Surprise! Infants consider possible bases of generalization for a single input example

Infants have been shown to generalize from a small number of input examples. However, existing studies allow two possible means of generalization. One is via a process of noting similarities shared by several examples. Alternatively, generalization may reflect an implicit desire to explain the input. The latter view suggests that generalization might occur when even a single input example is surprising, given the learner's current model of the domain. To test the possibility that infants are able to generalize based on a single example, we familiarized 9‐month‐olds with a single three‐syllable input example that contained either one surprising feature (syllable repetition, Experiment 1) or two features (repetition and a rare syllable, Experiment 2). In both experiments, infants generalized only to new strings that maintained all of the surprising features from familiarization. This research suggests that surprise can promote very rapid generalization.     

When global structure "Explains Away" local grammar: a Bayesian account of rule-induction in tone sequences

While many constraints on learning must be relatively experience-independent, past experience provides a rich source of guidance for subsequent learning. Discovering structure in some domain can inform a learner’s future hypotheses about that domain. If a general property accounts for particular sub-patterns, a rational learner should not stipulate separate explanations for each detail without additional evidence, as the general structure has “explained away” the original evidence. In a grammar-learning experiment using tone sequences, manipulating learners’ prior exposure to a tone environment affects their sensitivity to the grammar-defining feature, in this case consecutive repeated tones. Grammar-learning performance is worse if context melodies are “smooth” — when small intervals occur more than large ones — as Smoothness is a general property accounting for a high rate of repetition. We present an idealized Bayesian model as a “best case” benchmark for learning repetition grammars. When context melodies are Smooth, the model places greater weight on the small-interval constraint, and does not learn the repetition rule as well as when context melodies are not Smooth, paralleling the human learners. These findings support an account of abstract grammar-induction in which learners rationally assess the statistical evidence for underlying structure based on a generative model of the environment.     

Warrant and action

I develop an approach to action and practical deliberation according to which the degree of epistemic warrant required for practical rationality varies with practical context. In some contexts of practical deliberation, very strong warrant is called for. In others, less will do. I set forth a warrant account, (WA), that captures this idea. I develop and defend (WA) by arguing that it is more promising than a competing knowledge account of action due to John Hawthorne and Jason Stanley. I argue that cases of warranted false belief speak in favor of (WA) and against the knowledge account. Moreover, I note some problems with an “excuse maneuver” that proponents of the knowledge account frequently invoke in response to cases of warranted false belief. Finally, I argue that (WA) may provide a strict invariantist account of cases that have been thought to motivate interest-relative or subject-sensitive theories of knowledge and warrant.     

Schwere Anorexia nervosa

Background

Psychosomatic support during acute medical treatment of patients with anorexia nervosa is a special need but up to now a rare constellation. These patients can barely accept necessary somatic procedures even if they suffer from severe consequences of the eating disorder. The ambivalence of patients towards treatment is explained by the loss of the right perception of their bodies and the strong obsession with further weight loss.

Methods

This article reports on eight consecutively treated patients on a medical ward who received a liaison psychosomatic, psychotherapeutic visit twice a week. The aim was to maintain better therapy adherence, to support oral food intake and understanding of the disorder as well as to motivate patients for further psychosomatic treatment.

Results

By means of a respectful cooperation between the departments of internal medicine and psychosomatics it was possible to gain psychotherapeutic access to the patients in this highly complicated situation.

Consequence

The psychodynamic aspects of this collaboration are discussed with a focus on the triangulation of the therapeutic process.     

Statistical frequency in perception affects children’s lexical production

Children’s early word production is influenced by the statistical frequency of speech sounds and combinations. Three experiments asked whether this production effect can be explained by a perceptual learning mechanism that is sensitive to word-token frequency and/or variability. Four-year-olds were exposed to nonwords that were either frequent (presented 10 times) or infrequent (presented once). When the frequent nonwords were spoken by the same talker, children showed no significant effect of perceptual frequency on production. When the frequent nonwords were spoken by different talkers, children produced them with fewer errors and shorter latencies. The results implicate token variability in perceptual learning.     

Expert Trespassing Testimony and the Ethics of Science Communication

Scientific expert testimony is crucial to public deliberation, but it is associated with many pitfalls. This article identifies one—namely, expert trespassing testimony—which may be characterized, crudely, as the phenomenon of experts testifying outside their domain of expertise. My agenda is to provide a more precise characterization of this phenomenon and consider its ramifications for the role of science in society. I argue that expert trespassing testimony is both epistemically problematic and morally problematic. Specifically, I will argue that scientific experts are subject to a particular obligation. Roughly, this is the obligation to qualify their assertions when speaking outside their domain of scientific expertise in certain contexts. Thus, I argue that scientists who possess expert knowledge are confronted with hard questions about when and how to testify and, therefore, that being a scientific expert comes with great responsibility. Consequently, I provide a concrete “expert guideline” according to which scientific experts, in certain contexts, face an obligation to qualify their assertions when speaking outside their domain of expertise. Furthermore, I consider a number of the conditions in which the guideline is waived or overridden. On this basis, I consider the broader aspects of the roles of scientific experts in a society with a high division of cognitive labor that calls for trust in scientific expert testimony.     

Truth-Sensitivity and Folk Epistemology

Several studies have found a robust effect of truth on epistemic evaluation of belief, decision, action and assertion. Thus, truth has a significant effect on normative participant evaluations. Some theorists take this truth effect to motivate factive epistemic norms of belief, action, assertion etc. In contrast, I argue that the truth effect is best understood as an epistemic instance of the familiar and ubiquitous phenomenon of outcome bias. I support this diagnosis from three interrelating perspectives: (1) by epistemological theorizing, (2) by considerations from cognitive psychology and (3) by methodological reflections on the relationship between folk epistemology and epistemological theorizing.