The evidence for relativism

The aim of this paper is to examine the kind of evidence that might be adduced in support of relativist semantics of a kind that have recently been proposed for predicates of personal taste, for epistemic modals, for knowledge attributions and for other cases. I shall concentrate on the case of taste predicates, but what I have to say is easily transposed to the other cases just mentioned. I shall begin by considering in general the question of what kind of evidence can be offered in favour of some semantic theory or framework of semantic theorizing. In other words, I shall begin with the difficult question of the empirical significance of semantic theorizing. In Sect. 2, I outline a relativist semantic theory, and in Sect. 3, I review four types of evidence that might be offered in favour of a relativistic framework. I show that the evidence is not conclusive because a sophisticated form of contextualism (or indexical relativism) can stand up to the evidence. However, the evidence can be taken to support the view that either relativism or the sophisticated form of contextualism is correct.     

Focusing failures in competitive environments: explaining decision errors in the Monty Hall game,the Acquiring a Company problem,and multiparty ultimatums

This paper offers a unifying conceptual explanation for failures in competitive decision making across three seemingly unrelated tasks: the Monty Hall game (Nalebuff, 1987), the Acquiring a Company problem (Samuelson & Bazerman, 1985), and multiparty ultimatums (Messick, Moore, & Bazerman, 1997). We argue that the failures observed in these three tasks have a common root. Specifically, due to a limited focus of attention, competitive decision makers fail properly to consider all of the information needed to solve the problem correctly. Using protocol analyses, we show that competitive decision makers tend to focus on their own goals, often to the exclusion of the decisions of the other parties, the rules of the game, and the interaction among the parties in light of these rules. In addition, we show that the failure to consider these effects explains common decision failures across all three games. Finally, we suggest that this systematic focusing error in competitive contexts can serve to explain and improve our understanding of many additional, seemingly disparate, competitive decision‐making failures. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The mediation of mothers' self-fulfilling effects on their children's alcohol use: self-verification, informational conformity, and modeling processes

This research examined whether self-fulfilling prophecy effects are mediated by self-verification, informational conformity, and modeling processes. The authors examined these mediational processes across multiple time frames with longitudinal data obtained from two samples of mother-child dyads (N-sub-1 = 486; N-sub-2 = 287), with children's alcohol use as the outcome variable. The results provided consistent support for the mediational process of self-verification. In both samples and across several years of adolescence, there was a significant indirect effect of mothers' beliefs on children's alcohol use through children's self-assessed likelihood of drinking alcohol in the future. Comparatively less support was found for informational conformity and modeling processes as mediators of mothers' self-fulfilling effects. The potential for self-fulfilling prophecies to produce long-lasting changes in targets' behavior via self-verification processes are discussed.     

Are Intuitions Quasi‐Perceptual “Presentations”?

John Bengson has offered a detailed theory of the nature and epistemology of intuition according to which intuitions are quasi‐perceptual conscious experiences that “present” their contents as true. The paper offered here argues that Bengson’s terminology of “presentations” is difficult to interpret. Bengson does not provide a clear meaning for “presentation” or “presentational state,” and this makes it impossible to evaluate his proposal that intuitions are presentations. This paper argues, furthermore, that intuitions are not phenomenal mental states and therefore have no perception‐like phenomenology or epistemology. It concludes that Bengson’s theory fails to metaphysically, epistemologically, or methodologically legitimize intuitions.     

Evidence‐Based Human Trafficking Policy: Opportunities to Invest in Trauma‐Informed Strategies

Human trafficking is a critical social issue characterized by chronic trauma among victims, and frequently preceded by traumatic experiences that contribute to risk of victimization. Therefore, the research‐based practice of trauma‐informed care is a highly appropriate lens for both prevention and intervention. This work examines federal legislation in the United States related to human trafficking for references to trauma, as well as how the use of research could implicitly direct public policy responses toward trauma‐informed approaches. Legislation on human trafficking has risen substantially since 1989, and the use of research and trauma language within these policies has also observed substantial increases. While the use of trauma language was associated with limited progression in the policy process, legislation using research language was more likely to pass out of Committee and become enacted. Moreover, legislation may leverage research in ways that have the potential to bolster trauma‐informed practice among human trafficking victims. Specifically, research can be used to describe the problem and causal mechanisms (e.g., impact of trauma), guide “best practice” for service delivery, and generate knowledge through studies and evaluations that guide future policy. Therefore, human trafficking legislation that implicitly guides trauma‐informed practice via the use of research may be particularly promising for the field.     

Models of misbelief: Integrating motivational and deficit theories of delusions

The impact of our desires and preferences upon our ordinary, everyday beliefs is well-documented [Gilovich, T. (1991). How we know what isn’t so: The fallibility of human reason in everyday life. New York: The Free Press.]. The influence of such motivational factors on delusions, which are instances of pathological misbelief, has tended however to be neglected by certain prevailing models of delusion formation and maintenance. This paper explores a distinction between two general classes of theoretical explanation for delusions; the motivational and the deficit. Motivational approaches view delusions as extreme instances of self-deception; as defensive attempts to relieve pain and distress. Deficit approaches, in contrast, view delusions as the consequence of defects in the normal functioning of belief mechanisms, underpinned by neuroanatomical or neurophysiological abnormalities. It is argued that although there are good reasons to be sceptical of motivational theories (particularly in their more floridly psychodynamic manifestations), recent experiments confirm that motives are important causal forces where delusions are concerned. It is therefore concluded that the most comprehensive account of delusions will involve a theoretical unification of both motivational and deficit approaches.     

Visual imagery: A case study

This paper describes the performance of a subject who, when presented with a word or a sentence, is abnormally proficient at spelling this material in reverse order. She reports that she does this by visualizing this material and reading off from this visual image. Her tachistoscopic performance is also abnormally good. It is suggested that her superiority in these two tasks is achieved principally because her internal visual representations are extremely resistant to disruption by other mental activities.     

Primate head and body restraint without chronic skin openings or attachments to the animal

We developed a primate restraint system that requires no chronic skin openings or attachments to the animal. The restraining chair has a unique neck clasp; monkeys without chains and collars are easily trained to readily enter the chair and accept restraint with the neck and head held at a comfortable angle. A bite bar, in combination with contact on broad areas of the monkey’s brow and occiput, provides rigid head immobilization. In order to achieve contact with a broad area of the occipital bone, the muscles at the back of the animal’s head are surgically detached from the occiput and reattached to the underlying neck muscles. A strain-gauge, mounted on the head-holder and monitored by a laboratory computer, detects head movements of the monkey and permits the experimenter to teach the monkey to sit still during data acquisition. This system is well accepted by experienced monkeys and helps prevent the risks of infection posed by most earlier methods. Furthermore, the head and shoulders of the monkey are readily accessible for examination and for close positioning of test equipment.     

The Functional Forecast Model of Emotion Expression Processing

Fleeting nonverbal emotion expressions trigger a variety of spontaneous responses in human observers. To account for these effects, we introduce a functional forecast model (FFM) of emotion expression processing. The FFM assumes that emotion expressions provide timely forecasts of impending events. Responses to these forecasts are adaptive and may be learned or innately prepared, but in either case, observers need not infer mental states to exhibit immediate responses to emotion expressions. We postulate a diffuse route that operates pre‐attentively and activates appetitive and defensive motivational systems in response to gross affective meaning relevant to imminent environmental threats and available or scarce survival resources. We postulate a focal route that requires attention to efficiently and spontaneously activate specific, though tacit behavioral expectations. We explain how the FFM accounts for a variety of responses to emotion expressions, including physiological responses, affective responses, behavioral responses, trait attributions, and emotion recognition. Lastly, we describe how the FFM relates to other models of emotion, and describe future directions based on the model.     

The effects of inversion and familiarity on face versus body cues to person recognition

Extensive research has focused on face recognition, and much is known about this topic. However, much of this work seems to be based on an assumption that faces are the most important aspect of person recognition. Here we test this assumption in two experiments. We show that when viewers are forced to choose, they do use the face more than the body, both for familiar (trained) person recognition and for unfamiliar person matching. However, we also show that headless bodies are recognized and matched with very high accuracy. We further show that processing style may be similar for faces and bodies, with inversion effects found in all cases (bodies with heads, faces alone and bodies alone), and evidence that mismatching bodies and heads causes interference. We suggest that recent findings of no inversion effect when stimuli are headless bodies may have been obtained because the stimuli led viewers to focus on nonbody aspects (e.g., clothes) or because pose and identity tasks led to somewhat different processing. Our results are consistent with holistic processing for bodies as well as faces. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved).