Interfaces: toward a new generation of systemic models in family research and practice

After reviewing Engel's bio-psycho-social proposal and Kandel's "principles for an integration between mind and brain," the author introduces a set of akin propositions that aim at integrating neurosciences, genetics, the mind, and the social world into a succinct set of systemic formulations focusing on interlevel interfaces, with profound implications for the training, practice, and research in the field of family processes and therapy.     

People accounting: Social category-based choice

This paper presents people accounting—a hypothesis that describes how a simple numerical imbalance in representation along nominal social category lines can affect people’s choice of candidates in highly competitive situations (e.g., awards, jobs, etc.). For example, two scholarship finalists from California and New York may be equally qualified, but the award-winning chance for the California candidate will drop precipitously if 8 of the past 10 winners were from California. Studies 1-3 illustrate this effect. Study 4 links people accounting to intergroup fairness concerns and suggests that people accounting is more likely to occur when the category dimension is meaningful (e.g., Stanford/Princeton) than when it is not (e.g., left/right-handedness). Study 5 shows that candidates from overrepresented categories (e.g., “Californians”) must achieve higher minimum standards in order to be selected. The implication is that highly competitive decisions are often influenced by headcounts along mundane social category lines.     

Idealization and modeling

This paper examines the role of mathematical idealization in describing and explaining various features of the world. It examines two cases: first, briefly, the modeling of shock formation using the idealization of the continuum. Second, and in more detail, the breaking of droplets from the points of view of both analytic fluid mechanics and molecular dynamical simulations at the nano-level. It argues that the continuum idealizations are explanatorily ineliminable and that a full understanding of certain physical phenomena cannot be obtained through completely detailed, nonidealized representations.     

Computing the uncomputable; or,The discrete charm of second-order simulacra

We examine a case in which non-computable behavior in a model is revealed by computer simulation. This is possible due to differing notions of computability for sets in a continuous space. The argument originally given for the validity of the simulation involves a simpler simulation of the simulation, still further simulations thereof, and a universality conjecture. There are difficulties with that argument, but there are other, heuristic arguments supporting the qualitative results. It is urged, using this example, that absolute validation, while highly desirable, is overvalued. Simulations also provide valuable insights that we cannot yet (if ever) prove.     

Repetition blindness: an emergent property of inter-item competition

Repeating an item in a brief or rapid display usually produces faster or more accurate identification of the item (repetition priming), but sometimes produces the opposite effect (repetition blindness). We present a theory of short-term repetition effects, the competition hypothesis, which explains these paradoxical outcomes. The central tenet of the theory is that repetition produces a representation with a higher signal-to-noise ratio but also produces a disadvantage in the representation’s ability to compete with other items for access to awareness. A computational implementation of the competition hypothesis was developed to simulate standard findings in the RB literature and to generate novel predictions which were then tested in three experiments. Results from these experiments suggest that repetition effects emerge from competitive interactions between items and that these influences extend to adjacent, nonrepeated items in the display. The results also present challenges to existing theories of short-term repetition effects.     

Response to Ted Peters’ “Models of God”

In “Models of God,” Ted Peters discusses a methodology for formulating and evaluating models of God, surveys nine models, and proposes one that he entitles “Eschatological Panentheism.” This paper provides critical comments on Peters’ methodological claims, taxonomy of models of God, and specific proposal. This paper has been delivered during APA Pacific 2007 Mini-Conference on Models of God.Both Peters’ “Models of God” and these comments were presented at the “Models of God” mini-conference at the Pacific Division Meetings of the American Philosophical Association in April of 2007.     

Competition dynamics of second-language listening

Spoken-word recognition in a nonnative language is particularly difficult where it depends on discrimination between confusable phonemes. Four experiments here examine whether this difficulty is in part due to phantom competition from “near-words” in speech. Dutch listeners confuse English /æ/ and /?/, which could lead to the sequence daf being interpreted as deaf, or lemp being interpreted as lamp. In auditory lexical decision, Dutch listeners indeed accepted such near-words as real English words more often than English listeners did. In cross-modal priming, near-words extracted from word or phrase contexts (daf from DAFfodil, lemp from eviL EMPire) induced activation of corresponding real words (deaf; lamp) for Dutch, but again not for English, listeners. Finally, by the end of untruncated carrier words containing embedded words or near-words (definite; daffodil) no activation of the real embedded forms (deaf in definite) remained for English or Dutch listeners, but activation of embedded near-words (deaf in daffodil) did still remain, for Dutch listeners only. Misinterpretation of the initial vowel here favoured the phantom competitor and disfavoured the carrier (lexically represented as containing a different vowel). Thus, near-words compete for recognition and continue competing for longer than actually embedded words; nonnative listening indeed involves phantom competition.     

Variation among developmental dyslexics: evidence from a printed-word-learning task

A word-learning task was used to investigate variation among developmental dyslexics classified as phonological and surface dyslexics. Dyslexic children and chronological age (CA)- and reading level (RL)-matched normal readers were taught to pronounce novel nonsense words such as veep. Words were assigned either a regular (e.g., "veep") or an irregular (e.g., "vip") pronunciation. Phonological dyslexics learned both regular and exception words more slowly than the normal readers and, unlike the other groups, did not show a regular-word advantage. Surface dyslexics also learned regular and exception words more slowly than the CA group, consistent with a specific problem in mastering arbitrary item-specific pronunciations, but their performance resembled that of the RL group. The results parallel earlier findings from Manis, Seidenberg, Doi, McBride-Chang, & Petersen [Cognition 58 (1996) 157-195] indicating that surface dyslexics and phonological dyslexics have a different profile of reading deficits, with surface dyslexics resembling younger normal readers and phonological dyslexics showing a specific phonological deficit. Models of reading and reading disability need to account for the heterogeneity in reading processes among dyslexic children.     

The role of stimulus ambiguity and movement in spatial navigation: a multiple memory systems analysis of location discrimination

This paper reviews recent findings about how rats navigate by learning to discriminate among locations. The assumption underlying the experiments and their interpretation is that the information required to do this is learned by three independent, parallel memory systems. One system processes cognitive information (or "knowledge"), a second system processes reinforced stimulus-response associations and a third processes Pavlovian conditioned responses in the form of stimulus-affect associations. The information stored in each system produces behavior that, in some cases, results in a location discrimination. The present experiments focus on three factors that influence what each system learns and whether the resulting memory produces behavior that results in a location discrimination. One factor is whether the locations to be discriminated can be identified by unique, unambiguous stimuli or whether they are ambiguously associated with the same stimuli. The second factor is whether the stimuli are observed passively or whether the rats move among them, voluntarily or involuntarily. The third factor is whether or not the rats perform specific reinforced responses in the presence of the stimuli. Instances of co-operative behavioral outputs from memory systems that facilitate location discriminations and of competitive outputs that impede discriminations are described.     

Call for new measures suitable for intensive longitudinal studies: Ideas and suggestions

The intensive longitudinal studies (ILS) has recently gained prominence as one of the most developing and promising approaches in psychological research. It is suitable for studying intraindividual dynamics, since it collects many repeated measurements for multiple persons. However many existing psychometric scales that are suitable for cross-sectional studies cannot be used successfully in ILS. That is why it would be advisable to develop them. This article presents potential solutions and future directions that may be helpful in developing such tools. It focuses on and discusses three issues: (1) appropriate tool length, so that the person completing them multiple times does not feel too tired; (2) parallel forms of questionnaires to reduce the problem of remembering previous answers; (3) complementary types of measure, that would allow approaching certain characteristics in slightly different ways.