Similarity in context

Similarity comparisons are highly sensitive to judgment context. Three experiments explore context effects that occur within a single comparison rather than across several trials. Experiment 1 shows reliable intransitivities in which a target is judged to be more similar to stimulus A than to stimulus B, more similar to B than to stimulus C, and more similar to C than to A. Experiment 2 explores the locus of Tversky’s (1977) diagnosticity effect in which the relative similarity of two alternatives to a target is influenced by a third alternative. Experiment 3 demonstrates a new violation of choice independence which is explained by object dimensions’ becoming foregrounded or backgrounded, depending upon the set of displayed objects. The observed violations of common assumptions to many models of similarity and choice can be accommodated in terms of a dynamic property-weighting process based on the variability and diagnosticity of dimensions.     

Book reviews

Socializing Epistemology: The Social Dimensions of Knowledge, Frederick F. Schmitt, Ed., 1994. Lanham, MD, Rowman and Littlefield, ix + 315 pp., US$22.95, ISBN: 0847679594

A Dynamic Systems Approach to the Development of Cognition and Action, Esther Thelen & Linda B. Smith. Cambridge, MA, MIT Press, xxii + 376 pp., $50, ISBN 0–262–20095–3 cloth

From Kant to Hilbert: A Source Book in the Foundations of Mathematics, William B. Ewald, Ed., 1996. Oxford, Oxford University Press. xviii+ 1340 pp., £195.00, two volumes, ISBN 0–19–853271–7 (the set)     

Referenzsemantik in der Partnermodellierung

How can we explain that an assertion on something perceived can be understood in the same manner by somebody who cannot perceive that scene? This problem bases the interest in computational linguistics in how listener modeling could possibly be harmonized with reference semantics. Mental images substituting real perception appear as a way out. The architecture of the listener model has to be adapted to the creation and use of such pictorial data structures. Furthermore, the relation between the latter and a verbal (i. e., propositional) representation must be understood. The resulting architecture of a listener model with reference semantics can be employed to solve communicational problems from three general classes in a better way, as is demonstrated by an example implementation.     

Correspondence

The American Journal of Psychoanalysis -     

Precursors to Masochistic and Dependent Character Development

The American Journal of Psychoanalysis -