Selective attention and the breadth of learning: A developmental study

Nursery school and second-grade subjects were trained on an optional intradimensional/extradimensional shift task with (1) no overtraining, (2) overtraining on the initial problem only, (3) overtraining on the shift problem only, or (4) overtraining on both the initial and the shift problems. Predictions concerning the effects of age and training conditions on the type of solution and the breadth of learning for the shift problem were derived from selective attention theory. However, the results were not consistent with the one-look assumption of such models. Instead, a multiple-look theory in which the breadth of attention varies with task demands seems most tenable.     

The child's memory for actional, locational, and serial scenes

Three-, four-, and six-year-old children (N = 180) were tested for recall of a toy missing from a previously seen display of four toys. Toys were displayed initially as a series (StoS), as a unit (UtoU), or moved from a series to a unit as S watched (StoU). There was a significant increase in memory for the missing toy with age. In addition, children viewing StoU displays remembered significantly more toys than did children viewing the other displays, independent of age. Twenty-five percent of the 6-year-olds rehearsed spontaneously while viewing the displays. Results indicated that the nature of a memory unit does not change with age, that memory improves with age, and that separate visual and verbal memories are operative in Ss in this age range.     

The development of procedures for identifying competitive behavior in children

This study identified events in the competitive process that could be employed to discriminate between competition and individual, non-social behaviors. When children competed they overtly sought out information on how they were doing vis-à-vis their fellow competitor. In addition, their performance was a function of some competitive contingency: a reward for surpassing another. The procedures developed in this study were designed to manipulate competitive contingencies while observing their effects on task performance and social comparisons. The investigator could thus infer that competition was present when (1) subjects sought out information on how they were doing, as well as how another was doing on comparable tasks during competitive contingencies, and (2) their task performance was a function of the competitive contingency.     

Audience reaction as a determinant of the speaker's self-persuasion

This paper tests effects of audience feedback on speaker attitudes. One hundred and seven male subjects with initial beliefs on both sides of an issue (women's role) were assigned to speak for or against their own position; then an “audience” provided one of three types of feedback (speaker was sincere, speaker was insincere, no feedback) in a 2 × 2 × 3 design. Subjects who received sincere feedback showed greater change in the direction of their speech than did those who received insincere feedback. No feedback treatments resulted in intermediate change. This sincere > no feedback > insincere ordering of means held for both pro- and counterattitudinal speakers and for both pretest attitudes. A main effect for pretest attitude was also obtained. Two additional control groups allow for a separate analysis of the effects of (1) preparing and delivering the speech, and (2) audience reaction to the speech.     

Inducing ordinal and cardinal representations of the first five natural numbers

The prediction that the ordinal property of natural number symbols (using these symbols to represent the terms in an ordered progression) is more easily learned than the cardinal property of natural number symbols (using these symbols to represent the manyness of collections) was examined in this experiment. Preschoolers who evidenced no proficiency with either the ordinal or cardinal properties of natural number symbols were trained to acquire these properties via simple feedback. Both properties proved to be trainable. The most important findings were that the ordinal property was much easier to train than the cardinal property, ordinal training effects were more durable across a 1-week interval than cardinal training effects, and ordinal training appeared to transfer better than cardinal training.     

Positive contrast obtained in reacquisition following interpolation of nonreinforced or partially reinforced trials

Two experiments investigated the effects of shifting from either nonreinforcement or partial reinforcement (PRF) to continuous reinforcement conditions (CRF). In the first experiment, three groups of rats were given food reinforcement under CRF conditions in a runway followed by regular extinction trials (RE), extinction trials where Ss were delayed for 30 sec before entering the empty goal box (DE), or CRF trials where Ss were delayed for 30 sec before entering the baited goal box (DF). Then all Ss were run on the delayed reinforcement condition (DF). In the final delayed reinforcement condition, group DE ran significantly faster than group DF, reflecting positive contrast. In the second experiment, four groups of rats were trained in a runway to receive either 4% or 18% sucrose reinforcers under either PRF or CRF conditions. Then all Ss were transferred to a Skinner box and bar presses were continuously reinforced, with each S continuing to receive the same sucrose concentration as before. The former PRF Ss, regardless of the reinforcer, bar pressed at a significantly higher rate in the Skinner box than the former CRF Ss. The evidence seemed to favor the view that the effectiveness of a reinforcer is not an absolute, unchanging quantity but rather depends on the historical context in which the reinforcer occurs.     

The Salto Vitale Method in Philosophy

Did G. E. Moore prove the existence of things outside us? Philosophers have objected to his proof, but not for good reasons. Since when, for instance, has absolute certainty been the mark of philosophy? But Moore's proof was superfluous, as its conclusion had already been proved previously. (If immanent critique were the only acceptable way to refute a philosophy rationally, “Nothing exists” would be immune from refutation—which is preposterous.)     

In Defence of the Open Question Argument

The purpose of this paper is to defend G. E. Moore's open question argument, understood as an argument directed against analytic reductionism, the view that moral properties are analytically reducible to non-moral properties. In the first section I revise Moore's argument in order to make it as plausible and resistant against objections as possible. In the following two sections I develop the argument further and defend it against the most prominent objections raised against it. The conclusion of my line of reasoning is that the open question argument offers the best explanation of our responses to the questions put in the argument, namely that analytic reductionism is mistaken. This revised version was published online in August 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Intrinsicalism and Conditionalism about Final Value

The paper distinguishes between two rival views about the nature of final value (i.e. the value something has for its own sake) — intrinsicalism and conditionalism. The former view (which is the one adopted by G.E. Moore and several later writers) holds that the final value of any F supervenes solely on features intrinsic to F, while the latter view allows that the final value of F may supervene on features non-intrinsic to F. Conditionalism thus allows the final value of F to vary according to the context in which F appears. Given the plausible assumption that there is an intimate tie between final values and appropriate attitudinal responses, it appears that conditionalism is the better approach for mainly the following three reasons: First, intrinsicalism is too indiscriminate, which makes it subject to what I call ‘location problems’ of final value. I illustrate this problem by discussing alleged examples of Moorean organic unities. Second, intrinsicalism evokes symptoms of ‘evaluative schizophrenia’. Third, considerations of theoretical economy tell in favour of conditionalism. Thereafter I respond to some recent challenges to conditionalism. An appendix surveys some meritorious implications that conditionalism offers for various substantial versions of such structurally different views about value as monism, pluralism, and particularism.