Hume's Explanations of Meaningless Beliefs

Hume's arguments to meaninglessness are too strong for his purposes; they are accompanied by psychological explanations of why we believe in entities that fall under the meaningless expressions. How can Hume consistently provide explanations of beliefs that are without meaning in the first place? Though not derived from experience in accordance with Lockean empiricism about meaning, the relevant expressions must possess some surrogate for meaning or content-like features. For Hume, such quasi -content is the product of a retreat, under the pressure of a conflict, from an illusion to a conceptual confusion that obscures the conflict; different quasi -contents result from different illusions. The notions of material substrata , souls and external existence, which some commentators treat as tolerably meaningful 'relative ideas', are confused quasi -concepts, defective in meaning. A reconstruction of Treatise I iii 14 shows that necessary connection may be seen as parallel to these other cases.     

Is the link between forebrain size and feeding innovations caused by confounding variables? A study of Australian and North American birds

The short notes of ornithology journals feature new and unusual feeding behaviours, which, when systematically collated, could provide a quantitative estimate of behavioural flexibility in different bird groups. Previous studies suggest that taxonomic variation in the frequency of new behaviours (innovations) is correlated with variation in relative forebrain size. Recent work on primates shows, however, that observer bias can affect innovation frequency. We assess this possibility in birds via three estimates in North America and Australia: the number of full-length papers in academic journals, the frequency of photographs in birding magazines and a questionnaire on reporting bias given to ornithologists at a meeting. We also look at sampling effects due to single journal sources by doing a split-half analysis of our North American database (The Wilson Bulletin vs. six other journals) and adding three new Australian journals to the one we had used previously. In multiple regressions that also included species number per taxon, none of the potential biases could account for the correlation between forebrain size and innovation frequency. Species number was the best predictor of full-length paper frequency, which was the best predictor of photograph numbers. Ornithologists are not preferentially interested in innovative, large-brained taxa, suggesting that the correlation between innovations and neural substrate size is not a spurious effect of the biases examined here. Accepted after revision: 27 July 2001 Electronic Publication     

Why do citizens want to keep refugees out? Threats,fairness and hostile norms in the treatment of asylum seekers

A social identity framework was employed to understand why people support the exclusionary treatment of refugee claimants (‘asylum seekers’) in Australia. Over and above individual difference effects of social dominance orientation and individuals' instrumental threat perceptions, insecure intergroup relations between citizens and asylum seekers were proposed to motivate exclusionary attitudes and behaviour. In addition, perceived procedural and distributive fairness were proposed to mediate the effects of social identity predictors on intergroup competitiveness, serving to legitimise citizens' exclusionary behaviours. Support for these propositions was obtained in a longitudinal study of Australians' social attitudes and behaviour. Small and inconsistent individual‐level effects were noted. In contrast, after controlling for these variables, hostile Australian norms, perceived legitimacy of citizen status, and threatening socio‐structural relations were strongly and consistently linked to intentions to support the harsh treatment of asylum seekers, and exclusionary attitudes and action at Time 2. Moreover, perceived procedural and distributive justice significantly mediated these relationships. The roles of fairness and intergroup socio‐structural perceptions in social attitudes and actions are discussed. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Interaction Effects in the Theory of Planned Behavior: The Interplay of Self-Identity and Past Behavior

This research used a revised theory of planned behavior (TPB) model, which incorporated self-identity and past behavior—and the interaction between these constructs—in order to improve the model's predictive power in relation to consumer behavior (purchasing one's preferred beer). At Time 1, respondents ( N  = 108) completed measures of attitudes, perceived behavioral control, subjective norm, self-identity, past behavior, and intentions. Behavior was assessed 1 week later. All predictors were positively related to intentions. Self-identity and past behavior interacted to influence intentions: Self-identity had a stronger influence on intentions at low, rather than high, levels of past behavior. Intentions and past behavior were predictive of Time 2 behavior. These findings emphasize the need to consider identity issues in the TPB.     

Evolutionary models of color categorization based on discrimination

Specifying the factors that contribute to the universality of color categorization across individuals and cultures is a longstanding and still controversial issue in psychology, linguistics, and anthropology. This article approaches this issue through the simulated evolution of color lexicons. It is shown that the combination of a minimal perceptual psychology of discrimination, simple pragmatic constraints involving communication, and simple learning rules is enough to evolve color-naming systems. Implications of this result for psychological theories of color categorization and the evolution of color-naming systems in human societies are discussed.     

The dolphin's (Tursiops truncatus) understanding of human gazing and pointing: knowing what and where

The authors tested whether the understanding by dolphins (Tursiops truncatus) of human pointing and head-gazing cues extends to knowing the identity of an indicated object as well as its location. In Experiment 1, the dolphins Phoenix and Akeakamai processed the identity of a cued object (of 2 that were present), as shown by their success in selecting a matching object from among 2 alternatives remotely located. Phoenix was errorless on first trials in this task. In Experiment 2, Phoenix reliably responded to a cued object in alternate ways, either by matching it or by acting directly on it, with each type of response signaled by a distinct gestural command given after the indicative cue. She never confused matching and acting. In Experiment 3, Akeakamai was able to process the geometry of pointing cues (but not head-gazing cues), as revealed by her errorless responses to either a proximal or distal object simultaneously present, when each object was indicated only by the angle at which the informant pointed. The overall results establish that these dolphins could identify, through indicative cues alone, what a human is attending to as well as where.