Bias at the racetrack: effects of individual expertise and task importance on predecision reevaluation of alternatives

These studies were designed to test cognitive dissonance theory's assertion that alternatives are not reevaluated before a choice. Participants viewed information about horses in a simulated race and rated each one's chance of winning three times before placing their bet and once after placing it. It was found that ratings of the chosen horse increased within the predecision period as well as after betting. Predecision bolstering occurred even when participants did not expect to bet, and predecision preference increased with task importance and participant expertise. The findings are attributed to maintenance of consistency throughout a cognitive system.     

Harmony and Autonomy in Classical Logic

Michael Dummett and Dag Prawitz have argued that a constructivist theory of meaning depends on explicating the meaning of logical constants in terms of the theory of valid inference, imposing a constraint of harmony on acceptable connectives. They argue further that classical logic, in particular, classical negation, breaks these constraints, so that classical negation, if a cogent notion at all, has a meaning going beyond what can be exhibited in its inferential use.I argue that Dummett gives a mistaken elaboration of the notion of harmony, an idea stemming from a remark of Gerhard Gentzen"s. The introduction-rules are autonomous if they are taken fully to specify the meaning of the logical constants, and the rules are harmonious if the elimination-rule draws its conclusion from just the grounds stated in the introduction-rule. The key to harmony in classical logic then lies in strengthening the theory of the conditional so that the positive logic contains the full classical theory of the conditional. This is achieved by allowing parametric formulae in the natural deduction proofs, a form of multiple-conclusion logic.     

Cognitive and motor development in children with vertically transmitted HIV infection

This study was designed to examine mental and motor development in infants with vertically transmitted human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection. Early neurodevelopment was examined in 25 young children with HIV infection acquired through vertical transmission. Compared with 25 children born to HIV-positive mothers but not infected with the virus, and after controlling for developmental risk factors, the HIV-infected group showed impairments in mental and motor development. Mental and motor development were assessed using the Bayley Scales of Infant Development. On the mental scale (MDI), the HIV-infected infants obtained significantly lower scores than the uninfected infants. On the performace scale (PDI), the HIV-infected infants obtained significantly lower standard scores than the uninfected infants. CT scan results were available for 20 of the HIV-infected children. CT abnormalities were associated with developmental delays, particularly for motor development. The results point to the importance of early abnormalities in myelination and of subcortical lesions of cognitive and motor development.     

Getting tense about relativity

Special relativity has been understood by many as vindicating a tenseless conception of time, denying the existence of tensed facts and a fortiori objective temporal passage. The reason for this is straightforward: both passage and the obtaining of tensed facts require a universal knife-edge present moment—yet this structure is not easily reconcilable with the relativity of simultaneity. The above being said, the prospects for tense and passage are sometimes claimed to be improved on moving to cosmological solutions of general relativity. In this paper, we evaluate in detail these arguments, finding that there remain several open questions to be addressed if the introduction of tensed facts into the relativistic context is to be compelling. Moreover, we argue that, even setting aside these issues, objective tense stands and falls in relativity for exactly the same reasons that it does in classical philosophical discussions on the matter.

     

The Concept of Situations

The concept of situations has a long past, but the conceptualization of situations only has a short history. This article provides a survey of the concept of situations. Based upon Milgram’s [Human Relations 18 (1965), 57] vision toward ‘a compelling theory of situations,’ the authors examine the concept of situations in three specific literatures: definitions of situations, taxonomies of situations, and interrelationships among persons, situations, and behaviors. To further integrate the literature, the authors propose that the essence of a situation is its affordance of human goals, and that situations are largely characterized by two specific principles of goal processes (what happened, is happening, or might happen to people’s goals) and goal contents (the specific goals afforded in the situation).     

General-Elimination Harmony and the Meaning of the Logical Constants

Inferentialism claims that expressions are meaningful by virtue of rules governing their use. In particular, logical expressions are autonomous if given meaning by their introduction-rules, rules specifying the grounds for assertion of propositions containing them. If the elimination-rules do no more, and no less, than is justified by the introduction-rules, the rules satisfy what Prawitz, following Lorenzen, called an inversion principle. This connection between rules leads to a general form of elimination-rule, and when the rules have this form, they may be said to exhibit “general-elimination” harmony. Ge-harmony ensures that the meaning of a logical expression is clearly visible in its I-rule, and that the I- and E-rules are coherent, in encapsulating the same meaning. However, it does not ensure that the resulting logical system is normalizable, nor that it satisfies the conservative extension property, nor that it is consistent. Thus harmony should not be identified with any of these notions.