The role of frequency information and teleological reasoning in infants' and adults' action prediction

This study investigates the contribution of frequency learning and teleological reasoning to action prediction in 9-month-old infants and adults. Participants observed how an agent repeatedly walked to a goal while taking the longer of 2 possible paths, as the shorter and more efficient path was impassable. In the subsequent test phase, both paths were passable. In the 1st test trial, infants and adults anticipated the agent to take the longer path. Unlike adults, infants kept anticipating movements to the longer path even after observing that the agent now took the more efficient path, indicating that the frequency of previous observations dominates action prediction. These results provide evidence, contrary to existing claims in the developmental literature, that frequency learning underlies action prediction in infancy, whereas teleological reasoning might gain importance later on in life.     

Knowledge From Forgetting

This paper provides a novel argument for granting memory the status of a generative source of justification and knowledge. Memory can produce justified output beliefs and knowledge on the basis of unjustified input beliefs alone. The key to understanding how memory can generate justification and knowledge, memory generativism, is to bear in mind that memory frequently omits part of the stored information. The proposed argument depends on a broadly reliabilist approach to justification.     

Attitudes toward illegal immigration: a cross-national methodological comparison

This research is an examination of the generalizability of a Likert-type scale originally devised to measure attitudes toward illegal immigrants (IA) in the United States. The current authors administered this scale across 4 national samples using several methodological procedures. Undergraduate students (631) responded to the IA scale (R. Ommundsen & K. S. Larsen, 1997) at the University of Oslo, Oregon State University, the University of Copenhagen, and Vrije University of Amsterdam. The authors' main purpose was to evaluate the adequacy of the 20-item IA scale by examining possible problems with method and translation. A translation study carried out with the Danish, Norwegian, and Dutch samples (N = 299) showed that the various national versions were fairly accurate and contained largely the same meanings. The use of procrustes analysis of the IA scale yielded 3 factors in all 4 national samples. The coefficient of congruence of these 3 orthogonally rotated factor matrices, with the U.S. factor matrix as target, varied from .80 to .95, supporting the cross-national robustness of the scale. In the search for a more economical cumulative scale, a Mokken analysis yielded a 5-item scale that represented the aforementioned 3 factors and was stable across national samples.     

The Field of Consciousness and Extended Cognition

Extended cognition theorists claim that the definition of cognition can be extended to include not only the brain, but also the body and environment. In a series of works, Mark Rowlands has envisioned a new science of mind that explores the externalism of consciousness and cognition. This paper connects Rowlands’ work with the phenomenology of Aron Gurwitsch. It shows how Gurwitsch’s field of consciousness, in particular his conception of the marginal halo, can provide a distinct, organized way of thinking about extended cognition. A key question considered is from where do cognitive processes project and disclose meanings? By thinking of location as locus—a projecting pathway of points of intentional opportunity—organization in extended cognition becomes organization in a field of consciousness. The marginal halo in the field of consciousness is articulated as this locus of intentionality, what Rowlands (The new science of the mind: from extended mind to embodied phenomenology, MIT Press, Cambridge, 2010) calls “the noneliminable intentional core”. Problems of cognitive bloat and personal character are addressed in light of the findings. In addition to situating Gurwitsch’s work within the extended mind movement for the first time, this study highlights the importance of the marginal halo, largely neglected in previous Gurwitsch scholarship.     

Reduced Alternating Gaze During Social Interaction in Infancy is Associated with Elevated Symptoms of Autism in Toddlerhood

In typical development, infants often alternate their gaze between their interaction partners and interesting stimuli, increasing the probability of joint attention toward surrounding objects and creating opportunities for communication and learning. Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) have been found to engage less in behaviors that can initiate joint attention compared to typically developing children, but the role of such atypicalities in the development of ASD during infancy is not fully understood. Here, using eye tracking technology in a live setting, we show that 10-month-olds at high familial risk for ASD engage less in alternating gaze during interaction with an adult compared to low risk infants. These differences could not be explained by low general social preference or slow visual disengagement, as the groups performed similarly in these respects. We also found that less alternating gaze at 10 months was associated with more social ASD symptoms and less showing and pointing at 18 months. These relations were similar in both the high risk and the low risk groups, and remained when controlling for general social preference and disengagement latencies. This study shows that atypicalities in alternating gaze in infants at high risk for ASD emerge already during the first 10 months of life - a finding with theoretical as well as potential practical implications.     

On Kant's Idea of Humanity as an End in Itself

Writers like Christine Korsgaard and Allen Wood understand Kant's idea of rational nature as an end in itself as a commitment to a substantive value. This makes it hard for them to explain the supposed equivalence between the universal law and humanity formulations of the categorical imperative, since the former does not appear to assert any substantive value. Nor is it easy for defenders of value‐based readings to explain Kant's claim that the law‐giving nature of practical reason makes all beings with practical reason regard the idea of a rational nature as an end in itself. This article seeks to replace these value‐based readings with a reading of the idea of rational nature as an end that fits better with the overall argument of the Groundwork.     

The Ethics of Accident-Algorithms for Self-Driving Cars: an Applied Trolley Problem?

Self-driving cars hold out the promise of being safer than manually driven cars. Yet they cannot be a 100 % safe. Collisions are sometimes unavoidable. So self-driving cars need to be programmed for how they should respond to scenarios where collisions are highly likely or unavoidable. The accident-scenarios self-driving cars might face have recently been likened to the key examples and dilemmas associated with the trolley problem. In this article, we critically examine this tempting analogy. We identify three important ways in which the ethics of accident-algorithms for self-driving cars and the philosophy of the trolley problem differ from each other. These concern: (i) the basic decision-making situation faced by those who decide how self-driving cars should be programmed to deal with accidents; (ii) moral and legal responsibility; and (iii) decision-making in the face of risks and uncertainty. In discussing these three areas of disanalogy, we isolate and identify a number of basic issues and complexities that arise within the ethics of the programming of self-driving cars.     

Developing multiple identifications through different social interactions at work

The question of how employees’ identifications with various foci at work (e.g., team, supervisor, or profession) develop and how they can be managed actively still remains largely unanswered. This is surprising, given the previously demonstrated benefits of employees’ identifications for organizational outcomes. Building on the social validation framework, we propose that changes in different social interactions (social support and effective feedback from supervisors and co-workers) over time are apt to socially validate different provisional selves and thereby differentially foster identification with the supervisor, the team, and the profession. In a longitudinal study of 212 apprentices, who are newcomers to both the organization and the profession, we test this idea using latent change scores in a structural equation modelling approach. Supporting our hypotheses, we show that changes in social support from supervisors and co-workers are related to changes in supervisor and team identification. Increased feedback from co-workers, but not from supervisors, predicted increased professional identification.     

Farewell to Objectivity: A Critique of Brandom

I argue that Brandom's account of inconsistency in terms of the pragmatic notion of incompatibility, as originally set out in his Making It Explicit (1994) and defended in Articulating Reasons (2000), has the absurd consequence that all true claims are warranted. This is in obvious conflict with our ordinary conception of truth as objective, which is what Brandom intends to capture. My proof proceeds from two principles, extracted from Making It Explicit , that govern the notions of commitment and entitlement in terms of which the notion of incompatibility is being defined. If either of these principles is rejected, it will no longer be clear what the content of Brandom's thesis is.