Explaining the theory of mind deficit in autism spectrum disorder

The theory of mind (ToM) deficit associated with autism has been a central topic in the debate about the modularity of the mind. Most involved in the debate about the explanation of the ToM deficit have failed to notice that autism’s status as a spectrum disorder has implications about which explanation is more plausible. In this paper, I argue that the shift from viewing autism as a unified syndrome to a spectrum disorder increases the plausibility of the explanation of the ToM deficit that appeals to a domain-specific, higher-level ToM module. First, I discuss what it means to consider autism as a spectrum rather than as a unified disorder. Second, I argue for the plausibility of the modular explanation on the basis that autism is better considered as a spectrum disorder. Third, I respond to a potential challenge to my account from Philip Gerrans and Valerie Stone’s recent work (Gerrans, Biol Philos 17:305–321, 2002; Stone and Gerrans, Trends Cogn Sci 10:3–4, 2006a; Soc Neurosci 1:309–319, 2006b; Gerrans and Stone, Br J Philos Sci 59:121–141, 2008).     

Suppose Yalcin is wrong about epistemic modals

In “Epistemic Modals,” Seth Yalcin argues that what explains the deficiency of sentences containing epistemic modals of the form ‘p and it might be that not-p’ is that sentences of this sort are strictly contradictory, and thus are not instances of a Moore-paradox as has been previous suggested. Benjamin Schnieder, however, argues in his Yalcin’s explanation of these sentences’ deficiency turns out to be insufficiently general, as it cannot account for less complex but still defective sentences, such as ‘Suppose it might be raining.’ Consequently, Schnieder proposes his own, expressivist treatment of epistemic modals which he thinks can explain the deficiency of both the original sentence type as well as more complex cases of embedded sentences containing epistemic modals. In this study, I argue that although Schnieder is right to draw our attention to the explanatory failure of Yalcin’s account, we aren’t forced to adopt Schnieder’s expressivist account of epistemic modals. I defend instead a contextualist-friendly alternative which explains the deficiencies of all the relevant sentence types, while avoiding both the defects of Yalcin’s account and the intuitive costs of expressivism.     

Social Control in a Sexually Deviant Cybercommunity: A Cappers' Code of Conduct

This study examines a cybercommunity dedicated to recording live webcam feeds that are sexually charged. Those who record these feeds are known as “cappers.” Cappers post these “caps” on message boards designed to disseminate, share, and evaluate their aesthetic qualities. Following the insights of Durkin, Forsyth, Quinn, and others, this article identifies and elaborates the means of social control that promotes deviant ends among a capping community by extending Anderson's “code of the street.” The capping code's basic rules, strategies, tactics, and motives are analyzed in relation to reputation. The article concludes with considerations for future research.     

Teaching About Racism: Pernicious Implications of the Standard Portrayal

Resonating with understandings prevalent among White Americans, psychologists tend to portray racism as a problem of individual prejudice rather than a systemically embedded phenomenon. An unintended consequence of this portrayal is to reproduce a narrow construction of racism as something that does not require energetic measures to combat. We describe 2 studies that provide support for this idea. Tutorials presented the topic of racism either as individual prejudice (standard condition) or as a systemic phenomenon embedded in American society (sociocultural condition). Results confirmed that perception of racism and (in Study 2) endorsement of antiracist policy were greater among participants in the sociocultural tutorial condition than among participants in the both the standard tutorial and no-tutorial control conditions. An ironic consequence of standard pedagogy may be to promote a modern form of scientific racism that understates the ongoing significance of racist oppression.     

Interactions among emergent relations during equivalence class formation

The interactions among symmetry, transitivity, and equivalence tests during the formation of 3-member equivalence classes were studied with 14 college students. After training AB and BC, a test with BA, CB, AC, and CA was conducted concurrently. Failure led to serial testing with probes for CA equivalence, BA symmetry, CA equivalence, CB symmetry, CA equivalence, AC transitivity, and CA equivalence. For five subjects, equivalence tests were passed immediately once BA and CB symmetry as well as AC transitivity had been induced. Thus, symmetry and transitivity were precursors for successful performance on equivalence tests. The conjoint function of symmetry and transitivity was assessed with the equivalence probes. As the equivalence probes were passed immediately, the presence of symmetry alone and transitivity alone were sufficient for their conjoint function without additional intervention. For different subjects, transitivity alone and symmetry were induced either directly with BA, CB, or AC probes or indirectly with equivalence probes. Equivalence probes can also induce various combinations of symmetry and transitivity. Thus, different subjects formed classes in various patterns at different rates.     

Sticking to the Evidence? A Behavioral and Computational Case Study of Micro‐Theory Change in the Domain of Magnetism

Constructing an intuitive theory from data confronts learners with a “chicken‐and‐egg” problem: The laws can only be expressed in terms of the theory's core concepts, but these concepts are only meaningful in terms of the role they play in the theory's laws; how can a learner discover appropriate concepts and laws simultaneously, knowing neither to begin with? We explore how children can solve this chicken‐and‐egg problem in the domain of magnetism, drawing on perspectives from computational modeling and behavioral experiments. We present 4‐ and 5‐year‐olds with two different simplified magnet‐learning tasks. Children appropriately constrain their beliefs to two hypotheses following ambiguous but informative evidence. Following a critical intervention, they learn the correct theory. In the second study, children infer the correct number of categories given no information about the possible causal laws. Children's hypotheses in these tasks are explained as rational inferences within a Bayesian computational framework.     

HOW TO ANALYSE SUBSTANCE: A REPLY TO SCHNIEDER

In a recent issue of this journal, Benjamin Schnieder has presented an objection to the account of individual substance that we have developed and put to various uses in our works on metaphysics. According to Schnieder's objection, our proposal to analyse this notion of substantiality suffers from a special kind of circularity. In this paper, we give two replies to Schnieder's objection. The first is that a successful analysis is not, in fact, required to avoid the sort of circularity about which Schnieder complains. The second is that our analysis does not involve the alleged circularity.