Truthmaker commitments

On the truthmaker view of ontological commitment [Heil (From an ontological point of view, 2003); Armstrong (Truth and truthmakers, 2004); Cameron (Philosophical Studies, 2008)], a theory is committed to the entities needed in the world for the theory to be made true. I argue that this view puts truthmaking to the wrong task. None of the leading accounts of truthmaking—via necessitation, supervenience, or grounding—can provide a viable measure of ontological commitment. But the grounding account does provide a needed constraint on what is fundamental. So I conclude that truthmaker commitments are not a rival to quantifier commitments, but a needed complement. The quantifier commitments are what a theory says exists, while the truthmaker commitments are what a theory says is fundamental.

A Comparison of “Direct” Versus “Derived” Extinction of Avoidance Responding

The Psychological Record - To establish a series of derived relations between arbitrary stimuli, 20 subjects were exposed to nonarbitrary and arbitrary relational training and testing procedures....     

Rethinking Cognition: On Coulter on Discourse and Mind

This paper responds to, and comments on, Coulter's (1999) critique of discursive psychology with particular reference to how cognition is conceptualised theoretically and analytically. It first identifies a number of basic misreadings of discursive psychological writings, which distort and, at times, reverse its position on the status of cognition. Second, it reviews the main ways in which cognition, mental states, and thoughts have been analytically conceptualised in discursive psychology (respecification of topics from mainstream psychology, studies of the psychological thesaurus in action, and studies of the way psychological issues are managed). Third, it considers two of Coulter's substantive issues: the role of correct usage and the role of conceptual vs. empirical analysis. A series of problems are identified with Coulter's development of both of these issues.     

Temporal Vacua

I show to be unsuccessful several attempts to demonstrate the possibility of time without change. Consideration of the most prominent of these arguments (by Sydney Shoemaker) then leads to the formulation of a general argument: evidence which justifies a claim that a certain amount of time has elapsed also justifies a claim that continuous change has occurred during the period. Hence there is a sound basis for the relationist claim that there is no time without events.     

Using image analysis techniques to analyze figure-copying performance of patients with visuospatial neglect and control groups.

Figure copying is often used to detect visuospatial neglect (VSN) in brain-damaged patients. We describe algorithms that enable the computation of parameters for describing figure-copying performance. The researcher can readily implement these algorithms on a computer using image analysis software, and they provide information on goodness-of-fit, relative to a standard model, as well as on dynamic aspects of subjects' performance in completing figure copies. To demonstrate the clinical utility of these algorithms, preliminary results from a group of right-hemisphere brain-damaged patients, some of whom have VSN, are compared with those for age-matched controls.     

A social validation explanation for mutual enhancement

Group members experience mutual enhancement when they evaluate one another’s task capabilities more positively because they are discussing shared as compared to unshared information. Two experiments investigated a social validation explanation for mutual enhancement. In Experiment 1, members of dyads read and discussed either shared or unshared information and collectively recalled this information under conditions where accuracy was important or not. Mutual enhancement occurred when need for accuracy was higher, but not when it was lower. In Experiment 2, members of dyads read validating or non-validating information from an outsider after they collectively recalled shared or unshared information. Members who discussed unshared information and received no validating communication from the outsider gave one another the lowest task capability ratings compared to members who discussed shared information and/or received validating communication from the outsider. All of these results are consistent with a social validation explanation for mutual enhancement.