The structure of the cognitive revolution: an examination from the philosophy of science

The received view is that psychology has undergone several scientific revolutions similar to those that occurred in the physical sciences. Of these, this paper will consider the cognitive revolution. Because the arguments in favor of the existence of a cognitive revolution are cast using the concepts and terms of revolutionary science, we will examine the cognitive revolution using accounts of revolutionary science advanced by five influential philosophers of science. Specifically, we will draw from the philosophical positions of Popper, Kuhn, Lakatos, Laudan, and Gross for the purpose of discussion. We conclude that no substantive revolution took place according to these accounts. This conclusion is based on data gathered from some of the major participants in the "cognitive revolution" and on a general scholarly survey of the literature. We argue that the so-called cognitive revolution is best characterized as a socio-rhetorical phenomenon.     

Shock-induced hyperalgesia: IV. Generality

Brief-moderate shock (3, 0.75 s, 1.0 mA) has opposite effects on different measures of pain, inducing antinociception on the tail-flick test while lowering vocalization thresholds to shock and heat (hyperalgesia) and enhancing fear conditioned by a gridshock unconditioned stimulus (US). This study examined the generality of shock-induced hyperalgesia under a range of conditions and explored parallels to sensitized startle. Reduced vocalization thresholds to shock and antinociception emerged at a similar shock intensity. Severe shocks (3, 25 s, 1.0 mA or 3, 2 s, 3.0 mA) lowered vocalization threshold to shock but increased vocalization and motor thresholds to heat and undermined fear conditioned by a gridshock or a startling tone US. All shock schedules facilitated startle, but only brief-moderate shock inflated fear conditioning. The findings suggest that brief-moderate shock enhances the affective impact of aversive stimuli, whereas severe shocks attenuate pain.     

Cutting Deep: The Transformative Power of Art in the Anatomy Lab

On Tuesday evenings at New York University School of Medicine (NYUSoM), the anatomy lab is transformed into an art studio. Medical students gather with a spirit of creative enterprise and a unique goal: to turn anatomy into art. They are participants in Art & Anatomy, an innovative drawing course within the Master Scholars Program in Humanistic Medicine (MSPHM)—a component of NYUSoM, which offers elective courses across a range of interdisciplinary topics in medical humanities. Art & Anatomy has had approximately four hundred fifty participants since its inception in 2009. The educational intention of the course is to use drawing as an active mode of learning that enhances visual-perceptual ability and three-dimensional (3D) spatial understanding of the body's interior; however, the course also opens a creative space for participants to process the emotional complexities of cadaver dissection and the anatomy lab experience. The anatomy lab can be the training ground for clinical detachment, but many U.S. medical schools are beginning to attend more closely to the emotional aspects of dissection. The authors maintain that the inherently expressive nature of drawing makes the Art & Anatomy course a novel and effective approach to this endeavor. Select student artwork and a curriculum overview are provided.     

Correia Semantics Revisited

Despite a renewed interest in Richard Angell’s logic of analytic containment (\({\mathsf{AC}}\)), the first semantics for \({\mathsf{AC}}\) introduced by Fabrice Correia has remained largely unexamined. This paper describes a reasonable approach to Correia semantics by means of a correspondence with a nine-valued semantics for \({\mathsf{AC}}\). The present inquiry employs this correspondence to provide characterizations of a number of propositional logics intermediate between \({\mathsf{AC}}\) and classical logic. In particular, we examine Correia’s purported characterization of classical logic with respect to his semantics, showing the condition Correia cites in fact characterizes the “logic of paradox” \({\mathsf{LP}}\) and provide a correct characterization. Finally, we consider some remarks on related matters, such as the applicability of the present correspondence to the analysis of the system \({\mathsf{AC}^{\ast}}\) and an intriguing relationship between Correia’s models and articular models for first degree entailment.     

Research on the Effects of Violent Video Games: A Critical Analysis

The impact of violent video games on youth and adults who play these games has been a source of great controversy for years. This paper reviews the research on violent video games across three main areas: general effects on aggression, negative effects on specific high-risk populations, and effects on visuospatial cognition. Difficulties in adequately measuring constructs such as aggression are also highlighted. It is concluded that the extreme focus on general aggression effects is not supported by the current literature, and that social science's focus on general aggression effects distracts from research on specific at-risk populations, and potential positive uses of some violent video games.     

Loading the problem loader: the effects of target training and shaping on trailer-loading behavior of horses.

The purpose of this study was to develop an effective method for trailer loading horses based on principles of positive reinforcement. Target training and shaping were used to teach trailer‐loading behavior to 5 quarter horse mares in a natural setting. All 5 had been trailer loaded before through the use of aversive stimulation. Successive approximations to loading and inappropriate behaviors were the dependent variables. After training a horse to approach a target, the target was moved to various locations inside the trailer. Horses started training on the left side of a two‐horse trailer. After a horse was loading on the left side, she was moved to the right side, then to loading half on the right and half on the left. A limited‐hold procedure and the presence of a companion horse seemed to facilitate training for 1 horse. Inappropriate behaviors fell to zero immediately after target training, and all the horses successfully completed the shaping sequence. Finally, these effects were observed to generalize to novel conditions (a different trainer and a different trailer).     

Kant on Duty in the Groundwork

Barbara Herman offers an interpretation of Kant??s Groundwork on which an action has moral worth if the primary motive for the action is the motive of duty. She offers this approach in place of Richard Henson??s sufficiency-based interpretation, according to which an action has moral worth when the motive of duty is sufficient by itself to generate the action. Noa Latham criticizes Herman??s account and argues that we cannot make sense of the position that an agent can hold multiple motives for action and yet be motivated by only one of them, concluding that we must accept a face-value interpretation of the Groundwork where morally worthy actions obtain only when the agent??s sole motive is the motive of duty. This paper has two goals, one broad and one more constrained. The broader objective is to argue that interpretations of moral worth, as it is presented in the Groundwork, depend on interpretations of Kant??s theory of freedom. I show that whether we can make sense of the inclusion of nonmoral motives in morally worthy actions depends on whether the ??always causal framework?? is consistent with Kant??s theory of freedom. The narrow goal is to show that if we adopt an ??always causal?? framework for moral motivation, then Herman??s position and her critique of the sufficiency-based approach fail. Furthermore, within this framework I will specify a criterion for judging whether an action is determined by the motive of duty, even in the presence of nonmoral motives. Thus, I argue Latham??s conclusion that we must accept a face-value interpretation is incorrect.     

Paradigm change in aggression research: The time has come to retire the General Aggression Model

As Kuhn (1970) has noted, most scientific fields go through processes of paradigm change, painful periods in which old theories no longer fit available data and are placed by new theories. Such periods typically create strife and debate as ideological differences emerged between proponents of old and new theoretical approaches. In the current paper, we argue that such a period has been reached within the field of aggression research. Over the past half-century, social cognitive and social learning paradigms of aggression, exemplified in the General Aggression Model (GAM) have retained dominance, particularly in areas such as media violence. We contend that data to support the GAM and social cognitive approaches to aggression have never been conclusive, and newer evidence increasingly suggests that the GAM and social cognitive theories of aggression more generally are not adequate to explain aggressive phenomena. We discuss weaknesses and problematic, sometimes hidden assumptions of the GAM and how these reduce the utility of this paradigm. Current evidence suggests that the GAM and the social cognitive paradigm of aggression should be retired, and approaches which focus on diathesis-stress hold greater promise.     

Using efficacy information to manipulate proxy efficacy in novice exercisers

ObjectivesTo examine whether proxy efficacy could be increased through an intervention targeting the four sources of efficacy using a written message.DesignPhase 1 (N = 33) tested the stimulus materials to ensure that the intervention message contained significantly more sources of efficacy than the controls. Phase 2 (N = 86) was an intervention assessing the effectiveness of the stimulus materials in increasing proxy efficacy.MethodIn Phase 1, female novice exercisers were randomly assigned to read either an attention control (AC) or proxy efficacy-enhancing (PEE) message about an exercise class leader. Participants completed manipulation checks assessing content, readability, and inclusion of the sources of efficacy. In Phase 2, participants were randomly assigned to AC or PEE groups and read the stimulus materials tested in Phase 1. In order to establish baseline efficacy, all participants read an AC message at Time 1. At Time 2 one week later, the PEE group read the PEE message while the AC group read a second AC message. Participants' proxy efficacy was assessed at both time points in Phase 2.ResultsIn Phase 1, results revealed that the participants who read the PEE message agreed that their stimulus material contained significantly more efficacy-enhancing information than did participants who read the AC messages. In Phase 2, MANCOVA revealed that, after controlling for Time 1 proxy efficacy, the PEE group had significantly greater proxy efficacy at Time 2 than the AC group.ConclusionsResults suggest that proxy efficacy can be increased through targeted written messages.