Modeling,Truth, and Philosophy

Knowledge requires truth, and truth, we suppose, involves unflawed representation. Science does not provide knowledge in this sense but rather provides models, representations that are limited in their accuracy, precision, or, most often, both. Truth as we usually think of it is an idealization, one that serves wonderfully in most ordinary applications, but one that can terribly mislead for certain issues in philosophy. This article sketches how this happens for five important issues, thereby showing how philosophical method must take into account the idealized nature of our familiar conception of truth.     

Justification is potential knowledge

This paper will articulate and defend a novel theory of epistemic justification; I characterize my view as the thesis that justification is potential knowledge (JPK). My project is an instance of the ‘knowledge-first’ programme, championed especially by Timothy Williamson. So I begin with a brief recapitulation of that programme.     

Knowledge despite falsehood

I examine the claim, made by some authors, that we sometimes acquire knowledge from falsehood. I focus on two representative cases in which a subject S infers a proposition q from a false proposition p. If S knows that q, I argue, S's false belief that p is not essential to S's cognition. S's knowledge is instead due to S's belief that p′, a proposition in the neighbourhood of p that S (dispositionally) believes (and knows). S thus knows despite her false belief. The widely accepted and plausible principle that inferential knowledge requires known premises is unscathed.     

Relation of occupational knowledge to career interests and competence perceptions in Italian children

The relations of differential occupational knowledge with interests and competence perceptions in children as well as how these relations were moderated by gender and grade were examined in this study using an Italian sample. Data were collected from samples of elementary school and middle school children (N = 539). The Inventory of Children's Activities—Revised (ICA-R; Tracey & Ward, 1998) was used to assess children's interest and competency perceptions in various activities associated with the Holland's RIASEC types. The Occupational Knowledge Scale (OKS) was created for this study, and consisted of a representative sampling of occupational titles to which children indicated their knowledge. Hierarchical regression results indicated a relationship between knowledge, interests, and competence perceptions in children. With regard to overall knowledge, no relationship was found between general knowledge and either grade or gender. More specific examination of the type of knowledge as it varied across the dimensions of People–Things, and Data–Ideas demonstrated that there appeared to be a specific pattern relating interest, gender, and grade to knowledge of occupations. For knowledge of people relative to things occupations, higher interest, higher grade level, and being female predicts stronger knowledge of people occupations. It was also found that interest in ideas predicts stronger knowledge of ideas occupations, and being male predicts stronger knowledge of high prestige occupations. Generally, competence perceptions did not have a unique relation with one's knowledge of People–Things, Ideas–Data, or Prestige; however, girls who reported higher competence had greater knowledge of ideas occupations.     

Effects of the global and local attention on the processing of categorical and coordinate spatial relations

Participants made categorical or coordinate spatial judgments on the global or local elements of shapes. Stimuli were composed of a horizontal line and two dots. In the Categorical task, participants judged whether the line was above or below the dots. In the Coordinate task, they judged whether the line would fit between the dots. Stimuli were made hierarchical so that the global patterns composed of a “global line” made of local dots-and-line units, and “global dot” made of a single dots-and-line unit. The results indicated that the categorical task was better performed when participants attended to the local level of the hierarchical stimuli. On the other hand, the coordinate task was better performed when they attended to the global level. These findings are consistent with computer simulation models of the attentional modulation of neuronal receptive fields’ size suggesting that (1) coordinate spatial relations are more efficiently encoded when one attends to a relatively large region of space, whereas (2) categorical spatial relations are more efficiently encoded when one attends to a relatively small region of space.     

Are historic years understood as numbers or events? An fMRI study of numbers with semantic associations

While numbers generally cue processing of quantity or order, they can also contain semantic information, as in the case of historic years (e.g., “1492” calls forth associations of Columbus sailing the ocean blue). Whether these dates are processed as quantities or events may depend on the context in which they occur. We examined such “ambiguous number” processing in two different contexts using a paired-comparison task, recording both behavioral responses and brain activity. Participants were either asked to think of all items as numbers and to choose the larger number, or were told to treat the comparators as events and to choose the later event. Behaviorally, all events showed a normal distance effect, establishing that they may be understood and compared in an ordinal sequence. Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) demonstrated significant differences between years when treated as numbers versus as events. Dates in both contexts shared activity in parietal lobe regions previously implicated in number processing. Dates as numbers showed no extra-numeric activity, while dates thought of as events evoked activity in temporal semantic processing and frontal semantic retrieval areas. These differences suggest that extra-numeric information may be easily accessed and incorporated during processing when supported by even a weak context. This work supports previous studies showing a dissociation between quantity and meaning, and illustrates the brain areas involved in these different aspects.     

公众政治参与和地方政府信任的关系:一个有调节的中介模型

研究聚焦政府宣传教育,考察公众政治参与和地方政府信任的关系。对2061名有效被试进行问卷调查并分析。结果发现:(1)政治参与显著正向预测地方政府信任;(2)活动有用性评价在政治参与和地方政府信任间起部分中介作用;(3)宣传教育频率负向调节政治参与和有用性评价的关系以及有用性评价的中介效应。上述结果表明,多渠道提升公众政治参与意识,合理把握政府宣传教育频率是促进地方政府信任提高的可选策略。     

小学低年级汉语儿童语素意识、汉字识别和词汇知识的发展关系——交叉滞后研究

以146名小学一年级儿童为研究对象, 进行了历时2年的3次追踪测试, 考察小学生从一到三年级的语素意识、汉字识别和词汇知识之间发展关系的变化。在控制了语音意识、快速命名、正字法意识、一般认知能力和自回归效应后, 结果发现：(1)一年级时的汉字识别显著预测二年级的同音语素意识和同形语素意识; (2)一年级时的词汇知识显著预测二年级的复合语素意识和汉字识别; (3)二年级时的汉字识别和词汇知识对三年级的同音语素意识、同形语素意识和复合语素意识均有显著预测作用; (4)二年级时的同形语素意识对三年级的词汇知识具有显著预测作用。结果表明, 小学一至三年级的汉字识别和词汇知识对语素意识具有预测作用; 三种语素意识对汉字识别和词汇知识的预测作用中, 只有同形语素意识能够显著预测词汇知识; 三种语素意识、汉字识别和词汇知识的发展关系存在变化且具有阶段性特点。     

先前知识经验对远距离水平映射规则内隐学习的限制

先前研究发现远距离规则能够被内隐地习得和迁移,表明内隐学习获得的知识是底层的抽象规则,那么这一抽象规则的习得和迁移是否会受到先前知识经验的限制?研究采用汉语声调的远距离水平映射规则为材料,通过创设不符合平仄知识经验的任意声调水平映射规则,在控制组块和重复结构等表面特征的条件下,探讨先前知识经验是否限制了远距离水平映射规则的内隐学习和迁移。结果发现相对于符合平仄知识经验的汉语声调水平映射规则,被试不能够内隐地习得和迁移任意声调的水平映射规则,表明先前知识经验在远距离水平映射规则内隐学习过程中发挥着重要作用。