's classification in the list and in the hypothesized preexisting organization. Instances where the preexisting and new classifications were consistent both for the particular president and for all other members of the group were easiest to learn. Instances where the particular president's classification was consistent but where some other presidents in the group were classified differently were of intermediate difficulty. Instances where neither the individual president's classification nor that of the entire group were consistent were most difficult. The results provided converging evidence for the hypothesized subjective organization of the presidents and also demonstrated the usefulness of a method that may be applicable to testing subjective organizations in a wide variety of other areas.