The Model-Model of the Theory-Theory

“Theory of Mind” (ToM) is widely held to be ubiquitous in our navigation of the social world. Recently this standard view has been contested by phenomenologists and enactivists. Proponents of the ubiquity of ToM, however, accept and effectively neutralize the intuitions behind their arguments by arguing that ToM is mostly sub-personal. This paper proposes a similar move on behalf of the phenomenologists and enactivists: it offers a novel explanation of the intuition that ToM is ubiquitous that is compatible with the rejection of this ubiquity. According to this explanation, we use ToM-talk primarily to model and thereby reconstruct non-mentalizing social-cognitive processes in order to explain our assessment of the behaviour of others. The intuition that ToM is ubiquitous is the result of mistaking the model for the real thing. This explanation is argued to be more complete than the “ToM-ist” explanation of the intuition that ToM is not ubiquitous.     

A Determinable-Based Account of Metaphysical Indeterminacy

Many phenomena appear to be indeterminate, including material macro-object boundaries and certain open future claims. Here I provide an account of indeterminacy in metaphysical, rather than semantic or epistemic, terms. Previous accounts of metaphysical indeterminacy (MI) have typically taken this to involve its being indeterminate which of various determinate (precise) states of affairs obtain. On my alternative account, MI involves its being determinate (or just plain true) that an indeterminate (imprecise) state of affairs obtains. I more specifically suggest that MI involves an object's (i) having a determinable property, but (ii) not having any unique determinate of that determinable. I motivate the needed extension of the traditional understanding of determinables, then argue that a determinable-based account of MI accommodates, in illuminating fashion, both ‘glutty’ and ‘gappy’ cases of MI, while satisfactorily treating concerns about MI stemming from Evans’ argument and the problem of the many.     

Endings as gain: The capacity to end and its role in creating space for growth

The paper describes an application of child psychotherapy in a paediatric setting. It examines the crucial part that attention to endings played in a clinical intervention where the phantasy of going on for ever threatened to inhibit growth. Case material is used to illustrate the different meanings and functions of endings and their significance in terms of parenting issues and developmental tasks. In this context the concept of negative elasticity is put forward as a useful tool for exploring the nature of boundaries. The final part of the paper focuses on the value of the external-reality experience of ending, its relationship to potential professional omnipotence and the importance of sustaining a tension between inner- and outer-world factors.     

Domain-specific and domain-general constraints on word and sequence learning

The relative influences of language-related and memory-related constraints on the learning of novel words and sequences were examined by comparing individual differences in performance of children with and without specific deficits in either language or working memory. Children recalled lists of words in a Hebbian learning protocol in which occasional lists repeated, yielding improved recall over the course of the task on the repeated lists. The task involved presentation of pictures of common nouns followed immediately by equivalent presentations of the spoken names. The same participants also completed a paired-associate learning task involving word–picture and nonword–picture pairs. Hebbian learning was observed for all groups. Domain-general working memory constrained immediate recall, whereas language abilities impacted recall in the auditory modality only. In addition, working memory constrained paired-associate learning generally, whereas language abilities disproportionately impacted novel word learning. Overall, all of the learning tasks were highly correlated with domain-general working memory. The learning of nonwords was additionally related to general intelligence, phonological short-term memory, language abilities, and implicit learning. The results suggest that distinct associations between language- and memory-related mechanisms support learning of familiar and unfamiliar phonological forms and sequences.     

Escaping the recent past: Which stimulus dimensions influence proactive interference?

Proactive interference occurs when information from the past disrupts current processing and is a major source of confusion and errors in short-term memory (STM; Wickens, Born, & Allen, Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior, 2:440–445, 1963). The present investigation examines potential boundary conditions for interference, testing the hypothesis that potential competitors must be similar along task-relevant dimensions to influence proactive interference effects. We manipulated both the type of task being completed (Experiments 1, 2, and 3) and dimensions of similarity irrelevant to the current task (Experiments 4 and 5) to determine how the recent presentation of a probe item would affect the speed with which participants could reject that item. Experiments 1, 2, and 3 contrasted STM judgments, which require temporal information, with semantic and perceptual judgments, for which temporal information is irrelevant. In Experiments 4 and 5, task-irrelevant information (perceptual similarity) was manipulated within the recent probes task. We found that interference from past items affected STM task performance but did not affect performance in semantic or perceptual judgment tasks. Conversely, similarity along a nominally irrelevant perceptual dimension did not affect the magnitude of interference in STM tasks. Results are consistent with the view that items in STM are represented by noisy codes consisting of multiple dimensions and that interference occurs when items are similar to each other and, thus, compete along the dimensions relevant to target selection.     

Using Community Surveys to Inform the Planning and Implementation of Environmental Change Strategies: Participatory Research in 12 Washington Communities

A number of studies have demonstrated the efficacy of environmental change strategies (ECS) in effecting community-level change on attitudes and behaviors related to underage drinking (Treno and Lee in Alcohol Res Health 26:35–40, 2002; Birckmayer et al. in J Drug Educ 34(2):121–153, 2004). Primary data collection to inform the design of these strategies, however, can be resource intensive and exceed the capacity of community stakeholders. This study describes the participatory planning and implementation of community-level surveys in 12 diverse communities in the state of Washington. These surveys were conducted through collaborations among community volunteers and evaluation experts assigned to each community. The surveys were driven by communities’ prevention planning needs and interests; constructed from collections of existing, field-tested items and scales; implemented by community members; analyzed by evaluation staff; and used in the design of ECS by community-level leaders and prevention practitioners. The communities varied in the content of their surveys, in their sampling approaches and in their data collection methods. Although these surveys were not conducted using traditional rigorous population survey methodology, they were done within limited resources, and the participatory nature of these activities strengthened the communities’ commitment to using their results in the planning of their environmental change strategies.     

The Relationship Between Cumulative Risk and Promotive Factors and Violent Behavior Among Urban Adolescents

Resiliency theory posits that some youth exposed to risk factors do not develop negative behaviors due to the influence of promotive factors. This study examines the effects of cumulative risk and promotive factors on adolescent violent behavior and tests two models of resilience—the compensatory model and the protective model—in a sample of adolescent patients (14–18 years old; n = 726) presenting to an urban emergency department who report violent behavior. Cumulative measures of risk and promotive factors consist of individual characteristics and peer, family, and community influences. Hierarchical multiple regression was used to test the two models of resilience (using cumulative measures of risk and promotive factors) for violent behavior within a sample of youth reporting violent behavior. Higher cumulative risk was associated with higher levels of violent behavior. Higher levels of promotive factors were associated with lower levels of violent behavior and moderated the association between risk and violent behaviors. Our results support the risk-protective model of resiliency and suggest that promotive factors can help reduce the burden of cumulative risk for youth violence.     

The moral career of the reformed compulsive eater: A study of conversion to charismatic conformity

This paper reports the findings of an intensive study of participants in a “self‐help” weight control group. The objective of the study was to investigate the development of deviant identity among the obese and the process by which the group of reformed deviants effected changes in the eating behavior of its members. Participant observation and interviews revealed successful members experience a radical conversion and that these converts to conformity (self‐controlled eating) shared common biographical characteristics, i.e., moral careers. Theoretical implications of such conversions from deviance to conformity are then discussed.