Making Probabilistic Relational Categories Learnable

Theories of relational concept acquisition (e.g., schema induction) based on structured intersection discovery predict that relational concepts with a probabilistic (i.e., family resemblance) structure ought to be extremely difficult to learn. We report four experiments testing this prediction by investigating conditions hypothesized to facilitate the learning of such categories. Experiment 1 showed that changing the task from a category‐learning task to choosing the “winning” object in each stimulus greatly facilitated participants' ability to learn probabilistic relational categories. Experiments 2 and 3 further investigated the mechanisms underlying this “who's winning” effect. Experiment 4 replicated and generalized the “who's winning” effect with more natural stimuli. Together, our findings suggest that people learn relational concepts by a process of intersection discovery akin to schema induction, and that any task that encourages people to discover a higher order relation that remains invariant over members of a category will facilitate the learning of putatively probabilistic relational concepts.     

Hope as an irreducible concept

I argue for a novel answer to the question “What is hope?”. On my view, rather than aiming for a compound account, i.e. analysing hope in terms of desire and belief, we should understand hope as an irreducible concept. After criticizing influential compound accounts of hope, I discuss Segal and Textor's alternative of describing hope as a primitive mental state. While Segal and Textor argue that available developments of the standard definition do not offer sufficient conditions for hope, I question the deep‐seated idea that desire and belief are even necessary conditions for hope. My suggestion is that we should take seriously the fact that we hope in a great variety of ways and should question the search for elements that are common to all cases. A promising alternative follows the Wittgensteinian idea that cases of hope are related in terms of family resemblance, i.e. are multiply realizable on the ontological level while falling under the non‐definable concept of hope.     

Indiscernible universals

Universals have traditionally thought to obey the identity of indiscernibles, that is, it has traditionally been thought that there can be no perfectly similar universals. But at least in the conception of universals as immanent, there is nothing that rules out there being indiscernible universals. In this paper, I shall argue that there is useful work indiscernible universals can do, and so there might be reason to postulate indiscernible universals. In particular, I shall argue that postulating indiscernible universals can allow a theory of universals to identify particulars with bundles of universals, and that postulating indiscernible universals can allow a theory of universals to develop an account of the resemblance of quantitative universals that avoids the objections that Armstrong’s account faces. Finally, I shall respond to some objections and I shall undermine the criterion of distinction between particulars and universals that says that the distinction between particulars and universals lies in that while there can be indiscernible particulars, there cannot be indiscernible universals.     

On Similarity Coefficients for 2×2 Tables and Correction for Chance

This paper studies correction for chance in coefficients that are linear functions of the observed proportion of agreement. The paper unifies and extends various results on correction for chance in the literature. A specific class of coefficients is used to illustrate the results derived in this paper. Coefficients in this class, e.g. the simple matching coefficient and the Dice/Sørenson coefficient, become equivalent after correction for chance, irrespective of what expectation is used. The coefficients become either Cohen’s kappa, Scott’s pi, Mak’s rho, Goodman and Kruskal’s lambda, or Hamann’s eta, depending on what expectation is considered appropriate. Both a multicategorical generalization and a multivariate generalization are discussed.     

Resemblance and investment in children

According to evolutionary explanations men hardly ever are absolutely certain about their biological fatherhood therefore they must seek various sources of information to subjectively establish whether they are the genetic fathers of the children they raise. Apicella and Marlowe (2004) showed that fathers who perceived greater similarity between their children and themselves were willing to invest more resources (e.g., time, money, care) in their offspring presumably because the perceived resemblance indicated to the fathers their genetic relatedness with their children. The present study extended the design of Apicella and Marlowe's original study and included both fathers and mothers as participants. Parents were recruited by a female confederate at the airport and at the railway station in Wroclaw (Poland). Multiple regression analyses showed that perceived resemblance predicted parental investment in the child for both men and women. The fact that mothers' declarations of investment in their children also depended on the perceived resemblance factor is not consistent with evolutionary formulations delineated by Apicella and Marlowe (2004; 2007). Future studies must resolve the issue of whether the resemblance‐investment relation in fathers results from men relaying on child's resemblance to themselves as an indicator of their own biological paternity, or whether it results from the more parsimonious phenomenon that people in general are attracted more to other people who are similar to them.     

Parent–child resemblance and kin investment: Physical resemblance or personality similarity?

Resemblance between parents and children has been suggested as an indicator of kinship. Because men, unlike women, cannot be certain about parenthood, resemblance may influence men more than women when making investment decisions. In the present paper we examine the relation of physical resemblance and personality similarity with parental investment for 90 Dutch parents and their school-age children. For mothers investment was linked to personality similarity, whereas for fathers investment was linked to physical resemblance, suggesting that fathers are influenced by physical cues when making investment decisions, whereas mothers are influenced by psychological cues.     

On Association Coefficients for 2×2 Tables and Properties That Do Not Depend on the Marginal Distributions

We discuss properties that association coefficients may have in general, e.g., zero value under statistical independence, and we examine coefficients for 2×2 tables with respect to these properties. Furthermore, we study a family of coefficients that are linear transformations of the observed proportion of agreement given the marginal probabilities. This family includes the phi coefficient and Cohen’s kappa. The main result is that the linear transformations that set the value under independence at zero and the maximum value at unity, transform all coefficients in this family into the same underlying coefficient. This coefficient happens to be Loevinger’s H.     

Was Wittgenstein an Analytic Philosopher?

Abstract: This article first surveys the established views on Wittgenstein's relation to analytic philosophy. Next it distinguishes among different ways of defining analytic philosophy—topical, doctrinal, methodological, stylistic, historical, and the idea that it is a family‐resemblance concept. It argues that while certain stylistic features are important, the historical and the family‐resemblance conceptions are the most auspicious, especially in combination. The answer to the title question is given in section 3. Contrary to currently popular “irrationalist” interpretations, Wittgenstein was an analytic philosopher in all phases of his career, albeit an exceedingly exotic one whose style transcends the limits of academic philosophy in general. On the historical understanding he qualifies because he was influenced by and in turn influenced mainly analytic philosophers. On the family‐resemblance conception he qualifies both because he developed and employed logico‐linguistic analysis and because he initiated the linguistic turn and the distinction between philosophy and science that characterizes one important strand in analytic philosophy.     

The sibling uncertainty hypothesis: Facial resemblance as a sibling recognition cue

For the same reason that fathers could not have been certain their mates’ offspring were their genetic progeny during human evolutionary history, full siblings could not have been certain that they shared paternal genes. Previous kin recognition research suggests facial resemblance is a cue men use to help solve the adaptive problem of paternity uncertainty and identify their biological offspring. Facial resemblance may also be a cue individuals use to identify siblings who share paternal genes. In the current study, facial resemblance between siblings was hypothesized to be positively associated with their emotional closeness and altruism, and inversely related with their frequency of conflict. Within families, individuals reported greater closeness and altruism toward siblings who more closely resembled them. In contrast with previous offspring recognition research, the effects of resemblance were not sex-differentiated, suggesting that facial resemblance is a cue both sexes use in sibling recognition.     

刺激材料的整体性知觉对类别建构的影响

采用标准－匹配的实验程序,操纵刺激材料的空间整合性和知觉的整体性水平,探讨逐个呈现刺激材料时影响被试类别建构策略的根本原因。报告了3个实验,结果证明：逐个呈现并不一定会导致被试倾向于家族相似性归类;刺激材料的空间整合性不一定会影响被试的类别建构策略,空间整合和空间分离都可能出现家族相似性和单维归类倾向;刺激材料的整体性知觉水平对类别建构影响明显：知觉为分离则倾向于家族相似性分类;知觉为整体则倾向于单维分类。被试在实验可能采用分析性策略,然而材料的整体性知觉影响了分析的侧重点,从而对类别建构产生了非常重要的影响