The duality of non-conceptual content in Husserl’s phenomenology of perception

Recently, a number of epistemologists have argued that there are no non-conceptual elements in representational content. On their view, the only sort of non-conceptual elements are components of sub-personal organic hardware that, because they enjoy no veridical role, must be construed epistemologically irrelevant. By reviewing a 35-year-old debate initiated by Dagfinn Følledal, I believe Husserlian phenomenology can be updated to offer an important contribution to this discussion. On my interpretation, what Husserl calls “hyletic data” may be read as that subjective quality of experience inarticulable as a propositional attitude – and, thus, hyletic data are non-conceptual. In anticipation of the recent conceptualist position, Føllesdal and his adherents argued that what Husserl had called “noema” or representational content is, however, entirely conceptual. A closer inspection of the relevant texts, however, reveals that Husserl admits non-conceptual elements into his characterization of the noema. If that is correct, then Husserl must have been a dualist about non-conceptual content. In turn, I believe what explains this dualism is a non-foundationalist reconstruction of Husserl’s phenomenological reduction.An earlier version of this paper was delivered at Fordham University on the occasion of the 33rd Annual Meeting of the Husserl Circle. I am grateful to Prof. Steven Crowell who, in his capacity as respondent, offered incisive and helpful commentary. I also thank Prof. John J. Drummond for organizing the meeting, and all those present during my talk; as well as two anonymous reviewers for Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences, who offered helpful questions and comments.     

Fuzzy partition models for fitting a set of partitions

Methodology is described for fitting a fuzzy consensus partition to a set of partitions of the same set of objects. Three models defining median partitions are described: two of them are obtained from a least-squares fit of a set of membership functions, and the third (proposed by Pittau and Vichi) is acquired from a least-squares fit of a set of joint membership functions. The models are illustrated by application to both a set of hard partitions and a set of fuzzy partitions and comparisons are made between them and an alternative approach to obtaining a consensus fuzzy partition proposed by Sato and Sato; a discussion is given of some interesting differences in the results.We are grateful to Dr. M.G. Pittau for carrying out the analyses of the macroeconomic data using the method of Sato and Sato (1994).     

Compact integer-programming models for extracting subsets of stimuli from confusion matrices

This paper presents an integer linear programming formulation for the problem of extracting a subset of stimuli from a confusion matrix. The objective is to select stimuli such that total confusion among the stimuli is minimized for a particular subset size. This formulation provides a drastic reduction in the number of variables and constraints relative to a previously proposed formulation for the same problem. An extension of the formulation is provided for a biobjective problem that considers both confusion and recognition in the objective function. Demonstrations using an empirical interletter confusion matrix from the psychological literature revealed that a commercial branch-and-bound integer programming code was always able to identify optimal solutions for both the single-objective and biobjective formulations within a matter of seconds. A further extension and demonstration of the model is provided for the extraction of multiple subsets of stimuli, wherein the objectives are to maximize similarity within subsets and minimize similarity between subsets.     

Decisionarium ‐ aiding decisions,negotiating and collecting opinions on the web

Decisionarium ( www.decisionarium.hut.fi ) is the first public site for interactive multicriteria decision support with tools for individual decision‐making as well as for group collaboration and negotiation. Web‐HIPRE ( www.hipre.hut.fi ) supports value tree and AHP analysis including group models. The RICH methodology ( www.rich.hut.fi ) allows the decision maker to provide incomplete ordinal preference statements when considering the relative importance of attributes in a value tree. Opinions‐Online ( www.opinion.huf.fi ) is a platform for surveys voting and group collaboration. There are different ways for voting, multiattribute scoring, surveys as well as interactive viewing of the results. Joint Gains ( www.jointgains.hut.fi ) applies the method of improving directions to support multiparty negotiations in a multicriteria setting. Smart Swaps offers an implementation of the even swaps procedure ( www.smart‐swaps.hut.fi ). All of the tools above are web‐based, so global interaction is natural and links can be utilized for multimedia information support. Decisionarium also offers access to complete e‐learning modules ( www.dm.hut.fi ) based on the use of the software. There are also illustrative powerpoint presentations and additional Windows software WINPRE and PRIME‐Decisions for value tree analysis under incomplete information. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Sensitivity of MRQAP Tests to Collinearity and Autocorrelation Conditions

Multiple regression quadratic assignment procedures (MRQAP) tests are permutation tests for multiple linear regression model coefficients for data organized in square matrices of relatedness among n objects. Such a data structure is typical in social network studies, where variables indicate some type of relation between a given set of actors. We present a new permutation method (called “double semi-partialing”, or DSP) that complements the family of extant approaches to MRQAP tests. We assess the statistical bias (type I error rate) and statistical power of the set of five methods, including DSP, across a variety of conditions of network autocorrelation, of spuriousness (size of confounder effect), and of skewness in the data. These conditions are explored across three assumed data distributions: normal, gamma, and negative binomial. We find that the Freedman–Lane method and the DSP method are the most robust against a wide array of these conditions. We also find that all five methods perform better if the test statistic is pivotal. Finally, we find limitations of usefulness for MRQAP tests: All tests degrade under simultaneous conditions of extreme skewness and high spuriousness for gamma and negative binomial distributions. Special thanks go to Cajo Ter Braak, Philip Hans Franses, Patrick Houweling, Pierre Legendre, three anonymous reviewers, the associate editor, and the editor for comments.     

A Comparison of Heuristic Procedures for Minimum Within-Cluster Sums of Squares Partitioning

Perhaps the most common criterion for partitioning a data set is the minimization of the within-cluster sums of squared deviation from cluster centroids. Although optimal solution procedures for within-cluster sums of squares (WCSS) partitioning are computationally feasible for small data sets, heuristic procedures are required for most practical applications in the behavioral sciences. We compared the performances of nine prominent heuristic procedures for WCSS partitioning across 324 simulated data sets representative of a broad spectrum of test conditions. Performance comparisons focused on both percentage deviation from the “best-found” WCSS values, as well as recovery of true cluster structure. A real-coded genetic algorithm and variable neighborhood search heuristic were the most effective methods; however, a straightforward two-stage heuristic algorithm, HK-means, also yielded exceptional performance. A follow-up experiment using 13 empirical data sets from the clustering literature generally supported the results of the experiment using simulated data. Our findings have important implications for behavioral science researchers, whose theoretical conclusions could be adversely affected by poor algorithmic performances.     

Ethical Problems Inherent in Psychological Research based on Internet Communication as Stored Information

This paper deals with certain ethical problems inherent in psychological research based on internet communication as stored information. Section 1 contains an analysis of research on Internet debates. In particular, it takes into account a famous example of deception for psychology research purposes. In section 2, the focus is on research on personal data in texts published on the Internet. Section 3 includes an attempt to formulate some ethical principles and guidelines, which should be regarded as fundamental in research on stored information.     

A mobile computing solution for collecting functional analysis data on a Pocket PC

The present paper provides a task analysis for creating a computerized data system using a Pocket PC and Microsoft Visual Basic. With Visual Basic software and any handheld device running the Windows Moble operating system, this task analysis will allow behavior analysts to program and customize their own functional analysis data-collection system. The program will allow the user to select the type of behavior to be recorded, choose between interval and frequency data collection, and summarize data for graphing and analysis. We also provide suggestions for customizing the data-collection system for idiosyncratic research and clinical needs.