Exploring the perceptual spaces of faces, cars and birds in children and adults

While much developmental research has focused on the strategies that children employ to recognize faces, less is known about the principles governing the organization of face exemplars in perceptual memory. In this study, we tested a novel, child-friendly paradigm for investigating the organization of face, bird and car exemplars. Children ages 3-4, 5-6, 7-8, 9-10, 11-12 and adults were presented with 50/50 morphs of typical and atypical face, bird and car parent images. Participants were asked to judge whether the 50/50 morph more strongly resembled the typical or the atypical parent image. Young and older children and adults showed a systematic bias to the atypical faces and birds, but no bias toward the atypical cars. Collectively, these findings argue that by the age of 3, children encode and organize faces, birds and cars in a perceptual space that is strikingly similar to that of adults. Category organization for both children and adults follows Krumhansl's (1978) distance-density principle in which the similarity between two exemplars is jointly determined by their physical appearance and the density of neighboring exemplars in the perceptual space.     

Psychological status and levels of sleepiness-alertness among patients with insomnia

Are symptoms of daytime sleepiness relevant among patients with insomnia? Patients with insomnia frequently report daytime consequences secondary to their difficulty initiating and maintaining sleep. The purpose of this study was to determine the frequency of daytime sleepiness as defined by a self-reported measure of daytime sleepiness (the Epworth Sleepiness Scale). In addition, the study characterized the patients' psychological status using the Symptom Checklist-90-Revised. The study corroborated a relatively high frequency of excessive daytime sleepiness and psychiatric conditions among patients with insomnia. Furthermore, the results of the study suggest variation in psychological distress levels, according to the different levels of sleepiness/alertness.     

Actual Existence, Identity and Ontological Priority

The paper first distinguishes ontological priority from epistemological priority and unilateral ontic dependence. Then explications of ontological priority are offered in terms of the reducibility of the actual existence or identity of entities in one ontological category to the actual existence or identity of entities in another. These explications lead to incompatible orders of ontological priority for individuals, properties of individuals and states of affairs. Common to those orders is, however, that the primacy of the category of individuals is abandoned. This primacy is challenged in the paper also by epistemological arguments, and an onto-anthropological explanation is offered for the very common but false idea that individuals are ontological prior to all other kinds of entities. Finally ontological priority is discussed with respect to a fully specified system of ontological categories. This revised version was published online in August 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

On the Relation Between Subjective Importance and Elicitation Order of Constructs

The subjective importance of constructs elicited with the repertory grid technique (RGT) has been conjectured to depend on elicitation order. Constructs elicited early in an interview are assumed to be subjectively more important than later ones. For the RGT, this conjecture is based on only one empirical study with a small sample size using person role titles as elements. This study has not been replicated or tested for other domains. The research for other elicitation techniques shows that the conjecture does not always hold true for nonperson domains. To assess if the order importance relation can be replicated for person and nonperson domains, we conducted two RGT studies with different designs (German study, triadic, nonperson elements, N = 60; Spanish study, dyadic, person elements, N = 61). Construct importance was assessed using importance rankings and ratings. We found no relation between the order of elicitation and importance for the nonperson elements and only a small significant relation using persons as elements. The results indicate that the conjecture should be treated with caution, as it may be weaker than previously assumed for the personal domain and not generalizable to other domains.     

Causation in a New Old Key

I argue (1) that it is not philosophically significant whether causation is linguistically represented by a predicate or by a sentence connective; (2) that there is no philosophically significant distinction between event- and states-of-affairs-causation; (3) that there is indeed a philosophically significant distinction between agent- and event-causation, and that event-causation must be regarded as an analog of agent-causation. Developing this point, I argue that event-causation's being in the image of agent-causation requires, mainly, (a) that the cause is temporally prior to the effect, (b) that the cause necessitates (is sufficient with necessity) for the effect. Causal necessity is explained as a derivative of nomological necessity, and finally, via a definition of the causal sentence connective, the logic of event-causation is shown to be a part of temporal modal logic.     

Classical Intentionality

In the first part, the paper describes in detail the classical conception of intentionality which was expounded in its most sophisticated form by Edmund Husserl. This conception is today largely eclipsed in the philosophy of mind by the functionalist and by the representationalist account of intentionality, the former adopted by Daniel Dennett and David Chalmers, the latter by John Searle and Fred Dretske. The very considerable differences between the classical and the modern conceptions are pointed out, and it is argued that the classical conception is more satisfactory than the two modern ones, not only regarding phenomenal adequacy, but also on the grounds of epistemological considerations. In the second part, the paper argues that classical intentionality is not naturalizable, that is, physicalizable. Since classical intentionality exists (in the experiences that display it), the non-naturalizability of classical intentionality implies psychophysical dualism.     

Three indications for the existence of God in causal metaphysics

With the emergence of modern physics a conflict became apparent between the Principle of Sufficient Cause and the Principle of Physical Causal Closure. Though these principles are not logically incompatible, they could no longer be considered to be both true; one of them had to be false. The present paper makes use of this seldom noticed conflict to argue on the basis of considerations of comparative rationality for the truth of causal statements that have at least some degree of philosophico-theological relevance and can be taken to indicate (not prove) the existence of God. The paper’s comparatively modest aim is to establish belief in the existence of God as a rational metaphysical option, not as a rational obligation. In its final section, enriched causal considerations lead to an indication (not proof) of God as that which guarantees the unified continuance of the physical world.