1-Jan-94 4:17:43-GMT,15687;000000000000 Received: from rutvm1.rutgers.edu by aramis.rutgers.edu (5.59/SMI4.0/RU1.5/3.08) id AA24033; Fri, 31 Dec 93 23:17:42 EST Message-Id: <9401010417.AA24033@aramis.rutgers.edu> Received: from RUTVM1.RUTGERS.EDU by RUTVM1.RUTGERS.EDU (IBM VM SMTP R1.2.1MX) with BSMTP id 3309; Fri, 31 Dec 93 23:18:54 EST Received: from RUTVM1.RUTGERS.EDU (NJE origin LISTSERV@RUTVM1) by RUTVM1.RUTGERS.EDU (LMail V1.1d/1.7f) with BSMTP id 3224; Fri, 31 Dec 1993 23:18:54 -0500 Date: Fri, 31 Dec 1993 23:17:15 -0500 Reply-To: psyc@pucc.bitnet Sender: "PSYCOLOQUY: Refereed Electronic Journal of Peer Discussion" From: Stevan Harnad Subject: psycoloquy.93.4.65.scientific-cognition.2.bookstein (263 lines) Comments: To: psyc@pucc.bitnet To: Multiple recipients of list PSYC psycoloquy.93.4.65.scientific-cognition.2.bookstein Fri 31 Dec 1993 ISSN 1055-0143 (12 paragraphs, 8 references, 257 lines) PSYCOLOQUY is sponsored by the American Psychological Association (APA) Copyright 1993 Fred Bookstein GEOMETRY AS COGNITION IN THE NATURAL SCIENCES Commentary of Giere on Science-Cognition Fred L. Bookstein Center for Human Growth and Development University of Michigan Ann Arbor, Michigan 48109 (313) 764-2443 fred@brainmap.med.umich.edu ABSTRACT: The cognitive models of science surveyed in the Giere (1992) volume appear to ignore apperception of "geometrical" data -- locations and displacements in the real space of gauges or photographs. Disregard of this channel entails a serious underweighting of abductive reasoning and of the force of quantitative anomalies or surprisingly accurate predictions in accounts of the rhetoric of the natural sciences. 1. Because I am a biometrician, my customary daily tasks involve processing the records of other scientists' cognitive processes. Typically, I am sent numerical representations of real-world geometry: readings of digital or analogue gauges, or, better, interesting points or regions that my colleagues have located or traced in medical scenes. Regardless of the stereotype of the statistician, my main job as scientific collaborator is to retain the rhetoric and the geometry according to which the data were originally gathered. Right through the figures ultimately published, I exploit every trick I know, for pen or computer, to render my desktop as much like a real geometrical landscape as I can: in Latour's word, to revert to the format of the original inscriptions. 2. Then the cognitive processes associated with my sort of quantitative data analysis are almost purely those of real-world geometry: the ordinary assessment of peaks, lines, displacements, directions, bends, or black spots scattered over a ground. There are rules, of course. Quantitative arguments carried by these specific cognitive features must be traceable back to the original inscriptions, and must be accompanied by calibrations of their precision in the same semantics. Still, the usual rhetoric of statisticians practicing in the natural sciences is dominated by the geometry of real space as that geometry was already recognized by the natural scientists gathering the data. 3. Because this analysis of the geometry of data is so routine -- because (re)cognition of real space underlies all of quantitative natural philosophy, from Clifford (1885) on through this morning's chatter about "scientific visualization" -- I expected to find some discussion of these issues in this volume (Giere 1992, 1993). That expectation was wholly frustrated. According to the index, there are no discussions of "geometry," "statistics," "quantification," "diagrams," "instruments," "gauges," "vision," "precision," "uncertainty," or "error." This can't be right. To be of any use to scientists, the cognitive modeling of science must incorporate some discussion about where numbers come from; but the cognitive modes discussed here completely omit the very ones on which I most rely. So parochial a reduction of scope cannot have been these authors' intention. 4. For example, Richard Grandy's chapter overlooks all these geometric concerns in spite of its promising title ("Information, Observation, and Measurement from the Viewpoint of a Cognitive Philosophy of Science"). "Observation and measurement are both processes by which we wrest information about nature from the world," Grandy begins, but then he quickly loses both threads, of "nature" and of the "world." Instead, he adopts the Shannon-Weaver definition of information -- "information of event Ai about event Bj" -- for which knowledge is represented in terms of probabilities rather than locations on a gauge or in a landscape. In turning to the formalisms of "communication," he leaves behind the origins of the data. What matters for natural science is not the accuracy of an instrument's reading to n binary digits, but the fact that that reading is a transformed location or displacement: that it arose from the geometry of real space. The discrepancy between this point of view and Grandy's is clear in his first example, the weather in Houston. While the report that the probability of rain is 1/8 looks like meteorological science, it is not. The forecasters actually rely on temperature, humidity, wind gauges, all deriving from physical continua, not discrete "events," and all ultimately verified by comparison of predictions to later observations of the same gauges. 5. Another example of this disregard for the real roots of quantitative natural science can be found in Lindley Darden's chapter "Strategies for Anomaly Resolution." The juiciest anomalies are quantitative; since Sewall Wright, even geneticists are always checking for more and more exact agreement of theory with data. But from this discussion of lethal recessive genotypes, one might conclude that "anomalies" are merely qualitative -- the nonappearance of a thing you expected, or the converse. Examples like these systematically conceal the glorious mystery of natural science by which, once in a very great while, advances in metrology combine with strenuous control of conditions of observation to arrive at true constraints of our explanations by data. The thought-experiments of Einstein reviewed by Nersessian actually rest on the most exquisitely quantitative null findings of the nineteenth century. It is this coercion by nature at which we most marvel, not the routine production of "representations" or any such wallpaper. Earlier in her essay, she describes Maxwell sketching lines and circles and writing equations. But Maxwell was not merely doodling, pursuing "imagistic reasoning as a species of analogical reasoning"; rather, he was contemplating points and lines in real space, real geometric images whose reliable production in the laboratory perforce constrains any symbolism of "equations." Had the shapes of Faraday's reproducible patterns of filings (Nersessian's Figure 1) not been circular, Maxwell would have made little progress with his equations. It is the geometric relevance of those equations -- the Cartesian formalism of analytic geometry -- that is the artifact, not the geometry per se. 6. Every author in the volume seems to share this refusal to acknowledge the interplay among real space, instrument readings, and differential equations in producing the crowning achievements of science. For instance, the chapters by Nowak & Thagard and by Freedman, all proponents of "coherence," supply two long listings of "Input to Echo" (pp. 302-307, 333-336) that include no estimates whatsoever of the precisions of observations. In the second of these examples, about "latent learning," there is no quantification suggested at all. Surely no such system of reasoning could relate to competent cognition in the contemporary natural sciences, where most of the crucial facts are geometrical and are accompanied by hard-won estimates of standard error. As the strongest form of "coherence" is that between point predictions and their measurements, the absence of any semantics of observational accuracy from a system proposed to simulate "explanatory coherence" supports Glymour's wry observation that "all the hard questions have been begged." The dominance of the quantitative natural sciences rests on their occasional ability to make surprising quantitative forecasts accurate well beyond the limits of instrumentation at the time the forecasts were made. It is this geometric notion of "accuracy" that got Voyager to Neptune; it wasn't guided there by propositional calculus. 7. This is not a new concern. Eugene Wigner (1960) meditates upon the uncanny power with which an "unreasonably effective" point prediction constrains subsequent quantitative theory, and John Platt (1964) echoes the claim in his notion of "strong inference." Precise quantitative predictions are remarkably more persuasive than any other form of comparison between theory and data, including all the logical processes reviewed in this volume. Before Kuhn wrote of anomalies, even before the Vienna positivists, there was Charles Sanders Peirce, whose omission from this volume is, in my view, its most serious flaw. Peirce's great essays of the 1870's dissect out all the main applications of logic in science. Of these, "abduction" is the most relevant: The surprising fact, C, is observed; But if A were true, C would be a matter of course, Hence, there is reason to suspect that A is true. 8. Disciplinary boundaries have shifted in the 120 years since the recognition of this important mode of scientific reasoning. What Peirce called "logic" is now squarely at the core of the cognitive paradigm, the ostensible theme of this volume. The Peircean notion of abduction corresponds closely to the cognitive process with which most of these chapters are concerned: not the arguing, nor the testing, but suspicion followed by discovery, from Maxwell in his garden through the Wright brothers to real Purkinje cells or segregating genes. In this simple syllogism, Peirce has captured the core of the empirical program of quantitative natural science: when faced with a careful measurement that is surprising on the basis of previous knowledge, find an explanation that makes it less surprising, and test that explanation as strenuously as you can. 9. As a geodesist, Peirce meant "surprising" in its irreducibly quantitative form. Permit me a minor anachronism: "surprise" is calibrated by the number of standard errors separating your careful observation from your thoughtful prediction according to a hypothesis you might actually consider holding. What drives the logic of science (now the cognitive aspects of science), in this view, is true incompatibility of strong (precise, quantitative) data with strong (previously reliable) theory. It is this sort of anomaly, Kuhn (1961) pointed out, that keeps us up at night: measurements that come out wrong. And this notion of "wrong" is metrological, i.e., spatial: it is represented by deviations of observed displacements from theoretical displacements, in one, two, or many spatial dimensions, by too many standard errors. Point the telescope where Mercury should be, it isn't there; measure the change in separation between two stars during the eclipse of 1919, and it is what Einstein predicted. No account of cognition in science can be valid without acknowledging the logic underlying these singularly coercive observations. 10. Among the examples in this volume are several drawn from psychology. None of them involve sufficient coherence between observations and theory to test alternate accounts of where belief in an explanation comes from. But there exists at least one good example of strong inference in psychology: Stanley Milgram's notorious "Obedience experiments," which demonstrated the social determination of obedience in a manner so forceful that his apparatus is on display at the Smithsonian Institution. While the understanding of this experiment among the general educated public is restricted to one stunning fact (that 26 out of the 40 subjects went up to the lethal level, in one particular simulation of a learning experiment involving punishment), the actual mass of evidence (Miller, 1986) involves the accumulation of many more of these empirical percentages, ranging from nearly zero compliance to nearly total compliance, as Milgram systematically varied the putative strength of the features of situational pressure ("scientist" in white coat, "victim" in room, "confederate" pushes the button, etc.). The match between a prior theoretically grounded rank-ordering of the "power" of the situation and the empirical trace of obedience supports Milgram's abduction with a strength typically reserved for quantitative natural science. The best presentation of this pooled finding is as a single diagram, a curve running diagonally across a rectangle of obedience by situational "pressure" (itself a metaphor for a gauge reading). 11. Perhaps, then, the problem with this volume is a philosophical one after all: the book has described what scientists do well when they are not doing science well. Essays like these seem to miss the point of science; they reduce it to the aspects of cognitive change their authors feel competent to discuss, instead of looking to see what processes (like the reading of gauges or of photographs) natural scientists actually exploit. My own field, statistics, arose from the possibility of accurate quantitative science (Stigler, 1986) so effectively that nowadays statistics is part of what we mean by "instrumentation." In biomedicine as in the physical sciences, the greatest strides of natural science are inseparable from advances in quantitative instrumentation and particularly from the habit they have of forcing experts to acknowledge anomalies as precision is sharpened. 12. I would not claim that this is all that matters in the cognitive philosophy of science. But a "model of science" in which there is no role for the geometry of instrumental readings, for the rhetorical force of getting a surprising answer from an instrument, cannot account for its most important theme, the very core of its discipline. I cannot expect any program for bridging cognitive science and philosophy of science to succeed unless it incorporates the crucial role of real geometry (lines, heights, gray blobs, the celestial sphere) in embodying what we understand and in forcing us to acknowledge what we do not understand. REFERENCES Clifford, W. K. (1885). The Common Sense of the Exact Sciences. New York: Appleton. Giere, R.N. (1993). Precis of: Cognitive Models of Science. PSYCOLOQUY 4(56) scientific-cognition.1.giere. Giere, R.N. (1992) Cognitive Models of Science. Minnesota Studies in the Philosophy of Science, volume 15. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Kuhn, T. S. (1961). The Function of Measurement in Modern Physical Science. pp. 31-63. In: Woolf, H. (ed.) Quantification. Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill. Miller, A. (1986). The Obedience Experiments. New York: Praeger. Platt, J. (1964). Strong Inference. Science 146:347-353. Stigler, S. M. (1986). The History of Statistics: the Measurement of Uncertainty Before 1900. Harvard. Wigner, E. P. (1960). The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Mathematics in the Natural Sciences. Communications in Pure and Applied Mathematics 13(1). Reprinted in Symmetries and Reflections. Indiana University Press, 1967, pp. 222-237. 10-Jan-94 19:41:23-GMT,22036;000000000001 Received: from rutvm1.rutgers.edu by aramis.rutgers.edu (5.59/SMI4.0/RU1.5/3.08) id AA05982; Mon, 10 Jan 94 14:41:21 EST Message-Id: <9401101941.AA05982@aramis.rutgers.edu> Received: from RUTVM1.RUTGERS.EDU by RUTVM1.RUTGERS.EDU (IBM VM SMTP R1.2.1MX) with BSMTP id 5911; Mon, 10 Jan 94 14:42:33 EST Received: from RUTVM1.RUTGERS.EDU (NJE origin LISTSERV@RUTVM1) by RUTVM1.RUTGERS.EDU (LMail V1.1d/1.7f) with BSMTP id 4568; Mon, 10 Jan 1994 14:42:33 -0500 Date: Mon, 10 Jan 1994 14:40:44 -0500 Reply-To: psyc@pucc.bitnet Sender: "PSYCOLOQUY: Refereed Electronic Journal of Peer Discussion" From: Stevan Harnad Subject: PSYCOLOQUY Newsletter Section (Announcements/Employment: 483 lines) Comments: To: psyc@pucc.bitnet To: Multiple recipients of list PSYC PSYCOLOQUY ISSN 1055-0143 Mon, 10 Jan 94 Newsletter Section (1) Announcement: AI and Neural Nets Symposium, Turkey, June '94 (2) Announcement: Multi-Cultural Mental Health Conf, Denver, April '94 (3) Announcement: Conf on Perception and Action, Marseille, July '95 (4) Announcement: Conf on Indicator Semantics, Virginia, March '94 (5) Employment: Asst Prof, Cognitive Psych, Frostburg State, MD (6) Employment: Lecturer, Psychopathology, U of Cambridge, UK (7) Employment: Lecturer/Asst Prof, Cognitive Science, U of Hong Kong (8) Employment: Two Visiting Positions, Vision & Cognition, Brown U (9) Employment: Asst Prof, Personality Psych, U of South Carolina ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Ugur Halici Subject: (1) Announcement: AI and Neural Nets Symposium, Turkey, June '94 CALL FOR PAPERS TAINN III The Third Turkish Symposium on ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE & NEURAL NETWORKS June 22-24, 1994, METU, Ankara, Turkey Organized by Middle East Technical University & Bilkent University in cooperation with Bogazici University, TUBITAK INNS Turkey SIG, IEEE Computer Society Turkey Chapter, ACM SIGART Turkey Chapter, Conference Chair: Nese Yalabik (METU), nese@vm.cc.metu.edu.tr Program Committee Co-chairs: Cem Bozsahin (METU), bozsahin@vm.cc.metu.edu.tr Ugur Halici (METU), halici@vm.cc.metu.edu.tr Kemal Oflazer (Bilkent), ko@cs.bilkent.edu.tr Organization Committee Chair: Gokturk Ucoluk (METU), ucoluk@vm.cc.metu.edu.tr Program Committee: L. Akin (Bosphorus), V. Akman (Bilkent), E. Alpaydin (Bosphorus), S.I. Amari (Tokyo), I. Aybay (METU), B. Buckles (Tulane), G. CARPENTER (BOSTON), I. CICEKLI (BILKENT), C. DAGLI (MISSOURY-ROLLA), D.Davenport (Bilkent), G. Ernst (Case Western), A. Erkmen (METU) N. Findler (Arizona State), E. Gelenbe (Duke), M. Guler (METU), A. Guvenir (Bilkent), S. Kocabas (TUBITAK), R. Korf (UCLA), S. Kuru (Bosphorus), D. Levine (Texas Arlington), R. Lippmann (MIT), K. Narendra (Yale), H. Ogmen (Houston), U. Sengupta (Arizona State), R. Parikh (CUNY), F. Petry (Tulane), C. Say (Bosphorus), A. Yazici (METU), G. Ucoluk (METU), P. Werbos (NSF), N. Yalabik (METU), L. Zadeh (California), W. Zadrozny (IBM TJ Watson) Organization Committee: A. GULOKSUZ, O. IZMIRLI, E. ERSAHIN, I. OZTURK, C. TURHAN Scope of the Symposium * Common-sense Reasoning * Expert Systems * Knowledge Representation * Natural Language Processing * AI Programming Environments and Tools * Automated Deduction * Computer Vision * Speech Recognition * Control and Planning * Machine Learning and Knowledge Acquisition * Robotics * Social, Legal, Ethical Issues * Distributed AI * Intelligent Tutoring Systems * Search * Cognitive Models * Parallel and Distributed Processing * Genetic Algorithms * NN Applications * NN Simulation Environments * Fuzzy Logic * Novel NN Models * Theoretical Aspects of NN * Pattern Recognition * Other Related Topics on AI and NN Paper Submission: Submit five copies of full papers (in English or Turkish) limited to 10 pages by January 31, 1994 to: TAINN III, Cem Bozsahin Department of Computer Engineering Middle East Technical University, 06531, Ankara, Turkey Authors will be notified of acceptance by April 1, 1994. Accepted papers will be published in the symposium proceedings. The conference will be held on the campus of Middle East Technical University (METU) in Ankara, Turkey. A limited number of free lodging facilities will be provided on campus for student participants. If there is sufficient interest, sightseeing tours to the nearby Cappadocia region known for its mystical underground cities and fairy chimneys, to the archaeological remains at Alacahoyuk, the capital of the Hittite empire, and to local museums will be organized. For further information and announcements contact: TAINN, Ugur Halici Department of Electrical Engineering Middle East Technical University 06531, Ankara, Turkey EMAIL: TAINN@VM.CC.METU.EDU.TR (AFTER JANUARY 1994) HALICI@VM.CC.METU.EDU.TR (BEFORE) ------------------------------ From: Leonard J Tamura <70243.3010@CompuServe.COM> Subject: (2) Announcement: Multi-Cultural Mental Health Conf, Denver, April '94 The Coalition for Multi-Cultural Mental Health Services is pleased to announce a call for presentations for our sixth annual conference to be held April 14-16, 1994 in the Denver metropolitan area. We would like to invite submissions of proposals to present a 90 minute workshop or a 3 hour seminar. The theme for the 1994 conference is "Challenging and Cherishing the Diversity Among Us." We believe this theme to be all-inclusive of work being done with people of color, and an opportunity to discuss and share your ideas and experiences of working with multicultural populations. For more information or an application, please contact as soon as possible Deborah Garcia, Ph.D. at phone: (303) 643-8487 or Len Tamura, Ph.D. at e-mail: 70243.3010@compuserve.com. ------------------------------ From: JBPITTENGER@ualr.edu Subject: (3) Announcement: Conf on Perception and Action, Marseille, July '95 EIGHT INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON PERCEPTION AND ACTION Marseille, France July 9-14, 1995 The International Society for Ecological Psychology, the Faculty of Sport Sciences, University of Aix-Marseille, and the Marseille-Provence Chamber of Commerce and Industry are sponsoring the Eighth International Conference on Perception and Action (ICPA-8), which will be held in Marseille, France, July 9-14, 1995. This conference will present paper and poster sessions on a wide variety of topics related to the ecological approach to perception and action, including, but not limited, to: Acoustics, Artificial Intelligence, Development and Learning, Dynamical Themes in Perception and Action, Event Recognition, Locomotion, Movement Disorders, Perceptual control of movement, Social Affordances, Speech and Language. To have your name placed on the mailing list for the call for papers or for further information, contact: Benoit G. Bardy, University of Aix-Marseille, Faculty of Sport Sciences, 163 Avenue de Luminy, 13009 Marseille, France (Tel: (33) 91 26 92 62, Fax: (33) 91 26 61 10, E-mail: ICPA8@gia.univ-mrs.fr). ------------------------------ From: Valerie Hardcastle Subject: (4) Announcement: Conf on Indicator Semantics, Virginia, March '94 COMPLEX REPRESENTATIONS: THE PLACE OF INDICATOR SEMANTICS IN COGNITIVE SCIENCE *Complex Representations: The Place of Indicator Semantics in Cognitive Science* is the theme of a conference sponsored by the Department of Philosophy, the College of Arts and Sciences, and the Center for the Study of Science in Society at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, to be held March 18-20, 1994, at Mountain Lake Resort, Blacksburg, Virginia. Indicator semantics, and similar teleological accounts of representation, have enjoyed remarkable success in explaining low- level cognitive processing. The question now arises whether indicator semantics could be extended to explain the higher level representa- tional capacity of more complex organisms -- in particular, humans. This conference will address will address such an elaboration -- its viability, desirability, and potential consequences for the cognitive sciences. Conference Program March 18-20, 1994 DEPARTMENT OF PHILOSOPHY VIRGINIA POLYTECHNIC INSTITUTE AND STATE UNIVERSITY FRIDAY, March 18 6:30-8:00 Opening Dinner 8:00-10:00 Welcome: Joe Pitt, Virginia Tech Speaker: Karen Neander, Australian National "From Innate To Acquired Representations" Commentator: Fred Dretske, Stanford SATURDAY, March 19 9:00-10:30 Chair: William Williams, Virginia Tech Speaker: Laurence Shapiro, Wisconsin-Madison "Indication, Cognitive Science, and Lego Naturalism" Commentator: Peter Godfrey-Smith, Stanford 11:00-12:30 Chair: Karl Pribram, Radford Speaker: Kenneth Taylor, Rutgers "Must an Intentional System Be Rational?" Commentator: George Wittenberg, Mercy Hospital 2:00-3:30 Chair: James Klagge, Virginia Tech Speaker: Mohan Matthen, Alberta "On the Semantics of Emotion" Commentator: Adele Mercier, Queen's University 4:00-5:30 Chair: John Christman, Virginia Tech Speaker: John Post, Vanderbilt "Teleosemantics, Physicalism, and Ethics" Commentator: Richard Burian, Virginia Tech 8:00-11:00 Reception -- Gavagai Hollow Farm SUNDAY, March 20, 1994 9:00-10:30 Chair: Thomas Oberdan, Clemson Speaker: Georges Rey, Maryland "Keeping Meaning in Mind" Commentator: Berent Enc, Wisconsin-Madison 11:00-12:30 Chair: Stuart Silvers, Clemson Speaker: Ruth Millikan, Connecticut-Storrs "Pushmepullyou Representations" Commentator: David Israel, Stanford 2:00-3:30 Chair: Harlan Miller, Virginia Tech Roundtable Discussion For more information, contact Gary L. Hardcastle, Valerie Gray Hardcastle, or Peter E. Pruim at valerieh@vtvm1.cc.vt.edu. REGISTRATION DEADLINE: FEBRUARY 10, 1994 ------------------------------ From: Bill Southerly Subject: (5) Employment: Asst Prof, Cognitive Psych, Frostburg State, MD FROSTBURG STATE UNIVERSITY Psychology Faculty One tenure track position for Fall 1994, pending availability. Assistant Professor. Teaching responsibilities in the areas of research methods, advanced experimental, sensation and perception and other undergraduate courses in an area of interest that match departmental goals. Commitment to undergraduate research preparation of psychology majors is of primary importance. Interest in integrating multicultural and diversity issues into psychology courses and fostering a climate open to students from diverse backgrounds. Undergraduate advising. Additional responsibilities may include faculty advisor for Psychology Club/Psi Chi and coordinator of Preprofessional focus. Required: ABD, Doctorate completed by June 1,1994 and teaching experience with evidence of teaching effectiveness. Preferred: Ph.D in Psychology. Salary: negotiable and competitive. CLOSING DATE: March 1, 1994. Benefits package as afforded University of Maryland system employees. Questions may be directed to Patricia A. Santoro, Chair of search committee, 301-689-4193; e-mail: e2pysan@fre.fsu.umd.edu. Send letter of interest specifying relevant qualifications, three letters of recommendation, vita, graduate transcripts, teaching evaluations/evidence of teaching effectiveness, to: ATTENTION: Psychology Faculty Search (position # 94-363-TIPS), Ms. Roberta Chamberlin, Associate Director of Human Resources, Frostburg State University, Frostburg, Md 21532. Minorities encouraged to apply. AA/EEO. ------------------------------ From: RGF10@PHOENIX.CAMBRIDGE.AC.UK Subject: (6) Employment: Lecturer, Psychopathology, U of Cambridge, UK UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY LECTURER IN PSYCHOPATHOLOGY Applications are invited for a University Lecturer in Psychopathology to take up appointment on 1 April 1994 or as soon as possible thereafter. The Lectureship is held jointly between the Departments of Experimental Psychology and Psychiatry. The duties of the person appointed will include the teaching of introductory and advanced courses on psychopathology in the Department of Experimental Psychology, and organising and teaching psychology courses to pre-clinical and clinical medical students. Applications are invited from suitably qualified people, with research interests in areas related to clinical psychology or psychiatric disorders. Salary scale: 17379pounds - 26803pounds Applicants are welcome to contact both Professor NJ Mackintosh at the Department of Experimental Psychology, Downing Street, Cambridge, CB2 3EB (tel. 0223 333551) and Professor ES Paykel at the Department of Psychiatry, Addenbrooke's Hospital, Hills Road, Cambridge, CB2 2QQ (tel. 0223 336960). Further information and application form from: The Secretary, Appointments Committee, 19, Trumpington Street Cambridge, CB2 1QA. Closing date: 5 February, 1994. The University follows an equal opportunities policy and has a policy on arrangements for part-time work. ------------------------------ From: "Dr. John A. Spinks" Subject: (7) Employment: Lecturer/Asst Prof, Cognitive Science, U of Hong Kong THE UNIVERSITY OF HONG KONG Lectureship in Psychology. Applications are invited for the position of Lecturer (British system: equivalent to an Assistant Professor in N. America) in the Department of Psychology in the area of cognitive science. The filling of post is subject to the availability of funds, but it is hoped that an appointment will be made early in 1994, for a fixed term of 2 to 3 years, which would be expected to be renewed at the end of this first contract. Applicants for this post should ideally possess a Ph.D. degree and have research, teaching and practical experience in cognitive science. Teaching at the undergraduate and postgraduate levels would be required. There is currently little teaching of cognitive science at the University of Hong Kong, and the appointee would be expected to fill this gap, as well as do research in this area. It is anticipated that a new degree or postgraduate degree course in Cognitive Science will soon be offered by the University, and the Department of Psychology will take on a significant teaching role. Other departments that are likely to be involved include Computer Science, Philosophy and Education. The annual salary (non-superannuable, but attracting a 15% (taxable) terminal gratuity) is on an 11-point scale: HK$377,220 - HK$630,180 (approx. Sterling L32,800 - L54,800; US$48,500 - US$80,800 at December, 1993 exchange rates). Starting salary will depend on qualifications and experience. At current rates, salaries tax in Hong Kong will not exceed 15% of gross income. Children's education allowances in Hong Kong and abroad, leave, and medical/dental benefits are provided; housing or tenancy allowances are also provided in most cases at a charge of 7.5% of salary. Further particulars and application forms may be obtained from the Appointments Unit, Registry, The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong (fax (852) 5592058; email APPTUNIT@HKUVM1.HKU.HK). Closes January 31, 1994. Further particulars: Facilities at the University of Hong Kong are very good, with all lecturers provided with a PC connected via LANs to the Departmental servers, the University's mainframes (Vax 6420, IBM9375, IBM4361, DECSystem 5500s, SUN SPARCserver 670), and the universities' and polytechnics' DECmpp 12000 supercomputer. There is access, via the LANs, to the Internet, and to computers and networks abroad. There is external access to this network. The University of Hong Kong has expanded rapidly over the last few years, with a current student quota of 8500 undergraduates and 2500 postgraduates (of which about 1000 are research postgraduates). Resourcing and facilities for research can be excellent. The Department of Psychology has several purpose- built laboratories, for research in psychophysiology, perception, experimental psychology, and developmental psychology amongst others. The standards of the undergraduate students are high, the University being able to select only those in the top percentiles. The programmes themselves are of an international standard, and are vetted by external examiners usually from abroad, while many courses and programmes are internationally accredited. Hong Kong itself is an exciting and vibrant city, being at the heart of an area which is economically forging ahead of the rest of the world. Informal queries can be sent to Dr. John A. Spinks, Department of Psychology, at: spinks@hkucc.bitnet ------------------------------ From: @BROWNVM.BROWN.EDU:COGSCI@BROWNVM.BROWN.EDU Subject: (8) Employment: Two Visiting Positions, Vision & Cognition, Brown U TWO VISITING FACULTY POSITIONS The Brown University Department of Cognitive & Linguistic Sciences invites applications for two visiting faculty positions for the academic year September 1994 to June 1995. Each position would be suited to either a senior sabbatical visitor who, in exchange for half-time salary support, would teach one or two courses at Brown or to a more junior applicant who would receive full salary support and teach three courses. All Applicants must have received the Ph.D. degree or equivalent by the time of their application. Position 1, Vision: candidate should have strong teaching and research interests in one or more of the following areas: visual perception, visual cognition, computational vision, or computational neuroscience related to vision. Position 2, Cognition: candidate should have strong teaching and research interests in an area such as memory, attention, problem solving, judgment and decision making, or comparative cognition. Please send vitae, recent publications, three references, and a cover letter describing teaching and research interests and qualifications to: Search Committee Vision Brown University Department of Cognitive & Linguistic Sciences Box 1978 Providence, RI 02912 or Search Committee Cognition Brown University Department of Cognitive & Linguistic Sciences Box 1978 Providence, RI 02912 The initial deadline for applications is February 15, 1994, but applications will be accepted after that time until the visiting positions are filled. Brown is an Equal Opportunity/Affirmative Action employer. Women and minorities are especially encouraged to apply. For further information contact the department at the above address, this account, by phone at (401)863-2616 or fax at (401)863-2255. From: Tom Boyd Subject: (9) Employment: Asst Prof, Personality Psych, U of South Carolina The Department of Psychology at the University of South Carolina at Aiken invites applications for a tenure-track assistant professorship beginning August, 1994. We seek candidates with expertise in Personality Psychology, and the ability to teach Social Psychology or Tests and Measurements is desirable. Ph.D. and evidence of research potential necessary, and teaching experience highly preferred. Salary is competitive. USC-Aiken is a senior institution in the USC system, located near Augusta, Ga., with modern teaching and laboratory facilities. Review of applications will begin Feb. 15, 1994. Send letter of application, vita, and letters of recommendation to Dr. Thomas L. Boyd, Search Committee Chair, Psychology Department, University of South Carolina at Aiken, Aiken, SC, 29801. USC-Aiken is an Affirmative Action/Equal Opportunity Employer. ------------------------------ PSYCOLOQUY is sponsored by the Science Directorate and the Office of Publications and Communication of the American Psychological Association (202) 955-7653 Editors: (scientific discussion) (professional/clinical discussion) Stevan Harnad Cary Cherniss (Assoc Ed.) Psychology Department Graduate School of Applied Princeton University Professional Psychology Rutgers University Assistant Editor: Colleen Wirth End of PSYCOLOQUY Digest ****************************** 16-Jan-94 2:57:24-GMT,22481;000000000000 Received: from rutvm1.rutgers.edu by aramis.rutgers.edu (5.59/SMI4.0/RU1.5/3.08) id AA22255; Sat, 15 Jan 94 21:57:22 EST Message-Id: <9401160257.AA22255@aramis.rutgers.edu> Received: from RUTVM1.RUTGERS.EDU by RUTVM1.RUTGERS.EDU (IBM VM SMTP R1.2.1MX) with BSMTP id 4815; Sat, 15 Jan 94 21:58:35 EST Received: from RUTVM1.RUTGERS.EDU (NJE origin LISTSERV@RUTVM1) by RUTVM1.RUTGERS.EDU (LMail V1.1d/1.7f) with BSMTP id 4696; Sat, 15 Jan 1994 21:58:34 -0500 Date: Sat, 15 Jan 1994 21:55:10 EST Reply-To: "PSYCOLOQUY: Refereed Electronic Journal of Peer Discussion" Sender: "PSYCOLOQUY: Refereed Electronic Journal of Peer Discussion" From: Stevan Harnad Subject: PSYC 1993 Index and some 2 BBS Calls Comments: To: PSYCOLOQUY To: Multiple recipients of list PSYC Below are two BBS Calls (one for commentators, on group selection in evolution [Wilson & Sober], and one for book reviewers, on modularity and representation [Karmiloff-Smith]). These are followed by the PSYCOLOQUY index for 1993. Please note that all commentaries, responses and reviews now have abstracts too. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- BBS Call #1 Below is the abstract of a forthcoming target article by: David Sloan Wilson & Elliott Sober on: "RE-INTRODUCING GROUP SELECTION TO THE HUMAN BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES" This article has been accepted for publication in Behavioral and Brain Sciences (BBS), an international, interdisciplinary journal providing Open Peer Commentary on important and controversial current research in the biobehavioral and cognitive sciences. Commentators must be current BBS Associates or nominated by a current BBS Associate. To be considered as a commentator for this article, to suggest other appropriate commentators, or for information about how to become a BBS Associate, please send email to: harnad@clarity.princeton.edu or harnad@pucc.bitnet or write to: BBS, 20 Nassau Street, #240, Princeton NJ 08542 [tel: 609-921-7771] To help us put together a balanced list of commentators, please give some indication of the aspects of the topic on which you would bring your areas of expertise to bear if you were selected as a commentator. An electronic draft of the full text is available for inspection by anonymous ftp according to the instructions that follow after the abstract. ____________________________________________________________________ RE-INTRODUCING GROUP SELECTION TO THE HUMAN BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES David Sloan Wilson Department of Biological Sciences State University of New York at Binghamton Binghamton New York 13902-6000 DWILSON@BINGVAXA.BitNet Elliott Sober Department of Philosophy University of Wisconsin 5185 Helen C. White Hall 600 North Park Street Madison Wisconsin 53706 ESober@VMS.MACC.Wisc.edu KEYWORDS: culture; evolution; group selection; kin selection; inclusive fitness; natural selection; reciprocity; social organization; units of selection. ABSTRACT: In both biology and the human sciences, social groups are sometimes treated as adaptive units whose organization cannot be reduced to individual interactions. This group-level view is opposed by a more individualistic view that treats social organization as a byproduct of self-interest. According to biologists, group-level adaptations can evolve only by a process of natural selection at the group level. During the 1960's and 70's most biologists rejected group selection as an important evolutionary force but a positive literature began to grow during the 70's and is rapidly expanding today. We review this recent literature and its implications for human evolutionary biology. We show that the rejection of group selection was based on a misplaced emphasis on genes as "replicators" which is in fact irrelevant to the question of whether groups can be like individuals in their functional organization. The fundamental question is whether social groups and other higher-level entities can be "vehicles" of selection. When this elementary fact is recognized, group selection emerges as an important force in nature and ostensible alternatives, such as kin selection and reciprocity, reappear as special cases of group selection. The result is a unified theory of natural selection that operates on a nested hierarchy of units. The vehicle-based theory makes it clear that group selection is an important force to consider in human evolution. Humans can facultatively span the full range from self-interested individuals to "organs" of group-level "organisms." Human behavior not only reflects the balance between levels of selection but it can also alter the balance through the construction of social structures that have the effect of reducing fitness differences within groups, concentrating natural selection (and functional organization) at the group level. These social structures and the cognitive abilities that produce them allow group selection to be important even among large groups of unrelated individuals. -------------------------------------------------------------- To help you decide whether you would be an appropriate commentator for this article, an electronic draft is retrievable by anonymous ftp from princeton.edu according to the instructions that follow the Call below (the filename is bbs.wilson). Please do not prepare a commentary on this draft. Just let us know, after having inspected it, what relevant expertise you feel you would bring to bear on what aspect of the article. The file is also retrievable using archie, gopher, veronica, etc. ------------------------------------------------------------- BBS Call #2 Below is the abstract of a book that will be accorded multiple book review in Behavioral and Brain Sciences (BBS), an international, interdisciplinary journal that provides Open Peer Commentary on important and controversial current research in the biobehavioral and cognitive sciences. Reviewers must be current BBS Associates or nominated by a current BBS Associate. To be considered as a reviewer for this book, to suggest other appropriate reviewers, or for information about how to become a BBS Associate, please send email to: harnad@clarity.princeton.edu or harnad@pucc.bitnet or write to: BBS, 20 Nassau Street, #240, Princeton NJ 08542 [tel: 609-921-7771] To help us put together a balanced list of reviewers, please give some indication of the aspects of the topic on which you would bring your areas of expertise to bear if you are selected as a reviewer. Please also indicate whether you already have a copy of the book or will need one if you are selected. The author's article-length precis of the book is available for inspection by anonymous ftp according to the instructions that follow after the abstract. ____________________________________________________________________ BBS Multiple Book Review of: BEYOND MODULARITY: A DEVELOPMENTAL PERSPECTIVE ON COGNITIVE SCIENCE Cambridge, MA: MIT Press 1992 (234 pp.) Annette Karmiloff-Smith Cognitive Development Unit, Medical Research Council, 4 Taviton Street, London WC1H 0BT, U.K. Electronic Mail: annette@cdu.ucl.ac.uk KEYWORDS: cognitive development, connectionism, constructivism, developmental stages, Fodor, modularity, nativism, Piaget, representational redescription, species differences. ABSTRACT: Beyond Modularity attempts a synthesis of Fodor's anti-constructivist nativism and Piaget's anti-nativist constructivism. Contra Fodor, I argue that: (1) the study of cognitive development is essential to cognitive science, (2) the module/central processing dichotomy is too rigid, and (3) the mind does not begin with prespecified modules, but that development involves a gradual process of modularization. Contra Piaget, I argue that: (1) development rarely involves stage-like domain-general change, and (2) domain-specific predispositions give development a small but significant kickstart by focusing the infant's attention on proprietary inputs. Development does not stop at efficient learning. A fundamental aspect of human development ("Representational Redescription") is the hypothesized process by which information that is IN a cognitive system becomes progressively explicit knowledge TO that system. Development thus involves two complementary processes of progressive modularization and rendering explicit. Empirical findings on the child as linguist, physicist, mathematician, psychologist and notator are discussed in support of the theoretical framework. Each chapter concentrates first on the initial state of the infant mind/brain and on subsequent domain-specific learning in infancy and early childhood. They then go on to explore data on older children's problem solving and theory building, with particular focus on evolving cognitive flexibility. Throughout the book there is an emphasis on the status of representations underlying different capacities and on the multiple levels at which knowledge is stored and accessible. Finally, consideration is given to the need for more formal developmental models, and the Representational Redescription framework is compared with connectionist simulations of development. The concluding sections consider what is special about human cognition and offer some speculations about the status of representations underlying the structure of behavior in other species. -------------------------------------------------------------- To help you decide whether you would be an appropriate reviewer for this book, an electronic precis is retrievable by anonymous ftp from princeton.edu according to the instructions below (the filename is bbs.karmsmith). Please let us know, after having inspected it, what relevant expertise you feel you would bring to bear on what aspect of the article. Note that only the book, not the Precis, is the object of the reviews. ------------------------------------------------------------- To retrieve a file by ftp from a Unix/Internet site, type either: ftp princeton.edu or ftp 128.112.128.1 When you are asked for your login, type: anonymous Enter password as per instructions (make sure to include the specified @), and then change directories with: cd /pub/harnad/BBS To show the available files, type: ls Next, retrieve the file you want with (for example): get bbs.karmsmith or get bbs.wilson When you have the file(s) you want, type: quit In case of doubt or difficulty, consult your system manager. A more elaborate version of these instructions for the U.K. is available on request (thanks to Brian Josephson)> These files can also be retrieved using gopher, archie, veronica, etc. ---------- Where the above procedures are not available (e.g. from Bitnet or other networks), there are two fileservers: ftpmail@decwrl.dec.com and bitftp@pucc.bitnet that will do the transfer for you. To one or the other of them, send the following one line message: help for instructions (which will be similar to the above, but will be in the form of a series of lines in an email message that ftpmail or bitftp will then execute for you). ----------------------------------------------------------- INDEX FOR PSYCOLOQUY Volume 4 1993 (Jan - Dec) (Items 1 - 65) Note that the filename for retrieving each item is the last line of each entry. Filenames are of the form: psyc.93.4.x.topicname.y.authorname This refers to the x'th item in 1993 Volume 4 for the y'th item on that topic (whose discussion may have begun in a prior year and Volume). ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Singer M. Minimalism: A hedged analysis of restricted inference processing PSYCOLOQUY 4(1) Wednesday 10 February 1993 psyc.93.4.1.reading-inference.2.singer Keenan JM. Thoughts about the minimalist hypothesis PSYCOLOQUY 4(2) Wednesday 10 February 1993 psyc.93.4.2.reading-inference.3.keenan Zwann RA & Graesser AC. Reading goals and situation models PSYCOLOQUY 4(3) Thursday 11 February 1993 psyc.93.4.3.reading-inference.4.zwaan Zwann RA & Graesser AC. There is no empirical evidence that some inferences are automatically or partially encoded in text compreshension PSYCOLOQUY 4(4) Thursday 11 February 1993 psyc.93.4.4.reading-inference.5.zwaan Haberlandt K. Understanding mental models and inferences PSYCOLOQUY 4(5) Thursday 11 February 1993 psyc.93.4.5.reading-inference.6.haberlandt Carreiras M. Minimalist misconceptions of mental models PSYCOLOQUY 4(6) Thursday 11 February 1993 psyc.93.4.6.reading-inference.7.carreiras Fernandez A & Carriedo N. Reading comprehension: in defense of a mental model approach PSYCOLOQUY 4(7) Thursday 11 February 1993 psyc.93.4.7.reading-inference.8.fernandez Noordman LGM & Vonk W. A more parsimonious version of minimalism in inferences PSYCOLOQUY 4(8) Thursday 11 February 1993 psyc.93.4.8.reading-inference.9.noordman Abbruzzese M, Ferri S, Bellodi L, & Scarone S. Frontal lobe dysfunction in mental illness. PSYCOLOQUY 4(9) Sunday 21 February 1993 psyc.93.4.9.frontal-cortex.1.abbruzzese Pietroski PM. Fodor unscathed PSYCOLOQUY 4(10) Sunday 21 February 1993 psyc.93.4.10.fodor-representation.2.pietroski DeWitt R. Representation and the foundations of cognitive science PSYCOLOQUY 4(11) Sunday 21 February 1993 psyc.93.4.11.fodor-representation.3.dewitt Davis H & Balfour D. Precis of: The inevitable Bond PSYCOLOQUY 4(12) Sunday 21 February 1993 psyc.93.4.12.human-animal-bond.1.davis Bryant DJ. Multiple frames of reference. PSYCOLOQUY, 4(13) Sunday 21 February 1993 psyc.93.4.13.space.13.bryant Fetzer JH. Van Brakel's position appears to be incoherent PSYCOLOQUY, 4(14) Friday 12 March 1993 psyc.93.4.14.frame-problem.4.fetzer Neafsey EJ. Frontal cortex, the mind, and the body PSYCOLOQUY 4(15) Saturday 20 March 1993 psyc.93.4.15.frontal-cortex.2.neafsey Garnham A. Dichotomy or not dichotomy?: That is the question PSYCOLOQUY 4(16) Sunday 21 March 1993 psyc.93.4.16.reading-inference.10.garnham Garnham A. An impartial view of inference making PSYCOLOQUY 4(17) Sunday 21 March 1993 psyc.93.4.17.reading-inference.11.garnham Wallis CS. Mental representation and cognitive science PSYCOLOQUY 4(18) Sunday 21 March 1993 psyc.93.4.18.fodor-representation.4.wallis Mortensen C & O'Brien G. Representation and causal asymmetry PSYCOLOQUY 4(19) Sunday 21 March 1993 psyc.93.4.19.fodor-representation.5.mortensen Small JP. Visual display of text affects visual display of recall: Evidence from antiquity PSYCOLOQUY 4(20) Sunday 21 March 1993 psyc.93.4.20.reading.12.small Hayes P. Effective descriptions need not be complete PSYCOLOQUY 4(21) Monday 22 March 1993 psyc.93.4.21.frame-problem.5.ford+hayes Hayes P. & Ford K. Problems with frames PSYCOLOQUY 4(22) Monday 22 March 1993 psyc.93.4.22.frame-problem.6.ford+hayes Van Brakel J. Unjustified coherence PSYCOLOQUY 4(23) Monday 22 March 1993 psyc.93.4.23.frame-problem.7.vanbrakel Grush R. Van Brakel's position is perfectly coherent PSYCOLOQUY 4(24) Monday 22 March 1993 psyc.93.4.24.frame-problem.8.grush Morris RA. The changing scene PSYCOLOQUY 4(25) Monday 22 March 1993 psyc.93.4.25.frame-problem.9.morris Hardcastle VG. What counts as plausible? PSYCOLOQUY 4(26) Thursday 25 March 1993 psyc.93.4.26.categorization.2.hardcastle Gregson RAM. Networks that respect psychophyiology PSYCOLOQUY 4(27) Thursday 25 March 1993 psyc.93.4.27.categorization.3.gregson Krakauer DC & Houston AI. Evolution, learning, and categorization PSYCOLOQUY 4(28) Thursday 25 March 1993 psyc.93.4.28.categorization.4.krakauer Sloman S. Modularity of mind: a question unasked PSYCOLOQUY 4(29) Thursday 25 March 1993 psyc.93.4.29.categorization.5.sloman Garnham A. Space: The final fronter? PSYCOLOQUY 4(30) Saturday 10 April 1993 psyc.93.4.30.reading-inference.12.garnham Glenberg A. Comprehension while missing the point: More on minimalism and models PSYCOLOQUY 4(31) Sunday 11 April 1993 psyc.93.4.31.reading-inference.13.glenberg Henderson L & Dittrich W. Decomposing the corpus of neuropsychological tests PSYCOLOQUY 4(32) Sunday 11 April 1993 psyc.93.4.32.frontal-cortex.3.henderson Fetzer JH. Philosophy unframed PSYCOLOQUY 4(33) Monday 12 April 1993 psyc.93.4.33.frame-problem.10.fetzer Harnad S. Problems, problems: The frame problem as a symptom of the symbol grounding problem PSYCOLOQUY 4(34) Tuesday 13 April 1993 psyc.93.4.34.frame-problem.11.harnad Levenick JA welcome change from back-propogation models of cognition PSYCOLOQUY 4(35) Saturday 17 April 1993 psyc.93.4.35.categorization.6.levenick Powers DMW. Calm, chaos and suprise! PSYCOLOQUY 4(36) Saturday 17 April 1993 psyc.93.4.36.categorization.7.powers Bekoff M. Should scientists bond with the animals who they use? Why not? PSYCOLOQUY 4(37) Saturday 17 April 1993 psyc.93.4.37.human-animal-bond.2.bekoff Shapiro K. Scientist-animal bond: Better late than never PSYCOLOQUY 4(38) Saturday 17 April 1993 psyc.93.4.38.human-animal-bond.3.shapiro Powers DMW. Time as a window on comprehension PSYCOLOQUY 4(39) Saturday 19 June 1993 psyc.93.4.39.language-comprehension.2.powers Faulkes Z. Who Watches the Watchmen? Our Animals and Ourselves PSYCOLOQUY 4(40) Wednesday 21 July 1993 psyc.93.4.40.human-animal-bond.4.faulkes Innis NK. Why Bond? PSYCOLOQUY 4(41) Wednesday 21 July 1993 psyc.93.4.41.human-animal-bond.5.innis Hayes PJ & Ford K. Modeling Our Adaptive Intelligence, Not God's PSYCOLOQUY 4(42) Wednesday 21 July 19 psyc.93.4.42.frame-problem.12.ford+hayes Scarone S & Abbruzzese M. Is It Possible to Study Brain-Mind Relationships in Psychiatry? PSYCOLOQUY 4(43) Thursday 22 July 199 psyc.93.4.43.frontal-cortex.4.abbruzzese Murre JMJ. Can We Model the Architecture of Cognition? PSYCOLOQUY 4(44) Saturday 24 July 1993 psyc.93.4.44.categorization.8.murre Wallis C. Counterfactuals, Asymmetry, and RepresentatioN PSYCOLOQUY 4(45) Saturday 24 July 1993 psyc.93.4.45.fodor-representation.6.wallis Pickering AD. Keeping CALM About Neural Networks PSYCOLOQUY 4(46) Monday 26 July 1993 psyc.93.4.46.categorization.9.pickering Aitken AM. Have Module, Need Architecture! PSYCOLOQUY 4(47) Monday 26 July 1993 psyc.93.4.47.categorization.10.aiken Zentall TR. Experimenter-Subject Interaction: A Fresh Approach PSYCOLOQUY 4(48) Tuesday 17 July 1993 psyc.93.4.48.human-animal-bond.6.zentall Koehler JJ. The Base Rate Fallacy Myth. PSYCOLOQUY 4(49) Wednesday 9 November 1993 psyc.93.4.49.base-rate.1.koehler Gregson RAM. Which Bayesian Theorem Could Be Compared With Real Behaviour? PSYCOLOQUY 4(50) Monday 22 November 1993 psyc.93.4.50.base-rate.2.gregson Koonce LL. Base-Rate Usage in Accounting. PSYCOLOQUY 4(51) Monday 22 November 1993 psyc.93.4.510.base-rate.3.koonce Puccetti R. Dennett on the Split Brain. PSYCOLOQUY 4(52) Tuesday 23 November 1993 psyc.93.4.52.split-brain.1.puccetti Sutton JP. Modularity: What Has Been Learned? PSYCOLOQUY 4(53) Sunday 28 November 1993 psyc.93.4.53.categorization.11.sutton Balfour D. & Davis H. A Positive Response to "The Inevitable Bond" Was Not Inevitable. PSYCOLOQUY 4(54) Sunday 28 November 1993 psyc.93.4.54.human-animal-bond.7.davis Rakover SS. Precis of: Metapsychology: Missing Links in Behavior, Mind, and Science. PSYCOLOQUY 4(55) Monday 29 November 1993 psyc.93.4.55.metapsychology.1.rakover Giere R. Precis of: Cognitive Models of Science PSYCOLOQUY 4(56) 1993 psyc.93.4.56.scientific-cognition.1.giere Hardcastle VG. A New Agenda for Studying Consciousness. PSYCOLOQUY 4(57) 1993 psyc.93.4.57.split-brain.2.hardcastle Leiber J. Conscience and Commissurotomy. PSYCOLOQUY 4(58) 1993 psyc.93.4.58.split-brain.3.leiber Revuonso A. Dennett and Dissociations of Consciousness. PSYCOLOQUY 4(59) 1993 psyc.93.4.59.split-brain.4.revonsuo Wright JJ, Kydd RR & Liley DTJ. On Integrating Chaotic and Linear Dynamic Models of Electrocortical Activity. PSYCOLOQUY 4(6X) 1993 psyc.93.4.60.EEG-chaos.1.wright Spellman BA. Implicit Learning of Base Rates. PSYCOLOQUY 4(61) 1993 psyc.93.4.61.base-rate.4.spellman Mortensen C, O'Brien G & Paterson B. Distinctions: Subpersonal and Subconscious PSYCOLOQUY 4(62) 1993 psyc.93.4.62.split-brain.5.mortensen Ayton P. Base Rate Neglect: An Inside View of Judgment? PSYCOLOQUY 4(63) 1993 psyc.93.4.63.base-rate.5.ayton Pessin A. One Too Many Minds? PSYCOLOQUY 4(64) 1993 psyc.93.4.64.split-brain.6.pessin Bookstein FL. Geometry as Cognition in the Natural Sciences. PSYCOLOQUY 4(65) 1993 psyc.93.4.65.scientific-cognition.2.bookstein ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Forthcoming: Nigrin A. Precis of: "Neural Networks for Pattern Recognition" PSYCOLOQUY 5(XX) 1994 psyc.94.5.XX.pattern-recognition.1.nigrin Sheets-Johnstone M. Precis of: "The Roots of Thinking" PSYCOLOQUY 5(XX) 1994 psyc.94.5.XX.evolution-thinking.1.sheets-johnstone Bogen JB. PSYCOLOQUY 5(XX) 1994 psyc.94.5.XX.split-brain.7.bogen McKenzie CRM. Base Rates Versus Prior Beliefs in Bayesian Inference. PSYCOLOQUY 5(XX) 1994 psyc.94.5.XX.base-rate.6.mckenzie Van Brakel J. Cognitive Scientism of Science. PSYCOLOQUY 5(XX) 1994 psyc.94.5.XX.scientific-cognition.3.vanbrakel Flaten MA. What Is Meant By "Reductionism"? PSYCOLOQUY 5(XX) 1994 psyc.94.5.XX.metapsychology.2.flaten Hamm RM. Underweighting of Base-Rate Information Reflects Important Difficulties People Have With Probabilistic Inference. PSYCOLOQUY 5(XX) 1994 psyc.94.5.XX.base-rate.7.hamm McCauley C. Stereotypes as Base Rate Predictions PSYCOLOQUY 5(XX) 1994 psyc.94.5.XX.base-rate.8.mccauley Bookstein FL. Partial Least Squares: A Dose-Response Model for Measurement in the Behavioral and Brain Sciences. PSYCOLOQUY 5(XX) 1994 psyc.94.5.XX.least-squares.1.bookstein 17-Jan-94 2:27:21-GMT,11850;000000000000 Received: from rutvm1.rutgers.edu by aramis.rutgers.edu (5.59/SMI4.0/RU1.5/3.08) id AA25192; Sun, 16 Jan 94 21:27:19 EST Message-Id: <9401170227.AA25192@aramis.rutgers.edu> Received: from RUTVM1.RUTGERS.EDU by RUTVM1.RUTGERS.EDU (IBM VM SMTP R1.2.1MX) with BSMTP id 6467; Sun, 16 Jan 94 21:28:30 EST Received: from RUTVM1.RUTGERS.EDU (NJE origin LISTSERV@RUTVM1) by RUTVM1.RUTGERS.EDU (LMail V1.1d/1.7f) with BSMTP id 1275; Sun, 16 Jan 1994 21:28:30 -0500 Date: Sun, 16 Jan 1994 21:26:48 -0500 Reply-To: psyc@pucc.bitnet Sender: "PSYCOLOQUY: Refereed Electronic Journal of Peer Discussion" From: Stevan Harnad Subject: psycoloquy.94.5.1.base-rate.6.mckenzie (220 lines) Comments: To: psyc@pucc.bitnet To: Multiple recipients of list PSYC psycoloquy.94.5.1.base-rate.6.mckenzie Sunday 16 January 1994 ISSN 1055-0143 (13 paragraphs, 1 note, 11 references, 214 lines) PSYCOLOQUY is sponsored by the American Psychological Association (APA) Copyright 1994 Craig McKenzie BASE RATES VERSUS PRIOR BELIEFS IN BAYESIAN INFERENCE Commentary on Koehler on Base-rate Craig R. M. McKenzie Department of Psychology University of Chicago Center for Decision Research 1101 E. 58th Street Chicago, IL 60637 fac_mckenzie@gsbvax.uchicago.edu ABSTRACT: The distinction between prior beliefs and base rates is often blurred in the literature on judgment and decision making and can account for some apparently contradictory conclusions regarding behavior in Bayesian tasks. I. INTRODUCTION 1. Bayes' theorem can be used in at least two distinct ways to study behavior. One way is to insert objective values into the theorem in order to see whether people's responses correspond to the environment, that is, maximize objective accuracy. A second way is to insert subjective values into the theorem to see whether people's responses are consistent, that is, maximize subjective accuracy. In terms of the prior probabilities in Bayes' theorem, inserting base rates (i.e., the relative frequency of an event) is appropriate in the first case, and inserting people's prior beliefs (i.e., the subjective probability of an event prior to receiving new information) is appropriate in the second. 2. However, as Koehler (1993) mentions, base rates are often equated with the prior probabilities in Bayes' theorem--despite the fact that Bayes' theorem is usually associated with subjective probability (see also Gigerenzer, in press). This commentary discusses the implications of Koehler's distinction between base rates and prior beliefs for interpreting findings in the judgment and decision making literature. II. BASE RATES VERSUS PRIOR BELIEFS 3. In their seminal paper, Kahneman and Tversky (1973) concluded that subjects ignore or underweight prior probabilities when presented with likelihood (or case-specific) information. But what did they mean by "prior probabilities?" Although they fail to distinguish between base rates and prior beliefs, I believe that they were implicitly interested in subjects' prior beliefs. I claim this on the basis of their experimental methodologies. 4. One method used by Kahneman and Tversky (1973) was to ask one group of subjects to estimate the base rates of the events in question and to ask another group to give probability estimates based on only likelihood information. If Kahneman and Tversky were interested only in whether or not people use base rates when provided with likelihood information, why did they ask a separate group of subjects for estimates of base rates? Why not simply use the objective relative frequencies as the prior probabilities? 5. A second method Kahneman and Tversky used was to provide subjects with only base-rate information for predicting some events, and with both base-rate and likelihood information for predicting other events. If Kahneman and Tversky were interested only in whether or not people use base rates when provided with likelihood information, why did they check to see whether subjects used the base rate for the base-rate-only questions? 6. The answer to these questions is that Kahneman and Tversky (1973) were implicitly interested in studying prior beliefs, not base rates per se. It was important to Kahneman and Tversky's point that, for example, subjects used the base rates when presented with the base-rate-only questions. Base rates were meant only as proxies for subjects' prior beliefs. 7. Does this mean, then, that Kahneman and Tversky (1973) provide evidence that subjects ignore their prior beliefs? I don't think so. I believe that the assumptions behind both methods for discovering whether people ignore or underweight their prior beliefs are wrong (or at least not always right). The first method equates base rates (albeit subjective) with prior beliefs. It is not clear that the likelihood group ever held the estimated base rates as prior beliefs. For that matter, it's not even clear that the base-rate group's estimates would be equivalent to their prior beliefs. For example, though I may believe that there are 80% Blue cabs in the city, my prior belief that a cab involved in an accident was Blue may be higher or lower than 80% if I think that Blue cab drivers are more or less reckless than others. Even in a within-subjects experiment, it cannot be assumed that estimated base rates correspond to prior beliefs. 8. The second method assumes that the task involving both base-rate and likelihood information is identical to the base-rate-only task (in which subjects tend to use the base rate), with the added step of processing the likelihood information. However, there is no evidence that I know of showing that subjects, who are simultaneously shown both likelihood and base-rate information and then appear to ignore the base rate, ever instantiate the base rate as a prior belief. Under such conditions, subjects often consider the base rate irrelevant (Lyon & Slovic, 1976). Here, then, base rates are clearly not prior beliefs. 9. What was needed was a two-stage task that first provided subjects with base-rate information and asked for a prior probability, then provided them with likelihood information and asked for a posterior probability. To the best of my knowledge, it was 10 years after the first studies showing base-rate neglect before subjects were presented with such a task (Beyth-Marom & Fischhoff, 1983). As Koehler (1993) states, more than a third of the subjects did not report the base rate after the first stage. Base rates are not equivalent to prior beliefs. 10. Interestingly, studies subsequent to Kahneman and Tversky (1973) switched from viewing base rates as a means of examining prior beliefs to a concern for base rates per se (e.g., Bar-Hillel, 1980; Lyon & Slovic, 1976; Tversky & Kahneman, 1982). However, there was never any mention of the shift in focus; it was as though the later studies were simply extensions of the first. This, I think, is further evidence of the failure to distinguish between base rates and prior beliefs. Base rates became synonymous with the prior probabilities in Bayes' theorem, and ignoring or underweighting them was tantamount to being "non- Bayesian" (Bar-Hillel, 1980, p. 225). 11. So, what happens when people's prior beliefs rather than base rates are equated with the prior probabilities in Bayes' theorem? The results are strikingly different. Consider the dominant paradigm for studying Bayesian thinking before the heuristics-and-biases paradigm, namely, the book-bag-and-poker-chip experiments of the 1960s. These tasks were often belief-updating tasks; subjects updated probability estimates for the same hypothesis multiple times as new information was received. Here, the posterior probability given for response n becomes the prior probability for response n+1. After the first response, then, the prior probability is given by the subject to the experimenter rather than by the experimenter to the subject; it is therefore a prior belief. The typical finding (Edwards, 1968) was that people were "conservative," that is, they did not move far enough away from their prior beliefs--exactly the opposite of what is found from studies supplying subjects with base rates. 12. Indeed, in one form of Hogarth and Einhorn's (1992) belief-updating model, response n is the reference point for encoding incoming evidence for response n+1 (see also Anderson, 1981). That is, new evidence is evaluated in terms of whether it is stronger or weaker than the current position (i.e., prior belief), and confidence is shifted in that direction [see ENDNOTE #1]. Far from being ignored, prior beliefs play a focal role in such models. The distinction between base rates and prior beliefs is an important one. III. CONCLUSION 13. The distinction between base rates and prior beliefs has often been blurred in the judgment and decision-making literature, leading to contradictory conclusions regarding Bayesian behavior. Studies equating base rates with the prior probabilities in Bayes' theorem often conclude that subjects ignore or underweight the priors, while studies equating prior beliefs with the prior probabilities often conclude that people weight priors too heavily. Both interpretations of the prior probabilities in Bayes' theorem are interesting and important for studying behavior. But performance in one task may be completely independent of performance in the other, and neither can claim to be The Bayesian Task. IV. ENDNOTE #1. An interesting implication of such "averaging" of the prior and likelihood information is that, when presented with strong support for a hypothesis followed by weak support for the same hypothesis, confidence decreases, though Bayes' theorem prescribes an increase (Hogarth & Einhorn, 1992). Nonetheless, the averaging strategy always supports the correct hypothesis and, when examined over a variety of conditions, it leads to responses that are virtually perfectly correlated with the normative Bayesian response (McKenzie, in press). V. REFERENCES Anderson, N.H. (1981). Foundations of Information Integration Theory. New York: Academic Press. Bar-Hillel, M. (1980). The Base-rate Fallacy in Probability Judgments. Acta Psychologica, 44, 211-233. Beyth-Marom, R., & Fischhoff, B. (1983). Diagnosticity and Pseudo-diagnosticity. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 45, 1185-1195. Edwards, W. (1968). Conservatism in Human Information Processing. In B. Kleinmuntz (Ed.), Formal Representation of Human Judgment (pp. 17-52). New York: Wiley. Gigerenzer, G. (in press). Why the Distinction Between Single-event Probabilities and Frequencies is Important for Psychology (and vice versa). In G. Wright & P. Ayton (Eds.), Subjective Probability. New York: Wiley. Hogarth, R.M., & Einhorn, H.J. (1992). Order Effects in Belief- updating: The Belief-adjustment Model. Cognitive Psychology, 24, 1-55. Kahneman, D., & Tversky, A. (1973). On the Psychology of Prediction. Psychological Review, 80, 237-251. Koehler. J.J. (1993). The Base Rate Fallacy Myth. PSYCOLOQUY 4(49) base-rate.1.koehler. Lyon, D., & Slovic, P. (1976). Dominance of Accuracy Information and Neglect of Base Rates in Probability Estimation. Acta Psychologica, 40, 287-298. McKenzie, C.R.M. (in press). The Accuracy of Intuitive Judgment Strategies: Covariation Assessment and Bayesian Inference. Cognitive Psychology. Tversky, A., & Kahneman, D. (1982). Evidential Impact of Base Rates. In D. Kahneman, P. Slovic, & A. Tversky (Eds.), Judgment under Uncertainty: Heuristics and Biases (pp. 153-160). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 17-Jan-94 3:33:49-GMT,27466;000000000000 Received: from rutvm1.rutgers.edu by aramis.rutgers.edu (5.59/SMI4.0/RU1.5/3.08) id AA28746; Sun, 16 Jan 94 22:33:47 EST Message-Id: <9401170333.AA28746@aramis.rutgers.edu> Received: from RUTVM1.RUTGERS.EDU by RUTVM1.RUTGERS.EDU (IBM VM SMTP R1.2.1MX) with BSMTP id 6557; Sun, 16 Jan 94 22:34:59 EST Received: from RUTVM1.RUTGERS.EDU (NJE origin LISTSERV@RUTVM1) by RUTVM1.RUTGERS.EDU (LMail V1.1d/1.7f) with BSMTP id 1604; Sun, 16 Jan 1994 22:34:58 -0500 Date: Sun, 16 Jan 1994 22:33:13 -0500 Reply-To: psyc@pucc.bitnet Sender: "PSYCOLOQUY: Refereed Electronic Journal of Peer Discussion" From: Stevan Harnad Subject: psycoloquy.93.4.2.pattern-recognition.1.nigrin (474 lines) Comments: To: psyc@pucc.bitnet To: Multiple recipients of list PSYC psycoloquy.93.4.2.pattern-recognition.1.nigrin Sunday 16 January 1994 ISSN 1055-0143 (34 paragraphs, 1 appendix, 1 table, 6 refs, 468 lines) PSYCOLOQUY is sponsored by the American Psychological Association (APA) Copyright 1994 Albert Nigrin Precis of: NEURAL NETWORKS FOR PATTERN RECOGNITION Albert Nigrin (1993) 8 chapters, 413 pages, Cambridge MA: The MIT Press Albert Nigrin Department of Computer Science and Information Systems The American University 4400 Massachusetts Avenue NW Washington DC 20016-8116 (202) 885-3145 [fax (202) 885-3155] nigrin@american.edu ABSTRACT: This Precis provides an overview of the book "Neural Networks for Pattern Recognition." First, it presents a list of properties that the author believes autonomous pattern classifiers should achieve. (These thirteen properties are also briefly discussed at the end.) It then describes the evolution of a self-organizing neural network called SONNET that was designed to satisfy those properties. It details the organization of (1) tutorial chapters that describe previous work; (2) chapters that present working neural networks for the context sensitive recognition of both spatial and temporal patterns; and (3) chapters that reorganize the mechanisms for competition to allow future networks to deal with synonymous and homonymic patterns in a distributed fashion. KEYWORDS: context sensitivity, machine learning, neural networks, pattern recognition, self-organization, synonymy 1. This book presents a self-organizing neural network called SONNET that has been designed to perform real-time pattern recognition. The book attempts to discover, through gedanken experiments, the fundamental properties that any pattern classifier should satisfy (see Table 1 and Appendix A below). It then proceeds to construct, step by step, a new neural network framework to achieve these properties. Although the framework described has not yet been fully implemented, a prototype network called SONNET 1 does exist. Simulations show that SONNET 1 can be used as a general purpose pattern classifier that can learn to recognize arbitrary spatial patterns (static patterns as in a snapshot) and segment temporal patterns (changing patterns as in speech) in an unsupervised fashion. Furthermore, SONNET 1 can learn new patterns without degrading the representations of previously classified patterns, even when patterns are allowed to be embedded within larger patterns. 2. The book can be subdivided into three major sections. The first section provides an introduction to neural networks for a general audience and presents the previous work upon which SONNET is based. The second section describes the structure of SONNET 1 and presents simulations to illustrate the operation of the network. And the third section describes a reorganization of the competitive structure of SONNET 1 to create more powerful networks that will achieve additional important properties. 3. The first segment consists of Chapters 1 and 2. After presenting a simplified network to introduce the subject to novices, Chapter 1 presents one possible definition for neural networks and an approach to designing them. The chapter then describes many of the fundamental properties that a neural network should achieve when it is being used for pattern classification. These properties are listed in Table 1 (reproduced from Nigrin, 1993) and are each briefly discussed in Appendix A below. _________________________________________________________________________ | | | A classification system should be able to: | | | | 1) self-organize using unsupervised learning. | | 2) form stable category codes. | | 3) operate under the presence of noise. | | 4) operate in real-time. | | 5) perform fast and slow learning. | | 6) scale well to large problems. | | 7) use feedback expectancies to bias classifications. | | 8) create arbitrarily coarse or tight classifications | | that are distortion insensitive. | | 9) perform context-sensitive recognition. | | 10) process multiple patterns simultaneously. | | 11) combine existing representations to create categories | | for novel patterns. | | 12) perform synonym processing. | | 13) unlearn or modify categories when necessary. | | | | TABLE 1 | |_______________________________________________________________________| 4. I believe that before one can construct (or understand) autonomous agents that can operate in real-world environments, one must design classification networks that satisfy all of the properties in Table 1. It is not easy to see how any of these properties could be pushed off to other components in a system, regardless of whether the architecture is used to classify higher level structures such as sentences or visual scenes, or lower level structures such as phonemes or feature detectors. For example, consider the problem of modeling language acquisition and recognition. It is illuminating to attempt to push off any of the above properties to a subsystem other than the classifying system and still account for human behavior without resorting to a homunculus or to circular arguments. 5. With a description of the goals for the book in hand, Chapter 2 begins the process of describing neural network mechanisms for achieving them. Chapter 2 presents a tutorial overview of the foundations underlying the neural networks in the book. The book presents only those mechanisms that are essential to SONNET. Alternative approaches such as backpropagation, Hopfield networks, or Kohonen networks are not discussed. The discourse begins at the level of the building blocks and discusses basic components such as cells and weights. It then describes some essential properties that must be achieved in short term memory (STM) and long term memory (LTM) and presents architectures that achieve them. 6. Chapter 2 also discusses how to incorporate these architectures into different networks. The two major networks described in the chapter are the ART networks of Carpenter and Grossberg (1987a, 1987b) and the masking field networks of Cohen and Grossberg (1986, 1987). The ART networks completely or partially achieve many important properties. They can self-organize using unsupervised learning; form stable category codes; operate in noise; operate in real-time; perform fast or slow learning; use feedback; and create tight or coarse classifications. The masking field is also an important architecture. It achieves a framework for achieving properties such as context sensitive recognition and simultaneous classification of multiple patterns. 7. After presenting the necessary groundwork, the book begins the presentation of the real-time network called SONNET, which is its main focus. Due to its complexity, the complete network has not yet been fully implemented. Instead, the implemented network contains simplifications that allowed it to be slowly built up and analyzed. These simplifications were also useful to allow the network to be completed within a reasonable time frame. However, they had the drawback of preventing the satisfaction of some important properties that will be achievable by the full network. 8. Chapter 3 presents the basic version of the model called SONNET 1, as it pertains to spatial patterns. This network merged the properties of the ART networks with those of the masking field networks. SONNET 1 either partially or totally achieved all but four of the properties listed in Table 1. (It did not use feedback, form distributed categories, perform synonym processing or unlearn classifications.) After the network is described, simulations are presented that show its behavior. Furthermore, simple improvements are described that could increase network performance. 9. To allow SONNET 1 to achieve these properties, several novel features were incorporated into the network. These included (among others) the following: (1) The network used a non-linear summing rule to allow the classifying nodes to reach decisions in real-time. This non-linear rule was similar to those found in networks using sigma-pi units. (2) A learning rule was used to allow the inhibitory weights to self-organize so that classifying nodes only competed with other nodes that represented similar patterns. This allowed the network to classify multiple patterns simultaneously. (3) Each node encoded two independent values in its output signal. The first output value represented the activity of the cell while the second value represented a confidence value that indicated how well the cell represented the input. The use of two output values allowed the network to form stable categories, even when input patterns were embedded within larger patterns. 10. Chapter 4 incorporates SONNET 1 into a framework that allows it to process temporal patterns. This chapter has several aspects. First, it shows how to design input fields that convert temporal sequences of events into classifiable spatial patterns of activity. Then, it describes how the use of feedback expectancies can help segment the sequences into reasonable length lists, and allow arbitrarily long sequences of events to be processed. 11. After describing the network, Chapter 4 presents simulations that show its operation. One of the simulations consisted of presenting the following list to the network, where each number refers to a specific input line. The list was presented by activating each input line for a constant period of time upon the presentation of its item. After the last item in the list was presented, the first item was immediately presented again, with no breaks between any of the items. 0 1 2 3 4 5 24 25 26 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 10 11 12 13 24 25 26 14 15 16 0 1 2 17 18 19 24 25 26 20 21 22 23 12. In this list, items (0,1,2) and (24,25,26) appear in three different contexts. Because of this, the network learned to create categories for those lists and to segment them accordingly. Thus, it learned in a real-time environment. It was also clear that it performed classifications in real-time since each of the lists was classified approximately 2 items after it had been fully presented. For example, if the list 22 23 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 was presented, the list (0,1,2) would be classified while item 4 or 5 was being presented. Simulations have shown that the amount of equilibration time needed for classification would not increase significantly, even if multiple similar patterns were classified by the network. 13. Chapter 5 continues to discuss the classification of temporal patterns. (However, many elements in this chapter are also applicable to purely spatial patterns.) The chapter shows how to cascade multiple homologous layers to create a hierarchy of representations. It also shows how to use feedback to bias the network in favor of expected occurrences and how to use a nonspecific attention signal to increase the power of the network. As is the case with the networks in later chapters, these proposed modifications are presented but not simulated. 14. One major limitation of the networks presented in Chapters 4 and 5 is that items can be presented only once within a classified list. For example, the list $ABC$ can be classified by the network, but the list $ABA$ cannot, since the $A$ occurs repeatedly. This deficiency is due to the simplifications that were made in the construction of SONNET 1. To overcome this and other weaknesses, the simplifications needed to be removed. 15. This is accomplished in Chapter 6, which presents a gedanken experiment analyzing the way repeated items in a list could be properly represented and classified. The chapter begins by showing that multiple representations of the same item are needed to allow the network to unambiguously represent the repeated occurrence of an item. It then analyzes methods by which the classifying system could learn to classify lists composed of these different representations. 16. During this gedanken experiment, it quickly became clear that the problem of classifying repeated items in a list was actually a subproblem of a more general one, called the synonym problem: Often, different input representations actually refer to the same concept and should therefore be treated by classifying cells as equivalent. However, the problem is complicated by the fact that sometimes different patterns refer to the same concept while sometimes the same pattern may have multiple meanings (homonyms). 17. To address the synonym problem, Chapter 6 presents a way to radically alter the method of competition between categories. In SONNET 1 (as in most competitive networks), classifying nodes compete with each other for the right to classify signals on active input lines. Conversely, in the altered network, it is the input lines that will compete with each other, and they will do so for the right to activate their respective classifying nodes. The principles in Chapter 6 are far and away the most important new contribution in this book. 18. After showing how synonyms could be learned and represented, Chapter 6 also discusses general mechanisms for creating distributed representations. These mechanisms were designed to allow existing representations to combine in STM (short-term memory) to temporarily represent novel patterns. They were also designed to allow the novel categories to be permanently bound in LTM (long-term memory). 19. After establishing the new mechanisms and principles in Chapter 6, these mechanisms are used in Chapter 7 to create specific architectures that tackle previously unsolved problems. The first section discusses the first implementation of SONNET that uses competition between links rather than nodes; it and shows how multiple patterns could be learned simultaneously. To complement the discussion in the previous chapter, the discussion here is as specific as possible (given that the network was yet to be implemented). The second section discusses how the new formulation could allow networks to solve the twin problems of translation and size invariant recognition of objects. This shows how the new mechanisms could be used to solve an important previously unresolved issue. 20. Finally, Chapter 8 concludes the book. It describes which properties have already been satisfied by SONNET 1, which properties can be satisfied by simple extensions to SONNET 1, and which properties must wait until future versions of SONNET are implemented. This chapter gives the reader a good indication of the current state of the network and also indicates areas for future research. 21. The following briefly summarizes thirteen properties that SONNET is meant to satisfy. Although it is possible to find examples in many different areas to motivate each of the following properties, the examples are mainly chosen from the area of natural language processing. This is done because the problems in this area are the easiest to describe and are often the most compelling. However, the reader should keep in mind that equivalent properties also exist in other domains and that, at least initially, SONNET is meant to be used primarily for lower level classification problems. 22. The first property is that a neural network should self-organize using unsupervised learning. It should form its own categories in response to the invariances in the environment. This allows the network to operate in an autonomous fashion and is important because in many areas, such as lower level perception, no external teacher is available to guide the system. Furthermore, as shown in the ARTMAP network (Carpenter, Grossberg, and Reynolds, 1991), it is often the case that if a network can perform unsupervised learning then it can also be embedded in a framework that allows it to perform supervised learning (but not the reverse). 23. The second property is that a neural network should form stable category codes. Thus, a neural network should learn new categories without degrading previous categories it has established. Networks that achieve this property can operate using both fast and slow learning (see fifth property). Conversely, those that do not are restricted to using slow learning. In addition, networks that don't form stable category codes must shut off learning at some point in time to prevent the degradation of useful categories. 24. The third property is that neural networks should operate in the presence of noise. This is necessary to allow them to operate in real-world environments. Noise can occur in three different areas. It can be present within an object, within the background of an object, and within the components of the system. A network must handle noise in all of these areas. 25. The fourth property is that a neural network should operate in real-time. There are several aspects to this. The first and most often recognized is that a net must equilibrate at least as fast as the patterns appear. However, there are several additional aspects to this property. First, in many applications, such as speech recognition and motion detection, a network should not equilibrate too rapidly, but at a pace that matches the evolution of the patterns. Second, in real-world environments, events do not come pre-labeled with markers designating the beginnings and endings of the events. Instead, the networks themselves must determine the beginning and end to each event and act accordingly. 26. The fifth property is that a neural network should perform fast and slow learning. A network should perform fast learning to allow it to classify patterns as quickly as a single trial when it is clear exactly what should be learned and it is important that the network learn quickly. (For example, one should not have to touch a hot stove 500 times before learning one will be burnt.) Furthermore, a network should also perform slow learning to allow it to generalize over multiple different examples. 27. The sixth property is that a neural network should scale well to large problems. There are at least two aspects to this property. First, as the size of a problem grows, the size of the required network should not grow too quickly. (While modularity may help in this respect, it is not a panacea, because of problems with locality and simultaneous processing.) Second, as the number of different patterns in a training set increases, the number of required presentations for each pattern (to obtain successful classifications) should not increase too rapidly. 28. The seventh property is that a neural network should use feedback expectancies to bias classifications. This is necessary because it is often ambiguous how to bind features into a category unless there is some context with which to place the features. 29. The eighth property is that a neural network should create arbitrarily coarse or tight classifications that are distortion insensitive. Patterns in a category often differ from the prototype (average) of the category. A network should vary the acceptable distortion from the prototype in at least two ways. It should globally vary the acceptable overall error. It should also allow different amounts of variance at different dimensions of the input pattern (the different input lines). This would allow the network to create categories that are more complex than just the nearest neighbor variety. 30. The ninth property is that a neural network should perform context-sensitive recognition. Two aspects of this will be discussed here. First, a network should learn and detect patterns that are embedded within extraneous information. For example, if the patterns SEEITRUN, ITSAT, and MOVEIT are presented, a network should establish a category for IT and later recognize the pattern when it appears within extraneous information. The second aspect occurs when a smaller classified pattern is embedded within a larger classified pattern. Then, the category for the smaller pattern should be turned off when the larger pattern is classified. For example, if a network has a category for a larger word like ITALY, then the category for IT should be turned off when the larger word is presented. Otherwise the category for IT would lose much of its predictive power, because it would learn the contexts of many non-related words such as HIT, KIT, SPIT, FIT, LIT, SIT, etc. 31. The tenth property is that a neural network should process multiple patterns simultaneously. This is important, because objects in the real world do not appear in isolation. Instead, scenes are cluttered with multiple objects that often overlap. To have any hope of segmenting a scene in real time, multiple objects often need to be classified in parallel. Furthermore, the parallel classifications must interact with one another, since it is often true that the segmentation for an object can only be determined by defining it in relation to other objects in the field. (Thus, it is not sufficient to use multiple stand-alone systems that each attempt to classify a single object in some selected portion of the input field.) The easiest modality in which to observe this is continuous speech, which often has no clear breaks between any words. (However, analogous situations also occur in vision.) For example, when the phrase ALL TURN TO THE SPEAKER is spoken, there is usually no break in the speech signal between the words ALL and TURN. Still, those words are perceived, rather than the embedded word ALTER. This can only be done by processing multiple patterns simultaneously, since the word ALTER by itself would overshadow both ALL and TURN. 32. The eleventh property is that a neural network should combine existing representations to create categories for novel patterns. These types of representations are typically called distributed ones. A network must form temporary representations in short term memory (STM) and also permanent iones in long term memory (LTM). Distributed representations are useful because they can reduce hardware requirements and also allow novel patterns to be represented as a combination of constituent parts. 33. The twelfth property is that a neural network should perform synonym processing. This is true because patterns that have entirely different physical attributes often have the same meaning, while a single pattern may have multiple meanings (as in homonyms). This is especially recognized in natural language, where words like "mean" and "average" sometimes refer to the same concept, and sometimes do not. However, solving the synonym problem will also solve problems that occur in the processing of lists composed of repeated occurrences of the same symbol (consider the letters "a" and "n" in the word "banana"). This follows because the different storage locations of a symbol can be viewed as (exact) synonyms for each other and handled in exactly the same way as the general case. Synonym representation is also necessary in object recognition, manifesting itself in several different ways. First, it is possible for multiple versions of the same object to appear within a scene (similar to the problem of repeated letters in a word). Second, since an object may appear completely when viewed different from different perspectives, it is important to map the dissimilar representations of the object onto the same category. Finally, it is also possible for an object to appear in different portions of the visual field (translation-invariant recognition) or with different apparent sizes (size-invariant recognition). Despite the fact that in both cases the object will be represented by entirely different sets of cells, a network should still classify the object correctly. 34. The thirteenth property is that a neural network should unlearn or modify categories when necessary. It should modify its categories passively to allow it to track slow changes in the environment. A network should also quickly change the meanings for its categories when the environment changes and renders them either superfluous or wrong. This property is the one least that ius discussed in the book, because it is possible that much unlearning could take place under the guise of reinforcement learning. APPENDIX: Table of Contents 1 Introduction 2 Highlights of Adaptive Resonance Theory 3 Classifying Spatial Patterns 4 Classifying Temporal Patterns 5 Multilayer Networks and the Use of Attention 6 Representing Synonyms 7 Specific Architectures That Use Presynaptic Inhibition 8 Conclusion Appendices REFERENCES Carpenter, G. and Grossberg, S. 1987a. A Massively Parallel Architecture for a Self-organizing Neural Pattern Recognition Machine. Computer Vision, Graphics, and Image Processing, 37:54--115. Carpenter, G. and Grossberg, S. 1987b. ART 2: Self-organization of Stable Category Recognition Codes for Analog Input Patterns. Applied Optics, 26(23):4919--4930. Carpenter,G., Grossberg, S., and Reynolds, J. 1991. ARTMAP: Supervised Real-time Learning and Classification of Nonstationary Data by a Self-organizing Neural Network. Neural Networks, 4(5):565-588. Cohen, M. and Grossberg, S. 1986. Neural Dynamics of Speech and Language Coding: Developmental Programs, Perceptual Grouping, and Competition for Short-term Memory. Human Neurobiology, 5(1):1--22. Cohen, M. and Grossberg, S. 1987. Masking Fields: a Massively Parallel Neural Architecture for Learning, Recognizing, and Predicting Multiple Groupings of Data. Applied Optics, 26:1866--1891. Nigrin, A. 1993. Neural Networks for Pattern Recognition. The MIT Press, Cambridge MA. 17-Jan-94 3:44:10-GMT,8684;000000000000 Received: from rutvm1.rutgers.edu by aramis.rutgers.edu (5.59/SMI4.0/RU1.5/3.08) id AA29032; Sun, 16 Jan 94 22:44:09 EST Message-Id: <9401170344.AA29032@aramis.rutgers.edu> Received: from RUTVM1.RUTGERS.EDU by RUTVM1.RUTGERS.EDU (IBM VM SMTP R1.2.1MX) with BSMTP id 6586; Sun, 16 Jan 94 22:45:21 EST Received: from RUTVM1.RUTGERS.EDU (NJE origin LISTSERV@RUTVM1) by RUTVM1.RUTGERS.EDU (LMail V1.1d/1.7f) with BSMTP id 1707; Sun, 16 Jan 1994 22:45:20 -0500 Date: Sun, 16 Jan 1994 22:41:34 EST Reply-To: "PSYCOLOQUY: Refereed Electronic Journal of Peer Discussion" Sender: "PSYCOLOQUY: Refereed Electronic Journal of Peer Discussion" From: Stevan Harnad Subject: PSYC Book Review Instructions: Nigrin/Neural Nets Comments: To: PSYCOLOQUY To: Multiple recipients of list PSYC CALL FOR BOOK REVIEWERS In the previous message you received the Precis of NEURAL NETWORKS FOR PATTERN RECOGNITION, by Albert Niigrin. This book has been selected for multiple review in PSYCOLOQUY. If you wish to submit a formal book review (see Instructions following Abstract, reposted below) please write to psyc@pucc.bitnet indicating what expertise you would bring to bear on reviewing the book if you were selected to review it (if you have never reviewed for PSYCOLOQUY or Behavioral & Brain Sciences before, it would be helpful if you could also append a copy of your CV to your message). If you are selected as one of the reviewers, you will be sent a copy of the book directly by the publisher (please let us know if you have a copy already). Reviews may also be submitted without invitation, but all reviews will be refereed. The author will reply to all accepted reviews. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- psycoloquy.93.4.2.pattern-recognition.1.nigrin Sunday 16 January 1994 Precis of: NEURAL NETWORKS FOR PATTERN RECOGNITION Albert Nigrin (1993) 8 chapters, 413 pages, Cambridge MA: The MIT Press Albert Nigrin Department of Computer Science and Information Systems The American University 4400 Massachusetts Avenue NW Washington DC 20016-8116 (202) 885-3145 [fax (202) 885-3155] nigrin@american.edu ABSTRACT: This Precis provides an overview of the book "Neural Networks for Pattern Recognition." First, it presents a list of properties that the author believes autonomous pattern classifiers should achieve. (These thirteen properties are also briefly discussed at the end.) It then describes the evolution of a self-organizing neural network called SONNET that was designed to satisfy those properties. It details the organization of (1) tutorial chapters that describe previous work; (2) chapters that present working neural networks for the context sensitive recognition of both spatial and temporal patterns; and (3) chapters that reorganize the mechanisms for competition to allow future networks to deal with synonymous and homonymic patterns in a distributed fashion. KEYWORDS: context sensitivity, machine learning, neural networks, pattern recognition, self-organization, synonymy -------------------------------------------------------------------- PSYCOLOQUY Book Review Instructions The PSYCOLOQUY book review procedure is very similar to the commentary procedure except that it is the book itself, not a target article, that is under review. (The Precis summarizing the book is intended to permit PSYCOLOQUY readers who have not read the book to assess the exchange, but the reviews should address the book, not primarily the Precis.) 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However, except in very special cases, agreed upon in advance, contributions that have already been published or are being considered for publication elsewhere are not eligible to be considered for publication in PSYCOLOQUY, Please submit all material to psyc@pucc.bitnet or psyc@pucc.princeton.edu Anonymous ftp archive is DIRECTORY pub/harnad/Psycoloquy HOST princeton.edu 17-Jan-94 4:35:13-GMT,18197;000000000000 Received: from rutvm1.rutgers.edu by aramis.rutgers.edu (5.59/SMI4.0/RU1.5/3.08) id AA02203; Sun, 16 Jan 94 23:35:11 EST Message-Id: <9401170435.AA02203@aramis.rutgers.edu> Received: from RUTVM1.RUTGERS.EDU by RUTVM1.RUTGERS.EDU (IBM VM SMTP R1.2.1MX) with BSMTP id 6677; Sun, 16 Jan 94 23:36:24 EST Received: from RUTVM1.RUTGERS.EDU (NJE origin LISTSERV@RUTVM1) by RUTVM1.RUTGERS.EDU (LMail V1.1d/1.7f) with BSMTP id 1994; Sun, 16 Jan 1994 23:36:23 -0500 Date: Sun, 16 Jan 1994 23:34:43 -0500 Reply-To: psyc@pucc.bitnet Sender: "PSYCOLOQUY: Refereed Electronic Journal of Peer Discussion" From: Stevan Harnad Subject: psycoloquy.94.5.3.base-rate.7.hamm (347 lines) Comments: To: psyc@pucc.bitnet To: Multiple recipients of list PSYC psycoloquy.94.5.3.base-rate.7.hamm Sunday 16 January 1994 ISSN 1055-0143 (16 paragraphs, 34 references, 341 lines) PSYCOLOQUY is sponsored by the American Psychological Association (APA) Copyright 1994 Robert M. Hamm UNDERWEIGHTING OF BASE-RATE INFORMATION REFLECTS IMPORTANT DIFFICULTIES PEOPLE HAVE WITH PROBABILISTIC INFERENCE Commentary on Koehler on Base-Rate Robert M. Hamm Clinical Decision Making Program Department of Family Medicine University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center Oklahoma City OK 73190 USA rob-hamm@@uokhsc.edu ABSTRACT: I argue that people do a poor job integrating informative base rates into their decision processes. This is shown by the results of two sorts of study. First, in probabilistic inference word problems, people's interpretations of conditional probabilities are confused. Second, in studies where subjects receive a series of pieces of information and update their probabilities after each, their probability updating is inaccurate, reflecting several error-producing processes, including overweighting of most recent information, which is usually not the base-rate information. We should not ask how much this matters, without considering that experts who make consequential decisions based on their hypotheses about the state of the world usually follow rule-like scripts, rather than explicitly revise probabilities. I. INTRODUCTION 1. Koehler (1993) correctly argues that people do not completely "neglect" base rate: when asked to judge the probability that an event occurred in a particular situation, given information about the base rate of the event along with fallible information pertaining to whether the event occurred, people make some use of the base rate. Other studies showing some use of base rate that were not mentioned by Koehler include Ofir (1988) and Hamm (1987). 2. Demonstrating that "base-rate neglect" has been oversold, however, does not prove that people accurately integrate informative base rates into their decision processes. In this commentary I argue that people are indeed inaccurate when asked to revise hypothesis probabilities on the basis of evidence (Sections II and III). This is true when experts make real decisions, as well as when novices make hypothetical decisions. How do people reason in realistic situations that demand probability revision? In Section IV I consider the implications for optimal decision making of the theory that people follow "mental scripts." II. WHAT ARE PEOPLE DOING WHEN THEY NEGLECT BASE RATE? 3. Koehler shows that "base-rate neglect" is not an empirically correct description of what people do when given probabilistic inference word problems because their responses are affected by the base rate. I would add that "neglect" is not the actual psychological process. The term implies a flaw in an attentional process, so that insufficient weight is given to base-rate information. However, the largest part of the error in these word problems is due to people's lack of understanding of the meaning of the conditional probabilities in the problem. 4. The problems offer a piece of evidence (e.g., in the Blue/Green Cab problem, a witness reported that the cab involved in the night accident was blue: evidence e = "blue"), a base rate (only 15% of the cabs in the city are blue: prior p(blue) = .15), and a measure of the fallibility or reliability of the evidence (the witness, in similar conditions, was right 80% of the time: p(e/h) = p("blue"/blue) = p("green"/green) = .80). Then the question is asked ("What is the probability that the cab involved in the accident was blue, p(h/e) or p(blue/'blue')?"). A subject who does not distinguish the conditional probabilities p(e/h) [the reliability or fallibility of the evidence] and p(h/e) [the desired answer] may offer p(e/h) as the response. Indeed, in Bar-Hillel's (1980) histogram of responses, the value for p(e/h), .80, was the most frequent answer. This was observed again with several word problems by Hamm (1987, 1989). 5. People's difficulty interpreting these conditional probabilities has been offered as an explanation for their errors on probabilistic inference word problems by Dawes (1986) and Dawes, Mirels, Gold, and Donahue (1993). Hamm and Miller (1988) showed, with several word problems, including the Blue/Green Cab problem, that the pattern of responses differed little whether the text of the problem offered p(e/h) or p(h/e) as the information regarding the fallibility of the evidence. Analysis of subjects' verbal protocols showed little association between the specific conditional probability concept written in the word problem and the concept used in their thinking (Hamm and Miller, 1988). 6. Eddy (1982) noted that this same confusion occurs in the professional writings of medical doctors. A more recent example in the medical research literature is an error by Bernstein, Rudolph, Pinto, Viner, and Zuckerman (1990), who reversed the sensitivity p(Test/Disease) and the positive predictive value p(Disease/Test) in interpreting their own data table, putting misleading values into the literature for subsequent meta-analyses. Penney (1992) too has demonstrated the inability of students in statistics classes to interpret the conditional probabilities in the 2 by 2 table relating evidence and hypothesis. 7. A demonstration that people confuse these conditional probabilities does not fully explain how people think about probabilistic inference. It is not simply that they apply Bayes' Theorem correctly with the sole exception that they mistake the one conditional probability for the other (Pollatsek, Well, Konold, Hardiman, and Cobb, 1987; Hamm, 1987; Hamm, 1993). III. RESULTS FROM THE PROBABILITY UPDATING RESEARCH 8. Further evidence on what people do when given fallible evidence pertinent to a hypothesis comes from those studies on probability updating in which a sequence of information is given and the subject revises p(h) after each piece. Early work in this paradigm, reviewed by Edwards (1968), most often showed conservatism (overweighting of base rate) as Ayton (1993) noted. 9. For the base-rate neglect question, the important finding from these studies (see also Hogarth and Einhorn, 1992, and Robinson and Hastie, 1985) is that the order in which people get the information makes a difference. Although it shouldn't make any difference what order they get information in, subjects usually put greater weight on the most recently received information (Adelman, Tolcott, and Bresnick, 1993, with military intelligence experts dealing with realistic military intelligence problems; Tubbs, Gaeth, Levin, and Van Osdol, 1993, with college students on everyday problems such as troubleshooting a stereo; Chapman, Bergus, Gjerde, and Elstein, 1993, with medical doctors on a realistic diagnosis problem). In more ambiguous situations the first impression had a lasting effect (Tolcott, Marvin, and Lehner, 1989). 10. Because every probability adjustment involves balancing prior probability or base rate with the implications of the new evidence, any inappropriate use of the most recent information implies, indirectly, that the base rate has been inappropriately used too. Hamm (1987) included the base-rate information in the sequence and found direct evidence that it had more influence upon subjects' final probability estimates when it was presented last. In sum, the results from this second paradigm show that people have a more fundamental problem with probabilistic inference than mere neglect of base rate or confusion of conditional probabilities. IV. EXPERTS FOLLOW SCRIPTS: IMPLICATIONS FOR PROBABILITY REVISION 11. Does it matter that people cannot accurately revise numerical probabilities (Christensen-Szalanski, 1986)? The deeper study of what people actually do, as called for by Koehler, can provide perspective. What do doctors do, for example, when ideally they should be forming hypotheses and revising hypothesis probabilities as they gather evidence? 12. It is not that they do a numerical integration more complex than Bayes' Theorem to revise probabilities (Gregson, 1993), as Hamm's (1987) explorations show. Doctors thinking aloud about cases don't even speak explicitly of probabilities (Kuipers, Moskowitz, and Kassirer, 1988), though when they are induced to do so it improves their decisions (Pozen, D'Agostino, Selker, Sytkowski, and Hood, 1984; Carter, Butler, Rogers, and Holloway, 1993). 13. Nor do doctors rely exclusively on learning probabilities from experience, like rats learning the contingencies on a lever (Spellman, 1993). While some of their knowledge is based on this kind of experience (Christensen-Szalanski and Beach, 1982; Christensen- Szalanski and Bushyhead, 1981), doctors have to know what to do with both the common diagnoses (8 out of 10) and the rare ones (1 in 10,000). Though in some situations, where people experience an event repeatedly, they can implicitly learn a base rate, in other situations, where people do not experience an event repeatedly but rather learn about it abstractly, they may also be able to take account of a base rate -- but if they cannot, the consequences may be important. 14. How, then, do doctors usually handle diagnostic problems? Experts generally organize their extensive knowledge into mental scripts (Schmidt, Norman, and Boshuizen, 1990), complex rules that function with the speed of recognition to provide responses for familiar and unfamiliar situations. Explicit calculation of Bayesian probabilities is not a strength of this type of rule (cf. Hamm, 1993). Instead, experts' accuracy may be a function of the recognition processes, which can bring ideas to mind optimally (Anderson and Milson, 1989). Or accuracy may be due to well-tuned judgment processes governing response choice (Chapter 8 of Abernathy and Hamm, 1994). 15. If doctors' scripts are used accurately, producing results similar to those that wise use of Bayes' theorem would produce, this is due not only to the feedback of experience but also to reflection and to others' criticism (Chapter 11 of Abernathy and Hamm, 1994). Any form of argument can be applied toward justifying a change in a script, including arguments based on probabilistic analysis. 16. For example, when the screening tests for HIV first came out, Meyer and Pauker (1987) warned against ignoring the base rate, i.e., against assuming that someone with no risk factors has AIDS if their screen is positive for AIDS. Guided by such explicit discussion of the probabilities, and by individual cases of people devastated by false positive HIV screens, doctors' shared scripts were adjusted until now they don't recommend that patients be screened unless there are risk factors. The "1993 script" produces behavior that is, for the most part, consistent with a Bayesian analysis. Individual doctors using the script need neither think about probabilities nor understand the Bayesian principles. They just think of the rules, or of cases in which the script is implicit (Riesbeck and Schank, 1989). Note, of course, that this scenario depends on there being someone who understands the probabilistic principles and can shape the script that everyone else will use. REFERENCES Abernathy, C.M., and Hamm, R.M. (in press, 1994). Surgical Intuition. Philadelphia, PA: Hanley and Belfus. Adelman, L., Tolcott, M.A., and Bresnick, T.A. (1993). Examining the Effect of Information Order on Expert Judgment. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 56, 348-369. Anderson, J.R., and Milson, R. (1989). Human Memory: an Adaptive Perspective. Psychological Review, 96, 783-719. Ayton, P. (1993). Base Rate Neglect: an Inside View of Judgment? Commentary on Koehler on Base-rate. PSYCOLOQUY 4(63) base-rate.5.ayton. Bar-Hillel, M. (1980). The Base-rate Fallacy in Probability Judgments. Acta Psychologica, 44, 211-233. Bernstein, L.H., Rudolph, R.A., Pinto, M.M., Viner, N., and Zuckerman, H. (1990). Medically Significant Concentrations of Prostate-specific Antigen in Serum Assessed. Clinical Chemistry, 36, 515-518. Carter, B.L., Butler, C.D., Rogers, J.C., and Holloway, R.L. (1993). Evaluation of Physician Decision Making With the Use of Prior Probabilities and a Decision-analysis Model. Archives of Family Medicine, 2, 529-534. Chapman, G.B., Bergus, G.R., Gjerde, C., and Elstein, A.S. (1993). Sources of Error in Reasoning about a Clinical Case: Clinicians as Intuitive Statisticians (Meeting Abstract). Medical Decision Making, 13, 382. Christensen-Szalanski, J.J.J. (1986). Improving the Practical Utility of Judgment Research. In B. Brehmer, H. Jungermann, P. Lourens, and G. Sevon (Eds.), New Directions in Research on Decision Making (pp. 383-410). North Holland: Elsevier Science Publishers B.V. Christensen-Szalanski, J.J.J., and Beach, L.R. (1982). Experience and the Base-rate Fallacy. Organizational Behavior and Human Performance, 29, 270-278. Christensen-Szalanski, J.J.J., and Bushyhead, J.B. (1981). Physicians' Use of Probabilistic Information in a Real Clinical Setting. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 7, 928-935. Dawes, R.M. (1986). Representative Thinking in Clinical Judgment. Clinical Psychology Review, 6, 425-441. Dawes, R.M., Mirels, H.L., Gold, E., and Donahue, E. (1993). Equating Inverse Probabilities in Implicit Personality Judgments. Psychological Science, 4, 396-400. Eddy, D.M. (1982). Probabilistic Reasoning in Clinical Medicine: Problems and Opportunities. In D. Kahneman, P. Slovic, and A. Tversky (Eds.), Judgment Under Uncertainty: Heuristics and Biases (pp. 249-267). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Edwards, W. (1968). Conservatism in Human Information Processing. In B. Kleinmuntz (Ed.), Formal Representation of Human Judgment (pp. 17-52). New York: Wiley. Gregson, R.A.M. (1993). Which Bayesian Theorem Could Be Compared With Real Behavior? Commentary on Koehler on Base-rate. PSYCOLOQUY 4(50) base-rate.2.gregson. Hamm, R.M. (1987). Diagnostic Inference: People's Use of Information in Incomplete Bayesian Word Problems. (Publication No. 87-11). Boulder, CO: Institute of Cognitive Science, University of Colorado. Hamm, R.M. (1989). People Misinterpret Conditional Probabilities: Final Report of Project Using Protocol Analysis and Process Tracing Techniques to Investigate Probabilistic Inference (Publication No. 89-4). Boulder, CO: Institute of Cognitive Science, University of Colorado. Hamm, R.M. (1993). Explanations for Common Responses to the Blue/Green Cab Probabilistic Inference Word Problem. Psychological Reports, 72, 219-242. Hamm, R.M., and Miller, M.A. (1988). Interpretation of Conditional Probabilities in Probabilistic Inference Word Problems. (Publication No. 88-15). Boulder, CO: Institute of Cognitive Science, University of Colorado. Hogarth, R.M., and Einhorn, H.J. (1992). Order Effects in Belief Updating: The Belief-adjustment Model. Cognitive Psychology, 24, 1-55. Koehler, J.J. (1993). The Base Rate Fallacy Myth. PSYCOLOQUY 4(49) base-rate.1.koehler. Kuipers, B., Moskowitz, A.J., and Kassirer, J.P. (1988). Critical Decisions Under Uncertainty: Representation and Structure. Cognitive Science, 12, 177-210. Meyer, K.B., and Pauker, S.G. (1987). Screening for HIV: Can We Afford the False Positive Rate? New England Journal of Medicine, 317, 238-241. Ofir, C. (1988). Pseudodiagnosticity in Judgment Under Uncertainty. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 42, 343-363. Penney, C.G. (1992). Why Can't My Students Understand Conditional Probability? Paper presented at annual meetings of Psychonomics Society, St. Louis. Pollatsek, A., Well, A.D., Konold, C., Hardiman, P., and Cobb, G. (1987). Understanding Conditional Probabilities. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 40, 255-269. Pozen, M.W., D'Agostino, R.B., Selker, H.P., Sytkowski, P.A., and Hood, W.B., Jr. (1984). A Predictive Instrument to Improve Coronary-care-unit Admission Practices in Acute Ischemic Heart Disease: A Prospective Multicenter Clinical Trial. New England Journal of Medicine, 310, 1273-1278. Riesbeck, C.K., and Schank, R.C. (1989). Inside Case-based Reasoning. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Publishers. Robinson, L.B., and Hastie, R. (1985). Revision of Beliefs When a Hypothesis Is Eliminated From Consideration. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 11, 443-456. Schmidt, H.G., Norman, G.R., and Boshuizen, H.P.A. (1990). A Cognitive Perspective on Medical Expertise: Theory and Implications. Academic Medicine, 65, 611-621. Spellman, B.A. (1993). Implicit Learning of Base Rates: Commentary on Koehler on Base-rate. PSYCOLOQUY 4(61) base-rate.4.spellman. Tolcott, M.A., Marvin, F.F., and Lehner, P.E. (1989). Expert Decision Making in Evolving Situations. IEEE Transactions on Systems, Man, and Cybernetics, 19, 606-615. Tubbs, R.M., Gaeth, G.J., Levin, I.P., and Van Osdol, L.A. (1993). Order Effects in Belief Updating with Consistent and Inconsistent Evidence. Journal of Behavioral Decision Making, 6, 257-269. 20-Jan-94 21:57:28-GMT,10706;000000000000 Received: from rutvm1.rutgers.edu by aramis.rutgers.edu (5.59/SMI4.0/RU1.5/3.08) id AA05422; Thu, 20 Jan 94 16:55:48 EST Message-Id: <9401202155.AA05422@aramis.rutgers.edu> Received: from RUTVM1.RUTGERS.EDU by RUTVM1.RUTGERS.EDU (IBM VM SMTP R1.2.1MX) with BSMTP id 0532; Thu, 20 Jan 94 16:56:58 EST Received: from RUTVM1.RUTGERS.EDU (NJE origin LISTSERV@RUTVM1) by RUTVM1.RUTGERS.EDU (LMail V1.1d/1.7f) with BSMTP id 5143; Thu, 20 Jan 1994 16:56:58 -0500 Date: Thu, 20 Jan 1994 16:55:13 -0500 Reply-To: psyc@pucc.bitnet Sender: "PSYCOLOQUY: Refereed Electronic Journal of Peer Discussion" From: Stevan Harnad Subject: psycoloquy.94.5.4.metapsychology.2.flaten (180 lines) Comments: To: psyc@pucc.bitnet To: Multiple recipients of list PSYC psycoloquy.94.5.4.metapsychology.2.flaten Thursday 20 January 1994 ISSN 1055-0143 (9 paragraphs, 6 references, 174 lines) PSYCOLOQUY is sponsored by the American Psychological Association (APA) Copyright 1994 Magne Arve Flaten WHAT IS MEANT BY "REDUCTIONISM"? Book Review of Rakover on Metapsychology Magne Arve Flaten Department of Psychology University of Tromso N-9037 Tromso, Norway magnef@psyk.uit.no ABSTRACT: The meaning of the term reductionism is discussed. It is argued that reductionism is one of the ways in which psychology makes progress, and philosophical arguments against reductionism seem to have little impact on research in, for example, biological psychology. 1. Rakover (1990, 1993) views philosophy and science as rooted in and mutually nourishing one another. One would like to agree, but I at the same time think that this is wishful thinking and not an actual observation. From this perspective I find his treatment of reductionism in need of comment. His views on the matter are those of a philosopher and not a researcher, and this seems to introduce problems instead of solving them. 2. Rakover refers to a philosophical school called holism that provides a historical and theoretical analysis of the way in which science actually progresses. However, it occurs to me that the subject of reductionism should have been more thoroughly dealt with, first of all because the meaning of this central concept is not clear, and second because it is one of the ways in which science progresses. 3. The psychology of learning is one area where "reductionism" is practiced. An example of this is research on classical conditioning. Pavlov (1927) observed that dogs learned to salivate to a stimulus that preceded the presentation of food; he gave generality to this finding by terming the originally neutral stimulus preceding food a conditioned stimulus (CS), the food the unconditioned stimulus (US), and the response elicited by the CS a conditioned response (CR). This relationship between stimuli and responses is called classical conditioning, and has been observed in several response systems, both somatic and autonomic, and in several species, including humans. Thus, several stimuli may serve as CSs and USs, and several responses may serve as CRs. According to some philosophers, this should be a problem for a "reduction" of classical conditioning to neurophysiology, because classical conditioning is a general or abstract concept, and thus cannot be "reduced" to one single neurophysiological mechanism. 4. Several research programs have investigated the neurophysiology and anatomy of classical conditioning, and have used different response systems (e.g., the rabbit nictitating membrane response and the gill withdrawal reflex in Aplysia) for this purpose. The neural basis of classical conditioning of the two responses mentioned here is different from what we now know, and there is probably no common mechanism in the nervous system that is responsible for classical conditioning. Thus, classical conditioning is realized by different neurophysiological mechanisms for different species, and most likely for different responses within the same species. For example, simultaneous conditioning of two different responses (blink and heart rate) in the same individual has revealed that the development of the CR is different for these responses, and may not be accounted for by a common mechanism (e.g., Powell & Levine-Bryce, 1988). 5. Does this mean that classical conditioning cannot be reduced to a neurophysiological mechanism? Yes it does. There is no single neurophysiological mechanism that can account for all instances of classical conditioning. And what are the implications of this? I see at least two: (1) classical conditioning is not one process, but several processes that had best been called by different names, since what applies to one may not apply to the others; (2) if a psychological concept cannot be given one neurophysiological meaning then it is the psychological concept that needs to be changed; and this does not mean that reductionism as a research strategy has failed or is "wrong" in some other way. The finding that two processes once called by a common name are different, since their underlying processes are different, is one of the ways in which science makes progress. 6. There is one more comment I would like to make about reductionism: the term implies that a psychological process is "reduced", that is, made less, according to my dictionary. This is a connotation of the term reductionism that is not intended. My argument here is that the term is not a good description. Let me give an example from research on classical conditioning to illustrate this. For decades classical conditioning was a description of an observation of a precisely defined relationship between stimuli and responses. The neurophysiological mechanism was hidden from view, but the aim was to describe the mechanism(s) of classical conditioning. When a description of the mechanism(s) was not available, one had to construct theories, but these were only valid as long as the mechanism was not known. A revelation of the mechanism(s) would be a description of the pathways in the nervous system activated by the stimuli, their connection, and the motor pathway. I cannot see that this "reduces," that is, makes the concept of classical conditioning less. However, I can see that it reduces the number of theories about classical conditioning, and that may be for the good. From this viewpoint the term "mechanism" should replace "reductionism," for what one ultimately looks for in psychobiological research is a mechanism to explain one's observations. 7. There are numerous observations in psychology that cannot at present be explained by a neurophysiological mechanism, to my knowledge, and an example of this is Shepard and Metzler's (1971) well-known demonstration of "mental rotation" (p. 239 in Rakover's book). Rakover argues that this finding cannot be explained unless one assumes the existence of a mental image or operation executed by a subject who is aware of what he is doing. Then he goes on to specify what a neurophysiological theory would have to describe in order to explain Shepard and Metzler's results, and his conclusion is probably that a neurophysiological theory could not explain this finding in principle, since it is a goal-directed behaviour. Rakover is right that this finding poses problems for a neurophysiological account, but then many things do, and one does not refute the possibility of a neurophysiological account for that reason. One does not solve any problems by giving a cognitive explanation of this phenomenon, since any cognitive process or structure must have a physiological or anatomical basis. I want to draw attention to an experiment performed by Hollard and Delius (1982). They did a conceptual replication of the Shepard and Metzler experiment, but with pigeons as well as humans as subjects. The pigeons were trained in a matching-to-sample procedure where they matched a rotated comparison stimulus to a sample stimulus that was not rotated. The results showed that the pigeons had shorter overall reaction times than humans, and whereas humans showed longer reaction times as a function of the degrees of rotation of the comparison stimulus, pigeons did not. Thus, pigeons were faster than humans at deciding whether a shape was the same as the sample stimulus or not. According to a theory explaining these findings in terms of mental rotation, pigeons seem to rotate a mental image faster than humans. However, I am not sure if pigeons have mental images and I do not intend to discuss the issue, either, because it cannot be decided. 8. What needs to be underscored is the difference between observation and explanation. What is rotated in these experiments is the stimulus, not a mental image, and what is observed is reaction times. From this stimulus-response relationship Rakover deduces that a mental image is rotated, but there are, in principle, an infinite number of mechanisms that could explain these findings. The findings of Hollard and Delius underscore this. Rakover is not very happy with the distinction between observation and theory, since it may be difficult to differentiate between concepts referring to observations and theoretical processes. However, if this distinction is not made, there will be no difference between data and explanation, and there will not be any objectivity in science. 9. In sum, the fact that there is no one-to-one relationship between psychological concepts and physiological mechanisms is no unsurmountable obstacle to finding the neurophysiological mechanisms underlying psychological processes. The problem is that our psychological concepts have not differentiated between processes that are served by different mechanisms. REFERENCES Hollard, V.D. & Delius, J.D. (1982). Rotational Invariance in Visual Pattern Recognition by Pigeons and Humans. Science, 218, 804-806. Pavlov, I.P. (1927). Conditioned Reflexes (G.V. Anrep, transl.). Dover Publications: New York. Powell, D.A. & Levine-Bryce, D. (1988). A Comparison of Two Model Systems of Associative Learning: Heart Rate and Eyeblink Conditioning in the Rabbit. Psychophysiology, 25, 672-682. Rakover, S.S. (1990). Metapsychology: Missing Links in Behavior, Mind, and Science. New York: Paragon/Solomon. Rakover, S.S. (1993). Precis of "Metapsychology: Missing Links in Behavior, Mind, and Science." PSYCOLOQUY 4(55) metapsychology.1.rakover. Shepard, R. N. and Metzler, J. (1971) Mental rotation of three-dimensional objects. Science 171: 701-703. 22-Jan-94 1:09:56-GMT,38561;000000000000 Received: from rutvm1.rutgers.edu by aramis.rutgers.edu (5.59/SMI4.0/RU1.5/3.08) id AA19768; Fri, 21 Jan 94 20:09:53 EST Message-Id: <9401220109.AA19768@aramis.rutgers.edu> Received: from RUTVM1.RUTGERS.EDU by RUTVM1.RUTGERS.EDU (IBM VM SMTP R1.2.1MX) with BSMTP id 5826; Fri, 21 Jan 94 20:11:06 EST Received: from RUTVM1.RUTGERS.EDU (NJE origin LISTSERV@RUTVM1) by RUTVM1.RUTGERS.EDU (LMail V1.1d/1.7f) with BSMTP id 5283; Fri, 21 Jan 1994 20:11:04 -0500 Date: Fri, 21 Jan 1994 20:09:20 -0500 Reply-To: psyc@pucc.bitnet Sender: "PSYCOLOQUY: Refereed Electronic Journal of Peer Discussion" From: Stevan Harnad Subject: psycoloquy.94.5.5.base-rate.8.mccauley (687 lines) Comments: To: psyc@pucc.bitnet To: Multiple recipients of list PSYC psycoloquy.94.5.5.base-rate.8.mccauley Friday 21 January 1994 ISSN 1055-0143 (43 paragraphs, 29 references, 681 lines) PSYCOLOQUY is sponsored by the American Psychological Association (APA) Copyright 1994 Clark McCauley STEREOTYPES AS BASE RATE PREDICTIONS Commentary on Koehler on Base-Rate Clark McCauley Psychology Department Bryn Mawr College Bryn Mawr, PA 19010 cmccaule@cc.brynmawr.edu ABSTRACT: Doubts have been raised about whether or when stereotypes, identified as baserate predictions, can affect judgment about an individual member of a stereotyped group. This commentary argues that stereotypes are more than baserate predictions and, more important, that it is not clear what is baserate and what is individuating information when looking at a member of a stereotyped group. The ambiguity in defining baserate in stereotype studies stems from a similar ambiguity in the research in cognitive psychology that first suggested human neglect of baserates. Without independent definition of what is meant by baserate information, the hypothesis that baserates are neglected is empirically empty and cannot contribute to understanding of stereotype effects. I. INTRODUCTION 1. Stereotypes are perceptions of the characteristics of social groups, and are often cited as contributing to intergroup prejudice and hostility (Allport, 1954; Hewstone & Brown, 1986). Thus it was a matter of some surprise to social psychologists when Locksley, Borgida, Brekke and Hepburn (1980) reported evidence that stereotype expectations did not affect judgment about a member of a stereotyped group when relevant evidence of the individual's behavior was available. Locksley suggested that stereotypes could be thought of as baserate predictions and she interpreted her results in terms of research in cognitive psychology (Kahneman & Tversky, 1973) indicating that human judges tend to neglect baserate information when individuating information is available. 2. In this commentary, I argue that stereotypes are not usefully identified as baserate predictions, first, because stereotypes are perceptions of group differences rather than of one group's characteristics, and, second, because it is not clear what distinguishes baserate from individuating information. II. UNDERUSE OF BASERATE INFORMATION 3. Recent concern about human neglect of baserate information was stimulated by Kahneman and Tversky (1973), who reported a number of studies in which human judges tended to ignore or underuse baserate information when predicting the category from which a target individual or event had come. 4. In one much-cited study, subjects were given a description of a particular graduate student in terms that amounted to a stereotype of computer science students: Tom W. was described as not too comfortable with people, with a need for order and clarity, a strong drive for competence, and a dull and mechanical writing style enlivened with occasional corny puns. Subjects were asked to rate the likelihood that Tom W. was a graduate student in each of a number of fields of graduate study, including computer science. The subjects rated computer science as the most likely field of study for Tom, despite the low baserate probability of this field. An independent group of subjects estimated the percentage of all graduate students in each field, and these estimates indicated that computer science was seen as a relatively uncommon choice of graduate study. A third group of subjects rated the similarity of the Tom W. description to the typical student in each field, and these ratings indicated that the description was seen as most representative or typical of computer science students. 5. In this study, the predictions of Tom W.'s field were inconsistent with Bayes' rule, the normative model for revising probabilistic predictions. The baserate probability of computer science in the Tom W. study is the probability that any graduate student (a randomly chosen student) is in computer science, and the case information is the Tom W. description. According to Bayes' rule, the probability that Tom W. is in computer science is the baserate probability of this field times a diagnostic ratio that represents the correlation between the description and the field: p(fieldi|description) = p(fieldi) x p(description|fieldi)/p(description). 6. Because p(description) is the same across fields, subjects asked to rate the likelihood of a field given the description should have attended to the remaining terms on the right side of the equation: the baserate p(fieldi) and the representativeness of the description p(description|fieldi). But subjects apparently attended to how representative the description was of computer science students, and neglected the low baserate probability of this field. Across fields, the likelihood rating that Tom W. was in a field was highly correlated with the likelihood rating of the Tom W. description within the field (representativeness), but not correlated with the baserate probability of the field. When the only information available to subjects was that Tom W. was a graduate student, predictions of Tom's field did correlate with the baserate estimates. 7. With these results, and related results from experiments in which baserates of occupations were manipulated (e.g., target individual from a group with 70% lawyers and 30% engineers, or vice versa), Kahneman and Tversky (1973) concluded that human judges generally neglect baserate information when judging the likelihood that an individual or event comes from a particular category. "One of the basic principles of statistical prediction is that prior probability, which summarizes what we knew about the problem before receiving independent specific evidence, remains relevant even after such evidence is obtained. Bayes' rule translates this qualitative principle into a multiplicative relation between prior odds and the likelihood ratio. Our subjects, however, failed to integrate prior probability with specific evidence. When exposed to a description, however scanty or suspect, of Tom W. or of Dick (the engineer/lawyer), they apparently felt that the distribution of occupations in his group was no longer relevant. The failure to appreciate the relevance of prior probability in the presence of specific evidence is perhaps one of the most significant departures of intuition from the normative theory of prediction" (Kahneman & Tversky, 1973, p. 243). 8. McCauley and Stitt (1978) pointed out that the Tom W. study reversed the direction of the usual stereotype study in social psychology. In the Tom W. study, subjects were given traits and asked for the most likely category; social psychologists since Katz and Braly (1933) have given subjects an ethnic or national category and asked for the typical traits. Both kinds of study depend on subjects' perceptions of a correlation between membership in a stereotyped group and certain traits, preferences, or behaviors. Indeed, the measurement of a stereotype is essentially the measurement of this perceived correlation, which can be assessed by asking subjects what percentage of people in the stereotyped group and in some comparison group have a particular trait, preference, or behavior. To the extent that the percentage estimates for the two groups are not the same, subjects are expressing a stereotype (McCauley & Stitt, 1978; McCauley, Stitt & Segal, 1980; McCauley & Thangavelu, 1991; McCauley, Thangavelu & Rozin, 1988). 9. Having understood the Tom W. study as a stereotype study, McCauley and Stitt (1978) attempted to replicate its results when subjects were asked for predictions in the direction familiar to social psychologists -- from stereotyped category to traits. For each of a number of traits, subjects estimated the same three Bayesian probabilities that were of interest in the Tom W. study, but this time in relation to the stereotype of Germans. Across traits, subjects' probability of a trait for Germans, p(traiti|German), correlated both with the representativeness of the trait, p(German|traiti), and with the baserate probability p(traiti). Thus, although the Tom W. study found subjects ignoring category baserate when going from stereotyped traits to category judgment, the German stereotype study indicated that subjects did use trait baserate information when going from stereotype category to stereotyped traits. McCauley and Stitt (1978) concluded that people may not be so generally unable to take account of baserate as Kahneman and Tversky (1973) had suggested. 10. The question of whether or when human judges underuse baserate information has become the focus of a great deal of research, which has produced quite complex results. The precise details of the procedure in which baserate and individuating information are communicated to subjects can make a significant difference in the attention subjects pay to each (Tversky & Kahneman, 1982, p. 154). More substantively, baserate information perceived as having causal connection to the judgment required will tend to get more attention (Ajzen, 1977; Tversky & Kahneman, 1982, p. 154) and, in general, more attention will be paid to baserate information as the diagnosticity of the baserate information increases and as the diagnosticity of the individuating information decreases (Hilton & Fein, 1989; Kreuger & Rothbart, 1988; Lynch & Ofir, 1989; Nelson, Biernat & Manis, 1990; Rasinski, Crocker & Hastie, 1985). The importance of diagnosticity in determining the impact of baserates is consistent with Bayesian prescription, and it appears fair to say that the evidence of the last fifteen years does not support quite so pessimistic a picture of human neglect of baserates as Kahneman and Tversky offered in 1973. 11. For my argument, however, the present status of research on neglect of baserate information is less important than understanding how this research was translated into a hypothesis about stereotype effects. III. STEREOTYPES AS BASERATES 12. In two influential papers, Locksley (Locksley et al., 1980; Locksley, Hepburn & Ortiz, 1982) argued that a stereotype can be thought of as a baserate, that is, as the perceived probability of a stereotyped trait within the stereotyped group. She showed, for instance, that a male target was perceived as more likely to be assertive than a female target when no other information besides gender was available. This was undoubtedly a stereotype effect on judgment, but it disappeared -- sex of target had no effect on the probability that the target was assertive -- when the target was described as having engaged in assertive behavior. Citing Kahneman and Tversky (1973) on neglect of baserates, Locksley hypothesized that stereotype expectations about a target person -- like other baserates -- are neglected in the presence of individuating information relevant to the prediction required. 13. Locksley's formulation had powerful and surprising implications. It suggested that stereotype expectations will have little impact on the evaluation of individual members of a stereotyped group -- the kind of result obtained in Locksley's studies. Stereotypes might affect judgment about stereotyped groups in the abstract, or about individuals about whom nothing else was known but group membership. But once specific attributes or behaviors of an individual are known, stereotype expectations understood as baserate predictions should have little effect on judgment about the individual. Locksley thus made explicit what stereotype research has not always recognized (Bodenhausen, 1990; Darley & Gross, 1983; Langer & Abelson, 1974), that it is failure to use stereotype expectations that is counternormative. 14. The idea that stereotypes are easily swamped by individuating information has been good news for some (Myers, 1990, pp. 117-118), but others have found it too good to be true (Brown, 1986, pp. 602-608). As noted above, a number of recent studies have found evidence that people can use baserate information when individuating information is available, but my concern is that Locksley's formulation puts together two important issues that should be distinguished. The first is the claim that a stereotype is a baserate prediction. The second is the hypothesis that stereotype expectations are neglected in judgments about individual members of stereotyped groups. The importance of the distinction is that identifying stereotypes as baserate predictions leads to imprecision and ambiguity that need not get in the way of understanding whether stereotype expectations affect the evaluation of individuated targets. IV. STEREOTYPES AS BASERATES: A RECONSIDERATION 15. The identification of stereotype expectations with baserate predictions leads to two conceptual problems. One is that a stereotype is usually understood to mean a perception of group difference, especially a perception of difference between in-group and out-group that can contribute to intergroup hostility and violence (Allport, 1954; Stephan, 1985; Hewstone & Brown, 1986). The perception of the baserate probability of a stereotyped trait within a stereotyped group, then, is only part of a stereotype. A belief that 85% of AIDS victims are homosexual, for instance, is a baserate belief but does not by itself imply a stereotype. A stereotype is implied when this belief is linked with another: that 5% of people without AIDS are homosexual. Thus it is, at best, imprecise to say that the stereotype belief is a baserate belief; more accurately, a stereotype belief is a perceived correlation of group membership and trait which includes the baserate belief as one half of the correlation. 16. The imprecision of understanding stereotypes as perceived baserates may sometimes be more a matter of shorthand expression than real misunderstanding. This shorthand can be confusing, however, when it leads to assessing stereotype accuracy in terms of the fit between perceived and actual baserates of stereotyped traits. A recent study by Judd, Ryan and Park (1991), for example, begins with a definition of stereotyping in terms of seeing differences: the investigators confirm the existence of a stereotype of engineering versus business students by showing that respondents from both groups see probabilistic differences between their groups (e.g., both estimate that a higher percentage of engineering than business students are analytical). Later, however, these investigators evaluate the "stereotypicality" of group perceptions by comparing perceived with criterion baserate percentages (the perceived percentage of engineers who are analytical versus the percentage of engineers who say they are analytical). Of course it can be of interest to know about the accuracy of the baserate estimates, but these absolute percentage estimates can be quite inaccurate even as the perceived differences that define the stereotype are surprisingly accurate. For example, estimates of Black Americans and all Americans who have completed high school can be in error by ten percentage points (McCauley & Stitt, 1978, Table 2, High School Ss: mean estimates of 48 percent and 70 percent versus U.S. Census 39 percent and 60 percent) even as the mean estimated difference between Black Americans and all Americans is quite accurate (estimated difference 22 percentage points versus Census difference of 21 percentage points). At minimum, therefore, the imprecision of seeing stereotypes as baserates can contribute to communication difficulties in evaluating stereotype accuracy. 17. Beyond this communication problem, the attempt to understand stereotypes as baserates encounters another and deeper kind of problem. What is the definition of baserate, as opposed to individuating information? 18. The hypothesis that people neglect baserate information in favor of individuating information requires, in the first instance, a definition of these two kinds of information. Tversky and Kahneman (1982, p. 153) distinguish between "the baserate probability of the target event in some relevant reference population" and "some specific evidence about the case in hand." It is instructive to apply these definitions to the stereotype judgment problem used by Locksley et al. (1980). 19. Subjects were asked to judge the likelihood that a target person was assertive. The information available was the gender of the person and a description of the person behaving in an assertive or unassertive way. Locksley et al. take the relevant reference population as the population of males (or females) and the behavior as the specific evidence. That is, they interpret the problem as a Bayesian prediction in which the baserate probability of assertive given gender should be revised according to the diagnostic value of the behavior. 20. The Bayesian probabilities for this interpretation are as follows (see McGee, 1971, p. 294): p(assertive|behavior,male) = p(assertive|male) x p(behavior|assertive,male) / p(behavior|male). Here a probability conditioned on two cues appears with the cues separated by comma, e.g., p(assertive|behavior,male) can be read as the probability of being assertive given both that the target person fits the behavior description and that the target is male. 21. Another interpretation is possible, one that takes as the baserate the probability of assertiveness given the behavior and that takes gender as the individuating evidence. The behavior identifies a relevant reference population of persons -- those who behave as described -- and this population is associated with some probability of being assertive. And being male or female is specific evidence about the target person, specific at least in being objective rather than subjective and determinate rather than probabilistic. In this interpretation the baserate probability of assertiveness given behavior should be revised according to the diagnostic value of gender. The Bayesian probabilities for the alternative interpretation are: p(assertive|behavior,male) = p(assertive|behavior) x p(male|assertive, behavior) / p(male|behavior). 22. In short, both gender and behavior are diagnostic for the judgment of assertiveness, and nothing about the problem determines which should be taken as the baserate information. The two Bayesian interpretations are equivalent. Both are correct. The probability of assertiveness given maleness can be taken as the baserate, as Locksley et al. took it, but with equal logic one could take as the baserate the probability of assertiveness given the behavior. The prediction that baserate will be neglected in favor of individuating information requires a distinction between baserate and individuating information, but there is nothing in Bayes' rule that determines which is which. 23. The same ambiguity arises in more recent studies that followed Locksley et al. (1980) in identifying stereotype expectations as baserate predictions. Most of these studies present subjects with a prediction problem like the one just described, that is, a problem involving three nonredundant categories in which the cue value of a stereotype category should compete with the cue value of some other (more or less diagnostic) behavior in determining predictions of the likelihood that a target person fits some third category. 24. For Locksley, Hepburn and Ortiz (1982), the stereotype category was nocturnal-diurnal, the competing information was a description of background and behavior, and the target categories were stereotype-linked traits (e.g., rebellious). For Kreuger and Rothbart (1988), the stereotype category was gender, the competing information was behavior, and the target categories were aggressive behaviors. For Hilton and Fein (1989), the stereotype categories were gender or college major, the competing information was behavior, and the target categories were stereotype-linked traits (assertive or competitive). And for Nelson, Biernat and Manis (1990), the stereotype category was gender, the competing information was a picture, and the target category was height. 25. For all of these studies, the ambiguity of defining baserate is the same as already described for the problem used by Locksley et al. (1980): there is nothing in Bayes' rule to establish that the stereotype expectations are the baserate information whereas the expectations associated with behavior are the individuating information. The ambiguity arises because Bayes' rule prescribes only how to integrate two probabilistic cues; the rule is indifferent to which cue is considered baserate and which individuating information. Without some accessory assumption, there is no way to predict which information should be neglected and which is the individuating information or "specific evidence." 26. The accessory assumption in the studies just cited was that the behavioral information did not establish a relevant reference population. But behavioral information does put the target in a population of persons, the population or category of persons who have behaved or would behave as described. Indeed, if subjects did not take the behavioral information as categorical, if they understood the description as somehow unique to the target person, then the behavioral information would say nothing about the categorical prediction subjects are asked to make. That is, if subjects understood an assertive behavior to be a unique product of the target individual, then the behavior would imply nothing about the likelihood that the target was assertive. The impact of behavioral information was strong in each of the cited studies, however, and this impact is evidence that subjects understood the behavioral description in categorical terms in relation to the categorical prediction they were asked to make. 27. The ambiguity in defining baserate in the cited studies is relatively nonobvious, but a small variation on these studies would make the ambiguity obvious. Suppose the information about the target person included membership in two kinds of stereotyped category. Suppose that a target were described as both female and black, for example, and the target category to be predicted was aggressive behavior. What would now be the prediction from understanding stereotypes as baserates? 28. I have argued in this section that stereotypes are not usefully identified as baserate predictions, at least not until some independent definition of baserate is forthcoming. The obvious place to seek this definition is in a closer examination of the literature in cognitive psychology that gave rise to the hypothesis that humans neglect baserates. V. NEGLECT OF BASERATE INFORMATION: A RECONSIDERATION 29. Again I begin with the definitions of baserate and case information offered by Tversky and Kahneman (1982, p. 243), this time in application to the Tom W. problem. Subjects are asked to predict the graduate field that Tom W. is enrolled in. As interpreted by Kahneman and Tversky (1973), the baserate probability of a field is the probability that a randomly chosen graduate student is in the field and the specific evidence is the description of Tom W. This is the interpretation represented above in my translation of the Tom W. problem into Bayesian terms. 30. But notice that the personality description of Tom is no less a categorical cue than the information that he is a graduate student. The personality description determines a relevant reference population: all the individuals who fit the description of being uncomfortable with people, liking corny puns, and so forth. The baserate of a field of graduate study for this population is the probability that a person randomly chosen from among those fitting the description will be a graduate student in the field. Note also that the information that Tom W. is a graduate student is specific evidence about Tom. Thus a Bayesian prediction of Tom W.'s graduate field can proceed from consideration of the baserate established by the personality description, with revision of the baserate according to the individuating information that Tom W. is a graduate student. 31. The Bayesian probabilities for this interpretation are as follows: p(fieldi|student,description) = p(fieldi|description) x p(student|fieldi,description) / p(student|description). This interpretation takes p(fieldi|description) as the baserate, but in my first interpretation of the Tom W. problem I followed Kahneman and Tversky (1973) in taking p(fieldi|graduate-student) as the baserate. Actually, the Bayesian interpretation of the Tom W. study that I first offered was a simplification that did not make explicit that the baserate p(fieldi) was conditional on the information that Tom was a graduate student. In practice all Bayesian baserates are conditional. 32. The full Bayesian accounting of Kahneman and Tversky's interpretation of the Tom W. problem would have taken this form: p(fieldi)|student,description) = p(fieldi|student) x p(description|fieldi,student) / p(description|student). The two Bayesian predictions are equivalent; both are correct. If both are correct, the determination of what is baserate and what is case information is again arbitrary. 33. The Tom W. study was purely correlational, but the same ambiguity arises in experiments where "baserates" have been explicitly manipulated. Subjects have been given, for example, a personality description (stereotype of engineer or lawyer) of an individual from a group that is 70% lawyers and 30% engineers (or the reverse). Subjects' judgments of the likelihood that the target was a lawyer often showed neglect of the percentage of engineers and lawyers (Ginossar & Trope, 1987; Kahneman & Tversky, 1973), but again it is not clear why this should be called the baserate information. An equivalent Bayesian prediction of the likelihood that the target is an engineer could begin from an impression of the percentage of persons fitting the description who are lawyers, with revision of this probability according to the diagnostic value of the information that the target came from a group that was 70% lawyers. 34. Similarly, judges have been given the prevalence of blue cabs and yellow cabs and a witness's description of an accident and asked the likelihood that a car involved in an accident was a blue cab or a yellow cab. Subjects often neglect what they have been told about the percentages of blue and yellow cabs (Lynch & Ofir, 1989), but it is not clear why this should be called the baserate information. The baserate might equally be taken as the likelihood of blue cab given only the testimony of the witness. 35. The experimental studies just described have only two categories of information at issue: membership in a group with an explicit percentage of the category to be predicted, and membership in a group defined by personality that has an associated inexplicit percentage of the category to be predicted. In these two-category prediction problems, it seems wrong-headed and unnatural to think of the personality group as the baserate group. Surely subjects should begin with what is most clear and objective, the baserate provided by the experimenter, and then try to take account of the diagnostic value of the case evidence. Surely it is difficult for subjects to arrive at a quantitative baserate estimate (of lawyer or blue cab) given only the qualitative case evidence, and subjects are therefore foolish to begin from this evidence when an explicit baserate probability is available. But these intuitions about what should be anchor and what should be adjustment on the basis of what is simpler, clearer, or more natural are only intuitions. They are no substitute for an an objective definition of what kind of information will be neglected. 36. Suppose, for example, that subjects had only the so-called case information (personality description or witness report) and were asked for a prediction (occupation or cab color). Would this prediction not be baserate prediction if the same subjects were then given the information about the prevalence of occupation or cab color in the population from which the target came? 37. Conventionally, the baserate prediction is understood as the category probability of a target given everything known before or in addition to the cue of interest, the case information. Kahneman and Tversky (1973, p. 243) refer to this convention, as quoted above, in explaining that prior probability "summarizes what we knew about the problem before receiving independent specific evidence." But Kahneman and Tversky (1973; Tversky & Kahneman, 1982) do not suggest that whatever probabilistic information comes first will be neglected in favor of whatever probabilistic information comes second. Rather, they refer to baserate and individuating information as if these were independently defined. Thus, the conventional Bayesian meaning of the term "baserate" does not provide the requisite distinction between baserate and individuating information. 38. Nor does the representativeness hypothesis. Kahneman and Tversky (1973) hypothesize a tendency to make judgments by representativeness, the degree to which the case evidence is representative of or similar to the target category. This hypothesis does not speak to the logically prior problem of how to determine what will be considered the case evidence, as distinct from the baserate evidence. No more than Bayes' rule, then, does representativeness provide a warrant for speaking as if baserate and individuating information are two objectively different kinds of information. 39. It is of course possible that the distinction between baserate and individuating information could be translated, in future research, into terms that do have objective referents. Promising possibilities might include the distinction between vivid information and statistical information (Nisbett & Ross, 1980, p. 45), between more and less salient information (Fiske & Taylor, 1984, pp. 185-190), or the between causal and incidental evidence (Tversky & Kahneman, 1982, p. 118). In the absence of this kind of theoretical advance, however, any prediction about stereotype effects as baserate effects is vacuous; any identification of one probabilistic cue as baserate and another as individuating information is arbitrary. 40. Another possibility for resolving the problem of defining baserate is to get rid of the term entirely. Ginossar and Trope (1987), for example, interpret use and neglect of baserates in terms of general principles of problem solving. These principles predict when subjects will or will not translate probabilistic cues into judgment in a way that does not require calling some cues baserates and others individuating information. In other words, a useful account of when competing sources of information will affect judgment might not need to distinguish baserate and individuating information. VI. CONCLUSION 41. The conclusion to be drawn from the preceding discussion is this: identifying stereotypes as baserates does not put the study of stereotyping on a firm foundation in research in cognitive psychology. Rather, this identification wraps stereotype research in the enigma of how to define the baserate information that will be neglected as judges attend to the representativeness of case information. 42. Indeed, the studies in cognitive psychology that originally suggested human neglect of baserates suffer the same ambiguity in distinguishing baserate from individuating information that plagues the stereotype studies. Future research might clarify the definition of baserate and give substance to the hypothesis that people neglect baserates, or it might be that the use and neglect of probabilistic cues are better understood in terms of principles that do not require defining some cues as baserate information. At present, however, the literature on neglect of baserates does not show neglect of baserates. It does show serious violations of the normative Bayesian model for integrating probabilistic cues, violations in which one cue is neglected in favor of another. Missing from this literature, as from the stereotype literature that has attempted to draw on it, is any objective or independent specification of the kind of cue that will be neglected. 43. The ambiguity in defining baserate information means that identifying stereotypes as baserates does not lead to clear predictions about when stereotype expectations will be neglected in evaluating individuals. Identifying stereotypes as baserate predictions can also be misleading in failing to recognize the comparative aspect of stereotyping: stereotypes are perceptions of probabilistic group differences rather than simple perceptions of the characteristics of a stereotyped group. 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Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 36, 929-940. McCauley, C., Stitt, C. L. & Segal, M. (1980). Stereotyping: From Prejudice to Prediction. Psychological Bulletin, 87, 195-208. McCauley, C. & Thangavelu, K. (1991). Individual Differences in Sex Stereotyping of Occupations and Personality Traits. Social Psychology Quarterly, 54, 267-279. McCauley, C., Thangavelu, K. & Rozin, P. (1988). Sex Stereotyping of Occupations in Relation to Television Representations and Census Facts. Basic and Applied Social Psychology, 9, 197-212. McGee, V.E. (1971). Principles of Statistics: Traditional and Bayesian. New York: Appleton, Century, Crofts. Myers, D. G. (1990). Social Psychology, Third Edition. New York: McGraw-Hill. Nelson, T.E., Biernat, M.R. & Manis, M. (1990). Everyday Base Rates (Sex Stereotypes): Potent and Resilient. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 59, 664-675. Nisbett, R. E. & Ross, L. (1980). Human Inference: Strategies and Shortcomings of Social Judgment. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall. Rasinski, K. A., Crocker, J. & Hastie, R. (1985). Another Look at Sex Stereotypes and Social Judgments: an Analysis of the Social Perceiver's Use of Subjective Probabilities. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 49, 317-326. Stephan, W.G. (1985). Intergroup Relations. Pp. 599-658 in G. Lindzey & E. Aronson (Eds.) The handbook of Social Psychology, Vol. 2. New York: Random House. Tversky, A. & Kahneman, D. (1982). Evidential Impact of Base Rates. Pp. 153-160 in D. Kahneman, P. Slovic & A. Tversky (eds.) Judgment Under Uncertainty: Heuristics and Biases. New York: Cambridge University Press. VIII. ACKNOWLEDGMENT My thanks to Jonathan Baron for helpful suggestions about an earlier version of this paper. 23-Jan-94 22:57:52-GMT,19359;000000000000 Received: from rutvm1.rutgers.edu by aramis.rutgers.edu (5.59/SMI4.0/RU1.5/3.08) id AA19537; Sun, 23 Jan 94 17:57:51 EST Message-Id: <9401232257.AA19537@aramis.rutgers.edu> Received: from RUTVM1.RUTGERS.EDU by RUTVM1.RUTGERS.EDU (IBM VM SMTP R1.2.1MX) with BSMTP id 9127; Sun, 23 Jan 94 17:59:03 EST Received: from RUTVM1.RUTGERS.EDU (NJE origin LISTSERV@RUTVM1) by RUTVM1.RUTGERS.EDU (LMail V1.1d/1.7f) with BSMTP id 7646; Sun, 23 Jan 1994 17:59:02 -0500 Date: Sun, 23 Jan 1994 17:57:22 -0500 Reply-To: psyc@pucc.bitnet Sender: "PSYCOLOQUY: Refereed Electronic Journal of Peer Discussion" From: Stevan Harnad Subject: PSYCOLOQUY Newsletter Section (Comment/Announcements: 452 lines) Comments: To: psyc@pucc.bitnet To: Multiple recipients of list PSYC PSYCOLOQUY ISSN 1055-0143 Sun, 23 Jan 94 Newsletter Section (1) Comment: Bogen on Puccetti on Split-Brain (2) Journal: Electronic Journal: Music Theory Online (3) New List: French Cognitive Science Newsgroups Established (4) Conference: Autism and Other Disorders, Boston, June '94 (5) Conference: (Electronic) on Assessment & Evaluation, Feb '94 (6) Conference: Stress & Anxiety Madrid, July '94 (7) Conference: Helmholtz Centennial, Kiel/Germany July '94 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: "David, Elicia PSYCH" Subject: (1) Comment: Bogen on Puccetti on Split-Brain [Editor's Note: This brief comment on Puccetti (1993) is being published in the Newsletter rather than in the refereed journal section of PSYCOLOQUY. The rest of the discussion can be found in the journal. -ed.] Joseph E. Bogen, University of Southern California, Pasadena, writes: Puccetti (1993) may be right in attributing Dennett's misunderstanding to his "theoretical motivation." Another, surely relevant fact is that Dennett (1991) has not had much (if any) experience with split-brain or hemispherectomized humans and seems totally oblivious to the duality of memory, evaluation and decision-making in split brain cats and monkeys, evidently assuming that they do not have subjective states deserving the name "consciousness." Those interested in further "anecdotal" examples of cross-cueing by split-brain humans can find them in Bogen (1990). Bogen, J.E. (1990) "Partial Hemispheric Independence with the Neocommissures Intact" (pp. 215-230) in C. Trevarthen (Ed.) Brain Circuits and Functions of the Mind. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press. Dennett, D.C (1991) Consciousness Explained. Boston: Little, Brown. Puccetti R. (1993) Dennett on the Split Brain. PSYCOLOQUY 4(52) split-brain.1.puccetti. ------------------------------ From: "Lee A. Rothfarb" Subject: (2) Journal: Electronic Journal: Music Theory Online The electronic journal *Music Theory Online* (MTO) is a refereed publication that explores a wide range of issues in music theory, including speculative theory, tonal and non-tonal analysis, ideological and methodological questions, music cognition, pedagogy, and the history of music theory. It is primarily directed at professional and pre-professional music theorists, composers, musicologists, and performers, but (free) subscription is open to anyone. In addition to being available by subscription, MTO is available through Harvard University's Arts and Sciences Computing Services (HASCS), at the site: fas-gopher.harvard.edu, item number 10 on the main menu (Publications and News). Complete issues are contained in files with names in the following format (derived from the one used by the ejournal PSYCOLOQUY): mto.yy.v.i.author.xxx, where "yy" = year, "v" = volume number, "i" = issue number "author" = author's name, and "xxx" stands for one of the following MTO FileTypes: art = article fig = ASCII figures accompanying articles gif = musical examples as GIF files tlk = commentaries on articles (talk) rev = reviews dis = new dissertation listings job = employment opportunities ann = announcements The main documentation files are: mto-guide.txt (MTO Guide) software.txt (guide to MTO software for viewing musical examples) authors.txt (guidelines for authors) Regular subscriptions to MTO can be initiated by sending the single-line message to: listserver@husc.harvard.edu subscribe mto-list FirstName Lastname MTO files are available through anonymous FTP at the site husc4.harvard.edu, in the directory pub/smt/mto, and through the MTO FileServer, mto-serv@husc.harvard.edu (see the MTO Guide for instructions). Send questions to the General Editor at the address below. Lee A. Rothfarb, General Editor mto-editor@husc.harvard.edu mto-editor@husc.bitnet ------------------------------ From: Thierry.Herve@imag.fr (herve) Subject: (3) New List: French Cognitive Science Newsgroups Established Suite a une action du pole Rhone-Alpes de Sciences Cognitives approuvee par le conseil scientifique du 25 mars 1993, sur proposition de Thierry Herve (TIMC Subject: (5) Conference: (Electronic) on Assessment & Evaluation, Feb '94 FIRST EUROPEAN ELECTRONIC CONFERENCE ON ASSESSMENT AND EVALUATION: RECENT AND FUTURE DEVELOPMENTS EARLI European Association for Research into Learning and Instruction SIG Assessment & Evaluation Organizing committee and program board Dr. Gudrun Balke, Department of Educational Research & Development, University of Gothenburg, Sweden Dr. Richard Shavelson, School of Education, University of California, USA Dr. David Nevo, School of Education, Tel Aviv University, Israel Dr. Filip Dochy, Centre for Educational Technology and Innovation, University of Heerlen, The Netherlands EC Management and Secretary of the EECAE Drs. George Moerkerke Dr. Filip Dochy Centre for Educational Technology and Innovation, Heerlen, The Netherlands The E.E.C.A.E. is a world-wide, distributed, electronic conference focused on issues of importance to assessment and evaluation related to learning and instruction. The conference will last for 3 days. Participants should schedule during these days two or three different moments each day for active participation. For example each day between 9 am and 10 am and between 4 pm and 5 pm you can attend the conference interactively. The conference will be running along the EARLI-AE list. If you want to attend the conference, you should send the message: Subscribe EARLI-AE yourfirstname yourlastname to the listserv management (listserv@nic.surfnet.nl) or (listserv@hearn.bitnet)). If you are a member of the list and you do not want to attend the conference then send the message: set EARLI-AE nomail to the listserv management on Februari 18 1994 and send the message: set EARLI-AE mail to the same address on Februari 24 1994 for receiving the normal list postings again. One week before the conference you will receive the abstracts and papers of the three invited addresses. In this way, each discussion will be introduced by an internationally known 'first speaker'. Anyone can act as a 'second speaker' before the conference. The conference will be discussing three discussion group topics. The board will select the topics. Any list member is asked to send in topics and one screen abstracts to be proposed as conference topic. Suggestions for invited addresses on the given topic are welcome (if including the Email address). During the conference all messages will go over the same EARLI-AE list. However, each topic will get its own subject line. In this way anyone will be able to take part in one, two or three discussions by reading the mail with the corresponding subject lines. For example PERFASS for performance assessment. Two chairpersons for each topic discussion group will moderate when necessary. They will be on line during the whole conference. One will be from the American continent, the other one from the European continent in order to be able to moderate across time differences. CONFERENCE RATE As there are no costs for becoming an EARLI-AE member, there will be no cost for participation other then that for normal access to any of the distribution networks. There is no formal registration process, other than keeping your list on the 'mail' mode. After the conference, the board will consider the invited addresses, the entries and discussions for publication as a whole on each topic. If publication is considered worthwhile the board will contact editors for an appropriate outlet. One can think of the EARLI journals L&I or EARLI-news or the SIG book series. The EECAE discussions The quality of the conference will depend upon quality discussion, skillful porters and efficient electronic distribution on the networks. For this reason it is important to read the discussion guidelines beforehand. TOPICS and CHAIRS (preliminary examples) Suggestions for topics, abstracts and chairs can be send now to OICFDO@OUH.NL TOPICS SUBJECT HEADING CHAIRS Performance Assessment PERFASS Dynamic Assessment DYNASS Program Evaluation PROGEVA Balanced Assessment BALASS Final Topics will be send together with the Second Call for Participation. If you want to act as a chairperson, contact OICFDO@OUH.NL (especially US scientists) TIME SCHEDULE February 10 Distribution of 'invited addresses - first speakers' February 14 - 17 Time for entry of 'second speakers' who want to add an substantive paper for discussion February 21-22-23 Conference - topic discussion groups ------------------------------ From: Backer.Johnsen@psych.uib.no Subject: (6) Conference: Stress & Anxiety Madrid, July '94 CALL FOR PAPERS STAR: Stress and Anxiety Research Society President: Dr. Matthias Jerusalem, Humbolt University Berlin, Germany President-Elect: Dr. Jeri Benson, University of Georgia, USA Past-President: Dr. Charles S. Carver, University of Miami, USA Secretary: Dr. Tom Backer Johnsen, University of Bergen, Norway Treasurer: Dr. Reinhard Pekrun, University of Regensburg, Germany The 15th STAR Conference will take place in Madrid, 14-16 July, 1994, and will precede the 23rd International Conference of Applied Psychology, to be held in Madrid July 17-22, 1994. Papers, posters, symposia, and workshops dealing with empirical, theoretical, or clinical aspects of stress and anxiety or related emotions are invited. To submit a proposal, please send your one-page abstract in triplicate to the Technical Secretariat for the conference: VIAJES IBERIA CONGRESOS Dr. J.J. Miguel-Tobal (STAR 94) San Bernardo, 20, 6o. 28015 Madrid, Spain Phone: (34)-(1)-532 81 37 Fax: (34)-(1)-522 72 10 email : pscog05@sis.ucm.es Deadline for Submission is January 31, 1994. Notes of acceptance will be mailed by February 15, 1994. Abstracts will be received in the understanding that if the paper, poster, symposium, or workshop is accepted, the presenting authors will register for the conference. STAR members with paid dues will be able to register at substantially reduced rates. In order to facilitate the preparations, please follow these instructions for the abstract form: 1. If possible, send a diskette copy of your abstract. The diskette should be formatted in MS-DOS, with the text in WordPerfect format or as an ASCII-file. 2. The abstract form should be as follow: (a) abstract structure: - first, the title; second, authors; third, address or institution and country. - the content of the abstract should include: objectives, method, results and conclusions. (b) abstract length and paper size: The abstract is to be one page only. Use a standard size paper (in Europe: 8.27" x 12.69" or 210 mm x 297 mm; in USA: 8.5" x 11"). Please, do not forget to include on another page your name, complete address, zip code and country as well as phone numbers, fax, and E-mail. Requests for further information about the STAR Society should be addressed to the STAR secretary: Tom Backer Johnsen Associate Professor Psychometrics Unit University of Bergen Sydnesplass 13, N-5007 Bergen, NORWAY Tel: +47-5521-2469 Fax: +47-5523-1977 email: backer@psych.uib.no ------------------------------ From: "Rainer Mausfeld 23-JAN-1994 21:03:14.68" Subject: (7) Conference: Helmholtz Centennial, Kiel/Germany July '94 From Codes To Cognition Foundational Aspects of Visual Information Processing Centennial Conference in Honour of Hermann v.Helmholtz University of Kiel/Germany 17.-21. July 1994 The conference will address general fundamental psychological problems of visual perception in areas such as shape from shading, stereo vision, colour and form perception and attention. A basic theme recurring throughout the conference will be how perceptual achievements relate to sensory input. Since Helmholtz and his notion of "unconscious inferences", several theoretical intuitions (e.g. the concept of "ill-posed problems", Barlow's statistical model for the discovery of "independent coincidences", Ullman and Koenderink's discussion of Gibson's ideas of "direct perception", Hoffman's "observer mechanics", Shepard's ideas on resonance) concerning the principles of perception revolve around the attempt to bridge the gap between the (often 'meagre') sensory input and the actual performance. Attempts to theoretically understand the interaction of - restrictions and invariants of the physical environment, - theoretical limiting factors of the sensory system as well as - restrictions on the categorization and interpretation of sensory information that have been internalized in the course of evolution will be the main focus of this conference. SPEAKERS: S.ANSTIS (San Diego), L.AREND (Princeton), H.B.BARLOW (Cambridge), H.BUELTHOFF (Tuebingen), M.FAHLE (Tuebingen), D.D.HOFFMAN (Irvine), Chr.KOCH (Pasadena), J.KOENDERINK (Utrecht), D.MACLEOD (San Diego), H.MALLOT (Tuebingen), O.NEUMANN (Bielefeld), R.NIEDEREE (Kiel), Chr.NOTHDURFT (Goettingen), E.POEPPEL (Muenchen), W.PRINZ (Muenchen), V.RAMACHANDRAN (San Diego), E.SCHEERER (Oldenburg), R.SHEPARD (Stanford), G.SPERLING (Irvine), S.ULLMAN (Cambridge, Mass.), P.WHITTLE (Cambridge) Address correspondence to: Dieter Heyer Rainer Mausfeld Institute for Psychology University of Kiel 24098 Kiel/Germany Fax: +49-431-8802975 E-mail: gpo65@rz.uni-kiel.d400.de ------------------------------ PSYCOLOQUY is sponsored by the Science Directorate and the Office of Publications and Communication of the American Psychological Association (202) 955-7653 Editors: (scientific discussion) (professional/clinical discussion) Stevan Harnad Cary Cherniss (Assoc Ed.) Psychology Department Graduate School of Applied Princeton University Professional Psychology Rutgers University Assistant Editor: Colleen Wirth End of PSYCOLOQUY Digest ****************************** 25-Jan-94 6:00:47-GMT,7327;000000000001 Received: from rutvm1.rutgers.edu by aramis.rutgers.edu (5.59/SMI4.0/RU1.5/3.08) id AA26940; Tue, 25 Jan 94 01:00:41 EST Message-Id: <9401250600.AA26940@aramis.rutgers.edu> Received: from RUTVM1.RUTGERS.EDU by RUTVM1.RUTGERS.EDU (IBM VM SMTP R1.2.1MX) with BSMTP id 7504; Tue, 25 Jan 94 01:01:33 EST Received: from RUTVM1.RUTGERS.EDU (NJE origin LISTSERV@RUTVM1) by RUTVM1.RUTGERS.EDU (LMail V1.1d/1.7f) with BSMTP id 8452; Tue, 25 Jan 1994 00:53:20 -0500 Date: Tue, 25 Jan 1994 00:43:13 -0500 Reply-To: psyc@pucc.bitnet Sender: "PSYCOLOQUY: Refereed Electronic Journal of Peer Discussion" From: Stevan Harnad Subject: psycoloquy.94.5.6.eeg-chaos.2.gregson (136 lines) Comments: To: psyc@pucc.bitnet To: Multiple recipients of list PSYC psycoloquy.94.5.6.eeg-chaos.2.gregson Tuesday 25 January 1994 ISSN 1055-0143 (6 paragraphs, 10 references, 130 lines) PSYCOLOQUY is sponsored by the American Psychological Association (APA) Copyright 1994 Robert Gregson THINKING ABOUT THE UNCONSIDERED CHAOTIC EEG DATA Commentary on Wright on EEG-Chaos Robert A. M. Gregson Department of Psychology Australian National University Canberra, ACT 0200, Australia email: rag655@cscgpo.anu.edu.au ABSTRACT: Extensive literature on the identification of chaotic dynamics in the brain, as expressed in the EEG's trajectories, suggests a wider picture than that advanced by Wright, Kydd and Liley (1993). The model they advance is not incompatible with chaotic dynamics at the level of mass action, but it does not address more serious difficulties which arise in the analysis of real data from the intact cortex. It is not necessary to postulate symmetrical couplings within networks, and models of cognitive processes already exist which do not have this formal constraint. 1. Wright, Kydd and Liley (1993) entitle their target article in such a way as to suggest that they offer a general review of the possibly chaotic basis of the EEG, as mass action of the neocortex. In fact, they are more concerned to compare and oppose only two models, the Freeman (1991) model, which is well based in the olfactory system, and their own, which is closer to neural network physics, such as spin glass theory. 2. Wright et al.'s close, almost exclusive, focussing on two models fails markedly to do justice to many other studies on brain dynamics and the analysis of the EEG in its spatio-temporal evolution, for example those edited by Basar (1990). The conclusions in their paragraphs 50 and 51 seem tenable but are not strictly dependent on the arguments they advance; they could have gotten there through other mathematics. But having said that, their caveat in paragraph 53, "provided allowance is made for additional features of the brain" is too open-ended. 3. I must admit to a preference for theories that begin with a detailed review of available relevant data on the EEG and chaos (indicating all the subtle difficulties which have been observed both in data collection and analysis) and that then offer a model which respects those data. Wright et al.'s bibliography has, from that perspective, an excess of autocitation and some very surprising gaps (Gallez and Babloyantz, 1991; Gregson, Campbell and Gates, 1992; Nan and Jinghua, 1988; Pessa, De Pascalis and Marucci, 1989; Rapp, Albano and Mees, 1988; Roschke and Aldenhoff, 1991; and Soong and Stuart, 1989 will suffice for examples). 4. Finding, or failing to find, strange attractor dynamics in brain recording through the intact skull is still a hazy activity. It is expedient to distinguish: a. chaos as analytically defined in purely mathematical models; b. chaos as found in computer simulations with truncated accuracy of calculation; c. chaos as detectable in sources with suspected mixed low and high Lyapunov indices; d. chaos as inferred from posterior numerical analysis, with heavy roll-off filtering, of EEGs treated as the trajectories of attractor dynamics; e. suspected chaos in psychophysiological experiments, with measures of performance even further removed from cortical activity. I am not satisfied that the authors have kept these distinctions sufficiently in mind. 5. One specific point puzzles me: In paragraph 35, Wright et al. state "Standard artificial network models depend upon symmetry of couplings." What is meant by "standard"? Is this merely a tautology, or does it mean only those models which the authors have noticed in their (hidden) review of the literature? If they really believe that "the class of dynamics applicable is a matter of scale," which is true of many disciplines besides physics -- for example, population biology, human psychophysics, social networks, macroeconomics, all of which have used or use dynamic models and chaotic metaphors -- then their comment on standard models is not true. 6. A fair conclusion is that the perspective on theory construction here is not sufficiently useful because it is rooted too much in the authors' own algebra. On the specific question of the merits of Freeman's approach, one awaits Freeman's potential rejoinder. As both models postulate or allow chaotic dynamics, and temporal transitions into and out of chaos, then at the gross level of observable EEGs, based on a wide montage of scalp electrode placements or electrode implants, it is still unclear what useful distinction emerges. REFERENCES Basar, E. (1990) Chaos in Brain Function. Berlin: Springer-Verlag. Freeman, W.J. (1991) Predictions on neocortical dynamics derived from studies in paleocortex. In: Induced rhythms of the brain, eds. E. Basar & T.H. Bullock. Cambridge MA, Birkhaeuser Boston Inc. Gallez, D. and Babloyantz, A. (1991) Predictability of Human EEG: a Dynamical Approach. Biological Cybernetics, 64, 381-391. Gregson, R.A.M., Campbell, E.A. and Gates, G.R. (1992) Cognitive Load as a Determinant of the Dimensionality of the Electroencephalo- gram: a Replication Study. Biological Psychology, 35, 165-178. Nan, X. and Jinghua, X. (1988) The Fractal Dimension of EEG as a Physical Measure of Conscious Human Brain Activities. Bulletin of Mathematical Biology, 50, 559-565. Pessa, E., De Pascalis, V. and Marucci, P.S. (1989) The Detection of Strange Attractors in Brain Dynamics through EEG Data Analysis. International Journal of Psychophysiology, 7, 350-351. Rapp, P.E., Albano, A.M. and Mees, A.I. (1988) Calculation of Correlation Dimension from Experimental Data: Progress and Problems. In J.A.S. Kelso, A.J. Mandell and M.F. Schlesinger (Eds.) Dynamic patterns in complex systems. Singapore: World Scientific, pp. 191-205. Roschke, J. and Aldenhoff, J. (1991) The Dimensionality of Human's Electroencephalogram During Sleep. Biological Cybernetics, 64, 307-313. Soong, A.C.K. and Stuart, C.I.J.M. (1989) Evidence of Chaotic Dynamics Underlying the Human Alpha Rhythm Electroencephalogram. Biological Cybernetics, 62, 58-62. Wright, J.J., Kydd, R.R. and Liley, D.T.J. (1993) EEG Models: Chaotic and Linear. PSYCOLOQUY 4(60) eeg-chaos.1.wright. 26-Jan-94 1:06:33-GMT,20949;000000000001 Received: from rutvm1.rutgers.edu by aramis.rutgers.edu (5.59/SMI4.0/RU1.5/3.08) id AA14282; Tue, 25 Jan 94 20:06:32 EST Message-Id: <9401260106.AA14282@aramis.rutgers.edu> Received: from RUTVM1.RUTGERS.EDU by RUTVM1.RUTGERS.EDU (IBM VM SMTP R1.2.1MX) with BSMTP id 1773; Tue, 25 Jan 94 20:07:45 EST Received: from RUTVM1.RUTGERS.EDU (NJE origin LISTSERV@RUTVM1) by RUTVM1.RUTGERS.EDU (LMail V1.1d/1.7f) with BSMTP id 3147; Tue, 25 Jan 1994 20:07:44 -0500 Date: Tue, 25 Jan 1994 20:06:04 -0500 Reply-To: psyc@pucc.bitnet Sender: "PSYCOLOQUY: Refereed Electronic Journal of Peer Discussion" From: Stevan Harnad Subject: psycoloquy.94.5.XX.scientific-cognition.3.vanbrakel (354 lines) Comments: To: psyc@pucc.bitnet To: Multiple recipients of list PSYC psycoloquy.94.5.XX.scientific-cognition.3.vanbrakel Tues 25 Jan 1994 ISSN 1055-0143 (13 paragraphs, 18 references, 348 lines) PSYCOLOQUY is sponsored by the American Psychological Association (APA) Copyright 1994 J. van Brakel COGNITIVE SCIENTISM OF SCIENCE Commentary on Giere on Science-Cognition J. van Brakel Department of Philosophy University of Utrecht P.O. Box 80.126 3508 TC Utrecht (The Netherlands) brakel@phil.ruu.nl ABSTRACT: In this review of Cognitive Models of Science (CSS, Giere 1992), I express skepticism about its ability to (dis)solve all foundational issues concerning science and suggest that CSS would do better to redirect its attention to the foundational problems that beset cognitive science itself. Not only CSS but the social and philosophical approaches to science too are, in their extreme forms, caricatures, based on the same scientistic model. What is needed instead is a recognition of the priority of the Manifest Image over the Scientific Image. 1. Anyone who might want to know what cognitive science has to offer toward a better understanding of science should consult Cognitive Models of Science, edited by Giere (1992, 1993; references to book chapter contributors will be in square brackets). The volume offers a wide variety of approaches that are brought to bear on a cognitive view of science. Unfortunately, however, if one were interested in the more general questions to be raised about the practice and products of science and their justification, this gamut of cognitivist approaches offers very little indeed, apart from a brief, rather acrimonious exchange among Glymour, Churchland, Thagard, and Giere [465-88]. This is a pity, the moreso because, between the lines, several contributors do mention a variety of foundational issues. For example, Carey, in an otherwise interesting contribution about the origin and evolution of everyday concepts, takes for granted that "the existence of rich innate concepts is not in doubt" [90] and Freedman notes that "the same cognitive processes that lead to scientific advances also lead to systematic biases and errors in scientific judgment" [310; cf. Grandy: 204, Gorman: 414]. But neither of these issues (and many others of which more appear below) is addressed in any depth. Perhaps one problem is that asking a number of cognisers what their idiosyncratic, intuitive models of science are is of no use if little attention is given to the confrontation of these idiosyncrasies or the traditions from which they stem. Perhaps another problem is that the scientistic belief in the end of anything nonscientific (including common sense, philosophy, and being human) has as a result that as long as the banner says: "Three cheers for naturalism!", anything goes. (To be sure, there are also many kinds of "noncognitivist" naturalisms as the contributions of, for example, Houts and Haddock [396] and Fuller [427, 430] testify.) For one thing, this leads to trivial statements such as: "scientists who employ heuristic search have a distinct edge over those who work randomly" [Bradshaw: 241] and "theories do not simply develop; they are developed through the cognitive activities of particular scientists" [Giere: xviii]. 2. What is Cognitive Science of Science (CSS)? Psychology of science perhaps? Some contributors think so [Houts & Haddock: 367]: "the psychology of science is faced with the task of steering a course between the Scylla of rationalistic epistemologies and the Charybdis of sociological reductionism." Support for this is also found in the recurrent theme that the cognitive turn directs attention to "the `processes' of science, rather than its `products'" [Tweney: 77; cf. Giere: xvi, Nersessian: 3-6, Bradshaw: 239, Darden: 251]. But while the issue of the relative priority of the contexts of discovery and justification is never addressed directly, that of generating alternative hypotheses nevertheless includes an appeal to "criteria for theory assessment" [Darden: 262] taken straight from Scylla. I agree, of course, that we shouldn't oppose "psychologism" by presupposing the authority of deductive logic, because, as Houts and Haddock rightly stress [375], if the laws of logic do not depend on human activity for their authority, then how is it that the laws of logic have any effect on human activity? But from denying the absolute a priori normative authority of deductive logic, nothing follows as to what normative criteria would then govern scientific practice. No doubt investigating the problem-solving capacities of scientists is an interesting psychological research program, but without something about "problem-finding strategies" [252], "solution and failure evaluation strategies," and how all this fits into the surrounding (social) environment, surely no grand claims about the nature of science can be made. 3. One consequence of taking CSS as psychology of science is that it will inherit all the foundational problems of psychology and of cognitive science in particular. The organisers of the conference on which this book is based should be complimented for inviting a wide variety of speakers (but see Bookstein 1993). However, this only brings out more strongly how unclear the presuppositions of CSS are. From a philosophical perspective I found the chapter by Houts and Haddock most rewarding (which is ironic, because they defend a variant of behaviouristic psychology against mainstream cognitivism). They give an excellent summary of the foundational criticisms cognitive psychology must answer and they say that CSS focuses on a decontextualised individual scientist and confuses the mechanics of description with the doings of actors [379-81]: "computer simulations of `scientific discovery' import social conventions of the scientific community through the back door"; representations "acquire their meaning through action or use in the social context of a community of language users"; "because observers may find it useful to describe scientific problem solving as following rules, it does not follow that a scientist solving a problem is necessarily following a rule." Even if such metacriticisms are set aside, CSS has many internal foundational problems as well: Are parallel models better [80]? Are propositional structures psychologically real [xxv]? Should we favour computer models or experiments with humans to model human cognition [411]? Is CSS about human cognition or about an extension of human cognition [252]? 4. Given these foundational problems of cognitive science, it seems premature to speculate about the priority of psychology as compared with sociology and philosophy, particularly on the assumption that every problem is an empirical one, (Below, I will argue that all three claims to priority are equally unwarranted.) Like all "normal scientists" (in Kuhn's sense), the contributors to CSS rarely if ever have a positive word for philosophy. In comparison, it is surprising how much bending over backwards goes on to please the sociologists of science. For example, Giere stresses that "cognitive models of science need to be supplemented with social models" [xxvi]; cf. Nersessian [6-8], Freedman [310-1], Houts & Haddock [378], Gorman [411]. 5. Other contributions suggest that the goal of CSS is more modest than being the Mother of Cognition. Cognitive psychology of science might, for example, provide tools for the empirical (historical, sociological, philosophical) study of science; model simulations might "shed important light on philosophical theories, forcing them to be more precise" [Gorman: 400]; artificial intelligence techniques might well help "to increase philosophical understanding of important episodes in the history of science" [Nowak & Thagard: 301]. The question is how much of this is tool and how much final solution. Assume we were to succeed in reaching "the ultimate goal of [being] able to reconstruct [all] scientific thinking by means of cognitive theories" [Nersessian: 5], what basis would that give to evaluate the achievements of science (including CSS)? Assume we were to completely succeed in reconstructing Hitler's thinking. We would open the door "behind the narrative and formal structures" and reveal "forgotten alternative paths" [Gooding: 52, 64]. But what would this tell us about the morality of Hitler's rationality (cognitions)? 6. But, to repeat, in their proper place, models from cognitive science may be useful in historical reconstruction (as the contribution of Nersessian testifies). Such usefulness may also contribute to the foundational issues in cognitive science referred to above, as when Nersessian [9] finds it necessary to use as tools not only "propositional" representations, but also "mental models" (structural analogs of real-world or imagined situations) and "images" (a mental model from a specific perspective), and when both Nersessian [12, 20] and Darden [261] stress the importance of analogical reasoning, thought experiments, abductive reasoning and other "nonalgorithmic" methods. It's true that "limiting scientific method to the construction of inductive or deductive arguments has needlessly blocked our ability to make sense of many of the actual constructive practices of scientists" [Nersessian: 13], but I have my doubts as to whether current contributions from cognitive science on this score have much theoretical insight to offer in addition to more traditional approaches (such as those of Peirce, Duhem, Campbell, Harre, Hutten see bibliography in Hesse 1966; or compare on one specific point, thought experiments, the recent traditional approaches such as Brown 1991, Horowitz et al. 1991, and Sorensen 1992). 7. This brings me to a last suggestion about the location of CSS in the current history of ideas: should it be seen as on a par with "the new image of scientific practice" [Gooding: 69] that stresses the role of experimentation in science (cf. Gooding et al. 1989, Hacking 1983, Pickering 1984, Radder 1988)? The inclusion of a chapter by Gooding might suggest so. But this would be incorrect, because most work in cognitive science is based on "the impoverished `one-pass' notion of discovery favored by analytical philosophy" [Gooding: 48] and "cannot duplicate the kind of hands-on, craft knowledge possessed by scientists" [Gorman: 409] see also the excellent commentary of Bookstein (1993). In fact, traditional cognitive science (and AI) has little to contribute to an interest in science as a situated praxis, it being essentially non-situated, as the discussions about the frame problem illustrate (Fetzer 1993, Harnad 1993, Hayes & Ford 1993, van Brakel 1992). Of course, the "experimentalists" do share with CSS the internalist approach to science ("today's epistemology of experiment is practiced in complete isolation from, say, technological ethics" [Fuller: 430]). 8. In addition to inheriting the foundational problems of cognitive science, concerning problems stemming from traditional philosophy of science and epistemology CSS has nothing much to say, being neutral or ambiguous with respect to all interesting questions. As an example, consider Thagard's connectionist net ECHO, in which scientific hypotheses are represented by nodes and the weights correspond to the degree of explanatory coherence. Tweney suggests that ECHO and similar networks "amount to a complicated way to compute a box score!" and because Thagard based his networks on descriptions written by the winners, it's not surprising that they win [87]. Freedman uses ECHO to model "social factors" [311], showing that "it is possible to generate distinct mental representations of the same hypotheses and evidence" [329], because ECHO contains "various adjustable parameters that can materially affect the outcome of the calculation" [Giere: xxiv]. Hence "it could be argued that ECHO, like BACON, merely reproduces the results of social negotiations... these programs... may actually illustrate and support some sociological analyses" [Gorman: 410-1]. In particular, "ECHO does not provide externally valid evidence for the superiority of explanatory over alternate accounts of how scientific controversies are resolved" [410]. Some of these criticisms are acknowledged: "The most serious limitation is that the input provided to the program was devised by one of us (Nowak)... and the question of historical bias naturally arises" [Nowak & Thagard: 300]. Perhaps ECHO is an interesting toy, but it solves no substantive problems. Analogous points could be made about the issue of incommensurability, which CSS writers both applaud and deny, and analyse in a variety of ways [8, 11, 20, 68, 90-5, 123, 179, 298, 312; see also the excellent index] or about Savage's proposal for "a foundationalist theory of sensory cognition that could be confirmed by cognitive science" [228]. Not unexpectedly, the mechanics of cognition (or the human brain for that matter) equally subserve universal rationality and relativism (as well as any third alternative that can be thought of). 9. Some of the work in CSS is interesting, but would be better redirected towards an explicit contribution to the foundational problems that beset cognitive science, instead of making unjustified claims about dissolving foundational questions in favour of piecemeal cognitive engineering. It is not that I propose a return to a priori philosophy of science or a conversion to post-modern sociology. All three approaches are, in their extreme caricatures, enlightened by the same scientistic model. The first thing that is needed to get a better perspective on science (and technology) is to acknowledge the priority of ordinary human forms of life over the scientific picture of the world. One way to put this is to say that everything worth talking about depends on the Manifest Image, the latter expression covering a family of images overlying a plurality of similar forms of (human) life (for "manifest" versus "scientific" image see Sellars 1963; for "forms of life" see van Brakel 1994). It's the Manifest Image that underlies the Scientific Image, and not the other way round. There are many different reasons why the Manifest Image should be given priority (van Brakel 1993). This is not the place to dwell on them, but I will give a few hints. 10. Attempts by philosophers of science in the earlier part of this century to provide a picture of science unified by one method have failed. Attempts to specify a notion of reduction so that all sciences could be fitted into one world picture have failed. Attempts by philosophers to cover up these failures by talking about supervenience have failed as well. (CSS assumes these problems can be solved by stipulation.) The unity, pluralism, and pragmatism of the Manifest Image cannot fail, because it sustains everything. Cross-culturally, only something like the Manifest Image is shared. 11. The progress of science is built on a projectable sequence of projectable predicates (including "meta" predicates), but at the most fundamental level progress depends on intuitions and categories entrenched in the prevailing Manifest Image. Think of logic: at the meta-meta-meta-level we use ordinary English to discuss its relevance, vitality, and validity. Discussions about the status of set theory are rampant with appeals to informal intuitions. Take quantum mechanics. As Bohr stressed, there is no way of testing the predictions of quantum mechanics without appealing to macroscopic objects and colloquial language to describe experiments. 12. All scientific categories derive their existence in part from normative methodological criteria which govern communication between scientists ("cognitive scientists still need to explain why scientists modify their cognitive constraints" [Freedman: 329]). These criteria are grounded, in the end, in the Manifest Image and include, in the end, the goals of science as part of a substantial Moral Image. Giere writes: "the only form of rationality that exists is the instrumental use of empirically sanctioned strategies to achieve recognized goals" [484]. Does this mean that "recognized goals" is outside the realm of rationality? Would he agree to substitute "morality" instead of "rationality" in the quotation given? 13. Of course, in the twentieth century, the Manifest and Scientific Images cannot be neatly separated. I do not deny that the Scientific Image (among other theoretical images) strongly influences the Manifest Image. But I would repeat that notions like "cause," "explanation," "reasonable," "truth," "right," "relevant," and so on, are firmly and finally grounded in the pretheoretical Manifest Image -- which is not to say that these notions are themselves incapable of change and variation. One might say: "Science could explain, for example, how explanation, communication, and normativity are possible among humans." Of course, but how is the request for such an explanation finally justified? Moreover, there will be alternative "sciences" to offer explanations of whatever is considered relevant to explain. To make a judgement with regard to these alternatives we are committed, explicitly or tacitly, to making judgements on issues such as "deciding which features of science we value most," "rightness," "appropriate to the circumstances," and so on. Judgements on such issues are always grounded in the Manifest Image and cannot be "bootstrapped out of it." The only way out would be to appeal to (the ideal of) exactly one best method of inquiry and exactly one best end of enquiry which gives THE answers. Such answers are only possible in the Brave New World and its congeners. REFERENCES Bookstein, F.L. (1993) Geometry As Cognition In The Natural Sciences. PSYCOLOQUY 4 (65) scientific-cognition.2.bookstein. Brown, J.R. (1991) The Laboratory of the Mind: Thought Experiments in the Natural Sciences. London and New York: Routledge. Fetzer, J.H. (1993) Philosophy Unframed. PSYCOLOQUY 4(33) frame-problem.10.fetzer. Giere, R.N. (1993) Precis of Cognitive Models of Science. PSYCOLOQUY 4(56) scientific-cognition.1.giere. Giere, R.N. (1992) Cognitive Models of Science. Minnesota Studies in the Philosophy of Science, volume 15. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Gooding, D., Pinch, T. and Schaffer, S. (1989) The Uses of Experiment. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Hacking, I. (1983) Representing and Intervening. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Harnad, S. (1993) Problems, Problems: The Frame Problem As A Symptom Of The Symbol Grounding Problem. PSYCOLOQUY 4(34) frame-problem.11.harnad. Hayes, P.J. and Ford, K.M. (1993) Effective Descriptions Need Not Be Complete. PSYCOLOQUY 4(21) frame-problem.5.ford+hayes. Hesse, M.B. (1966) Models and Analogies in Science, Notre Dame IN: University of Notre Dame Press. Horowitz, T. and Massey, G.J. (eds.) (1991) Thought Experiments in Science and Philosophy. Rowman & Littlefield. Pickering, A. (1984) Constructing Quarks: A Sociological History of Particle Physics. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. Radder, H. (1988) The Material Realization of Science. Assen: van Gorcum. Sellars, W. (1963) Science, Perception and Reality. London: Routledge. Sorensen, R.A. (1992) Thought Experiments. Oxford: Oxford University Press. van Brakel, J. (1992) The Complete Description of the Frame Problem. PSYCOLOQUY 3(60) frame-problem.2.vanbrakel. van Brakel, J. (1993) Peirce's Pragmatisch Realisme. Tekenen van Waarheid: C.S. Peirce en de Hedendaagse Wetenschapsfilosofie (M. Hulswit and H.C.D.G. de Regt, eds.), Tilburg: Tilburg University Press, pp. 175-206 [English translation in preparation]. van Brakel, J. (1994) Emotions as the Fabric of Forms of Life: A Cross-Cultural Perspective. Social Perspectives on Emotion (W.M. Wentworth and J. Ryan, eds.), Vol. II, Greenwich USA: JAI Press, in press. 23-Jan-94 22:58:17-GMT,8352;000000000001 Received: from rutvm1.rutgers.edu by aramis.rutgers.edu (5.59/SMI4.0/RU1.5/3.08) id AA19659; Sun, 23 Jan 94 17:58:16 EST Message-Id: <9401232258.AA19659@aramis.rutgers.edu> Received: from RUTVM1.RUTGERS.EDU by RUTVM1.RUTGERS.EDU (IBM VM SMTP R1.2.1MX) with BSMTP id 9129; Sun, 23 Jan 94 17:59:29 EST Received: from RUTVM1.RUTGERS.EDU (NJE origin LISTSERV@RUTVM1) by RUTVM1.RUTGERS.EDU (LMail V1.1d/1.7f) with BSMTP id 7658; Sun, 23 Jan 1994 17:59:28 -0500 Date: Sun, 23 Jan 1994 17:57:55 -0500 Reply-To: psyc@pucc.bitnet Sender: "PSYCOLOQUY: Refereed Electronic Journal of Peer Discussion" From: Stevan Harnad Comments: To: psyc@pucc.bitnet To: Multiple recipients of list PSYC PSYCOLOQUY ISSN 1055-0143 Sun, 23 Jan 94 Newsletter Section (1) Employment: Asst Prof, Clinical Psych, Hamilton College, New York (2) Employment: Asst Prof, Cultural/Social Psychology, U of Washington (3) Employment: Two Visiting Positions, Vision/Cognition, Brown U (4) Employment: Open, Clinical/Developmental Psychology, Israel ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: jvaughan@itsmail1.hamilton.edu (Jon Vaughan) Subject: (1) Employment: Asst Prof, Clinical Psych, Hamilton College, New York CLINICAL PSYCHOLOGY POSITION AT HAMILTON COLLEGE. The Department of Psychology invites applications for a tenure-track position in clinical psychology at the assistant professor level (PhD required) beginning August 22, 1994. Applications from candidates with a broad range of specialties including but not limited to adult or child clinical, health, community, and counseling psychology will be considered. The teaching load will be the equivalent of five courses per year, including the Introductory Psychology course, Abnormal psychology, Senior Project supervision, and a Clinical course depending upon interest and experience. Candidates will be expected to have active research programs and to supervise student independent research projects. Hamilton is a selective liberal arts college with several interdisciplinary programs, including Africana Studies and Women's Studies.The Department of Psychology, consisting of eight faculty members, has a tradition of excellence in teaching and research. Send resume, reprints, and three letters of recommendation to: Jonathan Vaughan, Chair Department of Psychology Hamilton College Clinton, New York, 13323 Women and minorities are encouraged to apply. Hamilton College is an Equal Opportunity and Affirmative Action Employer. Review of applications will begin on March 1, 1994 and will continue until the position is filled. ------------------------------ From: Donald Mizokawa Subject: (2) Employment: Asst Prof, Cultural/Social Psychology, U of Washington ASSISTANT PROFESSOR SCHOOL PSYCHOLOGY COLLEGE OF EDUCATION UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON Tenure track position, beginning Autumn 1994 or later, depending on applicant's circumstances, in an APA-accredited program committed to the scientist-practitioner model. QUALIFICATIONS include earned doctorate in school psychology or related field, demonstrated productivity in research and scholarship, eligibility for licensure as a psychologist, PreK-12 school experience, formal preparation with working with diverse populations, and grounding in the cognitive, socio-affective, developmental, neuropsychological, and cultural foundations of learning and behavior. RESPONSIBILITIES include teaching courses in assessment, consultation, and intervention (family, group, and individual), continuing a strong research program, advising and supervising graduate students, and participation in an innovative, college-wide teacher education program. OPPORTUNITIES are available for team teaching and other arrangements, including liaisons with nationally recognized centers such as the Center for Multicultural Education, the Experimental Education Unit, and the Child Development and Mental Retardation Center, among others. SALARY is competitive. Send vita, a letter describing research and teaching interests, representative examples of scholarship and/or publications, and names of four references to Thomas Lovitt (206-543-4011), School Psychology Search Committee, EEU, WJ-10, University of Washington, Seattle, WA 98195. Applications will be reviewed until the position is filled. This position is dependent on funding. The University of Washington is building a culturally diverse faculty and strongly encourages applications from female and minority candidates. The University of Washington is an Affirmative Action/Equal Opportunity Employer. ------------------------------ From: ANDERSON@BROWNCOG.BitNet Subject: (3) Employment: Two Visiting Positions, Vision/Cognition, Brown U Brown University Department of Cognitive and Linguistic Sciences Two Visiting Faculty Positions The Brown University Department of Cognitive and Linguistic Sciences invites applications for two temporary visiting faculty positions for the academic year September, 1994 to June, 1995. Each position would be suited to either a senior sabbatical visitor who, in exchange for half-time salary support, would teach one or two courses at Brown or to a more junior applicant who would receive full salary support and teach three courses. All applicants must have received the Ph.D. degree or equivalent by the time of their application. Position 1, Vision: A candidate should have strong teaching and research interests in one or more of the following areas: visual perception, visual cognition, computational vision, or computational neuroscience related to vision. Position 2, Cognition: A candidate should have strong teaching and research interests in an area such as memory, attention, problem solving, judgment and decision making, or comparative cognition. Please send vitae, recent publications, three references, and a cover letter describing teaching and research interests and qualifications to: Search Committee or Search Committee Vision Cognition Department of Cognitive and Linguistic Sciences Box 1978 Brown University Providence, RI 02912 The initial deadline for applications is February 15, 1994, but applications will be accepted after that time until the temporary positions are filled. Brown is an Equal Opportunity/Affirmative Action employer. Women and minorities are especially encouraged to apply. ------------------------------ From: solly dreman Subject: (4) Employment: Open, Clinical/Developmental Psychology, Israel We are an interdisciplinary department and are looking for promising candidates in the field of clinical psychology, developmental psychology, organizational psychology and social psychology. Interested parties may send their C.V.'s and statement of intent to myself or the department chair Professor Dan Bar-On at the address below. Solly Dreman E - M A I L Behavioral Sciences Dept. =========== Ben-Gurion University Internet: DREMAN@BGUMAIL.BGU.AC.IL Beer-Sheva 84105 ISRAEL Phone: 972-57-472-067 Fax: 972-57-232-766 ------------------------------ PSYCOLOQUY is sponsored by the Science Directorate and the Office of Publications and Communication of the American Psychological Association (202) 955-7653 Editors: (scientific discussion) (professional/clinical discussion) Stevan Harnad Cary Cherniss (Assoc Ed.) Psychology Department Graduate School of Applied Princeton University Professional Psychology Rutgers University Assistant Editor: Colleen Wirth End of PSYCOLOQUY Digest ****************************** 27-Jan-94 3:56:07-GMT,36171;000000000001 Received: from rutvm1.rutgers.edu by aramis.rutgers.edu (5.59/SMI4.0/RU1.5/3.08) id AA00382; Wed, 26 Jan 94 22:56:05 EST Message-Id: <9401270356.AA00382@aramis.rutgers.edu> Received: from RUTVM1.RUTGERS.EDU by RUTVM1.RUTGERS.EDU (IBM VM SMTP R1.2.1MX) with BSMTP id 8033; Wed, 26 Jan 94 22:57:18 EST Received: from RUTVM1.RUTGERS.EDU (NJE origin LISTSERV@RUTVM1) by RUTVM1.RUTGERS.EDU (LMail V1.1d/1.7f) with BSMTP id 6030; Wed, 26 Jan 1994 22:57:16 -0500 Date: Wed, 26 Jan 1994 22:55:24 -0500 Reply-To: psyc@pucc.bitnet Sender: "PSYCOLOQUY: Refereed Electronic Journal of Peer Discussion" From: Stevan Harnad Subject: psycoloquy.94.5.8.evolution-thinking.1.sheets-johnstone (616 lines) Comments: To: psyc@pucc.bitnet To: Multiple recipients of list PSYC CALL FOR BOOK REVIEWERS Below is the Precis of THE ROOTS OF THINKING by Maxine Sheets-Johnstone. This book has been selected for multiple review in PSYCOLOQUY. If you wish to submit a formal book review (see Instructions following Precis) please write to psyc@pucc.bitnet indicating what expertise you would bring to bear on reviewing the book if you were selected to review it (if you have never reviewed for PSYCOLOQUY or Behavioral & Brain Sciences before, it would be helpful if you could also append a copy of your CV to your message). If you are selected as one of the reviewers, you will be sent a copy of the book directly by the publisher (please let us know if you have a copy already). Reviews may also be submitted without invitation, but all reviews will be refereed. The author will reply to all accepted reviews. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- psycoloquy.94.5.8.evolution-thinking.1.sheets-johnstone Wed 26 Jan 1994 ISSN 1055-0143 (23 paragraphs, 7 references, 495 lines) PSYCOLOQUY is sponsored by the American Psychological Association (APA) Copyright 1994 Maxine Sheets-Johnstone Precis of: THE ROOTS OF THINKING Temple University Press 1990 15 chapters, 389 pages Maxine Sheets-Johnstone Department of Philosophy University of Oregon Eugene, OR 97403 MSJ@OREGON.UOREGON.EDU ABSTRACT: This interdisciplinary book addresses the question of conceptual origins. Its thesis is that there is an indissoluble bond between hominid thinking and hominid evolution, a bond cemented by the living body. The thesis is illustrated in detail in eight paleoanthropological case studies ranging from tool-using/ tool-making to counting, sexuality, representation, language, death, and cave art. In each case, evidence is brought forward that shows how thinking is modeled on the body; specifically, how concepts such as the concept of number, of death, of drawing, and of oneself as a sound-maker are generated by animate form and tactile-kinesthetic experience. The two major forms of opposition to the thesis--cultural relativism and metaphysical dualism--are in turn critically examined and put to rest. Methodological issues are also critically examined and the expanded paleoanthropological methodology that informs the paleoanthropological case studies is fully spelled out. KEYWORDS: analogical thinking, animate form, concepts, evolution, tactile-kinesthetic body. I. HOMINID THINKING AND HOMINID EVOLUTION 1. Sheets-Johnstone (1990) is about conceptual origins. In particular, the book addresses the question of the conceptual origin of fundamental human practices and beliefs that arose far back in evolutionary human history: stone tool-making, counting, consistent bipedality, language, burying the dead, engraving and painting. Typically, answers to question about origins--how a verbal language originated, how counting began, for example--take for granted the very concepts basic to the practice, the concept of oneself as a sound-maker in the case of language, for instance, or the concept of numbers in the case of counting. Insofar as fundamental human practices and beliefs entail concepts, and insofar as concepts entail some form of thinking, a proper account of the origin of any particular human practice or belief must necessarily give an account of thinking, that is, an account of the standard in terms of which the relevant concepts were forged. 2. The thesis of this book is that in each case the living body served as a semantic template. Concepts were either generated or awakened by the living body in the course of everyday actions such as chewing, striding, standing, breathing, and so on. As everyday actions gave rise to new concepts, so new concepts gave rise to new possibilities, new possibilities to new ways of living, and new ways of living to the establishment finally of those revolutionary new practices and beliefs that are definitive of hominid evolution. The broad thesis of this book is thus that there is an indissoluble bond between hominid thinking and hominid evolution, a bond cemented by the living body. 3. The thesis of the book is substantiated by eight paleoanthropo- logical case studies. These demonstrate in fine detail how the same evidence that supports hominid evolution supports the thesis that thinking is modeled on the body. They show that concepts fundamental to hominid thinking have their origin in animate form and in the tactile- kinesthetic correlates of behaviors regularly attributed to our hominid ancestors on the basis of fossil and artifactual evidence. Stone implements, burial remains, cave paintings, skeletal fragments, all attest not just to various behaviors such as upright posture and locomotion, tool-making, and pictorial depiction--or suggest others, such as the possibility of language and counting--but they attest to specific tactile-kinesthetic concepts subtending the behaviors or generated by them: the concept of edges, of death, of numbers, or of oneself as a sound-maker, for example. Accordingly, just as without evolution there would be no human thinking, so without thinking, there would have been no hominid evolution. 4. The key to an understanding of the dynamics of the reciprocal relationship between hominid thinking and hominid evolution lies in deepened understandings of the body, specifically in corporeal analyses of a hominid animate form and tactile-kinesthetic body. Thinking is thus linked to spatial and sentient-kinetic life. This fresh approach to an understanding of thinking attempts to crack the noetic code, as it were, by tracing its evolutionary roots, at the same time critically recognizing and in turn jettisoning traditional schisms embedded in the received wisdom of twentieth-century thought. The approach poses different questions because it starts not only from the beginning, but with what is obvious in the beginning. Seminal evolutionary changes in practice and belief that mark the historical development of hominids were made possible not by "a greater intelligence" or "by a more sophisticated consciousness" but concretely by new ways of thinking. In each instance, conceptual touchstones necessarily provided the impetus: the concept of sound, of articulatory gestures, and of oneself as a sound-maker necessarily anchored the invention of a verbal language; the concept of numbers necessarily anchored the invention of counting; the concept of edges and of flaking (one stone with another) necessarily anchored the invention of stone tool-making; the concept of punctuated existence necessarily anchored a belief in death; the concept of drawing necessarily anchored the invention of engraving and painting. 5. The question is, Where did these concepts come from--from the concept of edges?, of flaking?, of a spoken language?, of numbers?, of a punctuated existence?, of drawing? Clearly, however accidental the circumstances of discovery or invention, new ways of perceiving and acting take root only in moments of conceptual insight. What "The Roots of Thinking" shows is that in each instance, insight was generated in tactile-kinesthetic experience, which is to say by the tactile- kinesthetic body--the body that through touch and movement distinguishes not only a rubble of stones from no rubble at all as it walks the earth, or the making of sound from no making of sound as it conceals itself from danger, but the body that distinguishes a sharp-edged stone from a blunt one, a quadrupedal stride from a bipedal one, a touching of lips in making the sound m from a touching of lips in making the sound p, and so on. That sensorily felt and sensorily feeling body was the cognitive source of those fundamental and preeminently human concepts that shaped human thinking and human evolution. That body was the standard upon which each new practice or system of beliefs was forged. II. CONTENTS 6. Part I of the book presents an overview of the theoretical and methodological terrain, laying out critical issues in the process. The topics of the following eight paleoanthropological case studies comprising Part II are: "The Hermeneutics of Tool-Making: Corporeal and Topological Concepts"; "On the Origin of Counting: A Re-Thinking of Upright Posture"; "Hominid Bipedality and Primate Sexuality: A Further Re-Thinking of Upright Posture"; "Corporeal Representation"; "On the Origin of Language"; "Hominid Bipedality and Sexual Selection Theory"; "On the Conceptual Origin of Death"; "On the Origin and Significance of Paleolithic Cave Art." The six chapters of Part III address in depth and in turn the theoretical and methodological issues identified in Part I. 7. It should be noted that an original bodily logos is demonstrated ontogenetically as well as phylogenetically throughout Part II; that is, though anchored primarily in paleoanthropological case studies, the chapters present evidence in both historical modes. III. AN EVOLUTIONARY SEMANTICS: AN EXEMPLARY SUMMARY OF FOUR PALEOANTHROPOLOGICAL CASE STUDIES 8. Because of the interdisciplinary scope and complexity of each of the case studies, and because the title of each of the studies already clearly designates its subject matter, it will be most helpful to summarize some rather than all of the studies. In this way, potential readers will gain a clear grasp of the central concerns of the book, its manner of treating those concerns, and, in effect, of the significance of a corporeal approach. 9. The third through sixth of the eight chapters devoted to paleo- anthropological case studies form a unit on what is called "an evolutionary semantics." The unit begins by launching an examination of a posturally significant and behaviorally decisive aspect of hominid bipedality that has been consistently overlooked in assessments of its evolutionary impact. In particular, the examination shows how hominid bipedality eventuated in a radically different primate bodily appearance: male sexual characters relatively hidden in quadrupedal primates are visibly exposed in bipedal ones. Conversely, female sexual characters normally visible in quadrupedal primates are relatively hidden in bipedal ones. Loss of estrus, typically explained only by recourse to highly speculative scenarios, can in fact be explained on the basis of continuous and direct male genital exposure. The opening chapter of the unit demonstrates that the behavioral function of typical primate estrus cycling was replaced not by "year-round female receptivity," as is so routinely and commonly claimed, but by year-round penile display. The phenomenon of sexual signalling in primates, early hominids in particular, thus requires new analysis. The question of sexual signalling behavior in early hominids in fact demands to be addressed to begin with--in the same way that the question of the sexual signalling behaviors of other creatures is regularly addressed in studies of their life habits and modes of procreation. Indeed, the question of just how early hominids signalled sexual desire or readiness to one another can no longer be ignored. Consistent bipedality clearly changed typical primate signalling behavior. 10. The examination of consistent bipedality in terms of typical primate sexual postures and behaviors, basic evolutionary patterns in male sexual displays, and basic behavioral analogies and disanalogies between primate male hominid and nonhominid displays leads in turn to broader considerations of communication. The succeeding chapter on corporeal representation shows how bipedal penile display (a behavior not limited to early hominids but common to present-day male chimpanzees, originally under the description "bipedal swagger": Goodall 1968; Bingham 1928) is an example of a basic biological matrix, namely, the disposition of creatures to use their bodies as semantic templates, to represent meaning corporeally--through bodily actions, postures, orientations, and the like. Thus, early hominid sexual signalling behavior is actually situated in the broader context of an evolutionary semantics. An understanding of this semantics necessitates first of all a recognition of similarities--and thus ultimately continuities--in primate communicative behaviors. It further requires an extensive critical analysis of the privileging of human language since preferential treatment of the latter precludes not only an unbiased investigation of the similarities and continuities; it precludes acknowledgment and analyses of the body, which is the dynamic locus of communicative acts. The chapter on corporeal representation answers to this requirement. In the process, it shows how the disposition to represent meanings corporeally runs the communicational gamut from primate sexual display to primate gestural language to hominid primordial language (as reconstructed by linguists through phememic analyses: Foster 1978). It in fact shows that evolutionary estimations of nonhuman animal communication based on the privileging of human language (and note that these estimations wittingly or not necessarily include the communication of nonverbal or inchoately verbal ancestral hominids) are actually based on an ahistorical, Athena-like model: human language--whenever it is deemed to have arisen--arose full-blown from the mouths of ancestral hominids like the goddess Athena arose full-blown from the head of Zeus. An Athena-like paradigm prevails because in such privileging schemes--the well-known design features of Charles Hockett's (1960) model of "communication systems" are used as an example--any elements found below the human stage do not have any status as speech (pro forma designations "pre-speech," "protospeech," "prelanguage," and the like, notwithstanding). Only the final confluence of all the features under one cortical roof constitutes speech and thus differentiates language from the mere sounds of other animals, earlier nonverbal hominids included. Prime effects of the privileging are discussed, such as the overriding of channels of communication other than the vocal-auditory one, notably those tactile, kinetic, and visual modalities whose seminal role in human and nonhuman animal communication is well documented. 11. In analyzing the presumptions and deleterious effects of a privileging of human language, the chapter on corporeal representation focuses attention on the semantics of communication and thereby restores a focus of attention to the body. In so doing, it shows how the seemingly trivial truism that whatever the form of animal communication it is always the result of a living body, expresses an axiomatic biological truth: meanings are not free-floating entities but are anchored in living bodies. Communication is effected through corporeally representation. Animate bodies represent by symbolizing the spatio-kinetic dynamics of their own experience (or the spatio-kinetic corollaries thereof). In this respect, the Tanzsprache of the honeybees--their dances relating information regarding honey sources--is no different from hominid primordial language, and both the Tanzsprache and primordial language are no different from the tongue-flicking sexual display behavior of female howler monkeys or from the bipedal sexual display of male early hominids. In each case, tactile-kinesthetic experience and its spatio-relational correlates are iconically linked. An examination of the Tanzsprache is especially edifying in demonstrating these relationships both because its status as a symbolic communicative system has been contested and the subject of investigation for many years, and because in the long contentious debate, a basic corporeal dimension shared not only by primordial human language but by primate sexual displays has been overlooked. 12. Consideration of how corporeal representation is a basic biological matrix is directly relevant to a consideration of the origin of language precisely because language is consistently conceived to have been a matter of arbitrary sounds from the very beginning. The third chapter of the unit on an evolutionary semantics--"On the Origin of Language"--calls this conception into question. It does so initially by showing what the invention of arbitrary sounds would have required. To maintain that language was made up originally of arbitrary elements would have meant, for example, that preverbal hominids had a concept of the arbitrary as opposed to the nonarbitrary. That is, they must have had a concept of sound itself such that they could distinguish a gratuitous vocalization from, say, a practical one. To arrive at this nonverbal concept of sound, they would have to have experienced arbitrary and nonarbitrary sounds, which is to say they would have to have experienced their own or someone else's gratuitous vocalizations, and in the process, or as a result of those experiences, have realized that the sounds being made were not topical in any way but were merely playful renditions, for example. The chapter goes on to question whether one would want to attribute such a seemingly sophisticated nonverbal concept to nonverbal ancestral hominids and in fact whether one would want to admit a nonverbal concept at all--notwithstanding the fact that the notion of arbitrary elements being at the foundation of human speech requires unequivocal affirmation in both cases. 13. An extended sensory-kinetic analysis of arbitrary and nonarbitrary sounds, and a consideration of the evolutionary implications of the analysis lead to the conclusion that arbitrary elements cannot be assumed with either epistemological or scientific impunity. On the contrary, a physiognomic congruency of sound and meaning appears to have been essential. 14. After examining critically the notion that human language arose with the creation of arbitrary sounds, the chapter critically examines the notion that human language is distinctively propositional rather than expressive. Reasons for doubting the validity of the distinction are pinpointed in terms of incompatibilities (with evolutionary theory), consequences (with respect, for example, to what might have preceded a propositional language in the way of sounds), situations in which one individual deceives another, and the phenomenon of behavioral propositionality (readily documented by play situations, close analysis of which shows that no creature so engaged takes the play behavior as anything but pretense behavior and no animal takes the pretense behavior as anything but real, thus turning what would otherwise be pretense-deception into pretense-play). 15. The chapter concludes by giving a sensory-kinetic model of the origin of language. This model, in brief, shows how an initially tactile, then tactile/auditory organ--the tongue--becomes witness to a preeminently visual world. Its articulations are of things or relationships seen. The most distant sensory world is thus brought within the realm of touch. The model furthermore includes a discussion of linguistic reconstructions of the symbolic structure of primordial language, which show that the meaning of original sound elements were the analogue of their articulatory gestures. The symbolic structure of primordial language was thus rooted in tactile-kinesthetic experience. 16. In the final chapter, concerned with an evolutionary semantics, the substantial implications of the radical reversal in visible male/female sexual morphology originating with consistent upright posture are examined with respect to sexual selection in hominids. In particular, penile display is examined within the purview of Darwin's original theory of sexual selection. As in all of the earlier chapters, studies of animal behavior are analyzed and interpreted in the light of animate form and tactile-kinesthetic experience. Of particular moment in the present context are entomological studies of male genitalia (Eberhard 1985) which, in addition to providing a rigorous and compelling explanation of why variations in male genitalia are significantly greater than variations in female genitalia, and underscoring the taxonomic significance of male genitalia, reinvigorate a Darwinian focus on evolutionary sexual morphology and give new meanings to comparative anatomy. They show that male genitalia function as internal courtship devices, thus that there are differential spatial/tactile-kinetic (and tactile-kinesthetic) male genital potentialities. 17. The chapter "Hominid Bipedality and Sexual Selection Theory" examines four topics in detail: the bipedal incentive, the inverse relationship of nonhominid vulva to hominid penis, the biological significance of pleasure, and the uncommonly large (by higher primate standards) human penis as evolutionary product. In spelling out primate sexual analogies and disanalogies, it brings to a close the unit on an evolutionary semantics. It shows that consideration of the primate Bauplan imposed by consistent bipedality clearly and forcefully mandates a reappraisal of hominid sexuality: Homo exhibiens was an undeniable ancestor of present-day humans. IV. THEORETICAL AND METHODOLOGICAL CONSIDERATIONS 18. Of the six chapters of Part III, "Theoretical and Methodological Issues," the first two (Chapters 10 and 11) deal in turn with the two major forms of opposition to the thesis of the book. The first form of opposition may be succinctly identified with an all-encompassing, steadfast belief in cultural relativism, the second with the all-encompassing, steadfast practice of thinking dualistically and reducing biologically. With respect to the first, the notion of getting back to the conceptual origins of human thought goes against academically popular dogma. What is shown in detail in Chapter 10 is that the various theoretical obstacles placed in the way of getting back are all in a robust biological sense biodegradable. Given animate form and the tactile-kinesthetic body, and given bona fide evolutionary theory and sound reasoning therefrom, the obstacles disintegrate. With respect to the second, the division of life into "the mental" and "the physical" has a long Western history. The division is held in place by academic practice: minds are treated by philosophers, bodies are treated by scientists, and rarely do the twain ever meet. Since in the traditional divisional scheme of things bodies provide little more than a dumb show of movement and minds are privileged shrines vouchsafed to humans alone, any resemblance between ancestral hominids and present- day ones is purely physical. 19. Metaphysical dualism and academic practice open the door to a piecemeal, reductive approach to the body. Separate physical characters are singled out and their separate evolutionary histories told, each one in turn being given an adaptive role. What Chapter 11 shows is that the failure to think in what the eminent biologist J. S. Haldane (1931) termed "persistent wholes" is to do injustice to the living, intact creatures in question. It shows that with academic institutionalization of metaphysical dualism, the body is not given its due. At the same time, it shows through a reexamination of Darwin's three major writings on evolution that an institutionalized dualism is nowhere to be found in the original formulations of evolution theory, and that the present- day practice of reading Darwin in a highly selective manner--a practice nowhere acknowledged or methodologically justified--is a further way of failing to give the body its due. The end result is the propagation of unnatural species: academically-spawned creatures that are in essence mindless bodies on the one hand and disembodied minds on the other. 20. The thesis that thinking is modeled on the body provides in skeletal form the outlines of a bona fide philosophical anthropology. Corporeal analyses--the paleoanthropological case studies--provide its backbone. Chapter 12, "The Case for a Philosophical Anthropology," spells out how an interdisciplinary approach is required to create a sound, vital, and ongoing philosophical anthropology. 21. The three final chapters of the book are concerned with methodology. The first of these chapters shows that access to the conceptual lifeworld of ancestral hominids is had initially through a hermeneutic methodology, a methodology that is in every sense complementary to traditional paleoanthropological methodologies. Such a methodology is best described as an elucidation of that system of double meanings that comes into play wherever interpretations are made because in such situations, the data play a double role: an original datum (a fossil specimen, for example) is interpreted; that interpretation (the age of the specimen, for example) becomes a datum and is in turn interpreted (the fossil is placed within a certain period of evolutionary development); and so on. That this hierarchy of interlocking interpretations exists in paleoanthropology and archaeology is patently evident in the different levels at which controversy takes place and in the fact that dispute at any one level affects all others. Put in methodological perspective, hermeneutical explications are clearly not exercises in fancy but are grounded in a hierarchy of interpretations traditionally beginning (so far as ancestral hominids are concerned) with fossil or artifactual evidence, and ending precisely with those behaviors and evolutionary meanings that fossil bones, tools, monuments, or paintings, for example, are seen concretely by paleoanthropologist and archaeologist alike to memorialize: upright walking, the fashioning of implements, and so on. What the first of the chapters on methodology demonstrates is that full-scale hermeneutical analyses are needed to provide for paleoanthro- pological reconstructions a more substantial and more finely structured bridge, from original datum to associated conjectured behaviors, and from associated conjectured behaviors to their expanded and often complex evolutionary significance. Such analyses uncover the conceptual terrain engendered by or essential to the behavior both as a corporeal reality--a once actually lived-through event--and as a habitual life pattern--a consistent, established manner of acting. Traditional paleoanthropological hermeneutical methodology is thus carried one step further to generate corporeal analyses. The analyses work backward from data (stone tools, cave paintings, primitive counting systems, and so on) to the hominid body that produced them. 22. It is not sufficient, however, merely to affirm certain relationships; for example, to point out a functional replacement of teeth by tools in accounting for the conceptual development of stone tool-making. It is necessary to show in a precise way how each relevant concept would arise, thus how the concept of teeth as tools would arise, for example, and correlatively, how the concept of a stone as a potential tool would arise. A full-scale paleoanthropological hermeneutics thus needs further evidential grounding through a method akin to genetic phenomenology. What this phenomenological analysis brings to light is the conceptual linkage, even the rational connection, between artifact (or behavior) and body. That the connection is conceptual and that it has an experiential base and can thus be empirically anchored in the realities of everyday corporeal life, are obvious but neglected facts that the chapter on genetic phenomenology spells out in detail. 23. The final chapter, "The Case for Tactile-Kinesthetic Invariants," presents detailed evidence supporting the existence of nonlinguistic tactile-kinesthetic conceptual invariants. It shows conclusively that these corporeal concepts are not in the least inferior to their linguistic relatives. What is required to appreciate this fact is a corporeal turn. Like the linguistic turn earlier this century, a corporeal turn requires paying attention to something long taken for granted. V. TABLE OF CONTENTS Chapter 1: The Thesis, The Method, and Related Matters Chapter 2: The Hermeneutics of Tool-Making: Corporeal and Topological Concepts Chapter 3: On the Origin of Counting: A Re-Thinking of Upright Posture Chapter 4: Hominid Bipedality and Primate Sexuality: A Further Rethinking of Upright Posture Chapter 5: Corporeal Representation Chapter 6: On the Origin of Language Chapter 7: Hominid Bipedality and Sexual Selection Theory Chapter 8: On the Conceptual Origin of Death Chapter 9: On the Origin and Significance of Paleolithic Cave Art Chapter 10: The Thesis and Its Opposition: Cultural Relativism Chapter 11: The Thesis and Its Opposition: Institutionalized Metaphysical Dualism Chapter 12: The Case for a Philosophical Anthropology Chapter 13: Methodology: The Hermeneutical Strand Chapter 14: Methodology: The Genetic Phenomenology Strand Chapter 15: The Case for Tactile-Kinesthetic Invariants VI. REFERENCES Bingham, H. C. (1928) Sex Development in Apes. Comparative Psychological Monographs 5: 1-161. Eberhard, William G. (1985) Sexual Selection and Animal Genitalia (Cambridge: Harvard University Press). Foster, Mary LeCron. (1978) The Symbolic Structure of Primordial Language, in Human Evolution: Biosocial Perspectives, ed. S. L. Washburn and E. R. McCown (Menlo Park, CA: Benjamin Cummings), pp. 76-121. Goodall, Jane. (1968) The Behaviour of Free-Living Chimpanzees in the Gombe Stream Reserve, in Animal Behaviour Monographs, vol. 1, pt. 3: 165-311. Haldane, J. S. (1931) The Philosophical Basis of Biology (New York: Doubleday, Doran and Co.). Hockett, Charles F. (1960) The Origin of Speech, Scientific American 203: 88-96. Sheets-Johnstone, M. (1990) The Roots of Thinking. Philadelphia: Temple University Press -------------------------------------------------------------------- PSYCOLOQUY Book Review Instructions The PSYCOLOQUY book review procedure is very similar to the commentary procedure except that it is the book itself, not a target article, that is under review. (The Precis summarizing the book is intended to permit PSYCOLOQUY readers who have not read the book to assess the exchange, but the reviews should address the book, not primarily the Precis.) Note that as multiple reviews will be co-appearing, you need only comment on the aspects of the book relevant to your own specialty and interests, not necessarily the book in its entirety. Any substantive comments and criticism -- including points calling for a detailed and substantive response from the author -- are appropriate. 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However, except in very special cases, agreed upon in advance, contributions that have already been published or are being considered for publication elsewhere are not eligible to be considered for publication in PSYCOLOQUY, Please submit all material to psyc@pucc.bitnet or psyc@pucc.princeton.edu Anonymous ftp archive is DIRECTORY pub/harnad/Psycoloquy HOST princeton.edu 29-Jan-94 6:52:54-GMT,22335;000000000001 Received: from rutvm1.rutgers.edu by aramis.rutgers.edu (5.59/SMI4.0/RU1.5/3.08) id AA25113; Sat, 29 Jan 94 01:52:52 EST Message-Id: <9401290652.AA25113@aramis.rutgers.edu> Received: from RUTVM1.RUTGERS.EDU by RUTVM1.RUTGERS.EDU (IBM VM SMTP R1.2.1MX) with BSMTP id 8031; Sat, 29 Jan 94 01:54:05 EST Received: from RUTVM1.RUTGERS.EDU (NJE origin LISTSERV@RUTVM1) by RUTVM1.RUTGERS.EDU (LMail V1.1d/1.7f) with BSMTP id 0947; Sat, 29 Jan 1994 01:54:04 -0500 Date: Sat, 29 Jan 1994 01:52:26 -0500 Reply-To: psyc@pucc.bitnet Sender: "PSYCOLOQUY: Refereed Electronic Journal of Peer Discussion" From: Stevan Harnad Subject: PSYCOLOQUY Newsletter Section (Employment/Announcements: 505 lines) Comments: To: psyc@pucc.bitnet To: Multiple recipients of list PSYC PSYCOLOQUY ISSN 1055-0143 Sat 29 Jan 94 Newsletter Section (1) Employment: Asst Prof, School Psychology, U of Washington (2) Employment: All Levels, Clinical/Social/Developmental Pysch, Israel (3) Employment: Tenure track, Educational Psych, East Texas State U (4) Employment: One-year, Personality Psych, U of Southern Maine (5) Employment: 2 one-year, Social/Cognitive Psych, Gettysburg College (6) Employment: Asst Prof, Cognitive Science, U of Hong Kong (7) Employment: Asst Prof, Generalist/Applied Psych, Fort Lewis, CO (8) Query: PC-Based Psychological Assessment/Simulations Sought (9) Journal: Call for Papers, Law and Mental Health Policy, JMHA (10) Journal: Call for Papers, Mental Health & Substance Abuse, JMHA (11) Conference: LOVE 1994, February 10 & 11, Niagara Falls, Canada ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Donald Mizokawa Subject: (1) Employment: Asst Prof, School Psychology, U of Washington ASSISTANT PROFESSOR SCHOOL PSYCHOLOGY COLLEGE OF EDUCATION UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON Tenure track position, beginning Autumn 1994 or later, depending on applicant's circumstances, in an APA-accredited program committed to the scientist-practitioner model. QUALIFICATIONS include earned doctorate in school psychology or related field, demonstrated productivity in research and scholarship, eligibility for licensure as a psychologist, PreK-12 school experience, formal preparation with working with diverse populations, and grounding in the cognitive, socio-affective, developmental, neuropsychological, and cultural foundations of learning and behavior. RESPONSIBILITIES include teaching courses in assessment, consultation, and intervention (family, group, and individual), continuing a strong research program, advising and supervising graduate students, and participation in an innovative, college-wide teacher education program. OPPORTUNITIES are available for team teaching and other arrangements, including liaisons with nationally recognized centers such as the Center for Multicultural Education, the Experimental Education Unit, and the Child Development and Mental Retardation Center, among others. SALARY is competitive. Send vita, a letter describing research and teaching interests, representative examples of scholarship and/or publications, and names of four references to Thomas Lovitt (206-543-4011), School Psychology Search Committee, EEU, WJ-10, University of Washington, Seattle, WA 98195. Applications will be reviewed until the position is filled. This position is dependent on funding. The University of Washington is building a culturally diverse faculty and strongly encourages applications from female and minority candidates. The University of Washington is an Affirmative Action/Equal Opportunity Employer. ------------------------------ From: solly dreman Subject: (2) Employment: All Levels, Clinical/Social/Developmental Pysch, Israel Further to my previous message regarding staff recruitments in the area of clinical psychology, developmental psychology, social psychology and industrial psychology to my department - I am providing further information in response to queries received to date. Salaries (full time) would be (starting salary with tenure added to this sum): Full Professor $48,528 Associate Professor $40,332 Senior Lecturer $35,328 Lecturer (equivalent of assistant professor) $30,168 Sabbatical is accumulated at the rate of two months per year teaching and the per month salary for sabbatical leave is: Full Professor $4,295 Associate $3,467 Senior Lecture $2,727 Lecturer $2,232 Travel allotments per year for professional meetings are Full Professor $6,773 Associate Professor $4,552 Senior Lecturer $3,470 Lecturer $2,733 Senior people in the field will be given assistance in setting up a research laboratory and with initial research activities. We will pay travel expenses to Israel and back for an initial interview, if the candidate is considered serious. Candidates will be expected to reside in the Beer Sheva area. They will be allowed to lecture in English in their first year but will be expected to learn Hebrew (its possible!) and eventually lecture in this language. Interested parties should send a complete c.v. plus recommendations to me. Solly Dreman E - M A I L Behavioral Sciences Dept. =========== Ben-Gurion University Internet: DREMAN@BGUMAIL.BGU.AC.IL Beer-Sheva 84105 ISRAEL Phone: 972-57-472-067 Fax: 972-57-232-766 ------------------------------ From: Dean Ginther Subject: (3) Employment: Tenure track, Educational Psych, East Texas State U POSITION ANNOUNCEMENT East Texas State University, Department of Psychology and Special Education invites applications for a tenure tract position in psychology or educational psychology. REQUIRED: An earned doctorate in psychology or educational psychology with strengths in human cognition, and instructional applications of technology, evidence of teaching effectiveness, and potential for research. PREFERRED: Experience in 1)the application of computer related technology to training and education and/or 2)instructional design. Application material including a letter of application, a copy of transcript showing all graduate courses, reprints of recent publications, a resume, and three letters of reference should be sent directly to: Dr. Glenn P. Fournet (GF5595@etsuadmn.etsu.edu), Chair, Psychology Search Committee, East Texas State University, Commerce, Texas 75429-3011 (903)886-5595 by March 15, 1994. East Texas State University, a senior public institution, is located 65 miles northeast of Dallas. The 18 faculty members in the Department of Psychology and Special Education support: 1) a PhD. Program in Educational Psychology; 2) Master's Degree Program in School Psychology, Applied Psychology and Special Education; 3) undergraduate programs in Psychology and Special Education and; 4) the teacher education program in the College of Education. This University is an Affirmative Action/Equal Opportunity Employee. Individuals from Racially and Ethnically under represented groups, as well as under represented gender groups, are encouraged to apply. ------------------------------ From: BROIDA@PORTLAND (John Broida) Subject: (4) Employment: One-year, Personality Psych, U of Southern Maine PERSONALITY PSYCHOLOGIST #2930 The Psychology Department of the University of Southern Maine has a fixed-length (one year) opening beginning September, 1994. Candidates must have Ph.D. degree in Personality Psychology by June 30, 1994. The normal teaching load is 3 courses per semester. Applicants must be trained to teach general psychology, personality psychology, research methodology (with lab), and statistics. We are seeking an individual with a demonstrated ability to provide high quality instruction at the undergraduate level and who can pursue an active research program in which undergraduate students can gain research experience. The Psychology Department offers a comprehensive undergraduate degree with an emphasis on preparing students for graduate school. All applications will be processed until the position is filled. Review of materials will begin immediately. Send vita, evidence of teaching effectiveness, a statement of research interests and samples of scholarly work, along with three letters of reference to: Chair, Search Committee, Department of Psychology, RE: 103, University of Southern Maine, 96 Falmouth Street, Portland, ME 04103. USM is an EEO/AA employer. ------------------------------ From: Thane.S.Pittman@cc.gettysburg.edu Subject: (5) Employment: 2 one-year, Social/Cognitive Psych, Gettysburg College SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY/COGNITIVE PSYCHOLOGY: Gettysburg College, a highly selective liberal arts college near the Baltimore/Washington area, anticipates two one-year positions in the Psychology Department beginning Fall, 1994. Candidates for the position in social psychology should have a Ph. D. in Social Psychology and will be expected to teach Social Psychology, an advanced laboratory course in Experimental Social Psychology, and a small section of General Psychology. Candidates for the position in Cognitive Psychology should have a Ph. D. in Cognitive Psychology and will be expected to teach Cognitive Psychology, an advanced laboratory course in Thinking and Cognition, and a small sections of General Psychology. Opportunity for personal research and direction of undergraduate research. Gettysburg College is an Affirmative Action/Equal Opportunity Employer, which offers among its benefits a Partner Assistance Program; women and minorities are encouraged to apply. Send application, curriculum vitae, and three letters of recommendation to: Thane S. Pittman, Chair, Department of Psychology, Box 407, Gettysburg College, Gettysburg, PA 17325. Consideration of applications will begin after March 15, 1994. ------------------------------ From: "Dr. John A. Spinks" Subject: (6) Employment: Asst Prof, Cognitive Science, U of Hong Kong THE UNIVERSITY OF HONG KONG Lectureship in Psychology. Applications are invited for the position of Lecturer (British system: equivalent to an Assistant Professor in N. America) in the Department of Psychology in the area of cognitive science. The filling of post is subject to the availability of funds, but it is hoped that an appointment will be made early in 1994, for a fixed term of 2 to 3 years, which would be expected to be renewed at the end of this first contract. Applicants for this post should ideally possess a Ph.D. degree and have research, teaching and practical experience in cognitive science. Teaching at the undergraduate and postgraduate levels would be required. There is currently little teaching of cognitive science at the University of Hong Kong, and the appointee would be expected to fill this gap, as well as do research in this area. It is anticipated that a new degree or postgraduate degree course in Cognitive Science will soon be offered by the University, and the Department of Psychology will take on a significant teaching role. Other departments that are likely to be involved include Computer Science, Philosophy and Education. The annual salary (non-superannuable, but attracting a 15% (taxable) terminal gratuity) is on an 11-point scale: HK$377,220 - HK$630,180 (approx. Sterling L32,800 - L54,800; US$48,500 - US$80,800 at December, 1993 exchange rates). Starting salary will depend on qualifications and experience. At current rates, salaries tax in Hong Kong will not exceed 15% of gross income. Children's education allowances in Hong Kong and abroad, leave, and medical/dental benefits are provided; housing or tenancy allowances are also provided in most cases at a charge of 7.5% of salary. Further particulars and application forms may be obtained from the Appointments Unit, Registry, The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong (fax (852) 5592058; email APPTUNIT@HKUVM1.HKU.HK). Closes February 15, 1994 (extended deadline from earlier advert). Further particulars Facilities at the University of Hong Kong are very good, with all lecturers provided with a PC connected via LANs to the Departmental servers, the University's mainframes (Vax 6420, IBM9375, IBM4361, DECSystem 5500s, SUN SPARCserver 670), and the universities' and polytechnics' DECmpp 12000 supercomputer. There is access, via the LANs, to the Internet, and to computers and networks abroad. There is external access to this network. The University of Hong Kong has expanded rapidly over the last few years, with a current student quota of 8500 undergraduates and 2500 postgraduates (of which about 1000 are research postgraduates). Resourcing and facilities for research can be excellent. The Department of Psychology has several purpose- built laboratories, for research in psychophysiology, perception, experimental psychology, and developmental psychology amongst others. The standards of the undergraduate students are high, the University being able to select only those in the top percentiles. The programmes themselves are of an international standard, and are vetted by external examiners usually from abroad, while many courses and programmes are internationally accredited. Hong Kong itself is an exciting and vibrant city, being at the heart of an area which is economically forging ahead of the rest of the world. Informal queries can be sent to Dr. John A. Spinks, Department of Psychology, at: spinks@hkucc.bitnet ------------------------------ From: "Beverly R. Chew, Psychology, HH108e, 247-7512" Subject: (7) Employment: Asst Prof, Generalist/Applied Psych, Fort Lewis, CO POSITION ANNOUNCEMENT DEPARTMENT OF PSYCHOLOGY FORT LEWIS COLLEGE DECEMBER 16, 1994 POSITION: Assistant Professor, Generalist/Applied Psychologist. Tenure-track appointment. Faculty position is an eight-month contract beginning Fall Term, 1994. RESPONSIBILITIES: All faculty teach a full load of 12 semester hours per term. Teaching assignment will be drawn from Qualitative/Social Services Methodology, Introductory Psychology, Statistics, Freshman/Sophomore Composition Seminar and Human Heritage, an interdisciplinary freshman-level course, and possibly courses in area of specialization. Additional responsibilities include advising students, supervising undergraduate research, participating in general education and college committees and activities, and maintaining a professional development program. This position emphasizes teaching at the beginning undergraduate level, and requires sensitivity to multiethnic students and issues. Applicants should be willing to network with various agencies in the community in order to set up and supervise internships and practicums for undergraduate students. MINIMUM QUALIFICATIONS: Doctorate in Psychology, teaching experience at the college level and enthusiastic support of a liberal arts curriculum. Experience with social service or other agencies desirable. APPLICATION PROCEDURES: Submit a letter of application emphasizing professional objectives, a statement of teaching philosophy, current vita, official transcripts and three current letters of reference to: Dr. Mukti Khanna, Search Committee Chair Psychology Department, Fort Lewis College 1000 Rim Drive, Durango, CO 81301-3999 Complete files considered Phone: (303) 247-7157 / FAX: (303) 247-7623 SALARY: Competitive, depending on qualifications and experience. CLOSING DATE: Review will begin February 16, 1994; all materials must be postmarked by February 28, 1994. DESCRIPTION: Located atop a mesa overlooking beautiful Durango, Colorado, Fort Lewis College is a four year, state supported liberal arts college. It is one of the three institutions of the Colorado State University system. Fully accredited by the North Central Association of Colleges and Schools, the College has an enrollment of approximately 4100 students. Minority and foreign students are 17% of the student body, including Native Americans who attend tuition free. The faculty is dedicated to quality teaching in a rigorous academic program. Fort Lewis College is an Affirmative Action/Equal Opportunity Employer. Qualified women and minorities are encouraged to apply. ------------------------------ From: "Ian D. Samson" Subject: (8) Query: PC-Based Psychological Assessment/Simulations Sought One of my users is very interested in contacting people around the world who are actively developing PC-based (Windows) Psychological Assessment Tests as well as Simulations. Should any reader be able to assist me with this search, please e-mail me direct on IDS@zeus.HSRC.ac.za Thank you! Ian D. Samson ids@zeus.HSRC.ac.za Network Administrator Tel: +2711 339 4451 & PC Support Consultant Fax: +2711 403 2353 Human Sciences Research Council Johannesburg, South Africa ------------------------------ From: "Carolyn Martinez(CFS)" Subject: (9) Journal: Call for Papers, Law and Mental Health Policy, JMHA Call for Papers The Journal of Mental Health Administration (JMHA) is soliciting manuscripts for a forthcoming special section on Law and Mental Health Policy. Contributions are invited on topics including Epidemiology, Financing, Impact of Law on Inpatient and Outpatient Services Delivery, the Impact of Legislation on Mental Health Policy, Alcohol and Drug Abuse, and the Legal System. Other topics are welcome as they relate to law and mental health policy. Deadline for manuscript submissions: May 1, 1994. Manuscripts should be approximately 15-25 pages in length and contain an abstract preceding the text. Send manuscripts to Bruce Lubotsky Levin, Dr.P.H., Editor, Journal of Mental Health Administration, Florida Mental Health Institute, University of South Florida, 13301 Bruce B. Downs Boulevard, Tampa, FL 33612-3899, or call (813) 974-6400; FAX (813) 974-4600; Internet: levin@fmhi.usf.edu From: "Carolyn Martinez(CFS)" Subject: (10) Journal: Call for Papers, Mental Health & Substance Abuse, JMHA Call for Papers The Journal of Mental Health Administration (JMHA), the official publication of the Association of Mental Health Administrators, is a peer reviewed publication seeking manuscripts on mental health and substance abuse outcomes research. JMHA also publishes articles on mental health planning, policy analysis, marketing, law, financing, organizational structure, program evaluation, and the entire spectrum of mental health management and service delivery issues. Deadline for manuscript submissions : May 1, 1994. Manuscripts should be approximately 15-25 pages in length and contain an abstract preceding the text. Send manuscripts to Bruce Lubotsky Levin, Dr.P.H., Editor, Journal of Mental Health Administration, Florida Mental Health Institute, University of South Florida, 13301 Bruce B. Downs Boulevard, Tampa, FL 33612-3899, or call (813) 974-6400; FAX (813) 974-4406; Internet: levin@fmhi.usf.edu ------------------------------ From: Pierre Jolicoeur Subject: (11) Conference: LOVE 1994, February 10 & 11, Niagara Falls, Canada LOVE 1994 Lake Ontario Visionary Establishment Twenty-third Conference on Perception and Cognition February 10, 1:00 PM---February 11, 5:00 PM The Skyline Brock Niagara Falls, Canada Patrick Brown and Pierre Jolicoeur (Organizers) Thursday, February 10 12:00--1:30 Registration 1:30--1:45 Opening Remarks 1:45--3:00 PHIL MERIKLE & STEVE JOORDENS [University of Waterloo] MEASURING UNCONSCIOUS INFLUENCES: ALTERNATIVES TO TASK DISSOCIATIONS. 3:15--4:30 MICHAEL J. TARR [Yale University] CONDITIONS FOR VIEWPOINT-DEPENDENCE AND VIEWPOINT-INVARIANCE IN HUMAN OBJECT RECOGNITION. 4:30--7:00 Cash Bar 8:30--???? The LOVE Affair Friday, February 11 9:15--10:30 VINCENT DI LOLLO [University of Alberta] FAST PHOSPHORS AND SLOW EYES: HOW COME TV PICTURES LOOK WHOLE AND SHARP? 10:45--12:00 VERONICA J. DARK [Iowa State University] SELECTIVITY VIA SEMANTIC PRIMING: ATTENTION AS A CAUSE OR AN EFFECT? 1:45--3:00 PATRICK J. BENNETT [University of Toronto] STRUCTURAL CONSTRAINTS ON THE ANALYSIS OF COMPLEX VISUAL PATTERNS. 3:15--4:30 MICHAEL E. J. MASSON [University of Victoria] BEYOND CONJECTURE: CONTEXTUAL INFLUENCES ON THE PERCEPTION OF WORDS AND OBJECTS. For additional information, contact either: Patrick Brown Department of Psychology The University of Western Ontario London, Ontario, Canada N6A 5C2 Phone: 519--519-679-2111, Ext 4680 fax: 519-661-3961 email: BROWN5@VAXR.SSCL.UWO.CA Pierre Jolicoeur Department of Psychology University of Waterloo Waterloo, Ontario Canada N2L 3G1 Phone: 519--888--4567 x2142 fax: 519-746-8631 email: pjolicoe@watcgl.uwaterloo.ca REGISTRATION FEE: Faculty and Post Docs $20.00 Canadian; $15.00 U.S. Students & $15.00 Canadian; $11.00 U.S. HOTEL: The Skyline Brock 5685 Falls Avenue Niagara Falls Ontario, Canada L2E 6W7 Phone: (905) 374-4444 Fax: (905) 358-0443 $45.00 single or double; $55.00 triple; $65.00 quadruple Note: these are room rates, not per-person rates ------------------------------ PSYCOLOQUY is sponsored by the Science Directorate and the Office of Publications and Communication of the American Psychological Association (202) 955-7653 Editors: (scientific discussion) (professional/clinical discussion) Stevan Harnad Cary Cherniss (Assoc Ed.) Psychology Department Graduate School of Applied Princeton University Professional Psychology Rutgers University Assistant Editor: Colleen Wirth End of PSYCOLOQUY Digest ****************************** 7-Feb-94 16:53:28-GMT,16111;000000000001 Received: from rutvm1.rutgers.edu by aramis.rutgers.edu (5.59/SMI4.0/RU1.5/3.08) id AA11941; Mon, 7 Feb 94 11:53:26 EST Message-Id: <9402071653.AA11941@aramis.rutgers.edu> Received: from RUTVM1.RUTGERS.EDU by RUTVM1.RUTGERS.EDU (IBM VM SMTP R1.2.1MX) with BSMTP id 3509; Mon, 07 Feb 94 11:54:39 EST Received: from RUTVM1.RUTGERS.EDU (NJE origin LISTSERV@RUTVM1) by RUTVM1.RUTGERS.EDU (LMail V1.1d/1.7f) with BSMTP id 8756; Mon, 7 Feb 1994 11:54:38 -0500 Date: Mon, 7 Feb 1994 11:52:57 -0500 Reply-To: psyc@pucc.bitnet Sender: "PSYCOLOQUY: Refereed Electronic Journal of Peer Discussion" From: Stevan Harnad Subject: PSYCOLOQUY Newsletter Section (Announcements/Employment: 344 lines) Comments: To: psyc@pucc.bitnet To: Multiple recipients of list PSYC PSYCOLOQUY ISSN 1055-0143 Mon 07 Feb 94 Newsletter Section (1) Conference: Cognitive Society Conference, Oregon, July 15-18 (2) Conference: Practical Aspects of Memory, July/Aug '94, Maryland (3) Conference: Developmental Psychology, Aug 22-26 '95, Krakow, Poland (4) Employment: Research Pos, Experimental Cognition, U of Michigan (5) Employment: Chair in Psychology, University of Manchester (6) Employment: Asst Prof, Child Dev/Early Child Ed, U of Nebraska (7) Query: Seeking 1933 Gellerman Article ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Pierre Jolicoeur Subject: (1) Conference: Cognitive Society Conference, Oregon, July 15-18 FIRST ANNUAL CONFERENCE OF THE COGNITIVE SOCIETY FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OF INTERDISCIPLINARY LEARNING (CSAIL) Hood River Hotel, Hood River, Oregon July 15 - 18, 1994 Organizers: Michael Sullivan, Wheeler Cognitive Lab and Aging and Alzheimer's Research Center, Oregon Health Sciences University, Portland, Oregon. e_mail: sullivan@ohsu.edu Bill Printzmetal, Dept of Psychology, University of California, Berkeley. Pierre Jolicoeur, Dept of Psychology, University of Waterloo, Canada. This is an update to our last post concerning the conference. The details of the conference have undergone a few changes. First, the conference will be held at the Hood River Hotel instead of the Hood River Inn. This is an historic property located in town. Second, we have decided to limit the number of speakers to 20. We invite empirical and theoretical papers related to cognitive science. Papers will be considered on a first-come-first-served basis until the closing date of May 27th, 1994. Papers on other topics will be considered on an individual basis with a final decision regarding inclusion on the program made shortly after the closing date. Presentations For anyone interested in presenting a paper, please include a title and 150 word abstract that summarizes the research or talk. Please use a 12 point font and either e_mail or send an ASCII formatted version of the abstract (either on a DOS or Macintosh Disk) to Michael Sullivan at the address below. We need the abstracts so that we can organize the presentations by topic area. In addition, all abstracts will be printed and disseminated at the conference. Two sessions will be held each day. The first session will run from 9:15 a.m. to 11:00 a.m. The second session will run from 5:30 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. There will be two talks in the morning session and three talks in the evening session. Each speaker will be given 30 minutes with 15 minutes of discussion. To facilitate comprehension and interest, the level of technical detail should be similar to a University colloquium. Please remember to include your audio-visual requirements on the registration form. Fees: The registration fee is $100.00. The registration fee pays for the rental of the conference room, audio-visual equipment, daily catering, and administrative costs associated with the conference. Accommodations: The conference will be held at the Hood River Hotel. The conference will reserve 25 rooms from July 14 through July 18. Rooms are $73.00 to $83.00 per night, both single or double occupancy. You may make a reservation by calling 1-503-386-1900. Alternatively, the Hood River Inn is the next largest motel within walking distance to the conference. We have not reserved any rooms with them, so you are advised to make your reservations as early as possible if you wish to stay there. Their number is 1-800-828-7873. Registration: Please let us know as soon as possible whether or not you will attend. Abstract (150 words maximum): Address correspondence to: CSAIL c/o Michael Sullivan 2804 NE 31st Ave Portland, Oregon 97212 e_mail: sullivan@ohsu.edu Work phone: 1-503-229-7679 Fax: 503-229-7229 ------------------------------ From: Ron Okada Subject: (2) Conference: Practical Aspects of Memory, July/Aug '94, Maryland THIRD PRACTICAL ASPECTS OF MEMORY CONFERENCE (PAMC) THE UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND COLLEGE PARK, MARYLAND JULY 31 - AUGUST 5, 1994 The conference will feature a variety of invited presentations by internationally recognized scholars in the psychology of memory. Their focus will be on the convergence of basic and applied memory research. These invited presentations, as well as submitted papers and posters, promise to provide a wealth of current and valuable information in the field of memory. Payment for registration and lodging may be made by check or money order in US funds to Campus Guest Services - PAMC, University of Maryland, 0101 Annapolis Hall, College Park, Maryland, 20742-9122 USA. Conference registration $ 95 Late fee (after March 1) $ 20 Optional lodging/meal packages: Five nights beginning July 31 in a residence hall room or Conference Center room (hotel quality facility operated by Marriott). Rate includes breakfast and lunch (August 1-5). The rate for breakfast but no lunch is shown in parentheses. Requests are filled on a space available basis after March 1. Single in residence hall $270 ($195) Double in residence hall $235 ($160) per person Single in Conference Center $450 ($375) Double in Conference Center $315 ($240) per person Primacy banquet (Sunday) $ 25 Recency banquet (Thursday) $ 25 If you are sharing a double room, please include name, address and phone number of roommate. Full refund for cancellations received by June 1 (less a service charge of $20). No refunds after June 1. If you have any special needs or questions about registration, please contact Campus Guest Services at (310) 314-7884 or fax (301) 314-9750. ------------------------------ From: upolejni@cyf-kr.edu.pl (Marian Olejnik) Subject: (3) Conference: Developmental Psychology, Aug 22-26 '95, Krakow, Poland SEVENTH EUROPEAN CONFERENCE ON DEVELOPMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY Krakow, Poland, 22 - 26 August 1995. Conference Chair: Prof. Dr. Adam Niemczydski Institute of Psychology Jagiellonian University ul.Go )bia 13, 31-007 Krakow Poland FAX: +48 12 217710 E-mail: upluczyn@cyf-kr.edu.pl The conference will continue the tradition of European conferences on developmental psychology organized biennially in affiliation with the ISSBD since 1984. The previous meetings took place in Groningen, Rome, Budapest, Stirling, Seville, and Bonn. The Krakow conference will be the first one to be held in the eastern part of Europe since the end of the cold war era. It will be a good occasion to bring together scholars from various countries and to help in the process of establishing a new framework for future cooperation between formerly divided parts of the continent. Europe is conceived here as a community of countries sharing similar cultural background, general goals, and basic values. Thus the concept of Europe extends far beyond geographical borders of the old continent and includes countries placed in other parts of the world. We hope that the conference will provide a forum for an intensive exchange of ideas and for an extensive presentation of latest research results which, in turn, will stimulate numerous new scientific activities. There is also a possibility of organizing the pre- and post-conference workshops. The official language of the conference will be English. The conference site will be the campus of the Academy of Physical Education, a complex of modern buildings located close to the center of the town. The inexpensive accommodation in student hostels at the campus will be available for a limited number of participants. The organizers are also investigating the possibilities of arranging the financial support for participants from countries with currency difficulties. Krakow, located in the south of Poland, is easy accessible by car and by train. The local airport holds direct connections with several European airports. There is a possibility that the Polish Airlines LOT will serve as the official carrier of the conference. Krakow, the former capital of Poland, is well known as an interesting tourist center. Since the town did not suffer extensive damages during the last war, numerous monuments of art and architecture including the Wawel royal castle, the beautiful old city center, and the Jagiellonian University founded in 1364 are the main tourist attractions. In the nearest surroundings there are the medieval salt mines in Wieliczka and within 2 hours drive the famous resort of Zakopane is located in Tatra mountains. The number of pre- and post-conference tours will be available. If you are interested in receiving further information please write to the address given above. ------------------------------ From: Sylvan.Kornblum@um.cc.umich.edu Subject: (4) Employment: Research Pos, Experimental Cognition, U of Michigan RESEARCH POSITION in EXPERIMENTAL COGNITION/HUMAN PERFORMANCE To work on a project entitled: FOUNDATIONS OF STIMULUS-RESPONSE AND STIMULUS-STIMULUS COMPATIBILITY. Anyone with training or background, and demonstrated competence in any one or more of the following areas is invited to apply: 1. Experimental psychology, with special emphasis on human performance and information processing; 2. Mathematical/ cognitive psychology, with special emphasis on the study of similarity, categorization, or priming; 3. Cognitive science, with special emphasis on modeling mental processes. If you are a recent PhD or an advanced graduate student, have a strong interest in the project and are highly motivated, please send a curriculum vitae, three letters of recommendations, and a letter of interest to: Sylvan Kornblum 205 Zina Pitcher Place Mental Health Research Institute The University of Michigan Ann Arbor, MI 48109 Telephone: 313-763-1101 Fax: 313-747-4130 e-mail: Sylvan.Kornblum@umich.edu ------------------------------ From: Sebastian Halliday Subject: (5) Employment: Chair in Psychology, University of Manchester CHAIR IN PSYCHOLOGY: Department of Psychology, University of Manchester. Applications are invited for a Professorship in Psychology to begin on August 1st 1994. Applicants in any area of psychology will be considered. It is expected that the successful applicant will have a distinguished research record and will make a major contribution to the research of the Department. The post will not involve significant administrative responsibilities or a heavy teaching load. A senior lecturership and a lecturership will shortly be advertised which may be linked to the research area of the new Professor. The salary will be in the professorial range (minimum 30,398 pa) Informal enquiries may be made to Professor Sebastian Halliday, tel: 061-275-2552, email: halliday@psy.man.ac.uk. Applications (one copy suitable for photocopying) giving full details of qualifications, experience etc, and the names of three referees should be sent to the Registrar (Academic Staffing Office), The University, Manchester M13 9PL by March 24th. Further particulars of the appointment may be obtained from the Registrar (tel. 061 275 2028) quoting reference ++/94. The University is committed to an Equal Opportunities policy. ------------------------------ From: Jeanne Karns Subject: (6) Employment: Asst Prof, Child Dev/Early Child Ed, U of Nebraska POSITION Assistant Professor and Director, Ruth Staples Child Development Laboratory, tenure track, nine-month appointment. Salary open and competitive depending on qualification. Starting date: August, 1994. RESPONSIBILITIES Direct the child development laboratories which include licensed and accredited early childhood and teacher education programs. Coordinate the early childhood programs. Teach undergraduate and graduate courses related to early childhood education. Advise child development and dual early childhood education/elementary education majors. Supervise graduate research. Conduct research in child development. QUALIFICATIONS Requires Ph.D. in Child Development/Early Childhood Education or a closely related field. One degree or background with family orientation preferred. Administrative experience required in child development programs in a college/university setting. Evidence of research and grant writing skills are required. Candidate must exhibit qualifications to achieve graduate faculty status. APPLICATIONS All application materials must be postmarked April 1, 1994 to ensure full consideration in the initial screening. Applications will be accepted until the position is filled. Submit letter of application, current vita, transcripts, representative publications, and three letters of recommendation to: Dr. Georgia Stevens University of Nebraska-Lincoln Department of Family and Consumer Sciences College of Human Resources and Family Sciences 123 Home Economics Lincoln, NE 68583-0801 Phone: (402) 472-5518 The Department of Family and Consumer Sciences contains 20 faculty members representing child development, early childhood education, family scinece, marriage and family therapy, consumer sciences, human resources and family sciences, journalism and home economics education. B.S., M.S., and Ph.D programs are offered. Current enrollment in the department is approximately 500 undergraduate students and 80 graduate students. The department includes the Ruth Staples Child Development Laboratory, the Family Resource Center, and the Infant Research Laboratory. The University of Nebraska-Lincoln is committed to a pluralistic campus community through affirmative action and equal opportunity and is responsive to the needs of dual career couples. We assure reasonable accommodation under the Americans with Disabilities Act. ------------------------------ From: "silvio scarone, m.d." Subject: (7) Query: Seeking 1933 Gellerman Article Please can anyone send me the randomization table, or the original article from: Gellerman, l.W. (1933). Chance Orders of Alternating Stimuli in Visual Discrimination Experiments. Journal of General Psychology 42: 207-208. Thanks a lot, Silvio Scarone, M.D. DSNP H S Raffaele, Via Prinetti 29, 20127 Milano, Italy ------------------------------ PSYCOLOQUY is sponsored by the Science Directorate and the Office of Publications and Communication of the American Psychological Association (APA) Editors: (scientific discussion) (professional/clinical discussion) Stevan Harnad Cary Cherniss (Assoc Ed.) Psychology Department Graduate School of Applied Princeton University Professional Psychology Rutgers University Assistant Editor: Colleen Wirth (wirth@clarity.princeton.edu) Newsletter and Subscriptions: Turgut Kalfaoglu (TURGUT@TREARN.earn) End of PSYCOLOQUY Digest ****************************** 1-Feb-94 2:00:09-GMT,5912;000000000001 Received: from rutvm1.rutgers.edu by aramis.rutgers.edu (5.59/SMI4.0/RU1.5/3.08) id AA23226; Mon, 31 Jan 94 21:00:08 EST Message-Id: <9402010200.AA23226@aramis.rutgers.edu> Received: from RUTVM1.RUTGERS.EDU by RUTVM1.RUTGERS.EDU (IBM VM SMTP R1.2.1MX) with BSMTP id 6533; Mon, 31 Jan 94 21:01:22 EST Received: from RUTVM1.RUTGERS.EDU (NJE origin LISTSERV@RUTVM1) by RUTVM1.RUTGERS.EDU (LMail V1.1d/1.7f) with BSMTP id 9399; Mon, 31 Jan 1994 21:01:21 -0500 Date: Mon, 31 Jan 1994 20:52:35 EST Reply-To: "PSYCOLOQUY: Refereed Electronic Journal of Peer Discussion" Sender: "PSYCOLOQUY: Refereed Electronic Journal of Peer Discussion" From: Stevan Harnad Subject: Human Memory: BBS Call for Commentators Comments: To: cogneuro@ptolemy.arc.nasa.gov, neuro1-l@uicvm.bitnet, PSYCOLOQUY Comments: cc: connectionists@cs.cmu.edu To: Multiple recipients of list PSYC Below is the abstract of a forthcoming target article by: MS Humphreys, J Wiles & S Dennis on: TOWARD A THEORY OF HUMAN MEMORY: DATA STRUCTURES AND ACCESS PROCESSES This article has been accepted for publication in Behavioral and Brain Sciences (BBS), an international, interdisciplinary journal providing Open Peer Commentary on important and controversial current research in the biobehavioral and cognitive sciences. Commentators must be current BBS Associates or nominated by a current BBS Associate. To be considered as a commentator for this article, to suggest other appropriate commentators, or for information about how to become a BBS Associate, please send email to: harnad@clarity.princeton.edu or harnad@pucc.bitnet or write to: BBS, 20 Nassau Street, #240, Princeton NJ 08542 [tel: 609-921-7771] To help us put together a balanced list of commentators, please give some indication of the aspects of the topic on which you would bring your areas of expertise to bear if you were selected as a commentator. An electronic draft of the full text is available for inspection by anonymous ftp according to the instructions that follow after the abstract. ____________________________________________________________________ TOWARD A THEORY OF HUMAN MEMORY: DATA STRUCTURES AND ACCESS PROCESSES Michael S. Humphreys, Department of Psychology Janet Wiles, Departments of Psychology and Computer Science Simon Dennis, Department of Computer Science University of Queensland QLD 4072 Australia mh@psych.psy.uq.oz.au KEYWORDS: amnesia, binding, context, data structure, lexical decision, memory access, perceptual identification, recall, recognition, representation. ABSTRACT: A theory of the data structures and access processes of human memory is proposed and demonstrated on 10 tasks. The two starting points are Marr's (1982) ideas about the levels at which we can understand an information processing device and the standard laboratory paradigms which demonstrate the power and complexity of human memory. The theory suggests how to capture the functional characteristics of human memory (e.g., analogies, reasoning, etc.) without having to be concerned with implementational details. Ours is not a performance theory. We specify what is computed by the memory system with a multidimensional task classification which encompasses existing classifications (e.g., the distinction between implicit and explicit, data driven and conceptually driven, and simple associative (2-way bindings) and higher order tasks (3-way bindings). This provides a broad basis for new experimentation. Our formal language clarifies the binding problem in episodic memory, the role of input pathways in both episodic and semantic (lexical) memory, the importance of the input set in episodic memory, and the ubiquitous calculation of an intersection in theories of episodic and lexical access. -------------------------------------------------------------- To help you decide whether you would be an appropriate commentator for this article, an electronic draft is retrievable by anonymous ftp from princeton.edu according to the instructions below (the filename is bbs.humphreys). Please do not prepare a commentary on this draft. Just let us know, after having inspected it, what relevant expertise you feel you would bring to bear on what aspect of the article. The file is also retrievable using archie, gopher, veronica, etc. ------------------------------------------------------------- To retrieve a file by ftp from an Internet site, type either: ftp princeton.edu or ftp 128.112.128.1 When you are asked for your login, type: anonymous Enter password as queried (your password is your actual userid: yourlogin@yourhost.whatever.whatever - be sure to include the "@") cd /pub/harnad/BBS To show the available files, type: ls Next, retrieve the file you want with (for example): get bbs.humphreys When you have the file(s) you want, type: quit These files can also be retrieved using gopher, archie, veronica, etc. ---------- Where the above procedure is not available there are two fileservers: ftpmail@decwrl.dec.com and bitftp@pucc.bitnet that will do the transfer for you. To one or the other of them, send the following one line message: help for instructions (which will be similar to the above, but will be in the form of a series of lines in an email message that ftpmail or bitftp will then execute for you). JANET users without ftp can instead utilise the file transfer facilities at sites uk.ac.ft-relay or uk.ac.nsf.sun. Full details are available on request. ------------------------------------------------------------- 19-Feb-94 13:13:34-GMT,19920;000000000000 Received: from rutvm1.rutgers.edu by aramis.rutgers.edu (5.59/SMI4.0/RU1.5/3.08) id AA06810; Sat, 19 Feb 94 08:13:32 EST Message-Id: <9402191313.AA06810@aramis.rutgers.edu> Received: from RUTVM1.RUTGERS.EDU by RUTVM1.RUTGERS.EDU (IBM VM SMTP R1.2.1MX) with BSMTP id 8827; Sat, 19 Feb 94 08:14:47 EST Received: from RUTVM1.RUTGERS.EDU (NJE origin LISTSERV@RUTVM1) by RUTVM1.RUTGERS.EDU (LMail V1.1d/1.7f) with BSMTP id 9421; Sat, 19 Feb 1994 08:14:46 -0500 Date: Sat, 19 Feb 1994 08:13:12 -0500 Reply-To: psyc@pucc.bitnet Sender: "PSYCOLOQUY: Refereed Electronic Journal of Peer Discussion" From: Stevan Harnad Subject: psycoloquy.94.5.9.base-rate.9.koehler (358 lines) Comments: To: psyc@pucc.bitnet To: Multiple recipients of list PSYC psycoloquy.94.5.9.base-rate.9.koehler 19 February 1994 ISSN 1055-0143 (14 paragraphs, 1 note, 28 references, 352 lines) PSYCOLOQUY is sponsored by the American Psychological Association (APA) Copyright 1994 J.J. Koehler BASE RATES AND THE "ILLUSION ILLUSION" Response to Ayton, Gregson, Hamm, Koonce, McCauley, McKenzie & Spellman on Koehler on Base-Rates Jonathan J. Koehler Department of Management Science and Information Systems University of Texas at Austin Austin TX 78712-1175 Koehler@utxvm.cc.utexas.edu ABSTRACT: None of the commentators so far has been willing to defend the base rate fallacy. Instead, most offered evidence, theories and criticism reinforcing the view that the existing base rate research program is misleading and in need of examination in ecologically relevant environments. 1. Surprisingly, none of those who have commented on my target article (Koehler, 1993a) so far has seriously disputed the premise that we have been oversold on the base rate fallacy. At the descriptive level, commentators (a) provided additional evidence that people use base rates (Koonce, 1993), (b) offered theories for base rate use (Spellman (1993; see also Ayton's discussion of Kahneman and Lovallo, 1993), and (c) criticized studies that concluded that base rates are ignored (McCauley, 1994; McKenzie, 1994). Likewise, Hamm (1994) -- who was quite critical of people's performance in probabilistic inference tasks -- agreed that the literature does not support the conclusion that people typically neglect base rates (see also McCauley). Even Gregson (1993), who began his commentary with a dismissive remark, referred to the target article as "exhaustive and definitive." Why, then, have so many others reached different conclusions about the base rate fallacy? Where are their voices? Where are those who will defend the oft-repeated conclusion that people ignore base rates, and that the fallacy is a matter of established fact? Where are those who will say that we should continue to study base-rate neglect using the same narrow problems and performance standards that have been used continuously for more than twenty years? 2. Two commentators, McCauley and McKenzie, identified problems associated with determining what constitutes a base rate. McKenzie argued that the classic base rate neglect study by Kahneman and Tversky (1973) fails to distinguish between base rates and prior probabilities, and that the methods used were inadequate for determining whether either were ignored. McCauley argued that there is no clear theoretical distinction between a base rate and individuating information. Using the social judgment literature on stereotyping, McCauley showed that the base rate may be any of several different conditional probabilities in the typical social judgment study. Consequently, violations of Bayesian logic cannot be traced to an underweighting or overweighting of particular cues. 3. To my mind, the McKenzie and McCauley commentaries point up the dangers of mechanically applying Bayes' theorem to determine exactly how much weight people assign or should assign to base rates. None of the probabilities that Bayes' Theorem integrates to identify posterior probabilities is properly identified as base rates. As I have noted elsewhere (Koehler, 1993b), base rates may translate into prior probabilities for obvious reasons, for subtle reasons, and sometimes, for no good reason at all. McCauley has extended this reasoning by showing that base rates may feed into Bayesian likelihoods as well. These translation problems challenge the normative component of the base rate fallacy. 4. In light of this problem, care should be taken to show that the assumptions of base rate studies are defensible. Subjects' prior probabilities should be identified and recorded as a check on the often unjustified assumption that subjects' priors will equal the experimenter-supplied base rate. Then, if Bayesian performance standards must be used, they should be based on subjects' individual responses. Those investigators who have taken care to do this, report that subjects appear to pay a great deal of attention to their priors. For example, when Rasinski, Crocker and Hastie (1985) repeated the Locksley, Borgida, Brekke and Hepburn (1980, Study 2) experiment (discussed by McCauley) taking into account the subjects' own stereotypes, the stereotypes were not disregarded when accompanied by individuating diagnostic behavioral information. On the contrary, Rasinski et al. (1985) reported that their subjects "seemed to be overcautious in revising their stereotype-based judgments" (p. 322). A similarly substantial impact for base-rate induced priors was obtained by Wells and Harvey (1978) and Gigerenzer, Hell and Blank (1988) when individualized normative criteria were used. 5. In a sense, though, even those studies that apply Bayes' Theorem to show that base rates are not ignored miss the larger point. It is one thing to construct a problem that has a single solution, give this problem to laboratory subjects, then argue that they do or do not make reasonably good use of the various information cues. It is quite another thing to argue from such studies that people "generally" do or do not do such and such. Such a conclusion is linked not only to the number and reliability of studies that support the phenomenon, but also to the ecological validity of those studies. If the stimuli, incentives, performance standards and other contextual features in base rate studies are far removed from those encountered in the real world, then what are we to conclude? Shall we assume that people would be richer, more successful and happier if only they paid more attention to base rates? Shall we tell professional auditors -- a population that already seems to pay substantial attention to base rates (Koonce) -- that they too should pay closer attention to base rates? The risk, of course, is that this recommendation may lead them to attach too little weight to other information. 6. Several commentators offered explanations for people's performance in laboratory base rate studies. Spellman drew on implicit learning theory to explain the observation that people seem to use base rates more in some contexts than others. She noted that base rates seem to be most influential when they are learned observationally (e.g., through feedback trials) and when the learning is demonstrated in an equally implicit way (e.g., appropriate response to subsequent stimulus). There is empirical support for Spellman's theoretical distinction in the base rate literature (Christensen-Szalanski and Beach, 1982; Christensen- Szalanski and Bushyhead, 1981; Lindeman, Van Den Brink & Hoogstraten, 1988; Manis, Dovalina, Avis & Cardoze, 1980; Medin & Edelson, 1988). Whether Spellman's theory adequately explains the massive base rate literature or not, I like it because it reminds us that task structure and task environment matter. This simple point, and the data that support it, challenge the descriptive component of the base rate fallacy. 7. The recent work by Gigerenzer and his colleagues on the distinction between objective probabilities (e.g., relative frequencies) and subjective probabilities (e.g., single-event probabilities; Gigerenzer, 1991, 1992, in press; Gigerenzer & Murray, 1987, chapter 5) is also relevant to this controversy. Gigerenzer forcefully argues that the entire heuristics and biases enterprise (of which the base rate fallacy is a major part) is flawed because it blurs the distinction between these two types of probabilities. This is an important failing because people's use of base rates and other data appears to depend on whether the data and subjects' responses are described in terms of single event probabilities or in terms of relative frequencies (Cosmides & Tooby, in press). 8. On the other hand, Hamm correctly noted that there is much evidence that people in different environments have trouble with overtly probabilistic inference problems. For example, people often confuse P(E|H) with P(H|E). This error may be a common and costly one, but it should not be equated with base rate neglect. Among people who mistake P(E|H) for P(H|E), base rates are no more neglected than any other piece of diagnostic information (e.g., P(E|-H)). Once the error of confusing P(E|H) with P(H|E) is committed, there is no reason to expect people to moderate their estimates of P(H|E) on the basis of P(H). 9. Rather than writing people off as Bad Bayesians and base rate neglecters on the basis of this type of confusion, perhaps we should think more about how to present probabilities in ways that minimize misunderstandings. Reframing probabilistic information in terms of relative frequencies may be helpful, but this is not the only solution. Macchi (1991) showed that when subjects are provided with statements of likelihood information that are verbally dissimilar to their inverses, probabilistic confusions are reduced dramatically. 10. Such research can have profound practical implications. Gregson gave an example of a statistician who testified in a case involving forensic science evidence and concluded that "legal methods of inference and statistical methods of inference are not necessarily compatible." But does this mean that statistical methods of inference should be ignored in cases that include overtly probabilistic evidence? Consider criminal cases that include evidence of DNA matches between suspects and recovered traces of genetic material? Here, statisticians could play an important clarifying role. They could explain that P(E|-H), that is, the chance that a match [ENDNOTE 1] would occur if the suspect were not the source of the trace is not identical to P(-H|E), the chance that a matching suspect is not the source of the trace. This can be demonstrated by way of examples. Such a demonstration might also remind judges and jurors that nonforensic factors are relevant to their legal fact-finding mission. In short, though Gregson is right when he says the methods of law and statistics often conflict, it is probably also true that legal confusions about probabilistic evidence can be averted through the well-placed testimony of a (dare I say) Bayesian expert. 11. Ayton discussed a recent paper by Kahneman and Lovallo (1993) in which they argue that people have a tendency to see problems as unique ("inside view") when they should be viewed as instances of a broader class ("outside view"). This distinction may be helpful in some cases where accurate judgment is the primary goal, though less helpful when process and policy considerations are paramount. But an important caveat remains: even where goals other than accuracy do not exist, decision makers may need to contend with the problem of multiple reference classes. Who's to say which of several competing reference classes people ought to use? Suppose you are the manager of a Major League baseball team. Your team is up to bat with two outs and the bases loaded in the bottom of the ninth inning and the score is tied. You must decide which of two pinch hitters to bring to bat. You know that Spangler is the better hitter, although neither he nor Hickman has ever faced a good forkball pitcher similar to the one on the mound. You also suspect that Hickman is a slightly better hitter in pressure- packed situations, although your supportive data are limited. Can the outside view help you make the right decision? The development of sound prescriptive guidelines in such cases is the type research that deserves far more attention. 12. Gregson wondered whether decision makers are doing something that is not easily captured by "the simple form" of Bayes' theorem. Perhaps their probabilistic reasoning strategies are more complex. However, Hamm suggested that people in general, and medical doctors in particular, don't reason probabilistically at all. Instead, doctors rely on rule-based "mental scripts" to address both common and uncommon medical problems. According to Hamm, they make no calculations, and ignore probabilistic principles except insofar as those principles are already incorporated into the mental scripts. Hamm gave an example in which a mental script pertaining to interpretations of positive AIDS tests appeared to be altered by a base rate argument. But in this example it is hard to know whether the script was altered by the base rate argument (abstract) or by the outcome feedback that supported the base rate argument (concrete). If the feedback is the salient factor, then this may be a variation of the implicit learning Spellman described. 13. In the target article, I argued that the existing research program must be replaced by one that confronts base rate usage in real world tasks and embraces more realistic and flexible performance standards. This program should place greater emphasis on the development of descriptive theory and prescriptive recommendations than on the discovery of inconsistencies with Bayes' theorem in narrow tasks. As Koonce reminded us, the features that define the environments of real world decision makers (e.g., expertise, time-pressure, accountability) can cause their judgments to look quite different from those of laboratory subjects. Moreover, even where it can be demonstrated that people violate normative canons, McKenzie (in press) explains that many of the non-normative strategies people follow perform quite well across a variety of environmental conditions. The apparent failure of these strategies in a laboratory experiment may tell us little about the strategy's success in the real world. 14. Finally, Ayton mused about the possibility of a final cognitive illusion, one he called "the illusion illusion." In a more serious vein, this commentator suggested that psychologists ought to be more concerned with how people think rather than how well they think. I do not entirely agree. Many business students take courses from decision theorists to become more effective decision makers. Descriptive theory is important in such courses, but so too are the normative models, and the prescriptive guidelines that spring from them. Questioning the relevance of those models and guidelines for real world decision making is an appropriate scientific activity. It is also an activity that can lead to constructive changes in our research programs. ENDNOTE 1. By "match," I mean a "true match" (i.e., the suspect and the trace truly match), as opposed to a "reported match" (i.e., a laboratory technician SAYS that the suspect and trace truly match). This important difference -- a difference many statisticians recognize and can explain -- has been overlooked by the courts (see Koehler, in press). REFERENCES Ayton, P. (1993) Base Rate Neglect: An Insider View of Judgment? PSYCOLOQUY 4(63) base-rate.5.ayton. Christensen-Szalanski, J.J.J. & Beach, L.R. (1982) Experience and the Base-rate Fallacy. Organizational Behavior and Human Performance 29:270-278. Christensen-Szalanski, J.J.J. & Bushyhead, J.B. (1981) Physicians' Use of Probabilistic Information in a Real Clinical Setting. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance 7:928-935. Cosmides, L. & Tooby, J. (in press) Are Humans Good Intuitive Statisticians After All? Rethinking Some Conclusions from the Literature on Judgment Under Uncertainty. Cognition. Gigerenzer, G. (1991) How to Make Cognitive Illusions Disappear: Beyond "Heuristics and Biases." European Review of Social Psychology 2:83-115. Gigerenzer, G. (November, 1992) Where Do We Go From Here: After Heuristics and Biases. Paper presented at the meeting of the Society for Judgment and Decision Making, St. Louis, MO. Gigerenzer, G. (in press) Why the Distinction Between Single-event Probabilities and Frequencies is Important for Psychology (and Vice Versa). To appear in G. Wright & P. Ayton (Eds.), Subjective Probability. New York: Wiley. Gigerenzer, G., Hell, W. & Blank, H. (1988) Presentation and Content: The Use of Base Rates as a Continuous Variable. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance 14:513-525. Gigerenzer, G. & Murray, D.J. (1987) Cognition as Intuitive Statistics. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum. Gregson, R.A.M. (1993) Which Bayesian Theorem Could Be Compared With Real Behaviour. PSYCOLOQUY 4(50) base-rate.2.gregson. Hamm, R.M. (1994) Underweighting of Base-rate Information Reflects Important Difficulties People Have With Probabilistic Inference. PSYCOLOQUY 5(3) base-rate.7.hamm. Kahneman, D. & Lovallo, D. (1993) Timid Choice and Bold Forecasts: A Cognitive Perspective on Risk Taking. Management Science, 39, 17-31. Kahneman, D. & Tversky, A. (1973) On the Psychology of Prediction. Psychological Review 80:237-251. Koehler, J.J. (1993a) The Base Rate Fallacy Myth. PSYCOLOQUY 4(49) base-rate.1.koehler Koehler, J.J. (1993b) The Base Rate Fallacy Reconsidered: Normative, descriptive and methodological challenges. Unpublished manuscript. Koehler, J.J. (in press) Error and Exaggeration in the Presentation of DNA Evidence at Trail. Jurimetrics. Koonce, L.L. (1993) Base Rate Usage in Accounting. PSYCOLOQUY 4(51) base-rate.3.koonce. Lindeman, S.T., Van Den Brink, W.P. & Hoogstraten, J. (1988) Effect of Feedback on Base-rate Utilization. Perceptual and Motor Skills 67:343-350. Locksley, A., Borgida, E., Brekke, N. & Hepburn, C. (1980) Sex Stereotypes and Social Judgment. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 39:821-831. Macchi, L. (November, 1991) The Base-rate Fallacy and the Discourse Structure of Problems. Paper presented at the meeting of the Society for Judgment and Decision Making, San Francisco, CA. Manis, M., Dovalina, I., Avis, N.E. & Cardoze, S. (1980) Base Rates Can Affect Individual Predictions. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 38:231-248. McCauley, C. (1994) Stereotypes as Base Rate Predictions. PSYCOLOQUY 5(5) base-rate.8.mccauley. McKenzie, C.R.M. (1994) Base Rates Versus Prior Beliefs in Bayesian Inference. PSYCOLOQUY 5(1) base-rate.6.mckenzie. McKenzie, C.R.M. (in press) The Accuracy of Intuitive Judgment Strategies: Covariation Assessment and Bayesian Inference. Cognitive Psychology. Medin, D.L. & Edelson, S.M. (1988) Problem Structure and the Use of Base-rate Information from Experience. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General 117:68-85. Rasinski, K.A., Crocker, J. & Hastie, R. (1985) Another Look at Sex Stereotypes and Social Judgments: An Analysis of the Social Perceiver's Use of Subjective Probabilities. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 49:317-326. Spellman. B. A. (1993) Implicit Learning of Base Rates. PSYCOLOQUY 4(61) base-rate.4.spellman. Wells, G.L. & Harvey, J.H. (1978) Naive Attributors' Attributions and Predictions: What Is Informative and When Is an Effect an Effect? Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 36:483-490. 19-Feb-94 13:32:43-GMT,9931;000000000000 Received: from rutvm1.rutgers.edu by aramis.rutgers.edu (5.59/SMI4.0/RU1.5/3.08) id AA06967; Sat, 19 Feb 94 08:32:41 EST Message-Id: <9402191332.AA06967@aramis.rutgers.edu> Received: from RUTVM1.RUTGERS.EDU by RUTVM1.RUTGERS.EDU (IBM VM SMTP R1.2.1MX) with BSMTP id 8843; Sat, 19 Feb 94 08:33:55 EST Received: from RUTVM1.RUTGERS.EDU (NJE origin LISTSERV@RUTVM1) by RUTVM1.RUTGERS.EDU (LMail V1.1d/1.7f) with BSMTP id 9494; Sat, 19 Feb 1994 08:33:54 -0500 Date: Sat, 19 Feb 1994 08:32:18 -0500 Reply-To: psyc@pucc.bitnet Sender: "PSYCOLOQUY: Refereed Electronic Journal of Peer Discussion" From: Stevan Harnad Subject: psycoloquy.94.5.10.base-rate.10.fletcher (181 lines) Comments: To: psyc@pucc.bitnet To: Multiple recipients of list PSYC psycoloquy.94.5.10.base-rate.10.fletcher Date February 19, 1994 ISSN 1055-0143 (9 paragraphs, 14 references, 175 lines) PSYCOLOQUY is sponsored by the American Psychological Association (APA) Copyright 1994 Garth Fletcher ASSESSING ERROR IN SOCIAL JUDGMENT Commentary on Koehler on Base-Rate Garth J.O. Fletcher Psychology Department University of Canterbury Christchurch New Zealand PSYC212@CSC.CANTERBURY.AC.NZ ABSTRACT: This commentary examines the base rate controversy in the wider context of the work on errors and biases in social cognition, with remarks on a theme raised by Koehler concerning the appropriate normative model for assessing base rate usage. I. PUTTING THE BASE RATE CONTROVERSY IN CONTEXT 1. The central point in Koehler's (1993) target article is that, contrary to previous claims, people do not typically ignore or even underutilize base rate information in making decisions or other social judgments. Part of the fight that Koehler picks has to a large extent already been won, at least in social psychology and social cognition. There is now widespread recognition in popular social psychology texts (e.g., Myers, 1993), in social cognition texts (e.g., Fiske & Taylor, 1991), and in the research literature generally, that people do not routinely ignore base rates in making social judgments, and that base rate usage is substantially moderated by a host of conditions. 2. It is nevertheless useful to put the work on base rates in the context of the general literature on errors and biases. The work by Tversky and Kahneman, and others in the 1970s, documented several fundamental errors and biases in addition to the underutilization of base rates, including the fundamental attribution error, belief perseverance, confirmatory bias, and over-confidence in social judgment. Lay individuals came to be viewed as lazy thinkers, as incompetent statisticians, and as hopelessly biased by their frequently wrong-headed social theories (Nisbett & Ross, 1980). 3. Over the last decade, however, a flood of research and theorizing on various errors and biases has produced a seachange in this rather bleak portrayal of human social intelligence (for reviews apart from Koehler, 1993; see Fletcher, 1993; Funder, 1987; Kenrick & Funder, 1988; and Klayman & Ha, 1987). In a nutshell, this research has demonstrated the same pattern of results documented by Koehler in relation to base rate usage, namely, that there exists a patchwork of conditions under which judgment biases or "errors" are reduced or eliminated, or judgment accuracy is enhanced. In short, depending on the conditions, lay social cognition can look simplistic or complex, stupid or intelligent. II. CHOOSING THE APPROPRIATE NORMATIVE MODEL 4. I suspect that another reason why the zeitgeist has swung against the earlier bleak assessments of lay social judgment, is related to the difficulties involved in assessing the rationality or soundness of subjects' responses. Many of the landmark debates in the error/bias literature have revolved around this issue (e.g., Cohen, 1981); the importance of this point is also well illustrated by Koehler's analysis of base rate usage. At root, this problem comes down to selecting the appropriate normative model with which to compare lay inference. 5. In this respect, there is a crucial difference between treating a Bayesian model as a normative versus a descriptive account of lay cognition. To use the Bayesian model as a descriptive tool involves estimating how subjects correct any prior beliefs or hunches they might have in the light of the data (in this case the relevant base rates). Often, however, the Bayesian model is used to derive the "correct" solution. This solution usually assumes that subjects should give full weight to the base rate information provided, and ignore any prior hypotheses or beliefs they might have. For example in the lawyer- engineer problem (Kahneman & Tversky, 1973), subjects who fail to ignore the individuating information (which is regarded as nondiagnostic), and give less than full weight to the base rate data, are regarded as making a mistake. 6. However, the Bayesian model is a poor instrument for assessing the rationality or soundness of lay cognition. Take, for example, one of the studies upon which the base rate fallacy myth was built by Nisbett and Borgida (1975). In this study, it was found that subjects were not influenced by base rate information concerning their predictions or causal attributions concerning the behavior of hypothetical individual subjects, who were described as participating in a psychology experiment (involving willingness to take electric shocks, or to help someone apparently suffering a seizure). As demonstrated by Wells and Harvey (1977), one reason subjects ignore the base rate information in this experiment is because it is discrepant with their prior beliefs (people are much more prone to take electric shocks, and not help other people, than most lay individuals believe). In this situation, subjects tend to dismiss the base rate information as unrepresentative of the wider population. 7. Note, first, that one cannot infer irrationality or flawed thinking from the existence of false beliefs or errors. It is all too easy to arrive rationally at false theories or beliefs with the information currently at hand (scientists do it all the time). Second, it is not necessarily correct to equate a social inference bias with below par performance. For example, it has commonly been claimed that lay individuals are overconservative when revising their prior theories in the face of disconfirming evidence. However, given the ubiquity of conflicting evidence, and the desirability of retaining a reasonably stable view of the world, such theoretical conservatism could plausibly be characterized as normatively appropriate for lay individuals and scientists alike. Bias does not necessarily equal error. 8. To return to the Nisbett and Borgida (1975) study, if we were really serious about evaluating the soundness of subjects' thinking we would need to examine how their original beliefs were derived, as well as how they weighted the base rate data provided. On both counts a Bayesian model is, in itself, not much use. There are alternative models available for assessing lay cognition, such as Thagard's (1989) model of explanatory coherence, which postulates an interlocking network of epistemic criteria for evaluating theories or explanations (e.g., simplicity, breadth, internal consistency and fertility). Provisional evidence suggests that lay evaluations of social explanations are consistent with such a model (Read & Marcus-Newhall, 1993; see also Fletcher, 1993). 9. Whatever normative account is used, it is clear that evaluations of the correctness or soundness of lay social inference are indissolubly linked to the plausibility and comprehensiveness of the standards or models by which it is assessed. For this reason alone, claims about the sagacity or otherwise of lay social cognition should always be examined with a skeptical eye. REFERENCES Cohen, L.J. (1981). Can Human Irrationality Be Experimentally Demonstrated? The Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 4, 317-370. Fiske, S.T. & Taylor, S.E. (1991). Social Cognition, 2nd ed. New York: McGraw-Hill. Fletcher, G.J.O. (1993). The Scientific Credibility of Commonsense Psychology. In K.H. Craik, R. Hogan & R.N. Wolfe (eds.), Fifty Years of Personality Psychology (pp. 251-269). New York: Plenum Press. Funder, D.C. (1987). Errors and Mistakes: Evaluating the Accuracy of Social Judgment. Psychological Bulletin, 101, 75-90. Kahneman, D. & Tversky, A. (1973). On the Psychology of Prediction. Psychological Review, 80, 237-251 Kenrick, D.T. & Funder, D.C. (1988). Profiting from Controversy: Lessons from the Person-Situation Debate. American Psychologist, 43, 23-34. Klayman, J. & Ha, Y.W. (1987). Confirmation, Disconfirmation, and Information in Hypothesis Testing. Psychological Review, 94, 211-228. Koehler, J.J. (1993). The Base Rate Fallacy Myth. PSYCOLOQUY, 4(49) base-rate.1.koehler. Myers, D.G. (1993). Social Psychology. 4th ed. New York: McGraw-Hill. Nisbett, R.E. & Borgida, E. (1975). Attribution and the Psychology of Prediction. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 32, 932-943. Nisbett, R.E. & Ross, L. (1980). Human Inference: Strategies and Shortcomings of Social Judgment. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall. Read, S.R. & Marcus-Newhall, A. (1993). Explanatory Coherence in Social Explanations: A Parallel Distributed Processing Account. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 65, 429-447. Thagard, P. (1989). Explanatory Coherence. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 12, 435-467. Wells, G.L. & Harvey, J.H. (1977). Do People Use Consensus Information in Making Causal Attributions? Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 35, 270-293. 27-Feb-94 11:31:16-GMT,20707;000000000000 Received: from rutvm1.rutgers.edu by aramis.rutgers.edu (5.59/SMI4.0/RU1.5/3.08) id AA01892; Sun, 27 Feb 94 06:31:14 EST Message-Id: <9402271131.AA01892@aramis.rutgers.edu> Received: from RUTVM1.RUTGERS.EDU by RUTVM1.RUTGERS.EDU (IBM VM SMTP R1.2.1MX) with BSMTP id 1039; Sun, 27 Feb 94 06:32:28 EST Received: from RUTVM1.RUTGERS.EDU (NJE origin LISTSERV@RUTVM1) by RUTVM1.RUTGERS.EDU (LMail V1.1d/1.7f) with BSMTP id 9123; Sun, 27 Feb 1994 06:32:27 -0500 Date: Sun, 27 Feb 1994 06:31:00 -0500 Reply-To: psyc@pucc.bitnet Sender: "PSYCOLOQUY: Refereed Electronic Journal of Peer Discussion" From: Stevan Harnad Subject: PSYCOLOQUY Newsletter Section (Announcements: 494 lines) Comments: To: psyc@pucc.bitnet To: Multiple recipients of list PSYC PSYCOLOQUY ISSN 1055-0143 Sun, 27 Feb 94 Newsletter Section (1) Conference: Intern'l Summer Inst in Cog Sci: Financial Aid Info (2) Conference: Cybernetics & Systems Research, April 5-8, Vienna (3) Conference: Hebb Symposium, May 15-20, U of Toronto (4) New Society: Society for Research in Memory & Cognition Formed (5) New List: Psychiatry & Abnormal Psychology (6) New Course: Health Psychology, U of Southampton, UK (7) Announcement: Ecopsychology Article & Course via FTP and Email (8) Query: Seeking Computerized Version of Stroop Test ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: cogsci94@cs.Buffalo.EDU (SUNY at Buffalo Cognitive Science Announcements) Subject: (1) Conference: Intern'l Summer Inst in Cog Sci: Financial Aid Info FIRST INTERNATIONAL SUMMER INSTITUTE IN COGNITIVE SCIENCE (FISI-CS) Multidisciplinary Foundations of Cognitive Science Center for Cognitive Science State University of New York at Buffalo, Buffalo NY, USA (Amherst Campus) JULY 5 - 30, 1994 INFORMATION ON FINANCIAL AID Although the official deadline for applications for financial aid for the Summer Institute in Cognitive Science has now passed, we will continue to process further such applications. However, applications received before the deadline will be given priority. Financial aid forms should be filled out as completely as possible. If there are sections of the form that do not apply to you (for example, because you have no GRE scores), please leave these sections blank and explain why you are doing so in an accompanying note, enclosing all documentation that you think relevant. It is anticipated that the Organizing Committee will, unfortunately, have very limited resources of its own to aid deserving candidates to attend the Institute. And decisions about awards from this source cannot be made before April. However, we will do all we can to help applicants receive support from third-party sources (and we have already had some success in this respect, specifically for US minorities, and for persons applying from outside the US). People who believe they may be eligible for assistance from third-party sources or who would like any clarification or advice on financial aid should contact Barry Smith as soon as possible: Dr. Barry Smith Department of Philosophy SUNY Buffalo Buffalo, NY 14260 USA email: PHISMITH@ubvms.cc.buffalo.edu phone: 716-645-2463 People needing financial aid forms should contact: FISI-CS Office of Conferences and Special Events Room 120, Center for Tomorrow University at Buffalo Buffalo, NY 14260-1602 USA email: cogsci94@ubvms.cc.buffalo.edu Telephone: (716) 645-2018 Fax: (716) 645-3869 Completed financial aid forms should be sent to this address as well. We will not normally send back acknowledgment of receipt of financial aid applications. If you would like an acknowledgement, please send a request to Barry Smith at his address above (enclosing, if possible, a stamped, self-addressed envelope). Applicants from former USSR countries should also contact: Prof. Robert Van Valin Department of Linguistics SUNY Buffalo Buffalo, NY 14260 USA email: LINVAN@ubvmsb.cc.buffalo.edu ------------------------------ From: sec@ai.univie.ac.at Subject: (2) Conference: Cybernetics & Systems Research, April 5-8, Vienna TWELFTH EUROPEAN MEETING ON CYBERNETICS AND SYSTEMS RESEARCH (EMCSR 1994) April 5 - 8, 1994 UNIVERSITY OF VIENNA Organized by the Austrian Society for Cybernetic Studies in cooperation with Department of Medical Cybernetics and Artificial Intelligence, University of Vienna and International Federation for Systems Research Plenary lectures: MARGARET BODEN (United Kingdom): "Artificial Intelligence and Creativity" STEPHEN GROSSBERG (USA): "Neural Networks for Learning, Recognition, and Prediction" STUART A. UMPLEBY (USA): "Twenty Years of Second Order Cybernetics" 241 papers will be presented and discussed in the following symposia: GENERAL SYSTEMS METHODOLOGY G.J.Klir (USA) ADVANCES IN MATHEMATICAL SYSTEMS THEORY J.Miro (Spain), M.Peschel (Germany), F.Pichler (Austria) FUZZY SYSTEMS, APPROXIMATE REASONING AND KNOWLEDGE-BASED SYSTEMS C.Carlsson (Finland), K.-P.Adlassnig (Austria), E.P.Klement (Austria) DESIGNING AND SYSTEMS, AND THEIR EDUCATION B.Banathy (USA), W.Gasparski (Poland), G.Goldschmidt (Israel) HUMANITY, ARCHITECTURE AND CONCEPTUALIZATION G.Pask (United Kingdom), G.de Zeeuw (Netherlands) BIOCYBERNETICS AND MATHEMATICAL BIOLOGY L.M.Ricciardi (Italy) SYSTEMS AND ECOLOGY F.J.Radermacher (Germany), K.Fedra (Austria) CYBERNETICS AND INFORMATICS IN MEDICINE G.Gell (Austria), G.Porenta (Austria) CYBERNETICS OF SOCIO-ECONOMIC SYSTEMS K.Balkus (USA), O.Ladanyi (Austria) SYSTEMS, MANAGEMENT AND ORGANIZATION G.Broekstra (Netherlands), R.Hough (USA) CYBERNETICS OF COUNTRY DEVELOPMENT P.Ballonoff (USA), T.Koizumi (USA), S.A.Umpleby (USA) COMMUNICATION AND COMPUTERS A M.Tjoa (Austria) INTELLIGENT AUTONOMOUS SYSTEMS J.Rozenblit (USA), H.Praehofer (Austria) CYBERNETIC PRINCIPLES OF KNOWLEDGE DEVELOPMENT F.Heylighen (Belgium), S.A.Umpleby (USA) CYBERNETICS, SYSTEMS AND PSYCHOTHERAPY M.Okuyama (Japan), H.Koizumi (USA) ARTIFICIAL NEURAL NETWORKS AND ADAPTIVE SYSTEMS S.Grossberg (USA), G.Dorffner (Austria) ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE AND COGNITIVE SCIENCE V.Marik (Czech Republic), R.Born (Austria) TUTORIALS: A SYNTACTIC APPROACH TO HEURISTIC NETWORKS: LINGUISTIC GEOMETRY Prof.Boris Stilman, University of Colorado, Denver, USA FUZZY SETS AND IMPRECISE BUT RELEVANT DECISIONS Prof.Christer Carlsson, Abo Akademi University, Abo, Finland CONTEXTUAL SYSTEMS: A NEW TECHNOLOGY FOR KNOWLEDGE BASED SYSTEM DEVELOPMENT Dr.Irina V. Ezhkova, Russian Academy of Science, Moscow TWENTY YEARS OF SECOND ORDER CYBERNETICS Prof.Stuart A. Umpleby, George Washington University, Washington, D.C., USA PROCEEDINGS: Trappl R.(ed.): CYBERNETICS AND SYSTEMS '94, 2 vols, 1911 pages, World Scientific Publishing, Singapore. FOR FURTHER INFORMATION PLEASE CONTACT: EMCSR'94 Secretariat c/o Austrian Society for Cybernetic Studies Schottengasse 3 A-1010 Vienna Austria Phone: +43-1-53532810 Fax: +43-1-5320652 E-mail: sec@ai.univie.ac.at ------------------------------ From: albers@fields.UWaterloo.ca (Sheri Albers) Subject: (3) Conference: Hebb Symposium, May 15-20, U of Toronto THE FIELDS INSTITUTE FOR RESEARCH IN MATHEMATICAL SCIENCES HEBB SYMPOSIUM ON NEURONS AND BIOLOGICAL DYNAMICS Sunday, May 15 to Friday May 20, 1994 Koffler Pharmaceutical Center University of Toronto D.O. Hebb's classic, "The Organization of Behavior" published in 1949, sketched out how behavior might emerge from the properties of nerve cells and assemblies of nerve cells. This book was a landmark achievement in neurophysiological psychology. The modifiable synapse, discussed at length by Hebb and now known as the "Hebb synapse", was a lasting contribution. Hebb was from Nova Scotia and spent most of his professional life at McGill in the Psychology Department. We are having this symposium in his honor. Topics will range from cellular level to systems level, with an eye towards interesting dynamics and connections between dynamics and functions. We will bring together physiological and mathematical researchers with some didactic and research talks oriented towards graduate students and postdoctoral fellows. SCIENTIFIC PROGRAM: Lectures will be presented by N. Kopell (Boston University) and David Mumford (Harvard) in the Institute's Distinguished Lecture Series. The meeting will emphasize poster sessions as well as discussion groups where participants can present their work orally. TOPICS Larry Abbott: Population vectors and Hebbian learning Moshe Abeles: Information processing of synchronized activity Harold Atwood: Synaptic transmission and plasticity David Brillinger: Statistical analysis of neurophysiological data Jos Eggermont: Spatial and temporal interactions in auditory cortex Bard Ermentrout: Patterns in visual cortex Leon Glass: Nonlinear dynamics of neural networks Ilona Kovacs: Visual psychophysics/perceptual organization Gilles Laurent: Oscillations in olfaction Andre Longtin: Stochastic nonlinear dynamics of sensory transduction Leonard Maler: Bursting and recurrent feedback in electroreception Karl Pribram: Behavioral neurodynamics Paul Rapp: Dynamical characterization of neurological data John Rinzel: Thalamic rhythmogenesis in sleep and epilepsy Mike Shadlin: Analysis of visual motion Matt Wilson: Behaviorally induced changes in hippocampal connectivity Martin Wojtowicz: Membranes, channels and synapses Steve Zucker: Neural networks and visual computations FOR INFORMATION ON SCIENTIFIC PROGRAM: David Brillinger (brill@stat.berkeley.edu) Andre Longtin (andre@miro.physics.uottawa.ca FOR REGISTRATION AND ORGANIZATIONAL INFORMATION: Sheri Albers The Fields Institute 185 Columbia St. W. Waterloo, Ontario, Canada N2L 5Z5 Phone: (519) 725-0096 Fax: (519) 725-0704 e-mail: hebb@fields.uwaterloo.ca ------------------------------ From: Ron Okada Subject: (4) New Society: Society for Research in Memory & Cognition Formed FORMATION OF THE SOCIETY FOR APPLIED RESEARCH IN MEMORY AND COGNITION The Society for Applied Research in Memory and Cognition is being formed to help focus the rapidly expanding research efforts in applied memory and applied cognition. As you may know, two successful conferences on practical aspects of memory and cognition have been held in 1978 and 1987 and a third will be held July 31 - August 5, 1994 at the University of Maryland. With the sponsorship of the Society, similar conferences will be held on a regular basis in the future. To be eligible for membership, a person should hold the Ph.D. degree or have equivalent experience and should be qualified to conduct scientific research on applied issues concerning memory and cognition. For 1994, the membership fee will be $30 US and will include a subscription to the journal Applied Cognitive Psychology. Associate membership is also available. For an application form or further information about the Society, please contact The Society for Applied Research in Memory and Cognition, c/o David Burrows, Department of Psychology, Skidmore College, Saratoga Springs, New York 12866. Electronic enquiries can be sent to David Burrows at the Internet address dburrows@skidmore.edu. ------------------------------ From: Ian Pitchford Subject: (5) New List: Psychiatry & Abnormal Psychology ANNOUNCING A NEW UNMODERATED DISCUSSION FORUM DEALING WITH ISSUES IN PSYCHIATRY AND ABNORMAL PSYCHOLOGY Psychiatry@mailbase.ac.uk TO SUBSCRIBE: SEND THE MESSAGE "SUBSCRIBE PSYCHIATRY " (IN THE BODY OF THE MESSAGE) TO: MAILBASE@MAILBASE.AC.UK TO SEND A MESSAGE TO THE LIST: SEND THE MESSAGE TO PSYCHIATRY@MAILBASE.AC.UK This mailbase list has been set up with the aim of utilising the vast resources of the Internet on behalf of everyone interested in issues in psychiatry and abnormal psychology. As with any discussion forum its value will be proportional to the effort that those contributing to it are prepared to make in provoking stimulating and thoughtful debate. The forum was judged to be necessary because many of the findings and viewpoints in the fields of psychiatry and abnormal psychology are both controversial and easily misinterpreted, resulting in a lack of empathy and understanding between those pursuing radically different approaches to the aetiology and pathophysiology of mental illness. It is hoped that the forum will act as a bridge between those taking a biomedical viewpoint of the study and treatment of psychopathology, and those taking a more existential or psychodynamic viewpoint. It is hoped in particular that amicable discussion will encourage and support an attitude of mutual respect, producing a more collaborative approach to these difficult issues, so narrowing the unacceptably wide gulf that now separates the opposing camps. All of those wishing to share personal insights, research findings, philosophical outlooks, clinical case notes, or simple anecdotes on any of the following, are cordially invited to contribute: * Methodology: clinical case histories, scientific experimentation, laboratory models, statistical and analytical methods, meta- analysis. * Current and past research papers, unpublished findings. * Epidemiology of mental illness. * Concepts of abnormality: The underlying philosophy of psychiatry and abnormal psychology. * The history of perceived causes of abnormal behaviour: possession and witchcraft, physical causes, psychogenic causes. * The real life experience of mental illness. * Conflicting Approaches? The Biomedical approach, the psychodynamic approach, the environmental model: behavioural and cognitive approaches * Psychiatric Nomenclature * Psychometric Testing - Psychological classification and assessment. * Specific Disorders: Personality disorders, neuroses, paranoid states, affective disorders, schizophrenia, organic disorders, eating disorders, sexual dysfunction and abnormality, psychoactive substance abuse, psychosomatic illness, behavioural disorders in children. * Diagnosis, classification, symptomatology, and prognosis of mental illness. * Psychoneuroimmunology, psychoneuroendocrinology. * Disorders of the nervous system and psychopathology. * Psychiatric emergencies. * Psycotherapeutic techniques. * Alternative approaches: meditation, relaxation, etc. * Physical treatments: psychopharmacology, electro-convulsive therapy, aversion therapy, psychoneurosurgery, etc. * Mental illness and the legal system: uses and abuses of psychiatry. * Mental illness and society: community care, the history of mental health care, the public perception of the mentally ill. * Psychopathology and creativity. * Aetiology: genetics, neuroanatomy, neurophysiology. * Reviews of new publications, journal articles, conferences. Have you read a stimulating reappraisal, or cogent exposition of your speciality? If so, let us know. * Assessment of contributors to the development of psychology and psychiatry: Charcot, Freud, Jung, Adler, Bleuler, Kraepelin, Meyer Erikson, Fromm, Rogers, Perls, Frankl, Skinner, Ellis, Laing et al. The basic underlying philosophy of this forum is: "There is someone wiser than any of us, and that is all of us." This would also be an appropriate motto for the Internet, and I would be very happy to hear from anyone who would like to assist in the compilation of a resource guide, register of research interests, or any other such extension to the services offered by this list that would be productive in making it a more useful tool to the subscribers. All comments and suggestions to: Ian Pitchford ------------------------------ From: "A.P.Costall" Subject: (6) New Course: Health Psychology, U of Southampton, UK New course: Health Psychology at Southampton. The MSc in Health Psychology at the University of Southampton is a modular, credit-rated course allowing flexible patterns of study. It may be taken full time (4 terms) or part time (7 terms) or on a modular basis over a longer period. The course is designed for those who wish to study psychology at postgraduate level in an area of high social relevance - for health care and other professionals, for example, who seek to explore the conceptual models and methodologies which inform practice, to enhance practitioner skills, and to acquire research competence. For details, contact Sandra Horn, Psychology Department, University of Southampton, Southampton, SO9 5NH, UK. tel. 0703 593578. email: S.A.Horn@UK.AC.Soton ------------------------------ From: "mjcohen" Subject: (7) Announcement: Ecopsychology Article & Course via FTP and Email Counseling With Nature: An article and course available free by E-mail and FTP. A new American Psychological Association ecopsychology article describes a remarkable nature-connecting process that scientifically lets Earth itself teach its natural wisdom, spirit and peace. The article shows how to introduce a revolutionary inter-cultural psychology process into classrooms, mental health and recovery programs. A forthcoming free internet Applied Ecopsychology training course is also described. Now, by special arrangement, get a complimentary electronic copy of this APA journal article - by E-mail to "ecopsych-article@igc.apc.org" ; - at "ige.apc.org" through FTP/pub/ecopsych ; - by U. S. postal mail to Article, Box 4112, Roche Harbor WA 98250 USA. In recognition of his 39 years as Assistant Secretary General of the United Nations, his establishment of the University for Peace and development of global education schools, books and curriculums, Dr. Robert Muller received the Albert Schweitzer Peace Prize and the UNESCO Prize for Peace. Today, as Chancellor of the University for Peace, United Nations, Dr. Muller says: "We must not shy from new opportunities to relate more responsibly to each other, spirit and the environment. For this reason I urge you to read Dr. Michael J. Cohen' s remarkable article "Integrated Ecology: The Process of Counseling With Nature" in the American Psychological Association's Autumn 1993 issue of THE HUMANISTIC PSYCHOLOGIST Vol. 21 No. 3. The article offers a unique educational process whose sensory nature-connecting activities reduce apathy, promote ment al health and manage stress. I am familiar with Dr. Cohen and his ecopsychology work. It fulfills our economic needs, deeper ideals and spirit. His self-guiding materials deserve the attention of every person who seeks to reverse our troubles and I am delighted to help make them available." An electronic mail, 72K copy of the article is available through internet FTP as well as by Email as follows: 1. FTP: Go to the FTP Directory at "igc.apc.org" and under "Pub" download "Ecopsych" 2. EMAIL: Simply send an Email request to "ecopsych-article@igc.apc.org" 3. HARD COPY AND INFORMATION: You may request a free hard copy of the article and/or to be kept informed of new applied ecopsychology opportunities and developments if you E-mail your *Post Office address* to , or you may postal mail your postal address to: World Peace University, Box 4112, Roche Harbor WA 98250. (Non-USA residents please send a self-addressed business size envelope stamped for $1.25, US or equivalent if possible). 4. Details of a forthcoming free Email Applied Ecopsychology training course are i ncluded with the article. Inquire about scheduled national training conferences. ------------------------------ From: "silvio scarone, m.d." Subject: (8) Query: Seeking Computerized Version of Stroop Test I am looking for a computerized version of Stroop test. Has anybody some inform ation about that? Thanks a lot, Silvio Scarone End of PSYCOLOQUY Digest ****************************** 27-Feb-94 13:56:04-GMT,10928;000000000000 Received: from rutvm1.rutgers.edu by aramis.rutgers.edu (5.59/SMI4.0/RU1.5/3.08) id AA11042; Sun, 27 Feb 94 08:56:03 EST Message-Id: <9402271356.AA11042@aramis.rutgers.edu> Received: from RUTVM1.RUTGERS.EDU by RUTVM1.RUTGERS.EDU (IBM VM SMTP R1.2.1MX) with BSMTP id 1139; Sun, 27 Feb 94 08:57:16 EST Received: from RUTVM1.RUTGERS.EDU (NJE origin LISTSERV@RUTVM1) by RUTVM1.RUTGERS.EDU (LMail V1.1d/1.7f) with BSMTP id 9404; Sun, 27 Feb 1994 08:57:15 -0500 Date: Sun, 27 Feb 1994 08:55:41 -0500 Reply-To: psyc@pucc.bitnet Sender: "PSYCOLOQUY: Refereed Electronic Journal of Peer Discussion" From: Stevan Harnad Subject: PSYCOLOQUY Newsletter Section (Employment: 230 lines) Comments: To: psyc@pucc.bitnet To: Multiple recipients of list PSYC PSYCOLOQUY ISSN 1055-0143 Sun, 27 Feb 94 Newsletter Section (1) Employment: Multiple Pos., Cognitive Neuroscience, San Francisco (2) Employment: 3 Pos., Human Development/Family Studies, Bowling Green (3) Employment: Asst/Assoc Prof, Cognitive Neuropsychologist, U Penn (4) Employment: Prof, Psychology of Learning Disabilities, Keele, UK ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: michael@eeg.com (Michael Smith) Subject: (1) Employment: Multiple Pos., Cognitive Neuroscience, San Francisco COGNITIVE NEUROSCIENCE RESEARCH POSITIONS AVAILABLE. EEG Systems Laboratory/SAM Technology, Inc in San Francisco has several positions available for qualified individuals to join our interdisci- plinary team of researchers who are developing and applying leading- edge methods for analyzing the spatiotemporal dynamics of human brain electrical fields. ASSISTANT RESEARCH SCIENTIST This position is for a highly motivated recent PhD who specializes in studying mental activity using EEG, EPs and other psychophysiological signals, and who is eager to apply that background to the problem of developing practical methods for measuring human brain signals related to attention and mental workload. Good writing, communication, interpersonal, quantitative, and computer skills are essential. ASSISTANT RESEARCH SCIENTIST/ENGINEER The successful candidate for this position should have an MS or PhD degree and extensive knowledge and expertise in human neurophysiology, functional neuroanatomy, bioelectric modeling, and bioelectric inverse problems. A strong background in digital signal processing, finite element modeling, C programming, and image processing will be a plus. NEUROTECHNOLOGY RESEARCH ASSISTANT Part-time or full-time position to assist brain scientists studying human cognition. Primary tasks include subject recruitment and testing and analysis of EEG data. An ideal applicant would have either a BA/BS in psychology, bioengineering, or related field, knowledge of statistics or programming, experience with UNIX and DOS environments, and/or experience with EEG recording techniques. EEG Systems Laboratory is an independent, not-for-profit, brain research laboratory directed by Alan Gevins. It is dedicated to research on higher cognitive functions. Its sister organization, SAM Technology, Inc. is a small company involved with the development of next-generation technology for recording and analyzing brain electrical signals. Our laboratory has state of the art facilities and is located in an attractive building in downtown San Francisco. For questions regarding the nature of any of these positions, please contact Michael Smith (michael@eeg.com). To apply, please send a resume or CV, and, if applicable, representative reprints or preprints, code samples, and transcripts to: ATTN: Jane Zhu SAM TECHNOLOGY, INC. 51 Federal St, San Francisco, CA 94107 FAX 415-546-7122; EMAIL jane@eeg.com ------------------------------ From: tchibuc@andy.bgsu.edu (THOMAS ROBERT CHIBUCOS) Subject: (2) Employment: 3 Pos., Human Development/Family Studies, Bowling Green BOWLING GREEN STATE UNIVERSITY DEPARTMENT OF APPLIED HUMAN ECOLOGY The Department of Applied Human Ecology at Bowling Green State University is searching for two teacher-scholars for full-time probationary tenure-track positions in Human Development and Family Studies. Applied Human Ecology is an interdisciplinary department whose scholarly, teaching and service mission centers on advancing scientific knowledge and practice about families and individuals in relation to their various near and extended environments. The faculty in the department are extensively involved in professional organizations and are highly productive scholars. Some examples of current scholarly interests of faculty in Applied Human Ecology include: early childhood education; family and child policy; sexual development in the family; parent education; child abuse and neglect; independent aging and nutrition; social-behavioral outcomes and design of mental health or other treatment facilities; and research methodology. The successful candidates will: teach graduate and undergraduate classes, advise undergraduates, and supervise graduate student research; develop/sustain scholarly productivity commensurate with tenure/promotion; engage in university, public and professional service. 1. Assistant Professor. Qualifications: doctorate in child development or related field (ABD if degree imminent); expertise in infancy, early childhood, child development, or parenting; demonstrated productivity in research and scholarship. 2. Assistant/Associate Professor. A major responsibility of this position is the supervision of clinical internships. Qualifications: doctorate in family studies (ABD if degree imminent); expertise in minority families, family theories, adolescence or human development; demonstrated productivity in research and scholarship; training and experience in family therapy (AAMFT clinical membership preferred). Salaries for both positions are competitive and negotiable depending on qualifications. Effective date: August 15, 1994. Send application letter, vita and the names (with address, phone and FAX) of four potential references to: Thomas R. Chibucos, Chair, Department of Applied Human Ecology, Bowling Green State University, Bowling Green, OH 43403-0254. (419) 372-7823; FAX (419) 372-7854; e-mail address is tchibuc@andy.bgsu.edu. Application deadline is March 15, 1994, or until suitable candidates are found. Bowling Green State University is committed to creating a diverse academic workplace. Minorities and women are especially encouraged to apply for these positions. ------------------------------ From: diamond@cattell.psych.upenn.edu (Adele Diamond) Subject: (3) Employment: Asst/Assoc Prof, Cognitive Neuropsychologist, U Penn Opening for a Developmental Cognitive Neuropsychologist at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine at rank of Assistant or Associate Professor tenure track, hard money, with no teaching or clinical obligations The University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine announces a search for a cognitive neuropsychologist with interests in developmental disabilities to join the neuroscience research group within the Department of Pediatrics. Although the primary appointment would be in Pediatrics, affiliations with the Departments of Psychology, Psychiatry, Neuroscience, Neurology, Neuro- surgery, Nuclear Medicine, etc. would be possible, and research collabora- tions with members of these and other departments encouraged. The search committee is open to diverse research priorities, but would particularly like to encourage applicants whose areas of expertise include any of the following: disabilities (both developmental and recent-onset), drug- brain-behavior interactions, functional neuroimaging, language development and processing, and the functions of the temporal lobe. Candidates must have a funded research program. Send letter of application along with vitae and a statement of research interests to: Cognitive Neuropsychology Search Committee Pediatric Psychology Children's Seashore House/Children's Hospital of Pennsylvania (CSH/CHOP) 3405 Civic Center Blvd. Philadelphia, PA 19104-4308 email to: diamond@cattell.psych.upenn.edu or: atkins@a1.mscf.upenn.edu Applicants should also arrange to have 3 letters of reference sent. The University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine is an Equal Opportunity, Affirmative Action Employer. ------------------------------ From: "J. Hartley" Subject: (4) Employment: Prof, Psychology of Learning Disabilities, Keele, UK KEELE UNIVERSITY, U.K. NORTH STAFFORDSHIRE COMBINED HEALTHCARE NHS TRUST PROFESSOR OF PSYCHOLOGY OF LEARNING DISABILITIES Applications are invited for this newly established chair. The successful candidate will provide the clinical and academic lead in the development of services for people with learning disabilities. Time will be divided 60/40 between clinical work and academic duties. The latter will be in the University Department of Psychology. The postholder will be expected to establish a centre of excellence in this research field. The salary will be within spine points 42 to 48 NHS Clinical psychologist scale, which is within the University Professorial range. For informal enquiries please contact either Mr E J Calvert, District Psychologist, Department of Clinical Psychology, St Edwards Hospital, Cheddleton, Nr Leek, Staffs ST13 7EB U.K. Tel (UK 0538) 360421 ext 286 or 338; or Professor J Sloboda, Department of Psychology, Keele University, Staffordshire, ST5 5BG, U.K. Tel (UK 0782) 583381, e-mail j.a.sloboda@keele.ac.uk. For an application form and further particulars, please contact the Human Resource Department, Combined Healthcare, Bucknall Hospital, Eaves Lane, Bucknall, Stoke-on-Trent, ST2 8LD U.K. Tel (UK 0782) 273510 ext 2397. An equal opportunities employer. Closing date: 31st March 1994. ------------------------------ PSYCOLOQUY is sponsored by the Science Directorate and the Office of Publications and Communication of the American Psychological Association (APA) Editors: (scientific discussion) (professional/clinical discussion) Stevan Harnad Cary Cherniss (Assoc Ed.) Psychology Department Graduate School of Applied Princeton University Professional Psychology Rutgers University Assistant Editor: Colleen Wirth (wirth@clarity.princeton.edu) Newsletter and Subscriptions: Turgut Kalfaoglu (TURGUT@TREARN.bitnet) End of PSYCOLOQUY Digest ****************************** 5-Mar-94 21:34:15-GMT,11651;000000000000 Received: from rutvm1.rutgers.edu by aramis.rutgers.edu (5.59/SMI4.0/RU1.5/3.08) id AA07957; Sat, 5 Mar 94 16:34:09 EST Message-Id: <9403052134.AA07957@aramis.rutgers.edu> Received: from RUTVM1.RUTGERS.EDU by RUTVM1.RUTGERS.EDU (IBM VM SMTP R1.2.1MX) with BSMTP id 0675; Sat, 05 Mar 94 16:35:25 EST Received: from RUTVM1.RUTGERS.EDU (NJE origin LISTSERV@RUTVM1) by RUTVM1.RUTGERS.EDU (LMail V1.1d/1.7f) with BSMTP id 5532; Sat, 5 Mar 1994 16:35:24 -0500 Date: Sat, 5 Mar 1994 16:33:30 -0500 Reply-To: psyc@pucc.bitnet Sender: "PSYCOLOQUY: Refereed Electronic Journal of Peer Discussion" From: Stevan Harnad Subject: psycoloquy.93.4.11.base-rate.11.macchi (225 lines) Comments: To: psyc@pucc.bitnet To: Multiple recipients of list PSYC psycoloquy.94.5.11.base-rate.11.macchi Saturday 5 March 1994 ISSN 1055-0143 (9 paragraphs, 22 references, 219 lines) PSYCOLOQUY is sponsored by the American Psychological Association (APA) Copyright 1994 Laura Macchi ON THE COMMUNICATION AND COMPREHENSION OF PROBABILISTIC INFORMATION Commentary on Koehler on Base-Rate Laura Macchi Istituto di Psicologia Universita degli Studi di Milano via Larga, 19 20122 - Milano Italy LMACCHI@imiucca.csi.unimi.it ABSTRACT: Most tasks used to demonstrate the base rate fallacy are ambiguous about a crucial assumption required for properly applying Bayes' rule. This results in a verbal confusion between likelihood and posterior probability. Experiments that disambiguate the texts presented to subjects have a large effect on the use of the base rate. Some comments on the ecological validity of tasks are offered. I. INTRODUCTION 1. The question of the ecological validity of tasks in unfamiliar and unrealistic situations seems to me quite secondary to the problem of the effective communication of the requisite assumptions for Bayesian reasoning. It has been shown (indirectly) that manipulating procedural variables can convey the nature of the relationship between different pieces of information (Christensen-Szalanski and Beach, 1982; Ginossar and Trope, 1987) as well as the random nature of the information itself (Gigerenzer, Hell and Blank, 1988). Both of these are crucial factors in making probabilistic judgments. The use or neglect of the base rate are greatly influenced by the communication (and comprehension) of such factors. II. THE PRAGMATIC INTERPRETATION OF THE "CONFUSION" HYPOTHESIS 2. According to the "confusion" hypothesis (Braine, Connel, Freitag and O'Brien, 1990; Cohen, 1981; Eddy, 1982; Dawes, 1986; Hamm and Miller, 1988), subjects confuse the conditional probability of the accuracy of a specific item of information (i.e., the probability of observing a particular datum given that a hypothesis is true: P(D|H)) with the inverse conditional probability P(H|D) (i.e., the probability that a hypothesis is true given that a particular datum has been observed). This confusion is attributed (by these authors) to people's (inherent) inability to understand the difference between these two conditional probabilities. However, subjects are capable of distinguishing these two types of probability in many other contexts (Bar-Hillel, 1990; Thuring and Jungermann, 1990). One could therefore argue that this confusion does not depend so much on a natural tendency to err, but rather on an ambiguous transmission of information produced by the structure of the problem text (see Lindley, 1985). If this is a specific difficulty, a change in the text which did not alter the nature of conditional probability should not influence the final evaluation of the subjects. 3. Demonstrations of the role of text structure in problem solving (Mosconi, 1990), and analyses of the pragmatic rules of natural language (Grice, 1975; Sperber and Wilson, 1986) of the texts used in one influential research paradigm (the textbook-problem paradigm, Bar-Hillel, 1983), suggest that the so-called "base rate fallacy" may arise from the fact that one of the relationships between the data is not sufficiently clear. Specifically, subjects may not perceive the two pieces of information as conditionally independent -- a crucial assumption for proper Bayesian analysis (Birnbaum, 1983). If subjects interpreted the diagnostic information [P(D|H)] as the posterior probability [P(H|D)], then they would be entitled to assume that the base rate had already been taken into account. 4. It has been shown (Macchi, 1994) that the diagnostic (or specific) information is mistaken for a posterior probability as a consequence of: (i) how one formulates the question posed to subjects (when it refers only to the specific information) and (ii) its specific information content (when it is interpretable as if it were already the result of its combination with the prior probability). Two problems were used in the experiments: the Suicide Problem (Bar-Hillel, 1980; Tversky and Kahneman, 1980) and the Cab Problem (Kahneman and Tversky, 1973). The base rate fallacy decreased or disappeared when these textual elements were modified -- regardless of the (unchanged) specificity and causality of the information. By the same token, it was possible to generate the "bias" by introducing those textual elements into problems referring to "causal" information which do not usually demonstrate the fallacy (Tversky and Kahneman, 1980). 5. On the basis of a pragmatic analysis of the text-problems used in the literature, differences between problems which induced the bias and those which did not have been identified. These differences were not linked to the usual heuristic account but had to do with the pragmatic structure of the texts. Although this explanation is not general (other types of problems, e.g., those concerning the "social judgment paradigm," Bar-Hillel, 1983; Hilton and Fein, 1989; Tversky and Kahneman, 1980, deserve separate consideration with respect to pragmatic factors ), it does explain the paradigm considered here. III. PRAGMATIC ASPECTS AND THE ECOLOGICAL VALIDITY OF A TASK 6. We now turn to the problem posed by Koehler (1993) concerning the adequacy of the paradigmatic tasks used to study the use of base rate. A question is prompted by our pragmatic analysis: which formulation is more natural (spontaneously used in the "real world"), the one used in the original tasks (i.e., the original "Cab" text-problem) or one that takes into consideration the pragmatic aspects of how one communicates the problem? 7. It would be hard to say which of these texts is more similar to problems encountered in real life. Traditional studies do not give clear indications on this issue. Nonetheless, we speculate that even if the first type of formulation (i.e., the original "Cab" text-problem) was more "natural," in the "real world" the context -- the way the information is experienced -- will usually disambiguate its meaning. In most cases, the independence of the information would still be clearly transmitted (see Christensen-Szalanski and Beach's 1982 study, where there was progressive acquisition of the data in a medical context and proper use of base rates). This suggests that using a task in an experimental setting requires us to take into account the loss of information arising from the abstractness of the question relative to the natural context in which it was produced: care should be taken to compensate for the lost information through clarity of phrasing. 8. To return to the question raised by Koehler about the ecological validity of research tasks, it does not seem to me that the familiarity of the content (Gigerenzer, Hell and Blank, 1988) or the generic realism of the situations are crucial, given that with the traditional problems (often criticized on these grounds), base rates can be brought into use by modifying pragmatic variables -- leaving completely unaltered the putative role of the heuristics traditionally considered responsible for the bias. IV. CONCLUSIONS 9. It seems to me that ecological validity is established by demonstrating effective communication of the assumptions necessary to justify Bayesian reasoning (e.g., the independence of the data). This is, in any case, an ineluctable premise for the study of probabilistic reasoning. V. REFERENCES Bar-Hillel, M. (1980). The Base Rate Fallacy in Probability Judgements. Acta Psychologica, 44, 211-233. Bar-Hillel, M. (1983). The Base Rate Fallacy Controversy. In R.W. Scholtz (ed.), Decision Making Under Uncertainty. Elsevier Science Publishers, North Holland. Bar-Hillel, M. (1990). Back to Base Rates. In R.M. Hogarth (ed.) Insights in Decision Making. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Birnbaum, M.H. (1983). Base Rates in Bayesian Inference: Signal Detection Analysis of the Cab Problem. American Journal of Psychology, 96, 85-94. Braine, M.D.S., Connel, J., Freitag, J. and O'Brien, D.P. (1990). Is the Base-Rate Fallacy an Instance of Asserting the Consequent? In K.L. Gilhooly, M.T.G. Leane, R.H. Logie and G. Erdos (eds.), Lines of Thinking, vol. 1, John Wiley & Sons Ltd. Christensen-Szalanski, J.J.J. and Beach, L.R. (1982). Experience and the Base-Rate Fallacy. Organizational Behavior and Human Performance, 29, 270-278. Cohen, L.J. (1981). Can Human Irrationality Be Experimentally Demonstrated? Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 4, 317-331. Dawes, R.M. (1986). Representative Thinking in Clinical Judgment. Clinical Psychology Review, 6, 425-441. Eddy, D.M. (1982). Probabilistic Reasoning in Clinical Medicine: Problems and Opportunities. In D. Kahneman, P. Slovic and A. Tversky (eds.), Judgment Under Uncertainty: Heuristics and Biases. Cambridge University Press. Gigerenzer, G., Hell, W. and Blank, H. (1988). Presentation and Content: The Use of Base Rates as a Continuous Variable. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perceptions and Performance, 14(3), 513-525. Ginossar, Z. and Trope, Y. (1987). Problem Solving in Judgment Under Uncertainty, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 52, 464-474. Grice, H.P. (1975). Logic and Conversation. In P. Cole and J.L. Morgan (eds.), Syntax and Semantics: vol. 3. Speech Acts. New York: Academic Press. Hamm, R.M. and Miller, M.A. (1988). Interpretation of Condition Probabilities in Probabilistic Inference Word Problems. (Publication No. 88-15). Boulder, CO: Institute of Cognitive Science, University of Colorado. Hilton, J.L. and Fein, S. (1989). The Role of Diagnosticity in Stereotype-Based Judgments. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 57, 201-211. Kahneman, D. and Tversky, A. (1973). On the Psychology of Prediction. Psychological Review, 80, 237-251. Koehler, J.J. (1993). The Base Rate Fallacy Myth. PSYCOLOQUY, 4(49) base-rate.1.koehler. Lindley, D.V. (1985). Making Decisions. John Wiley and Sons Ltd. Macchi, L. (1994, in press). Pragmatic Aspects of the Base Rate Fallacy. The Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology. Mosconi, G. (1990). Discorso e Pensiero. Il Mulino, Bologna. Sperber, D. and Wilson, D. (1986). Relevance: Communication and Cognition, Basil Blakwell, Oxford. Thuring, M. and Jungermann, H. (1990). The Conjunction Fallacy: Causality Versus Event Probability. Journal of Behavioural Decision Making, 3, 61-74. Tversky, A. and Kahneman, D. (1980). Causal Schemata in Judgments Under Uncertainty. In M. Fishbein (ed.), Progress in Social Psychology, vol. 1, Hillsdale, NJ, Erlbaum, 49-72. 5-Mar-94 22:48:21-GMT,8239;000000000000 Received: from rutvm1.rutgers.edu by aramis.rutgers.edu (5.59/SMI4.0/RU1.5/3.08) id AA11101; Sat, 5 Mar 94 17:48:20 EST Message-Id: <9403052248.AA11101@aramis.rutgers.edu> Received: from RUTVM1.RUTGERS.EDU by RUTVM1.RUTGERS.EDU (IBM VM SMTP R1.2.1MX) with BSMTP id 0815; Sat, 05 Mar 94 17:49:35 EST Received: from RUTVM1.RUTGERS.EDU (NJE origin LISTSERV@RUTVM1) by RUTVM1.RUTGERS.EDU (LMail V1.1d/1.7f) with BSMTP id 5986; Sat, 5 Mar 1994 17:49:35 -0500 Date: Sat, 5 Mar 1994 17:47:43 -0500 Reply-To: psyc@pucc.bitnet Sender: "PSYCOLOQUY: Refereed Electronic Journal of Peer Discussion" From: Stevan Harnad Subject: psycoloquy.93.4.12.eeg-chaos.3.tsuda (146 lines) Comments: To: psyc@pucc.bitnet To: Multiple recipients of list PSYC psycoloquy.94.5.12.eeg-chaos.3.tsuda Saturday March 5, 1994 ISSN 1055-0143 (8 paragraphs, 9 references, 140 lines) PSYCOLOQUY is sponsored by the American Psychological Association (APA) Copyright 1994 Ichiro Tsuda FROM MICRO-CHAOS TO MACRO-CHAOS: CHAOS CAN SURVIVE EVEN IN MACROSCOPIC STATES OF NEURAL ACTIVITIES Commentary on Wright et al. on EEG-Chaos Ichiro Tsuda Department of Mathematics Hokkaido University Sapporo, 060, Japan tsuda@demon.math.hokudai.ac.jp ABSTRACT: This critique of Wright et al.'s (1993) macroscopic EEG model is based on recent findings by Kaneko (1990) concerning dynamic behaviors in a globally coupled map. A coupled chaotic system does not always follow linear and equilibrium statistical mechanics. Some aspects of attractive neural networks and chaotic learning are also discussed. 1. Wright et al. (1993) indicate that their new EEG model reconciles a local chaotic EEG model (Freeman, 1991) with a global near-equilibrium EEG model (Wright et al., 1990). It is worth looking closely at the plausibility of the models and assumptions adopted, as Wright et al.'s theory is attractive in its potential bearing on the question of how microscopic neural events are related to macroscopic ones and what the relationship between neural events and mind might be. Although many points in the target article could be be discussed, I focus here only on two: breakdown of linearity in macroscopic activities, and some further aspects of attractive neural networks. 2. Kaneko (1990) invented coupled map lattices and globally coupled maps as tools to describe various dynamic behaviors in complex dynamical systems. A coupled map lattice (CML) consists of chaotic maps, each with nearest neighbor interactions of diffusion type. In a globally coupled map (GCM), all chaotic elements are fully interconnected. This commentary concerns only maps of this kind. 3. I agree with the anatomical constraints noted by Wright et al., that is, asymmetric couplings at the microscopic level (of the order of a hundred micrometers) and symmetric couplings at the macroscopic level (of the order of millimeters). I also accept the theoretical and experimental validity of the presence of chaos at the microscopic level. I cannot, however, agree with the authors' conclusion that macroscopic neural events follow a linear and near-equilibrium pattern. 4. A GCM can be a model for macroscopic neural events based on microscopic chaos. Microscopic chaos can be described by a discrete one-dimensional map. The validity of a discrete map as a model of local chaos is supported by the comparatively low dimensionality (2-4) of attractors (as observed, for example, in Freeman's 1987 experiments) as well as by the direct relation between a vector field and the lower- dimensional return map of a variable such as the spike interval. In GCM, couplings among local chaotic maps are symmetric. If local elements are highly chaotic, it is natural to expect that the statistical nature of GCM will be equilibrium or near-equilibrium. Kaneko (1990), however, observed a violation of the law of large numbers. This striking statistical effect is universal in the sense that it holds irrespective of the functional form of the elementary map and the global couplings. The sole exception is a globally coupled "tent map" (a piecewise- linear map shaped like a tent). Kaneko (1992) elucidated this question in terms of invariant measures. Almost all chaotic maps, according to Kaneko, have an unstable invariant measure under the global couplings despite their stability in the case of isolated maps. In these systems, not only can the law of large numbers be violated but so can the central limit theorem. 5. The above findings show that randomness and order -- both remarkable characteristics of chaos -- still survive in a network of chaotic elements. This is not the nature of equilibrium or near-equilibrium systems, but that of far-from-equilibrium ones. There may still be grounds for invalidating this theory with respect to the cortical problem under consideration, because of the discreteness of the system (i.e., discrete time); according to this objection, this is a characteristic of maps, not of flow. However, a similar violation has been observed in computer simulations of globally coupled differential systems (Kaneko, private communication). Thus, Wright et al.'s theory is contradicted by the above arguments. 6. This contradiction may stem from Wright et al.'s analysis of the global ECoG (electrocorticogram). They analysed the ECoG filtered to the 1-30Hz band by means of the autoregression (AR) model. According to my understanding, the AR model can describe at most polynomial nonlinearity, which is not sufficient for an analysis of chaos. Furthermore, Wright et al. assume a linear response of the evoked potential in their system identification procedure, while the frequency components of ECoG they choose are limited to the low frequency range. This generates a difficulty in clearly separating deterministic and noisy components. 7. My second criticism concerns attractor neural networks. Wright et al. overlook other important aspects of cortical chaos. One can conceive of a network of pyramidal neurons surrounded by stellate neurons. If the network of pyramidal neurons has modifiable synapses of the Hebbian type, this system can subserve associative memory. If probabilities are introduced to act as a stochastic renewal of neurodynamics, the memory retrieval process becomes chaotic (Tsuda et al., 1987; Tsuda, 1992). This type of chaos occurs to link memories. 8. Let the net perform learning while retrieving memories. We conducted various computer experiments on this type of learning with and without chaos. Chaos enhanced the learning ability of the networks (Tsuda, 1994). When this additional learning is performed, basin boundaries of memory representation change in phase space and reorganization of phase space is consequently achieved. This may imply hierarchical organization and a reorganization of memory. REFERENCES Freeman, W.J. (1987) Simulation of Chaotic EEG Patterns with Dynamic Model of the Olfactory System. Biological Cybernetics 56: 139-150. Freeman, W.J. (1991) Predictions on Neocortical Dynamics Derived from Studies in Paleocortex. In: Induced Rhythms of the Brain, eds. E. Basar & T. H. Bullock. Cambridge MA, Birkhaeuser Boston Inc. Kaneko, K. (1990) Globally Coupled Chaos Violates Law of Large Numbers. Physical Review Letters 65: 1391-1394. Kaneko, K. (1992) Mean Field Fluctuation in Network of Chaotic Elements. Physica D 55:368-384. Tsuda, I., Koerner, E. and Shimizu, H. (1987) Memory Dynamics in Asynchronous Neural Networks. Progress of Theoretical Physics 78: 51-71. Tsuda, I. (1992) Dynamic Link of Memory--Chaotic Memory Maps in Nonequilibrium Neural Networks. 5: 313-326. Tsuda, I. (1994) Can Stochastic Renewal of Maps Be a Model for Cerebral Cortex? Physica D (in press). Wright, J.J., Kydd, R.R. & Sergejew, A.A. (1990) Autoregression Models of EEG. Biological Cybernetics 62: 201-210. Wright, J.J., Kydd, R.R. and Liley, D.T.J. (1993) EEG Models: Chaotic and Linear. PSYCOLOQUY 4(60) eeg-chaos.1.wright. 6-Mar-94 1:09:48-GMT,7184;000000000000 Received: from rutvm1.rutgers.edu by aramis.rutgers.edu (5.59/SMI4.0/RU1.5/3.08) id AA19922; Sat, 5 Mar 94 20:09:46 EST Message-Id: <9403060109.AA19922@aramis.rutgers.edu> Received: from RUTVM1.RUTGERS.EDU by RUTVM1.RUTGERS.EDU (IBM VM SMTP R1.2.1MX) with BSMTP id 0981; Sat, 05 Mar 94 20:10:57 EST Received: from RUTVM1.RUTGERS.EDU (NJE origin LISTSERV@RUTVM1) by RUTVM1.RUTGERS.EDU (LMail V1.1d/1.7f) with BSMTP id 6656; Sat, 5 Mar 1994 20:08:48 -0500 Date: Sat, 5 Mar 1994 18:45:03 -0500 Reply-To: psyc@pucc.bitnet Sender: "PSYCOLOQUY: Refereed Electronic Journal of Peer Discussion" From: Stevan Harnad Subject: psycoloquy.94.5.13.eeg-chaos.4.goertzel (127 lines) Comments: To: psyc@pucc.bitnet To: Multiple recipients of list PSYC psycoloquy.94.5.13.eeg-chaos.4.goertzel Saturday February 15, 1994 ISSN 1055-0143 (6 paragraphs, 9 references, 121 lines) PSYCOLOQUY is sponsored by the American Psychological Association (APA) Copyright 1994 Ben Goertzel FROM NEURONS TO NEURONAL GROUPS Commentary on Wright et al. on EEG-Chaos Ben Goertzel Department of Computer Science University of Waikato Hamilton, New Zealand goertzel@lucifer.cs.waikato.ac.nz ABSTRACT: The relation between neuronal dynamics and neuronal group dynamics has been explored by a number of different researchers, leading to conclusions rather different from those put forth by Wright, Kydd & Liley (1993). Whereas their attempt at a synthesis of models is ambitious and interesting, the path they trace from linear stochastic dynamics on the millimetric scale to Hopfield-style dynamics on the macroscopic scale is not entirely convincing, and clearly needs more work. 1. In his commentary on the target article (Wright, Kydd & Liley (1993), Gregson (1994) has pointed out the existence of numerous alternative theories of chaotic EEG behavior not considered by Wright et al. Similar remarks may be made in regard to the target article's treatment of the connection between microscopic and macroscopic levels of neurodynamics. Specifically, this commentary will be concerned with paragraphs 36-53. 2. First of all, although I have little doubt that asymmetry of connection is the generic case, I am not completely satisfied with the argument presented in favor of this point (Section VI.1). Although it is only presented as a "back of the envelope" calculation, and it is perfectly adequate as such calculations go, a little more comparison of the argument's assumptions (par. 36) with the actual process of neural development would be useful. What effect do cell adhesion molecules (Edelman, 1988) and all the other chemical intricacies of the developing brain have on this sort of probabilistic argument? 3. Granted that asymmetry of connection is prevalent, the point made in Wright et al.'s par. 43, that "average couplings can more appropriately be considered symmetric," is a very interesting one. However, it is a tremendous leap from this observation to the idea that the global dynamics of the brain can be modeled by Hopfield-style spin-glass-type equations. Edelman's theory of neuronal group selection (Edelman, 1988) also deals with symmetric connections between large groups of neurons; it would be nice to know whether the target article's analysis of microscopic dynamics is compatible with Edelman's view of macroscopic dynamics. 4. Putting aside the details of Edelman's neuronal group selection theory, there are clear advantages to an evolutionary view of global brain dynamics. Murre, Phaf and Wolters (1992; Murre, 1992), in their work on CALM networks, have shown that a simulated network of competitively evolving neural clusters can solve a variety of problems involving pattern recognition and unsupervised learning. Others have constructed psychological theories founded on the evolutionary view of the brain (Rosenfield, 1988; Goertzel, 1993). It seems highly unlikely that similar psychological and computer science connections can be drawn with the global Hopfield-type network proposed in the target article (Hopfield & Tank 1986). This is a weak point if one believes that the study of global brain structure should be guided by what the brain DOES as well as by physiological observations. 5. It is pointed out in par. 30 that Hopfield networks bear only a loose resemblance to the actual neural networks in the brain; the authors propose that there is a closer resemblance between Hopfield networks and the (presumably symmetric) network of neuronal groups. But this entire line of argument seems silly because a Hopfield network for which "the minimum at zero is the only energy minimum" is not really a Hopfield network at all. This also overlooks another fact about Hopfield networks: aside from the question of faithfulness to the brain, they have very serious limitations as COMPUTATIONAL ALGORITHMS. The Hopfield network, used as an associative memory, becomes overloaded very quickly; and there is no reliable method to cause it to "dump" old memories to make room for new ones. Christos (1993) has shown that the idea of cycling between periods of learning and forgetting does not work. When used as an optimization scheme, Hopfield networks are a little more successful, but they have an unfortunate tendency to converge to local minima and are therefore not that frequently used in practical neural net applications. 6. In conclusion, the first part of the target article is very strong. It does not give an extensive review of all the different approaches to chaos in EEG's, but it does present a most interesting and competent unification of two approaches to EEG modeling, revealing a degree of commonality underlying the apparent differences. But the second part, on which I have focused here, gives a somewhat muddled and incomplete treatment of the link between microscopic and macroscopic levels of neurodynamics, culminating in the nonconclusions of par. 48-49. There is much food for thought here, but one wishes that the global implications had been a little more carefully worked out. REFERENCES Christos, G. (1993). Reverse Learning in Hopfield Nets. ms. Edelman, D. (1988). Neural Darwinism, New York: Basic. Goertzel, B. (1993). The Evolving Mind. New York: Gordon and Breach. Gregson, R.A.M. (1994). Thinking About the Unconsidered Chaotic EEG Data: Commentary on Wright on EEG-Chaos. PSYCOLOQUY 5(6) eeg-chaos.2.gregson. Hopfield, J.J. & Tank, D.W. (1986) Computing with neural circuits: a model. Science 233: 625-633. Murre, J.M.J., (1992) Precis of: Learning and categorization in modular neural networks PSYCOLOQUY 3(68) categorization.1.murre Murre, J.M., Phaf, H.R. and Wolters, G. (1992). CALM: Categorizing and Learning Module. Neural Networks, 5, 55-82. Rosenfield, I. (1988). The Invention of Memory, New York: Basic. Wright, J.J., Kydd, R.R. and Liley, D.T.J. (1993). EEG Models: Chaotic and Linear. PSYCOLOQUY 4(60) eeg-chaos.1.wright. 6-Mar-94 13:09:28-GMT,11798;000000000000 Received: from rutvm1.rutgers.edu by aramis.rutgers.edu (5.59/SMI4.0/RU1.5/3.08) id AA03670; Sun, 6 Mar 94 08:09:25 EST Message-Id: <9403061309.AA03670@aramis.rutgers.edu> Received: from RUTVM1.RUTGERS.EDU by RUTVM1.RUTGERS.EDU (IBM VM SMTP R1.2.1MX) with BSMTP id 1829; Sun, 06 Mar 94 08:10:41 EST Received: from RUTVM1.RUTGERS.EDU (NJE origin LISTSERV@RUTVM1) by RUTVM1.RUTGERS.EDU (LMail V1.1d/1.7f) with BSMTP id 9573; Sun, 6 Mar 1994 08:10:39 -0500 Date: Sun, 6 Mar 1994 08:08:42 -0500 Reply-To: psyc@pucc.bitnet Sender: "PSYCOLOQUY: Refereed Electronic Journal of Peer Discussion" From: Stevan Harnad Subject: psycoloquy.94.5.14.metapsychology.3.hardcastle (197 lines) Comments: To: psyc@pucc.bitnet To: Multiple recipients of list PSYC psycoloquy.94.5.14.metapsychology.3.hardcastle Sunday 6 March 1994 ISSN 1055-0143 (12 paragraphs, 5 references, 191 lines) PSYCOLOQUY is sponsored by the American Psychological Association (APA) Copyright 1994 Valerie Gray Hardcastle METAPSYCHOLOGY FOR THE MASSES? Book Review of Rakover on Metapsychology Valerie Gray Hardcastle Department of Philosophy Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University Blacksburg, VA 24061-0126 valerieh@vtvm1.cc.vt.edu ABSTRACT: Sam Rakover's book Metapsychology has an interesting and underexplored premise: that philosophy has something useful to say about psychological practice. However, the book itself disappoints since it does not communicate that message with sufficient depth or detail. 1. As a philosopher, I find Sam Rakover's book Metapsychology (1990; 1993) interesting for sociological reasons. It is interesting to see how a nonphilosopher reads the major movements in philosophy and how a psychologist might apply those movements to recent events in the behavioral sciences. Unfortunately, however, this sort of sociological curiosity is not enough to sustain reading over 400 pages. And in all honesty, I found little else to sustain me throughout the text. 2. Though this book is exceedingly well-referenced (for which Rakover deserves much praise), it is also fairly well out of date. In my perusal through his bibliographies, I noticed that no work later than 1986 was cited (and that was a reference to himself defending behaviorism); most were substantially earlier. Ordinarily, I suppose, this might not pose much of a problem (though it would be noteworthy considering the book was not published until 1990), but the emphases in both psychology and philosophy have changed so enormously in the past 10 years that Rakover's failure to keep up with current trends (or fads) is at once readily apparent in his book and detrimental. 3. I note the absence of any mention of connectionism and its influence on psychological theorizing. While I am not a wild-eyed, hard-core PDP-er, I do believe that any (current) book on philosophical psychology has to take this movement (or fad) into account. Many believe that connectionism has permanently changed the face of theories in the "softer" sciences. Regardless of whether you buy into such claims, they are still some that modern philosophers of mind have to reckon with. 4. For another, more telling, example, Rakover often refers to the "current debate between behaviorism and cognitive psychology" (p. 88). I know of no such debate. I know that there was a debate, but even the animal behaviorists acknowledge that they are a minority. Now, one can argue about whether they are an important minority (I happen to think they are), but surely we have to admit that, for better or worse, psychology as a field has moved inside the head. It would have been far better and far more interesting to see Rakover defend a version of behaviorism or neo-behaviorism against the tide of cognitive psychology, to try to bring the debate back on perhaps new and more substantive terms, than to ignore or overlook the recent history of psychology. 5. (I note in passing that Rakover attributes the decline of the behaviorist movement in psychology to the demise of logical positivism in philosophy and an example of how philosophy influences psychology (section 1.4). While this may be the propaganda philosophers offer one another, I take it as well documented that these two movements, though contemporaneous, existed largely independently of one another (see, e.g., Smith 1986). In particular, the decline of behaviorism can be attributed to conceptual difficulties in Skinner's original program, difficulties in other related programs, and the rise of artificial intelligence.) 6. And having an odd perspective is not just limited to the place of behaviorism in psychological history. Rakover often admits that how the mind could be connected to the body at all baffles him. "The suggestion that the mind is after all a physical material is so problematic that I cannot accept it as it stands" (p. 24). "It seems to me that... any conclusions we reach concerning the mind on the basis of our bodily activity... merely reflect our subjective faith" (p. 24). And later: "it seems impossible to develop an empirical theory which accounts for the mind-body relationship" (p. 311). As a staunch materialist, I find statements such as these odd, but, more important, they are also statements of a distinct minority (at least, they constitute a minority opinion among those who publically express opinions on such matters). Once again, this sort of position needs to be well supported -- whole books could be written (and have been) defending this view, not just the two pages that Rakover uses (pp. 311-312) to "prove" his point. (Indeed, this point is particularly important given that Rakover argues that psychology cannot "progress like the natural sciences when its program is focused on an attempt to provide a 'scientific' solution to the mind-body problem" (p. 416).) 7. Of course, one can dismiss what I have just written as uninformed poppycock from some nonpsychologist. I am willing to admit that we all carry around with us our own versions of history and mine is probably as skewed as I claim Rakover's to be. However, the second deficiency I see cannot, I think, be overcome: it is unclear who Rakover's audience is supposed to be. On the one hand, the vast majority of the book is a summary of the major movements in philosophy of science. But if one wanted a general survey of the philosophy of science, I would point one to an introductory philosophy of science text. Here, the various people, projects, and positions would be placed in a larger philosophical context which gives additional meaning and depth to the controversies. Moreover, the terminology would be standardized such that if one wanted to know more, one would be able to read other texts easily. (I mention this because some of the philosophical distinctions that Rakover uses are not entirely mainstream. For example, he claims that the branches of philosophy consist in epistemology, ontology, and logic (p. 10). However, whether logic actually is a separate area of study instead of being a branch of epistemology depends upon what you take logic to be about, and "ontology" refers both to a branch of study (more commonly known as "metaphysics") as well as to the objects that a metaphysical theory postulates. Now this is just so much philosophical niggling, but sometimes the details matter, especially if one is interested in talking to people outside one's major field.) 8. On the other hand, Rakover does spend some time in each chapter outlining how he understands philosophy of science as philosophy of psychology. However, what he has to say is altogether too brief to be useful to those steeped in philosophy, in addition to not being well supported by the evidence that he does use. To pick a particularly striking example, in his discussion of the structure of psychological theories and the notion of scientific progress, he tries an ecumenical approach by using the standard covering law model (what he calls "inductivism"), logical positivism, the Popperian method of conjecture and refutation or "falsificationism," and Kuhnian holism as different "methodological tools with which scientists try to learn about nature and solve empirical problems" (p. 142). In particular, scientists at different times rely on different methods. 9. But in making this claim, Rakover overlooks that these "methods" are fundamentally incompatible. He himself notes this incompatibility earlier: "rather than attempting to reconstruct science logically, or offering a set of rational rules for the practice of science [as the more traditional analyses do], the holistic program is principally concerned with providing a historical and theoretical analysis of how science progresses -- an analysis, that is, of the how [sic] the actual theories of science are produced, tested, and changed" (p. 134). He then goes on in the next few pages to document how different a Kuhnian approach is from standard inductive models. 10. If this be the case, then how does one switch from using induction as a "methodological tool" to holism (which is not a methodological tool at all) as one attempts to unify explanation in Rakover's "empirical problem-solving approach" (p. 142)? The few pages that Rakover spends on his view of psychological theorizing (pp. 142-145) do not contain an answer. Moreover, the extended example of how to understand interpersonal distancing that supposedly illustrates Rakover's ideas is of little help because no attempt is made to connect the example back to the scheme. How did "[placing] the multiplex phenomena of reciprocity and compensation (as well as other distancing responses) within a unitary frame" make Kaplan and Markus-Kaplan (1981; (unpublished ms. cited p. 148; see also Markus-Kaplan & Kaplan 1984) holists? How did what they do differ methodologically from what was done before? These questions are not even implicitly addressed. 11. Rakover's dismissal of functionalism (pp. 307ff) and his treatment of reductionism (chapter 10) are equally fast and loose. Mountains of literature have been published on these topics; hence, it is not enough simply to cite a party line and move on. One must at least allude to a bit of the complexity. 12. It is somewhat disappointing to read a book whose topic has such promise, but whose message is lost amidst the extensive retelling of philosophical history and the all too brief and confused "sound bites" of original thought. I suppose that what I have learned best in reading Rakover's book is that, after having an idea for a manuscript, the second, third, and fourth most important considerations in executing the project are: audience, audience, audience. REFERENCES Kaplan, K., and Markus-Kaplan, M. (ms. 1981) Toward Operationalizing the Self in Relationship: A Bidimensional Taxonomy of Reciprocal, Compensatory, and Noncontingent Distancing Patterns. Markus-Kaplan, M., and Kaplan, K. J. (1984) A Bidimensional View of Distancing: Reciprocity Versus Compensation, intimacy versus social control. Special Issue: Nonverbal intimacy and exchange. Journal of Nonverbal Behavior 8: 315 - 326. Rakover, S.S. (1990) Metapsychology: Missing Links in Behavior, Mind, and Science. New York: Paragon House/Solomon Press. Rakover, S.S. (1993) Precis of Metapsychology: Missing Links in Behavior, Mind, and Science. PSYCOLOQUY 4(55) metapsychology.1.rakover. Smith, L.D. (1986) Behaviorism and Logical Positivism: A Reassessment of the Alliance. Stanford, California: Stanford University Press. 12-Mar-94 19:59:36-GMT,15888;000000000000 Received: from rutvm1.rutgers.edu by aramis.rutgers.edu (5.59/SMI4.0/RU1.5/3.08) id AA00374; Sat, 12 Mar 94 14:59:34 EST Message-Id: <9403121959.AA00374@aramis.rutgers.edu> Received: from RUTVM1.RUTGERS.EDU by RUTVM1.RUTGERS.EDU (IBM VM SMTP R1.2.1MX) with BSMTP id 8025; Sat, 12 Mar 94 15:00:49 EST Received: from RUTVM1.RUTGERS.EDU (NJE origin LISTSERV@RUTVM1) by RUTVM1.RUTGERS.EDU (LMail V1.1d/1.7f) with BSMTP id 7591; Sat, 12 Mar 1994 15:00:47 -0500 Date: Sat, 12 Mar 1994 14:58:58 -0500 Reply-To: psyc@pucc.bitnet Sender: "PSYCOLOQUY: Refereed Electronic Journal of Peer Discussion" From: Stevan Harnad Subject: psycoloquy.94.5.15.pattern-recognition.2.dacosta (299 lines) Comments: To: psyc@pucc.bitnet To: Multiple recipients of list PSYC psycoloquy.94.5.15.pattern-recognition.2.dacosta Saturday 12 March 1994 ISSN 1055-0143 (13 paragraphs, 1 figure, 16 references, 293 lines) PSYCOLOQUY is sponsored by the American Psychological Association (APA) Copyright 1994 Luciano da Fontoura Costa A NONMYSTIFYING APPROACH TO ARTIFICIAL NEURAL NETWORKS Book review of Nigrin on Pattern Recognition Luciano da Fontoura Costa Cybernetic Vision Research Group Instituto de Fisica e Quimica de Sao Carlos University of Sao Paulo Caixa Postal 369, Sao Carlos, SP 13560-970 - Brazil FAX: +55 (162) 71 3616 e-mail: Luciano@uspfsc.ifqsc.usp.br ABSTRACT: Nigrin's "Neural Networks for Pattern Recognition" (1993) is clearly written and presents a series of interesting insights and developments in a nonmystifying way. This commentary discusses specific issues such as the presynaptic paradigm and translation and size invariance. KEYWORDS: geometric transformation invariance, neural network models, pattern recognition. I. INTRODUCTION 1. Nigrin's "Neural Networks for Pattern Recognition" (1993, PSYCOLOQUY Precis: 1994) is an extension of the author's Ph.D. thesis, which was primarily concerned with enhancing some of the neural models developed by Grossberg and collaborators (e.g., Carpenter and Grossberg 1987a,b). The book has been conceived in a way that will certainly make it accessible to a large audience without diminishing its scientific relevance. The basic principles as well as new concepts and developments are clearly presented and illustrated with many carefully prepared diagrams and examples; mathematical developments are kept to a minimum. I am convinced that one of its principal accomplishments of is its non-mystifying attitude to the treatment of artificial neural networks. The overall plan of the book as well as remarks on specific issues treated in it are presented in the following sections. II. PLAN OF THE BOOK 2. After a brief introduction to the principal aspects of Grossberg's neural models for pattern recognition, the book presents a simple-to-complex series of new neural system models (e.g., SONNET 1 and 2) that extend in various ways the properties of Grossberg's neural models and other systems based on multiple layers and attention. Then, in Chapter 6, new architectures are presented to address the problem of synonym representation; these are based on competition between the links of the network. Chapter 7 addresses the implementation of those architectures presented in the previous chapters and discusses mechanisms for translation and size invariant pattern recognition. Conclusions and perspectives for further developments are discussed in Chapter 8. III. TITLE 3. When I first saw the title of this book, I was sure it would deal with the full spectrum of neural network paradigms. Since this is obviously not the case, nor was it intended to be, a more specific title emphasizing the focus on new contributions would have been more appropriate. The present title seems a bit pretentious under the circumstances. IV. THE WIRE-DIMMER-BULB ANALOGY 4. In Section 1.2.1 of Nigrin's book, an analogy is drawn between neural networks and an ordinary electric circuit containing wires, dimmers and bulbs. Although the analogy is interesting, it has the major flaw that the luminous signal produced by bulbs can neither be directly transmitted through the wires (links) nor is it of a pulsed nature (in incandescent bulbs). In fact, I would question the utility os such a basic analogy considering that in the subsequent chapter difference equations are introduced with no similar introductory framework. V. DEFINITION OF NEURAL NETWORKS 5. After commenting on the many previous definitions of neural networks, the author proceeds to make his own contribution, suggesting that neural networks should be composed of a very large number of elements which are neurally based and operate only on local information in a fully asynchronous fashion. It is not clear, however, to what degree a processing element should be "neurally based": to the level of ionic channels or just to a level that expresses the overall properties of neurons? Also, why shouldn't smaller systems be classified as (artificial) neural networks? There are plenty of biological examples of simple yet interesting neural networks that incorporate only a handful of neurons, such as the lobula plate structure in the domestic fly (Franceschini, 1985). 6. I am convinced that (artificial) neural networks should still be understood, at least in a general context, as artificial systems that attempt to emulate the remarkable properties of natural neural networks; such a definition seems to be implicit in their very name. The principal problem with more specific definitions is that there is much more to neural networks than just locality, weights, and nonlinear transfer functions. A series of remarkable recent findings from psychophysics and neurophysiology (e.g., Blakemore, 1991; Blasdel, 1992; Churchland and Sejnowski, 1988; Livingstone and Hubel, 1988; Zeki and Shipp, 1988) has indicated many new dimensions of neural processing and organization such as extensive modularity, the important role of topographical maps, the variety of neuron and neurotransmitter types, the effect of neuron morphology on function, and the importance of the interconnection topology, to name but a few. These all represent interesting possibilities for more effective performance and could (and perhaps should) have been adopted more widely as underlying principles in artificial neural networks in addition to (or instead of) the traditional hypotheses. Another possibility is not only to describe neural systems in terms of symbolic rules but also to combine the neural and symbolic approaches as complementary components in an overall integrative model. 7. Although Nigrin's book makes progress towards more effective artificial neural systems by adopting less conventional principles such as the presynaptic competition paradigm and by incorporating attention, I think it still relies too heavuly on the traditional connectionist approach to neural networks. VI. THE KINDS OF PATTERNS CONSIDERED 8. Perhaps because they are extensions of previous work on the learning of temporal patterns, most of the examples in Nigrin's book are based on linear sequences of words. Although such an approach is fine for addressing many of the higher-level issues in pattern recognition (particularly natural language processing), it fails it does not confront multidimensional pattern recognition directly. Extending techniques from one to two or more dimensions is often a subtle and nonstraightforward matter. VII. PRESYNAPTIC COMPETITION 9. The presynaptic neural mechanism described in Chapter 6 is presented as one of the most important contributions of the book. Although I find such an approach interesting, it should be noted that the presynaptic model can be understood in terms of conventional neural networks. As illustrated in Figure 1, the synaptic interconnections can be replaced by two additional neurons, which can be viewed as defining a new neural layer (F1.5). Concerning the hardware implementation of the structures illustrated in Figure 1(a) and (b), it is clear that similar amounts of resources will have to be used in either case. Although the presynaptic paradigm does provide a novel and elegant way of describing some neural models, it should be borne in mind that it has little or no potential for saving hardware resources or processing time. | | | | ----------------- ------- F2: | A | F2: | A | ----------------- ------- | | | | | ---------| | | | | | -----| |----- |--------- | | | | | w1 * | | * w2 ----- | | ----- |--- ---| F1.5: | B | | | | C | | | ----- | | ----- input1 input2 | | *---|---| | | --------* | | | input1 input2 (a) (b) VIII. TRANSLATION AND SIZE INVARIANCE 10. There is little doubt that geometrical transformation invariance is one of the principal issues in multidimensional pattern recognition, because these usually imply combinatorial orders of processing complexity. Concerning the review of previous work dealing with such an issue, only Grossberg's (op. cit.) approach and Fukushima's (e.g.. 1988) are mentioned, though there are alternative neural mechanisms such as Widrow et al.'s (1991) that could have been briefly discussed as well. I also believe that Fukushima's approach is much more interesting than the way it is described by Nigrin because it incorporates selective attention, feedback, and excitatory and inhibitory neurons and it accomplishes progressive translation and size invariance through the simple and complex neuron models extracted from experimental data on the functional organization of the primate visual cortex. It should be stressed that Fukushima's approach is interesting not because of this biological background, but because, in addition to being the first to incorporate the above mentioned mechanisms, it has led to interesting practical applications in the recognition of handwritten characters (e.g., Imagawa & Fukushima 1993). It should be observed that the main shortcoming identified by Nigrin in Fukushima's approach, namely, the fact that it would require too many cells to be useful for practical purposes, can be completely overcome by incorporating additional mechanisms such as foveal vision and selective attention. 11. The proposed neural architecture for implementing pattern centralization seems a clever way to attack such a problem ASSUMING THAT ARTIFICIAL NEURAL NETWORKS MUST BE USED, since it is known the positions of spatial patterns can be readily normalized by shifting the pattern elements according to the coordinates of their centre of mass (see, for example, Schalkoff, 1989). Translation invariance is a good example of a task to which artificial neural networks should NOT be applied, at least given the currently available digital hardware technology. Such tasks also afford interesting possibilities for hybrid pattern recognition systems (i.e., artificial neural networks PLUS other techniques such as statistical moments or symbolic rules). It should also be noted that a remarkable alternative solution to the problem of translation-invariant pattern recognition has been provided by nature, which accomplishes it precisely by not solving the problem at all (at least in the input space)! It usually comes as a surprise to verify that the human retina is much less tolerant to pattern translation than one might expect (Goldstein 1989); in fact, translation tolerance in the primate visual system is achieved through the coordinated movement of the eyes, which scan the image so as to centre each object to be analysed over the foveal region of the retina. (To be precise, it should be pointed out that the retina itself provides some rather limited translation invariance capability.) 12. Finally, I must was disappointed to find that the important and usually difficult problem of rotation invariance was not discussed at all in a book focusing on pattern recognition. Of course a solution similar to the one adopted for size invariance could be considered, that is, replicating neurons so as to have one for each possible rotation. The problem is that such a strategy leads to a combinatorial explosion in hardware resources. IX. CONCLUDING REMARKS 13. Nigrin's book is clearly written and presents an interesting and nonmystifying approach to artificial neural networks for pattern recognition that should be accessible to a broad audience. It describes important developments towards more versatile and powerful neural systems (e.g., SONNET 1 and SONNET 2) and includes interesting discussions and insights. I believe that further editions of this book would benefit from incorporating more biological paradigms, a more appropriate title and a more comprehensive approach to the problem of geometrical transformation (including rotation). X. REFERENCES Blakemore, C. (1991) Understanding Images in the Brain. In Image and Understanding, Blakemore, C., Barlow, H. and Weston-Smith, M. (eds) 257-283, Cambridge University Press. Blasdel, G. (1992) Orientation Selectivity, Preference, and Continuity in Monkey Striate Cortex. The Journal of Neuroscience 12: 3139-3161. Carpenter, G. and Grossberg, S. 1987a. A Massively Parallel Architecture for a Self-organizing Neural Pattern Recognition Machine. Computer Vision, Graphics, and Image Processing, 37: 54--115. Carpenter, G. and Grossberg, S. 1987b. ART 2: Self-organization of Stable Category Recognition Codes for Analog Input Patterns. Applied Optics, 26(23): 4919--4930. Churchland, P.S. and Sejnowski, T. (1988) Perspectives on Cognitive Neuroscience. Science 242: 106-115. Franceschini, N. (1985) Early Processing of Colour and Motion in a Mosaic Visual System. Neuroscience Research, Supplement 2 S17-S49. Fukushima, K. (1988) A Neural Network for Visual Pattern Recognition. Computer 1: 65-76. Goldstein, B. (1989) Sensation and Perception. Wadsworth Publishing Company. Hubel, D.H. and Wiesel, T.N. (1962) Receptive Fields, Binocular Interaction, and Functional Architecture in the Cat's Visual Cortex. Journal of Physiology (London) 160: 106-154. Imagawa, T. and Fukushima, K. (1993) Character Recognition in Cursive Handwriting with the Mechanism of Selective Attention. Systems and Computers in Japan 24: 89-97. Livingstone, M. and Hubel, D.H. (1988) Segregation of Form, Color, Movement, and Depth: Anatomy, Physiology and Perception. Science 240: 740-749. Nigrin, A. (1993) Neural Networks for Pattern Recognition. The MIT Press, Cambridge MA. Nigrin, A. (1994) Precis of Neural Networks for Pattern Recognition. PSYCOLOQUY 5(2) pattern-recognition.1.nigrin. Schalkoff, R.J. (1989) Digital Image Processing and Computer Vision. John Wiley and Sons. Widrow, B, Winter, R.G. and Baxter, R.A. (1991) Layered Neural Networks for Pattern Recognition. IEEE Trans. Acoustics, Speech and Signal Processing 36: 1109-118. Zeki, S. and Shipp, S. (1988) The Functional Logic of Cortical Connections. Nature 335: 311-317. 12-Mar-94 20:16:29-GMT,5872;000000000000 Received: from rutvm1.rutgers.edu by aramis.rutgers.edu (5.59/SMI4.0/RU1.5/3.08) id AA02067; Sat, 12 Mar 94 15:16:27 EST Message-Id: <9403122016.AA02067@aramis.rutgers.edu> Received: from RUTVM1.RUTGERS.EDU by RUTVM1.RUTGERS.EDU (IBM VM SMTP R1.2.1MX) with BSMTP id 8060; Sat, 12 Mar 94 15:17:42 EST Received: from RUTVM1.RUTGERS.EDU (NJE origin LISTSERV@RUTVM1) by RUTVM1.RUTGERS.EDU (LMail V1.1d/1.7f) with BSMTP id 7736; Sat, 12 Mar 1994 15:17:41 -0500 Date: Sat, 12 Mar 1994 15:15:53 -0500 Reply-To: psyc@pucc.bitnet Sender: "PSYCOLOQUY: Refereed Electronic Journal of Peer Discussion" From: Stevan Harnad Subject: psycoloquy.94.5.16.metapsychology.4.hyland (104 lines) Comments: To: psyc@pucc.bitnet To: Multiple recipients of list PSYC psycoloquy.94.5.16.metapsychology.4.hyland Saturday 12 March 1994 ISSN 1055-0143 (3 paragraphs, 6 references, 98 lines) PSYCOLOQUY is sponsored by the American Psychological Association (APA) Copyright 1994 M.E. Hyland & I. Kirsch METHODOLOGICAL COMPLEMENTARITY AND THE MIND-BODY PROBLEM Book review of Rakover on Metapsychology Michael E. Hyland Department of Psychology University of Plymouth Plymouth PL4 8AA England P02165@PRIME-A.PLYMOUTH.AC.UK Irving Kirsch Department of Psychology, U-20 University of Connecticut Storrs, CT 06269-1020 IRVINGK@EARN.UCONNVM ABSTRACT: "Methodological complementarity" is a pragmatic response to the current insolubility of the mind-body problem and should be considered alongside Rakover's mind-body skepticism. 1. Rakover (1990, 1993) correctly asserts that the mind-body problem has not been solved and may not be solved. Nevertheless, some assumptions about the relation between mind and body are necessary for grounding psychophysiological research and theory. Rather than try to solve the problem or adjudicate between different mind-body positions, we have proposed a theoretical framework for integrating theories about minds and theories about bodies which we call "methodological complementarity" (Hyland, 1985; Hyland & Kirsch, 1988; Kirsch & Hyland, 1987; Kirsch & Hyland, 1989). Methodological complementarity differs from other forms of complementarity in that it makes no assumptions about the ontological status of minds and bodies. As such, it is not inconsistent with Rakover's mind-body skepticism. Indeed, methodological complementarity is consistent with most mind-body positions described by Rakover. 2. Methodological complementarity was developed to deal with a particular problem, namely, the theoretical representation of psychosomatic phenomena. Psychosomatic phenomena are commonly interpreted as demonstrating that mind states can cause physical illness, thus appearing to imply the validity of interactionist dualism. However, such phenomena raise the question of how a mind state can affect a physical state without apparent causal connection, and it is the absence of this connection that has led to the nearly universal rejection of interactionist dualism. Methodological complementarity was developed as a set of linguistic restrictions and prescriptions for theories explaining such phenomena without solving the mind-body problem (which may never be satisfactorily solved). It provides a heuristic framework for psychosomatic theories. Statements indicating a mental cause of a physical effect are to be replaced by statements indicating that the physical effect was caused by the physiological substrate of a mental state. 3. Methodological complementarity suggests that mind and body descriptions are complementary accounts of a process whose ontology is uncertain. Each of these two complementary types of description provide information that may not be reducible to the other, so both are needed for a full account of psychosomatic phenomena. To avoid linguistic inconsistency, the word "cause" is not used for mind-body relations. Instead, mind states are identified with brain states, and it is these identity relations that allow the construction of causal models, including both physiological and mentalistic variables. The ontological reason for the assumed identity relations between mind and body states is not specified, however, because the position is consistent with most of the mind-body positions listed by Rakover (pp. 223-224), namely, logical behaviorism, identity theory, functionalism, double aspect theory, materialism, and parallelism -- but not eliminative materialism or interactionist dualist theories (i.e., epiphenomenalism and interactionism). Methodological complementarity is not a philosophical position. Rather, it is a metatheoretical proposal about the way different types of theoretical description can be integrated without contravening their respective assumptions. REFERENCES Hyland, M.E., (1985). Do Person Variables Exist in Different Ways? American Psychologist; 40: 1003-1010. Hyland, M.E., & Kirsch, I. (1988). Methodological Complementarity: With and Without Reductionism. Journal of Mind and Behavior; 9: 5-12. Kirsch, I., & Hyland, M.E. (1987). How Thoughts Affect the Body: A Metatheoretical Framework. Journal of Mind and Behavior; 8: 417-434. Kirsch, I., & Hyland, M.E. (1989). Causal Isomorphism and Complementarity: Setting the Record Straight. Journal of Mind and Behavior, 10, 197-203 Rakover, S.S. (1990). Metapsychology: Missing Links in Behavior, Mind, and Science. New York: Paragon/Solomon. Rakover, S.S. (1993). Precis of Metapsychology: Missing Links in Behavior, Mind, and Science. PSYCOLOQUY 4(55) metapsychology.1.rakover. 13-Mar-94 23:47:13-GMT,10048;000000000000 Received: from rutvm1.rutgers.edu by aramis.rutgers.edu (5.59/SMI4.0/RU1.5/3.08) id AA00710; Sun, 13 Mar 94 18:47:12 EST Message-Id: <9403132347.AA00710@aramis.rutgers.edu> Received: from RUTVM1.RUTGERS.EDU by RUTVM1.RUTGERS.EDU (IBM VM SMTP R1.2.1MX) with BSMTP id 0172; Sun, 13 Mar 94 18:48:27 EST Received: from RUTVM1.RUTGERS.EDU (NJE origin LISTSERV@RUTVM1) by RUTVM1.RUTGERS.EDU (LMail V1.1d/1.7f) with BSMTP id 4531; Sun, 13 Mar 1994 18:48:26 -0500 Date: Sun, 13 Mar 1994 18:46:33 -0500 Reply-To: psyc@pucc.bitnet Sender: "PSYCOLOQUY: Refereed Electronic Journal of Peer Discussion" From: Stevan Harnad Subject: psycoloquy.94.5.17.base-rate.12.funder (181 lines) Comments: To: psyc@pucc.bitnet To: Multiple recipients of list PSYC psycoloquy.94.5.17.base-rate.12.funder Sunday 13 March 1994 ISSN 1055-0143 (9 paragraphs, 10 references, 175 lines) PSYCOLOQUY is sponsored by the American Psychological Association (APA) Copyright 1994 David C. Funder JUDGMENTAL PROCESS AND CONTENT Commentary on Koehler on Base-Rate David C. Funder Department of Psychology University of California Riverside, CA 92521 FUNDER@UCRAC1.UCR.EDU ABSTRACT: The silence of those who might defend the conventional approach to error is not unusual. Judgments can be evaluated against relevant data in terms of their content, as well as in terms of the normativeness of the process by which they were made. I. THE SILENCE OF THE LABS 1. In his Response to the first seven commentators, Koehler (1994) points out that they all basically agree that the implications of the putative base-rate fallacy have been drastically oversold; he then poignantly asks, "Where are those who will defend the oft-repeated conclusions about the base rate fallacy?" He is not the first to encounter this problem. The normative models and overwhelmingly pessimistic -- even contemptuous -- evaluations of human judgment that continue to emanate from the literature on judgmental error have undergone increasing criticism in recent years. The usual response from the laboratories where error is studied, and of the error researchers who inhabit them, has been silence. 2. This was certainly true in my own case: I published a critique of the literature on errors in personality judgment in Psychological Bulletin (Funder, 1987), then awaited, with both trepidation and eagerness, the resulting rebuttals. None ever came. And it's not just me. A significant recent book on judgmental error does not cite, much less respond to, that paper, nor any other paper critical of the error literature (see Funder, 1992). As a result, the research field is not having the kind of intellectual exchange it ought to be having. The critics cite the error literature profusely (of course), and assault it on many fronts. The error theorists ignore all this, and address their work to, and apparently are informed in their work only by, each other. 3. The practice of ignoring one's critics might be effective academic politics, but it seems to be a less than ideal style of scientific interchange. Unless and until the practitioners and originators of error research begin to address their critics, the literature as a whole will suffer the kind of intellectual deficit that Koehler notes in the other side's failure to be adequately represented in the commentaries on his target article. II. PROCESS AND OUTCOME IN EVALUATING ACCURACY 4. A theme that seems to run through this exchange so far is that the way to improve research on the accuracy of human judgment is to come up with new and improved normative models. Thus, we see detailed discussions here about whether a particular approach is or is not normative, how to tighten definitions (e.g., of "baserate"), or how to try alternative computations to allow more precise testing of models' normativeness. An implicit assumption seems to be that once the proper normative model has at last been identified, judgments can be evaluated as erroneous to the degree that they depart from its prescriptions. A slightly deeper implicit assumption seems to be that the way to improve judgment will be to train judges to imitate normative models. 5. There is another way to address accuracy issues empirically, an approach that has not so far been considered in any detail in this exchange. The approach is to appraise accuracy not through comparisons between the process by which a judgment was made and a normative model, but by assessing its outcome and its validity under realistic circumstances. This can be done in two ways, depending on the researcher's interest. 6. If the researcher is interested in applied decision making, then the approach to take is pragmatic. Examine judgments made by different judges, or on the basis of differing information, or according to differing strategies. See which judgments are the most and least likely to be accurate in predicting the criterion of interest, whether it be job performance (e.g., Nilsen, 1991) or the weather (e.g., Lusk & Hammond, 1991). For some time, Hammond (Hammond, Hamm, Grassia & Pearson, 1987) has called this kind of research "direct comparison." A general conclusion from this work is that lessening the use of the judgmental heuristics commonly called "errors" (such as the halo effect) does not improve accuracy according to direct comparison with predictive outcome (e.g, Bernardin & Pence, 1980). 7. A second approach is more theoretical. My own research interest is in personality psychology; I investigate the judgments people make of their own and each other's personality traits. I am not so interested in any particular prediction for any applied purpose as I am in the overall "construct validity" of the inferences that are being made about the traits that characterize the targets of judgment. This leads me to follow a research strategy that evaluates the accuracy of a human judgment of a trait in exactly the same way one would evaluate the accuracy of a new scale alleged to measure that same trait. Routinely, one would ask, does this scale correlate with the other measures with which it should correlate, and not correlate with the other measures with which it should not? And, the usual gold standard: does it predict behavior? Similarly, in my own research (and, increasingly, in the research of others in this area) I assess whether a given acquaintance's judgment of your personality accords with judgments by other acquaintances, with your own self-judgment, and with measures of your behavior that range from videotaped observation in seven laboratory situations to diary and beeper reports of daily activities. 8. From this work, I have come up with a four-fold classification scheme for moderators of accuracy in personality judgment. A wide range of studies has shown that accuracy can be a function of properties of the (1) judge, (2) target, (3) trait that is judged, and (4) information on which the judgment is based (see Funder, 1993, for a review). These four moderators yield six unique interactions. I have recently formulated a process model that tries to explain these moderators and their interactions (Funder, 1994). 9. In conclusion, it is possible to investigate judgmental accuracy without getting too bogged down in the fine details of normative models that are difficult to map onto real life, and without defining as erroneous any judgments that diverge from these always-questionable normative models. The way to do this is to examine what people can do rather than to search for what they cannot do, and to see when they can best do it. There are ways to use data to see whether or not a judgment is correct. If this were not true, none of us could do research at all. Evaluating judgments by examining data relevant to their content, rather than by comparing how they were made with a putatively normative model, can shed useful light on their accuracy whether the researcher's ultimate concern is pragmatic -- e.g., how can I better predict next quarter's sales? -- or more theoretical -- e.g., when is my view of an individual's personality most and least likely to be correct? REFERENCES Bernardin, H.J. & Pence, E.C. (1980) Effects of Rater Training: Creating New Response Sets and Decreasing Accuracy. Journal of Applied Psychology, 65, 60-66. Funder, D.C. (1987) Errors and Mistakes: Evaluating the Accuracy of Social Judgment. Psychological Bulletin, 101, 75-90. Funder, D.C. (1992) Everything You Know Is Wrong [Review of "The Person and the Situation: Perspectives of Social Psychology"]. Contemporary Psychology, 37, 319-320. Funder, D.C. (1993) Judgments as Data for Personality and Developmental Psychology: Error vs. Accuracy. In D. Funder, R. Parke, C. Tomlinson-Keasey & K. Widaman (Eds.), Studying Lives Through Time: Approaches to Personality and Development (pp. 121-146). Washington, DC: American Psychological Association. Funder, D.C. (1994) Accuracy Theory: A General Framework for Research on Personality Judgment. Unpublished ms., University of California, Riverside. Hammond, K.R., Hamm, R.M., Grassia, J. & Pearson, T. (1987) Direct Comparison of the Efficiency of Intuitive and Analytical Cognition in Expert Judgment. IEEE Transactions on Systems, Man and Cybernetics, 17, 753-770. Koehler, J.J. (1993). The Base Rate Fallacy Myth. PSYCOLOQUY 4(49) base-rate.1.koehler. Koehler, J.J. (1994). Base Rates and the "Illusion Illusion." PSYCOLOQUY 5(9) base-rate.9.koehler. Lusk, C. M. & Hammond, K.R. (1991) Judgment in a Dynamic Task: Microburst Forecasting. Journal of Behavioral Decision Making, 4, 55-73. Nilsen, D. (1991, August) Understanding Self vs. Observer Discrepancies in Multi-rater Assessment Systems. Paper presented at the Annual Meetings of the American Psychological Association, San Francisco. 14-Mar-94 21:46:52-GMT,10223;000000000001 Received: from rutvm1.rutgers.edu by aramis.rutgers.edu (5.59/SMI4.0/RU1.5/3.08) id AA24111; Mon, 14 Mar 94 16:46:49 EST Message-Id: <9403142146.AA24111@aramis.rutgers.edu> Received: from RUTVM1.RUTGERS.EDU by RUTVM1.RUTGERS.EDU (IBM VM SMTP R1.2.1MX) with BSMTP id 4306; Mon, 14 Mar 94 16:48:03 EST Received: from RUTVM1.RUTGERS.EDU (NJE origin LISTSERV@RUTVM1) by RUTVM1.RUTGERS.EDU (LMail V1.1d/1.7f) with BSMTP id 8841; Mon, 14 Mar 1994 16:48:02 -0500 Date: Mon, 14 Mar 1994 16:46:05 -0500 Reply-To: psyc@pucc.bitnet Sender: "PSYCOLOQUY: Refereed Electronic Journal of Peer Discussion" From: Stevan Harnad Subject: psycoloquy.94.5.18.split-brain.7.puccetti (172 lines) Comments: To: psyc@pucc.bitnet To: Multiple recipients of list PSYC psycoloquy.94.5.18.split-brain.7.puccetti Date March 4, 1994 ISSN 1055-0143 (6 paragraphs, 9 references, 166 lines) PSYCOLOQUY is sponsored by the American Psychological Association (APA) Copyright 1994 Roland Puccetti NARRATIVE RICHNESS AS A NECESSARY CONDITION FOR THE SELF Response to Hardcastle, Leiber, Mortensen et al., Pessin & Revonsuo Roland Puccetti Philosophy Department Dalhousie University Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada DALPHIL@ac.dal.ca ABSTRACT: Hardcastle supports my claim that Dennett's criterion for conscious selfhood -- having a robust narrative center of gravity --is counterintuitively narrow. Revonsuo provides strong empirical evidence in favor of this same view. Leiber suggests that my defence of right-hemisphere self-consciousness depends upon my accepting mind-brain identity theory, but this is incorrect. Mortensen et al. think I need their notion of "part-persons" to describe the disconnected cerebral hemispheres: I find it simpler to extend the notion of "person" to the nonspeaking hemisphere, yielding two persons per split-brain patient. Pessin's main critical reaction rests on a confusion about Dennett's "Multiple Drafts" theory of the mind. 1. I welcome Hardcastle's (1993) support of my criticism of Dennett's interpretation of the split-brain literature. In particular, I appreciate her caution concerning the use of hemispherectomy studies to localize consciousness in the brain; as she writes, developmental plasticity and individual differences blur evidence of differential processing between cerebral hemispheres where the subjects have but a single hemisphere (par. 5). And surely she is right that Dennett's criterion for conscious selfhood, that is, having a robust center of "narrative gravity," is counterintuitively narrow, since it would exclude not merely people who have survived left hemispherectomy but prelinguistic children and deaf-mutes, etc. (par. 8). Her conclusion, that such criteria stand in need of a neurophysiological basis in the brain (par. 9), is of course a sound one. 2. Leiber's commentary (1993) puzzles me. On the one hand, his tone gives the impression that we are in profound disagreement, yet I agree with all the factual assertions he makes. How can we both agree and disagree? At the end, however, he writes that if I find Dennett's criterion of selfhood too narrow to accommodate an elderly left hemispherectomy case, this is because "granny is not simply a right hemisphere" (par. 3). But nowhere did I say she was. I have always rejected the Identity Theory as overly simplistic. (It is difficult enough to defend statements I actually have made!) 3. The commentary by Revonsuo (1993) provides powerful empirical support for my criticisms of Dennett, especially from studies of prosopagnosia (par. 3), where in brain-damaged patients there is disassociation between explicit and implicit facial recognition; patients deny recognizing the face but their information processing system gives covert evidence that the face is indeed a familiar one. And in the split-brain patients, information processing in the right hemisphere is just as oblivious to the dominant hemisphere; this is why my earlier theory of double consciousness in the normal, intact human brain (Puccetti, 1973) may turn out to be correct (par. 7). 4. Mortensen et al. (1993) get off to a shaky start in their commentary by observing that if I allow Dennett's claim that in experimental situations the disconnected right hemisphere of split-brain patients can support a transitory self, then I should allow for a full-fledged self following hemispherectomy (par. 2). But in fact behavioral evidence for consciousness, after removal of the self/speaking- hemisphere, is one of the reasons I denied that consciousness in the right hemisphere is only transitory. Nor is it clear to me how the absence of a left hemisphere itself provokes the elaboration of a "permanent self" in the residual right hemisphere. Is it not simpler to suppose that this nonverbal self-concept existed presurgically as well as postsurgically? But these commentators quickly move on to introduce their concept of a "part-person" (par. 3), which is what each of the two disconnected hemispheres becomes following cerebral commissurotomy: the right hemisphere because by itself it lacks linguistic thinking; the left hemisphere because it lacks spatial reasoning. So post- commissurotomy the survivor is not a person, but "two part-persons." Similar moves can be made, though with difficulty, with notions of "personality" (par. 4), "consciousness" (par. 5), and even "mind" and "self" (par. 3). My reply to all of this will be quite brief: we don't need to legislate language; we merely have to extend the concept of a person the nonspeaking cerebral hemisphere. 5. Pessin's commentary (1993) begins with the denial that Dennett's concept of consciousness as consisting of "Multiple Drafts" really conflicts with my own claim that split-brain surgery reveals the potential duality of mind in the normal, intact human brain (par. 1). He writes that Dennett's theory, like any "Society of Minds" view, conceives of mental activity as existing along a slippery slope from one mind to indefinitely many (par. 2) per human being, which would include the number two. Dennett, after all, concedes the "logical possibility" of there being a right hemisphere self. This is true, but the quote provided in par. 15 of the target article clearly denies that there is such a thing. Pessin's final word on this subject is that Dennett takes higher mental activity to be based in those very countable hemispheres (par. 3), but he adds, cryptically: "It's just that that needn't entail their own countability." At this point I am lost: how can the cerebral hemispheres be both countable and not countable? I think Pessin meant that although based in the two cerebral hemispheres, the mind's Multiple Drafts are not themselves countable, because the mind is only an abstraction. Which is what I said. In par. 8 Pessin defends Dennett's view by reducing it to innocuous statements about not going beyond the evidence in split-brain testing situations. But we should remind ourselves that we normals cannot give bifurcated responses in the same testing circumstances, which surely warrants the interpretation that our brains and theirs are informationally distinct (postsurgically) and not just during lab testing of the latter. In par. 9 and 10 Pessin parodies my criticisms. 6. Let me try to counter Pessin's moves by introducing a fresh observation. Suppose that, like 92% of us, you are right-handed. You fall and break your right arm. If you were a classroom teacher who had to write on the blackboard often, you could do so using your left arm (though clumsily). But now you incur a basilar stroke that effectively transects the corpus callosum, just as cerebral commissurotomy would. That means you are transiently agraphic; you can't write on the blackboard with either hand until your right arm is healed. But even so, you would never be able to write on the blackboard again using your left hand and arm, though before the stroke you were able to do so. What explains this outcome? I think the answer is that the left- arm/right-hemisphere combination can be viewed as a psychological system which, unlike the right-arm/left-hemisphere combination, does not have a learning history that includes writing. Before the stroke, your left (dominant) hemisphere was able to recruit homologous tissue from the right (nondominant) hemisphere to write with the left arm on the blackboard. Post traumatically, the stroke's effect was to block this option and render you permanently agraphic with that left arm. The testability of this claim is limited; I will say only that if I am right, firm split-brained right handers should prove to be incapable of writing sinistrally (I give a fuller treatment of this in Puccetti, in press.) In his conclusion (par. 12), Pessin says my recurring mistake has been to fail to distinguish between having a mind (or mental activity) and having a self. But is that a mistake? Ask yourselves: can there be a selfless human adult mind; or a mindless adult human self? I think not. These concepts, while not the same, are totally congruent. REFERENCES Dennett, D.C. (1991) Consciousness Explained. Boston: Little, Brown. Hardcastle, V.G. (1993) A New Agenda for Studying Consciousness. PSYCOLOQUY 4(57) split-brain.2.hardcastle. Leiber, J. (1993) Conscience and Commissurotomy. PSYCOLOQUY 4(58) split-brain.3.leiber. Mortensen, C., O'Brien, G & Paterson, B. (1993) Distinctions: Subpersonal and Subconscious. PSYCOLOQUY 4(62) split-brain.5.mortensen. Pessin, A. (1993) One Mind Too Many? PSYCOLOQUY 4(64) split-brain.6.pessin. Puccetti, R. (in press) Mind with a Double Brain. The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science. Puccetti, R. (1993) Dennett on the Split-Brain. PSYCOLOQUY 4(52) split-brain.1.puccetti. Puccetti, R. (1973) Brain Bisection and Personal Identity. British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 24: 339-55. Revonsuo, A. (1993) Dennett and Dissociations of Consciousness. PSYCOLOQUY 4(59) split-brain.4.revonsuo. 17-Mar-94 19:24:13-GMT,11358;000000000000 Received: from rutvm1.rutgers.edu by aramis.rutgers.edu (5.59/SMI4.0/RU1.5/3.08) id AA24127; Thu, 17 Mar 94 14:24:11 EST Message-Id: <9403171924.AA24127@aramis.rutgers.edu> Received: from RUTVM1.RUTGERS.EDU by RUTVM1.RUTGERS.EDU (IBM VM SMTP R1.2.1MX) with BSMTP id 8641; Thu, 17 Mar 94 14:25:26 EST Received: from RUTVM1.RUTGERS.EDU (NJE origin LISTSERV@RUTVM1) by RUTVM1.RUTGERS.EDU (LMail V1.1d/1.7f) with BSMTP id 9681; Thu, 17 Mar 1994 14:25:25 -0500 Date: Thu, 17 Mar 1994 14:23:25 -0500 Reply-To: psyc@pucc.bitnet Sender: "PSYCOLOQUY: Refereed Electronic Journal of Peer Discussion" From: Stevan Harnad Subject: psycoloquy.94.5.19.eeg-chaos.5.wright (208 lines) Comments: To: psyc@pucc.bitnet To: Multiple recipients of list PSYC psycoloquy.94.5.19.eeg-chaos.5.wright Thursday 17 March 1994 ISSN 1055-0143 (12 paragraphs, 12 references, 202 lines) PSYCOLOQUY is sponsored by the American Psychological Association (APA) Copyright 1994 Wright, Kydd & Liley NOISE IS CRUCIAL TO EEG DYNAMICS Reply to Gregson, Goertzel & Tsuda J.J. Wright, R.R. Kydd, D.T.J. Liley Department of Psychiatry and Behavioural Science School of Medicine, University of Auckland Auckland, New Zealand jwright@ccu1.auckland.ac.nz jjw@brain.physics.swin.oz.au ABSTRACT: Gregson, Goertzel, and Tsuda each raise related criticisms to our claim that electrocortical activity exhibits microchaos while macroscopically behaving as a linear, near-equilibrium system. The most powerful counterargument advanced is the work of Kaneko (1990). This showed that far-from-equilibrium global chaos emerges from coupled chaotic maps. We respond that the effect of noise in the Kaneko model brings its findings into line with our own. 1. We thank these authors for their commentaries. Because of their overlap of content we are replying to them in concert, but will deal with each contributor's comments in the order in which they were received. The commentary of Tsuda introduces an important counterexample, which we hope to show is not in contradiction, but rather complementary to the ideas in the target article. I. GREGSON 2. Gregson (1994) has taken us to task, partly for failure to address a set of problems we had deliberately avoided, namely, the knotty difficulties of characterising EEG signals as chaotic or otherwise, using estimates for correlation dimension, Kolmogorov entropy, etc. It is by no means clear that these measures, as commonly applied, accurately reflect underlying attractor properties (Rossler & Hudson, 1989; Nunez & Srinivasan, 1994; Dunki, 1991). 3. We neither contend nor deny that EEG time series recorded at macroscopic scale may exhibit chaos, and we agree that it is common for physical phenomena to exhibit different dynamic features at different scales. Molecular motion, sound waves, and the weather are perhaps the most widely discussed examples of this kind. 4. Rather than attempting a review in this problematic field, we concentrated on models which, whatever their drawbacks in other respects, make definite and contrasting claims that EEG exhibits particular dynamic properties at particular scales, namely, far-from-equilibrium cellular and small cellular group interactions, contrasting with near-equilibrium dynamics and linear wave superposition at the macroscopic level. It remains for us an open question whether the macroscopic EEG time series preserves chaotic dynamical features carried through from the underlying neural events driving the wave-motion. Conversely, this is not the only way in which such macroscopic chaos might emerge, for the interaction with ongoing sensory input and the interaction of cortex with brainstem must also be considered, as we have endeavoured to indicate. 5. Gregson does not see the distinction of dynamics by scale as useful as we do. Interaction between scales seems to us to underlie the mysterious qualities of localisation and nonlocalisation exhibited in brain function; these have posed a paradox since the work of Lashley. We shall return to this important issue when replying to Tsuda. II. GOERTZEL 6. Goertzel (1994) considers us shaky on a number of grounds. He has some reservations about our briefly outlined estimates of cell-to-cell coupling asymmetry. We hope he will be reassured when he has had a chance to read the more detailed reports of these calculations (Liley & Wright, 1994) and the simulation of EEG dynamics based upon them (Wright & Liley, 1994) which are currently in press. Without needing to appeal to any selective neurochemical effects, we have, we believe, achieved a rather precise fit to a body of quantitative anatomical data, on the basis of purely stochastic intracortical connectivity, as well as a good consequent fit to known EEG properties. Not, of course, that we deny the presence of selective neurochemical tropisms. 7. We are unable to say whether the resulting model of electrocortical dynamics is compatible with Edelman's (1988) evolutionary group selection views, but we agree that there is a need to make such comparisons. Part of our manifest difficulty in doing so lies in the fact that the details of dynamics in real neurons seem to need sorting out before any learning rule can be properly chosen. And before we could claim to understand the dynamics of cortical neurons we need to understand how their dynamics differ with scale and how they interact across scale -- the point of our target article. We have, we admit, not yet succeeded in properly dealing with the problems of interaction across scale. 8. That Hopfield networks are not completely appropriate models of real neural networks is not in contention, nor did we intend to force a parallel to global dynamics to the degree Goertzel seems to object to. We wished to highlight the point that symmetry of connection and defined system energy are mutually dependent ideas. This permits us to treat (1) macroscopic energetic considerations as partly defining the trajectory of the global system and (2) the interaction across scales as analogous to ongoing input from the microscopic to the global system, and vice-versa. While such an approach is not definitive, it does offer the prospect of dividing the modelling problem into two parts, to be later related. Which brings us to the commentary of Tsuda. III. TSUDA 9. Tsuda (1994) does not accept our treatment of macroscopic EEG dynamics as linear and near-equilibrium and cites an important counterexample in the work of Kaneko. This work was not previously known to us. Tsuda points out that a set of chaotic maps with diffusion couplings can preserve macroscopic chaos and can defy the Law of Large numbers and even the Central Limit Theorem; thus it must exhibit far-from-equilibrium properties. Tsuda argues persuasively that such coupled maps are so general, and the far-from-equilibrium behaviour so ubiquitous, that there appears no escape from contradiction in our own theorising. That this is not so can be seen by comparing Kaneko's paper with one of our own source papers (Wright, 1990). 10. Kaneko (1990) reports that with the introduction of uncorrelated noise to N coupled maps, the Law of Large numbers is restored, in the sense that the mean square deviation of the field again decreases with increasing N. Mutual information of the individual maps diminishes. The concept of correlation distance is thus restored by the noise. The model for macroscopic dynamics outlined in our target article depends on the presence of noise, assumed (Wright, 1990) to be introduced to the cortex via the reticular formation. The effect of even small amounts of noise upon microscopic neural activity of high Lyapunov exponent may be such as to render the mutual information between macroscopic pools of neurons very low. Equivalently, instantaneous natural frequencies, damping factors, and coupling coefficients describing the dynamics of small pools of coupled neurons are stochastically independent; it is this stochastic independence upon which our hypothesis was built. Thus noise leaves the Law of Large Numbers applicable to both formulations, and in turn to the conclusion that macroscopic wave motion can obey superposition and is near-equilibrium. We outlined the tests for this conclusion in the target article. They support our hypothesis, so we hold to our view. 11. Tsuda's criticism of us for the use of AR in the tests of hypothesis appears misguided, since the AR technique was used empirically to make measurements which tested our hypothesis. There was no circular use of a linear technique to falsely imply that the underlying signals were therefore linear. Tsuda's final comments on learning in chaotic nets are of great intrinsic interest but they do not appear to contradict our position. 12. Clearly the Kaneko findings and our own are not in contradiction, and may be complementary. Indeed, the "Kaneko effect" would appear to be maximised for coupled maps of small separation in the presence of noise. This leads to the intriguing possibility that local coherence among pools of cells might be generated from subsets of cells currently engaged in high amplitude microscopic chaos, the local pool then providing a driving signal to the linear and near-equilibrium macroscopic dynamics. This mechanism appears to offer a further means of bridging dynamic interactions across scale. REFERENCES Dunki, R.M. (1991) The Estimation of Kolmogorov Entropy from a Time Series and Its Limitations When Performed on EEG. Bull. Math. Biol. 53:665-678. Edelman, D. (1988). Neural Darwinism, New York: Basic. Goertzel, B. (1994) From Neurons to Neuronal Groups. PSYCOLOQUY 5(13) eeg-chaos.4.goertzel. Gregson, R.A.M. (1994) Thinking About the Unconsidered Chaotic EEG Data. PSYCOLOQUY 5(6) eeg-chaos.2.gregson. Kaneko, K. (1990) Globally Coupled Chaos Violates the Law of Large Numbers But Not the Central Limit Theorem. Physical Review Letters 65:1391-1394. Liley, D.T.J. & Wright, J.J. (1994) Intracortical Connectivity of Stellate and Pyramidal Cells: Estimates of Synaptic Density and Coupling Symmetry. Network: Computation in Neural Systems (in press). Nunez, P.L. & Srinivasan, R. (1994) Implications of Recording Strategy for Estimates of Neocortical Dynamics with Electroencephalography. Chaos 3:257-266. Rossler, O.E. & Hudson, J.L. (1989) Self-similarity in Hyperchaotic Data. In: Brain Dynamics. Basar and Bullock (eds). Springer Series in Brain Dynamics. Springer-Verlag, Berlin. Tsuda, I. (1994) From Micro-chaos to Macro-chaos: Chaos Can Survive Even in Macroscopic States of Neural Activities. PSYCOLOQUY 5(12) eeg-chaos.3.tsuda. Wright, J.J. (1990) Reticular Activation and the Dynamics of Neuronal Networks. Biol. Cybern. 62:289-298. Wright, J.J., Kydd, R.R. & Liley, D.T.J. (1993) EEG Models: Chaotic and Linear. PSYCOLOQUY 4(60) eeg-chaos.1.wright. Wright, J.J. & Liley, D.T.J. (1994) A Millimetric Scale Simulation of Electrocortical Wave Dynamics Based on Anatomical Estimates of Cortical Synaptic Density. Network: Computation in Neural Systems (in press). 22-Mar-94 23:51:50-GMT,17630;000000000000 Received: from rutvm1.rutgers.edu by aramis.rutgers.edu (5.59/SMI4.0/RU1.5/3.08) id AA12531; Tue, 22 Mar 94 18:51:47 EST Message-Id: <9403222351.AA12531@aramis.rutgers.edu> Received: from RUTVM1.RUTGERS.EDU by RUTVM1.RUTGERS.EDU (IBM VM SMTP R1.2.1MX) with BSMTP id 0137; Tue, 22 Mar 94 18:53:04 EST Received: from RUTVM1.RUTGERS.EDU (NJE origin LISTSERV@RUTVM1) by RUTVM1.RUTGERS.EDU (LMail V1.1d/1.7f) with BSMTP id 2875; Tue, 22 Mar 1994 18:53:03 -0500 Date: Tue, 22 Mar 1994 18:51:12 -0500 Reply-To: psyc@pucc.bitnet Sender: "PSYCOLOQUY: Refereed Electronic Journal of Peer Discussion" From: Stevan Harnad Subject: psycoloquy.94.5.20.eeg-chaos.6.nunez (327 lines) Comments: To: psyc@pucc.bitnet To: Multiple recipients of list PSYC psycoloquy.94.5.20.eeg-chaos.6.nunez Tuesday 22 March 1994 ISSN 1055-0143 (20 paragraphs, 1 table, 18 references, 327 lines) PSYCOLOQUY is sponsored by the American Psychological Association (APA) Copyright 1994 Paul Nunez NEOCORTICAL DYNAMICS AND EEG Commentary on Wright, Kydd & Liley on EEG-Chaos Paul L. Nunez Brain Physics Group Department of Biomedical Engineering Tulane University New Orleans, LA 70118 pln@mv3600.bmen.tulane.edu ABSTRACT: Estimates of phase velocity using scalp recorded data are shown to be consistent with a global theory of EEG in which waves are partly transmitted along corticocortical fibers. General features of neocortical dynamics and their implications for theoretical descriptions are considered. Such features include multiple scales of interaction, multiple connection lengths, local and global time constants, dominance of collective interactions at most scales and periodic boundary conditions. Cognitive events may be directly related to the continuous forming and reforming of local and regional circuits which are functionally disconnected from tissue involved in global operation. I. ESTIMATES OF EEG PHASE VELOCITY 1. Wright et al. (1993) use frequency-wavenumber spectra to obtain phase velocity estimates. A more direct approach (which does not, of course, yield spectral details) is simply to measure phase versus distance in any particular direction. Such methods have been applied by the Melbourne group to steady-state visual evoked potentials (unstructured flicker). About 40% of subjects exhibit a smooth variation in phase along the midline in scalp recorded EEG and MEG (Burkitt 1994; Silberstein 1994). Such phase velocity estimates are generally in the 10-20 ms range along the scalp or about 5 to 10 ms along the folded cortical surface. These estimates are close to the known propagation velocities in corticocortical fibers, generally in the 6-9 ms range (Katznelson, 1981; Nunez, 1994). 2. Our group has estimated phase velocity of alpha rhythm recorded in Melbourne using a slightly different method. Linear regression is obtained for bipolar phase versus distance along the midline in short (100 ms) segments of scalp EEG data. Questions addressed by this method are concerned with: (i) What fraction of segments exhibits correlation coefficients at the 1% significance level? That is, in how much of the data can we define apparent phase velocities in either posterior-anterior or anterior-posterior directions? (ii) What is the range of these phase velocity estimates? About 10 to 15% of such data segments pass the significance test as compared with much fewer than 1% in simulation studies involving random phases of source activity (but accounting for volume conduction effects). Thus, the data exhibit evidence for an underlying characteristic velocity, again in the 5-10 ms range along the cortical surface. 3. These data support the general theoretical idea that EEG is composed of traveling waves which partly combine (interfere) to also form standing waves (accounting for the low percentage of pure traveling waves), and that these waves are partly propagated along corticocortical fibers (Nunez, 1972; 1981). These are the ideas underlying Eqn (6) of the target article. However, the existence of waves at such large scales does not preclude the simultaneous existence of waves at several smaller scales in which propagation can be adequately described in terms of exclusively intracortical interactions. The latter phenomena are apparently of short wave length and cannot be observed from the scalp (Nunez, 1989; 1994) as suggested by data presented in the target article. II. BRAIN CHAOS 4. Whereas the modern concept of low dimensional chaos may eventually prove to be important in brain studies, I am not aware of any convincing current evidence that this is the case. The term "chaos" in modern nonlinear systems literature is associated with exponential divergence of trajectories in phase space. The revolution in our thinking about chaos over the past two decades has mostly to do with a new appreciation that apparently simple systems (i.e., those with few degrees of freedom) can exhibit chaotic behavior. However, it has long been appreciated that complex systems (i.e., those with large numbers of degrees of freedom) often exhibit chaotic behavior (although the label "chaos" is new). The brain is certainly not a simple system, that is, we expect many brain state variables to exhibit high dimensional chaos so this is hardly a novel idea. 5. It does appear that phenomena characteristic of many complex nonlinear systems (e.g., self-organization, interactions at multiple temporal and spatial scales, stable spatial structure in the presence of temporal chaos, etc.) occur in neocortex and may be closely aligned with cognitive processing. This is suggested in the experimental work of Freeman (1991; see also references in the target article), and the theoretical work of Ingber (1982,1984,1991). The target article presents some of these general ideas metaphorically, although many of the concepts that are critical for connections between variables recorded at different scales are omitted. (In fairness, a comprehensive review of this area would be quite difficult to construct). 6. The point made in the target article that linear or quasilinear phenomena at one scale can coexist with highly nonlinear phenomena at another scale is an important one for brain theories. Again, this point is made metaphorically rather than theoretically, for example, by deriving distribution functions at one scale and integrating to form more macroscopic variables (refer to Ingber, 1982; Ingber & Nunez, 1990). An example from the physical sciences is provided by simulations of star dynamics in a galaxy (Miller, 1992). Radial standing wave phenomena (large scale mass distributions) are predicted to coexist with chaotic "microstructure" (the trajectories of individual stars). III. NEOCORTICAL DYNAMICS AND NEURAL NETWORKS 7. The authors focus on the idea that connections between assumed functional units at different scales (e.g., neurons, minicolumns, macrocolumns) can be symmetric or asymmetric, depending on the spatial scale of such units. I would agree that the nature of connections at different scales is a critical theoretical issue (Ingber, 1982; 1994; Ingber & Nunez, 1990). However, features other than symmetry of such interactions may be more important, for example, the density of connections. 8. Consider, for example, physical phenomena for which collective interactions are important (e.g., hot plasma, stars in a galaxy, etc.). These differ fundamentally from systems with only nearest-neighbor interactions. An example of the latter is a neutral gas which involves mostly two body interactions. By contrast, each electron in a hot plasma may interact simultaneously with 10**5 or more other electrons in a manner somewhat analogous to the interactions of a neocortical neuron with 10**5 local neurons. 9. Since neocortical dynamic variables may behave quite differently at different scales, it is perhaps useful to construct a table outlining some characteristics of these scales. The following is based mainly on the works of Mountcastle, Braitenberg, Szentagothi and Abeles (summary in Nunez, 1994). The "interconnectivities" (number of units directly connected) in the right most column are mostly guesses. TABLE I: Spatial Scales of Human Neocortex Name Scale (mm) No. of Neurons Interconnectivity (guess) Soma 10**-3 1 10**5 Minicolumn 3x10**-2 10**2 10**3 Module 3x10**-1 10**3-10**4 10**2 Macrocolumn 1 10**5-10**6 10**4 Broadman 50 10**8 50 Lobal 170 10**9 10 10. It should also be noted that there are important differences in the nature of these interactions between units, for example, excitatory or inhibitory, long range (up to 20 cm) or short range (mm) and origins in different cortical layers. One can evidently view neocortical dynamic function as the simultaneous interaction of 10**10 neurons, 10**8 minicolumns, 10**6 modules (i.e., corticocortical columns), etc. Furthermore, interactions across scales are likely to be important, as emphasized by Ingber (1994). The brain can be compared with the human global system, which involves simultaneous interactions of people, cities, nations, etc. Furthermore, both top-down (e.g., nations-people) and bottom-up (e.g., states-nations) interactions are important. 11. Scalp recorded data occurs at the lobal (conventional EEG) or Broadman (high resolution EEG) scales. Thus, any theory of EEG constructed at smaller scales must be coarse grained before comparisons are made with scalp data. We have illustrated some of these ideas with a simple, nonlinear mechanical system (Nunez & Srinivasan, 1993) in which either chaotic or quasiperiodic behavior may be observed depending on recording strategy (e.g., the spatial filter implicit in the experimental methods). 12. One way to avoid some of the extreme complexity (including a large number of unknown physiological parameters) is to construct a "fluid- like" theory of mass action which applies only to very large scales. This is my approach using Eqn (6) of the target article, which involves three dependent variables: he(r,t), hi(r,t) and g(r,t). The first two are synaptic action densities, whereas the third is action potential density (note the error in the description of the latter). Thus, a third equation is required; this is provided at the local (columnar) scale (Nunez, 1989). The local equation g=g(he,hi) is generally expected to be highly nonlinear; however, if the local scale is sufficiently large (e.g., macocolumnar or larger), I have postulated an approximate linearization of the function g which is applicable to some fixed physiological states. 13. The resulting system of equations is linear, contains no free parameters and results in a number of correct qualitative and semiquantitative predictions which are observed in the EEG, including standing waves with frequency in the 10 Hz range (within a factor of about two or three), increasing frequency with maturation of the alpha rhythm due to myelination of corticocortical axons, negative correlation between brain size and alpha frequency, and mode scanning during sleep and anesthesia states (Katznelson, 1981; Nunez, 1994). Furthermore, an approximate quasilinear solution predicts global limit cycle behavior by individual spatial modes (Nunez, 1994). IV. CONCLUSION 14. The views expressed here are in general qualitative agreement with those expressed in the target article; however, I would add several ideas which may or may not be in agreement: 15. Based on experience with complex physical phenomena which appear to have important similarities to neocortex, the following appear to be essential features of neocortical dynamics: multiple scales of interaction with different rules (e.g., equations) operating at different scales, both top-down and bottom-up interactions, multiple connection lengths, both local and global time constants (e.g., PSP rise/decay times and delays due to finite propagation velocity of action potentials in corticocortical fibers), dominance of collective interactions at most scales, and periodic boundary conditions. 16. In addition, lateral inhibition provides a mechanism by which local and regional circuits can continuously form and reform with different regions functionally disconnected from other tissue (a form of self-organization). In the global theory, the switching between more local and more global operation is mediated by local and global control parameters, which are assumed to change due to the influences of various neuromodulators. One may speculate that such events are directly connected to cognitive processing (Gevins, 1994; Silberstein, 1994). 17. Given these apparently critical contributions to neocortical dynamics, the usual neural network methods, which contain almost none of these features to significant degree, are likely to have very limited application to successful theories of neocortical function. 18. It would appear that successful theories must either approximate interactions between neural masses at some scale consistent with the scale of the experiment (e.g., electrode size and location) that they attempt to describe (e.g., the global theory outlined in paragraphs 12 and 13), or they must use modern statistical methods to express variables at experimentally interesting scales in terms of integrals over more microscopic variables and their distribution functions at smaller scales (Ingber, 1982; 1994). 19. Metaphorical descriptions, which may be based on analogs to known physical systems, can be of great value in designing both theory and experiment. However, they should be distinguished from genuine neocortical theory, which is based on real anatomy and physiology (as understood at the time) and contains no free (arbitrary) parameters. Scientific advancement is greatest when agreement between theory and experiment is achieved. Unfortunately, the agreement most often claimed is actually between metaphor and experiment; this is at best a modest achievement, owing to the ease with which free parameters and loosely defined concepts can be fudged to effect superficial accord. 20. In my view, the main value of Wright et al.'s target article lies in communicating several general concepts, which are apparently critical to brain dynamic function, to disparate fields. I am less enthusiastic about some of the details. REFERENCES Burkitt, G. (1994) Steady-state Visually Evoked Potentials and Traveling Waves. Ph.D. Dissertation, Swinburne University of Technology, Melbourne, Australia. Freeman, W.J. (1991) Predictions on Neocortical Dynamics Derived from Studies in Paleocortex. In: Induced Rhythms of the Brain, eds. E. Basar & T.H. Bullock. Cambridge MA, Birkhaeuser Boston Inc. Gevins, A.S. & Cutillo, B.A. (1986) Signals of Cognition. In: Handbook of Electroencephal. Clin. Neurophysiol., Revised series. Vol.2, eds. F.A. Lopes da Silva, W. Strom van Leeuwen & A. Remond. Elsevier, New York, 335-381. Gevins, A.S. & Cutillo, B.A. (1994) Neuroelectric Measures of Mind. Chapter 7 in Nunez, P.L., Neocortical Dynamics and Human EEG Rhythms, Oxford U. Press, New York, in press. Ingber, L. (1982) Statistical Mechanics of Neocortical Interactions. Basic Formulation. Physica 5D:83-107. Ingber, L. (1984) Statistical Mechanics of Neocortical Interactions. Derivation of Short-term Memory Capacity. Phys. Rev. A., 29:3346-3358. Ingber, L. (1991) Statistical Mechanics of Neocortical Interactions: A Scaling Paradigm Applied to Electroencephalography, Phys. Rev., 44:4017-4060. Ingber, L. (1994) Statistical Mechanics of Multiple Scales of Neocortical Dynamics. Chapter 13 in Nunez, P.L., Neocortical Dynamics and Human EEG Rhythms, Oxford U. Press, New York, in press. Ingber, L. & Nunez, P.L. (1990) Multiple Scales of Statistical Physics of the Neocortex: Application to Electroencephalography, Mathl. Comput. Modelling, 13:83-95. Katznelson, R.D. (1981) Chapter 6 in Nunez, P.L., Electric Fields of the Brain: The Neurophysics of EEG, Oxford U. Press, New York. Miller, R.H. (1992) Experimenting with Galaxies, American Scientist, 80:152-163. Nunez, P.L. (1972) The Brain Wave Equation: A Model for the EEG. American EEG Soc. Meeting, Houston and Math Biosciences (1974) 21:279-297. Nunez, P.L. (1981) Electric Fields of the Brain: The Neurophysics of EEG, Oxford U. Press, New York. Nunez, P.L. (1989) Generation of Human EEG by a Combination of Long and Short Range Neocortical Interactions, Brain Topography, 1:199-215. Nunez, P.L. (1994) Neocortical Dynamics and Human EEG Rhythms, Oxford U. Press, New York, in press. Nunez, P.L. & Srinivasan, R. (1993) Implications of Recording Strategy for Estimates of Neocortical Dynamics with EEG, Chaos: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Nonlinear Science, 3:257-266. Silberstein, R.B. (1994) Steady-state Evoked Potentials and Brain Resonance. Chapter 6 in Nunez, P.L., Neocortical Dynamics and Human EEG Rhythms, Oxford U. Press, New York, in press. Wright, J.J., Kydd, R.R. and Liley, D.T.J. (1993) EEG Models: Chaotic and Linear. PSYCOLOQUY 4(60) eeg-chaos.1.wright. 25-Mar-94 19:21:03-GMT,20531;000000000000 Received: from rutvm1.rutgers.edu by aramis.rutgers.edu (5.59/SMI4.0/RU1.5/3.08) id AA12096; Fri, 25 Mar 94 14:21:02 EST Message-Id: <9403251921.AA12096@aramis.rutgers.edu> Received: from RUTVM1.RUTGERS.EDU by RUTVM1.RUTGERS.EDU (IBM VM SMTP R1.2.1MX) with BSMTP id 4680; Fri, 25 Mar 94 14:22:15 EST Received: from RUTVM1.RUTGERS.EDU (NJE origin LISTSERV@RUTVM1) by RUTVM1.RUTGERS.EDU (LMail V1.1d/1.7f) with BSMTP id 2433; Fri, 25 Mar 1994 14:22:12 -0500 Date: Fri, 25 Mar 1994 14:20:33 -0500 Reply-To: psyc@pucc.bitnet Sender: "PSYCOLOQUY: Refereed Electronic Journal of Peer Discussion" From: PSYCOLOQUY Subject: PSYCOLOQUY Newsletter Section (Announcements: 494 lines) Comments: To: psyc@pucc.bitnet To: Multiple recipients of list PSYC PSYCOLOQUY ISSN 1055-0143 Fri 25 Mar 94 Newsletter Section (1) Conference: Knowledge/Neural-Heuristics, Florida, May 9-10 (2) Conference: Object Recognition Symposium, Syracuse, NY, April 9 (3) Conference: Helmholtz Conference, Kiel, Germany, July 17-21 (4) Conference: The Family on the Threshold of 21st Century, Jerusalem (5) Conference: TENNET, FLOURENS, CHEIRON, Montreal Quebec, May & June (6) Conference: Computers in Psychology, U of York, September 21-23 (7) Conference: International Congress of Psychology, Montreal, Aug '96 (8) Announcement: Postgraduate Education and Research, Moscow State U (9) Announcement: CPC Newsletter re-launched (10) Announcement: Cognitive Science MSc Programme at Birmingham, UK (11) Announcement: Special issue of TIMS journal, call for papers (12) Query: Psychiatric diagnosis (13) Query: Alexander method of postural adjustment ----------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Subject: (1) Conference: Knowledge/Neural-Heuristics, Florida, May 9-10 International Symposium on Integrating Knowledge and Neural Heuristics ISIKNH'94 Conference (Sponsored by AAAI and University of Florida) Time: May 9-10 1994; Place: Pensacola Beach, Florida, USA. Please send your registration including a registration fee to: Rob Francis ISIKNH'94 DOCE/Conferences 2209 NW 13th Street, STE E University of Florida Gainesville, FL 32609-3476 USA (Phone: 904-392-1701; fax: 904-392-6950) [Registration fee: $250 by April 8, $300 on site, $150 for students] For registration, please submit your name, address, institution/company, phone, fax, and email to the above address. ------------------------------ From: ""Michael S. Schechter - ISR group account"" Subject: (2) Conference: Object Recognition Symposium, Syracuse, NY, April 9 ONE-DAY SYMPOSIUM ON OBJECT RECOGNITION Saturday April 9, Syracuse, NY, USA Irv Biederman "Shape recognition in mind and brain." Heinrich Bulthoff "Psychophysical support for a view- interpolation theory of object recognition." Mel Goodale "Object vision for action." Gordon Legge "Sensory coding in object recognition." Jitendra Malik "Towards recognition of textured objects." Steve Petersen "PET studies of visual attention." Organized by Denis Pelli and Bart Farell. Sponsored by the Computational Neuroscience Program of Syracuse University and the Health Science Center of State University of New York. Typical roundtrip airfares to Syracuse are $158 from NY, $185 from Montreal, and $336 from Chicago. Hotels $52-79/night. Free admission, but prepayment required for the fancy luncheon to be served at the nearby Lowe Art Gallery: $20 ($10 for students). Contact Evelyn_Lott@isr.syr.edu, (315)-443-4164, or 443-1184 fax. ------------------------------ From: Rainer Mausfeld Subject: (3) Conference: Helmholtz Conference, Kiel, Germany, July 17-21 Second Announcement From Codes To Cognition Foundational Aspects of Visual Information Processing Centennial Conference in Honour of Hermann v.Helmholtz University of Kiel/Germany 17.-21. July 1994 Organized by Dieter Heyer & Rainer Mausfeld Funded by Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft The conference will address fundamental psychological problems of visual perception in areas such as shape from shading, stereo vision, colour and form perception and attention. A basic theme recurring throughout the conference will be how perceptual achievements relate to sensory input. Since Helmholtz and his notion of "unconscious inferences", several theoretical intuitions (e.g. the concept of "ill-posed problems", Barlow's statistical model for the discovery of "independent coincidences", Ullman and Koenderink's discussion of Gibson's idea of "direct perception", Hoffman's "observer mechanics", Shepard's ideas on resonance) concerning the principles of perception have revolved around the attempt to bridge the gap between the (often 'meagre') sensory input and the actual performance. The conference will focus on attempts to theoretically understand the interaction of - restrictions and invariants of the physical environment, - theoretical limiting factors of the sensory system - restrictions on the categorization and interpretation of sensory information that have been internalized in the course of evolution. Address correspondence to: Dieter Heyer Rainer Mausfeld Institute for Psychology University of Kiel 24098 Kiel/Germany Phone: +49-431-8804057 Fax: +49-431-8802975 E-mail: gpo65@rz.uni-kiel.d400.de A preliminary programme will be sent in approximately a week. To give you a general idea, here is a selection of some titles: Arend Perceived surface properties and subjective physics: reinventions of unconsciousness inference Barlow Cognition as code breaking Buelthoff How are three-dimensional objects represented in the brain? Fahle Perceptual learning as an adaptation to the environment Hoffman Unconscious inferences and the mind/body problem Koenderink Pictorial relief MacLeod Brightness and colour in complex displays Mallot Shape from image intensities Nothdurft Preattentive and attentive perceptual processes Poeppel Helmholtzian stimuli interrupt the ongoing stream of perception Prinz Perception and action planning Ramachandran A critique of pure vision Scheerer Computation and cognition: the Helmholtzian legacy Whittle Contrast coding and decoding: distinguishing the contributions of eye and brain to colour perception ------------------------------ From: dreman@BGUMAIL.BGU.AC.IL Subject: (4) Conference: The Family on the Threshold of 21st Century, Jerusalem THE FAMILY ON THE THRESHOLD OF THE 21ST CENTURY: TRENDS AND IMPLICATIONS Sponsored by the Ministry of Science and Technology Jerusalem - May 29-June 1, 1994 - Conference Beer Sheva - Ben Gurion University of the Negev - June 2, 1994 - Post Conference Seminar This is an interdisciplinary conference dealing with issues such as gender, immigration, the family life cycle, stress, and historical, economic and legal influences affecting contemporary family life. For full details contact: ISAS International Seminars POB 13218 Jerusalem 91131 ISRAEL FAX: 972-2-520558 PHONE: 972-2-520574 ------------------------------ From: Whitaker Harry A. Subject: (5) Conference: TENNET, FLOURENS, CHEIRON, Montreal Quebec, May & June Three conferences will be held in Montreal, Quebec, in May-June of this year: TENNET (theoretical and experimental neuro- psychology), FLOURENS (history of neuroscience) and CHEIRON (history of psychology). There is a large E-mail file (990 lines) which has the programs for all three, plus registration and hotel information. I'd be happy to send the file to anyone who requests it. If you are only interested in neuropsychology, let me know and I'll send just the TENNET portion; if you are only interested in history of psychology and related matters, I'll send just the FLOURENS and CHEIRON portions. Harry Whitaker Department of Psychology University of Quebec at Montreal ------------------------------ From: Annie Trapp Subject: (6) Conference: Computers in Psychology, U of York, September 21-23 Conference Announcement and Call for Participation CiP 94 Computers in Psychology University of York 21st - 23rd September 1994 CiP 94 focusses on the rapid expansion of computer use in psychology research, teaching and practice. The conference aims to promote both the sharing of expertise amongst researchers, developers and lecturers and the application of psychological principles to the design and use of educational technologies. Keynote speakers: Professor John Anderson, Carnegie Mellon University, US Professor Doug Chute, Drexel University, US Submissions on the following topics are invited: o Models and principles for technology-based learning o Computer-supported cooperative learning o Supporting laboratory courses o Demonstrations, tutorials and simulations o Data collection, management and analysis o Research applications and experimental control o Psychological assessment o Course management and student assessment o IT and organisational change o Courseware development and evaluation o Networks and communication Submissions on good practice using existing technologies as well as reports of leading edge developments are encouraged. Submissions should be in the form of an abstract up to 500 words to reach the conference organiser by 1st June 1994. Three copies of yours submission should be sent to: CiP 94 CTI Centre for Psychology University of York York YO1 5DD Tel: +44 904 433154 Fax: +44 904 433188 Email: ctipsych@york.ac.uk Submissions by email are acceptable. Deadlines: Submission of abstracts 1st June Notification of acceptance 1st July Final date for registration 29th July Article for Psychology Teaching Review 21st September The conference will run from 4.00pm on Wednesday, 21st September until 3.00pm on Friday, 23rd September. The estimated cost of registration and accommodation will be 180 pounds. For further information, contact: Karen Criddle, CTI Centre for Psychology, University of York, York YO1 5DD Tel: +44 904 433154 Email: ctipsych@york.ac.uk Fax: + 44 904 433188 ------------------------------ From: "Adair, John" Subject: (7) Conference: International Congress of Psychology, Montreal, Aug '96 FIRST ANNOUNCEMENT XXVI INTERNATIONAL CONGRESS OF PSYCHOLOGY August 16-21, 1996 Palais des Congres de Montreal, Quebec, Canada Sponsored by National Research Council Canada and the Canadian Psychological Association Under the auspices of International Union of Psychological Science (IUPsyS), a Member of the International Council of Scientific Unions and the International Social Science Council SCIENTIFIC PROGRAM The Congress program will focus on research developments across all major fields of psychology. Approximately 15 of the leading psychologists of the time will be invited to deliver Keynote addresses focusing on exciting new developments. An additional 45 outstanding psychologists will present State of the Art lectures -- more general critical reviews of significant developments designed to benefit psychologists active in other fields as well as those who work on the specific topic. Approximately 130 invited symposia will provide critical assessments of recent research advances and "cutting edge" issues within different fields of psychology. Each symposium will include leading researchers from several countries. Individual paper and poster presentations will ensure complete coverage of most fields of scientific psychology. In addition, selected pre-Congress workshops will be offered to scientists wishing to add to their skills and/or knowledge through tutorials on specialized research topics. ABSTRACTS Abstracts of accepted papers will be published and distributed at the Congress. The call for abstracts will appear in the Second Announcement to be published in April 1995. It will be mailed to all those who request a copy. The early deadline for the receipt of abstracts will be August 31, 1995, and the final deadline date will be November 15, 1995. The official languages of the Congress are English and French. In keeping with the tradition of previous international congresses to recognize regional linguistic characteristics, the Congress will make a particular effort to include Spanish-language, interactive poster presentations, accompanied by English - or French-language abstracts. FURTHER INFORMATION The Second Announcement will be published in the Spring of 1995 and will contain the call for papers, special forms for submitting the abstract, a final list of speaker topics and symposium program, social events and tours, as well as registration and accommodation information. To ensure receipt of this announcement please send your name, address, institution, fax, phone, and email to the following address: XXVI International Congress of Psychology c/o Conference Services National Research Council Canada Ottawa, ON, Canada K1A OR6 Telephone: (613) 993-9431 Facsimile: (613) 957-9828 e-mail: CONFMAIL@aspm.lan.nrc.ca ------------------------------ From: "Evgeny N. Sokolov" Subject: (8) Announcement: Postgraduate Education and Research, Moscow State U The Chair of Psychophysiology at the Faculty of Psychology of Lomonosov Moscow State University starts an advanced postgraduate program in new areas of psychophysiology under motto "Man. Neuron. Model". The four years investigation according individual research project completes with writing a dissertation in Russian or English and its public defense for the degree: Candidate of Sciences. The Head of the Chair of Psychophysiology, Professor E.N. Sokolov The information via e-Mail: ------------------------------ From: "A.P.Costall" Subject: (9) Announcement: CPC Newsletter re-launched Cahiers de Psychologie Cognitive has been re-launched with a 'parallel' title of 'Current Psychology of Cognition", and will be known simply as CPC. It will be focussing upon short papers and target articles with commentaries. Six issues will be published each year, and a quick turn round is intended, especially for the short papers. A call for papers is out now. All correspondence to the Executive Editor, Jean Paul Caverni, CPC, CREPCO, Universite de Provence, 13621 Aix en Provence, France (email caverni@frmop22.cnusc.fr). ------------------------------ From: cogsci@birmingham.ac.uk Subject: (10) Announcement: Cognitive Science MSc Programme at Birmingham, UK MSc in Cognitive Science at the University of Birmingham The University of Birmingham runs a programme of inter-disciplinary teaching and research in Cognitive Science notable for its breadth and cross-disciplinary interaction. Staff have a wide range of relevant research interests, and Cognitive Science is supported by extensive computing facilities comprising Unix workstations and X-terminals. The MSc in Cognitive Science is a one-year modular programme consisting of taught courses followed by a substantial project. The taught courses (including options) on the MSc comprise: Artificial Intelligence Programming and Logic, Overview of Cognitive Science, Knowledge Representation Inference and Expert Systems, General Linguistics, Human Information Processing, Structures for Data and Knowledge, Philosophy of Science for Cognitive Science, Philosophy of Mind for Cognitive Science, C++ Programming, Human-Computer Interaction, Biological and Computational Architectures, Current Issues in Cognitive Science, Artificial and Natural Perceptual Systems, Speech and Natural Language Processing, and Parallel Distributed Processing. Projects can be pursued in a wide range of topics. Admissions requirements for the MSc in Cognitive Science are flexible, but normally include a good degree in a relevant area such as psychology, artificial intelligence, computer science, linguistics or philosophy. Addresses for further information are given below. The same addresses can be used for enquiries concerning the PhD programme in Cognitive Science and the Cognitive Science Seminar Series at Birmingham. Phone: (+4421) 414 3683 Fax: (+4421) 414 4897 E-mail: cogsci@bham.ac.uk WWW URL:http://www.cs.bham.ac.uk/ Gopher: gopher.cs.bham.ac.uk Mail: Cognitive Science Admissions, School of Psychology, University of Birmingham, Birmingham, B15 2TT, U.K. ------------------------------ From: "Susan E. Brodt" Subject: (11) Announcement: Special issue of TIMS journal, call for papers CALL FOR PAPERS SPECIAL ISSUE OF THE TIMS JOURNAL GROUP DECISION AND NEGOTIATION ON INNOVATIVE APPROACHES TO RESEARCH ON GROUP DECISION AND NEGOTIATION Guest Editors: Susan E. Brodt and Gregory B. Northcraft The special issue will be devoted to extending and perhaps challenging the dominate methods for studying group decision and negotiation. The ideal paper for this special issue may take a number of diverse forms. For example, empirical research that features innovative methods would be appropriate, as would papers that propose alternative methods or critique dominant paradigms. Theoretical, empirical, and application oriented papers are welcome, as are debates among proponents of different, well-established approaches. Of special interest is empirical research that features innovative methods. Both the content of the special issue and its form is intended to extend and perhaps challenge our methods for studying group decision and negotiation. Submissions should be sent to: Susan E. Brodt, Darden Graduate School of Business, Box 6550, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA 22906 USA. ASCII or WordPerfect documents should be emailed to: seb5m@virginia.edu. To be considered for this special issue, papers must be received by July 1, 1994. ------------------------------ From: Chenjee Horng Subject: (12) Query: Questions about psychiatric diagnosis Dear colleague, Would anyone please to tell me the information for the following two questions? 1. What's the coefficient of variance in interspecialist diagnosis of psychiatric disorders using DSM-III-R in teaching hospitals and private clinics? (What if the diagnoses are restricted to psychotic or neurotic disorders respectively? and if the diagnoses are made by interview rather than by one-by-one problem-list-checking. I mean if the diagnoses are made for clinical purpose rather than for research.) 2. What's the rate of abnormal EEG (significance I or II) and normal CT scan or MRI of brain in patients with functional psychosis? Is it appropriate to make a diagnosis of organic mental disorder on patient with abnormal EEG (significance I or II generalized dysfunction), but the clinical symptom/signs and course is concordant with the criteria of functional psychosis and no further biological evidence except the EEG report can support the diagnosis of organic mental disorder. Any response to these two questions will be highly appreciated. CHEN-JEE HORNG, M.D. DEPARTMENT OF PSYCHIATRY VETERANS GENERAL HOSPITAL-TAIPEI TAIPEI, TAIWAN, R.O.C. E-MAIL: YMMCS023@TWNMOE10.EDU.TW PHONE: (O)886-2-8757027, (H)886-2-8752616 FAX: (O)886-2-8733113, (H)886-2-8742441 ------------------------------ From: dwsmothe@mailbox.syr.edu (Dan Smothergill) Subject: (13) Query: Alexander method of postural adjustment I am interested in learning about any research on the "Alexander method" of postural adjustment since the work of Frank P. Jones. Thank you, Daniel W. Smothergill Psychology Dept. Syracuse University Syracuse, NY 13244 End of PSYCOLOQUY Digest ****************************** 25-Mar-94 19:39:30-GMT,13784;000000000000 Received: from rutvm1.rutgers.edu by aramis.rutgers.edu (5.59/SMI4.0/RU1.5/3.08) id AA12790; Fri, 25 Mar 94 14:39:27 EST Message-Id: <9403251939.AA12790@aramis.rutgers.edu> Received: from RUTVM1.RUTGERS.EDU by RUTVM1.RUTGERS.EDU (IBM VM SMTP R1.2.1MX) with BSMTP id 4772; Fri, 25 Mar 94 14:40:41 EST Received: from RUTVM1.RUTGERS.EDU (NJE origin LISTSERV@RUTVM1) by RUTVM1.RUTGERS.EDU (LMail V1.1d/1.7f) with BSMTP id 2761; Fri, 25 Mar 1994 14:40:35 -0500 Date: Fri, 25 Mar 1994 14:37:39 -0500 Reply-To: psyc@pucc.bitnet Sender: "PSYCOLOQUY: Refereed Electronic Journal of Peer Discussion" From: PSYCOLOQUY Subject: PSYCOLOQUY Newsletter Section (Employment: 289 lines) Comments: To: psyc@pucc.bitnet To: Multiple recipients of list PSYC PSYCOLOQUY ISSN 1055-0143 Fri 25 Mar 94 Newsletter Section (1) Employment: Post Doctoral Posts, Northwestern University, IL (2) Employment: Dissertation & Investigator grants, Jacobs Foundation (3) Employment: Asst Prof, Behavioural Neuroscience, SUNY at Albany (4) Employment: Chair of Psychology, U of Glasgow, October 1994 (5) Employment: Asst Prof (2 posts), Psychology, Howard University (6) Employment: Prof, Cognitive Psychology, U Pierre Mendes, Grenoble ----------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Gail McKoon Subject: (1) Employment: Post Doctoral Posts, Northwestern University, IL We have two post-doctoral positions available in our lab. The positions could begin any time from now on, and last up to two and possibly three years. We are looking for someone who could fit either of our research areas, very broadly defined: memory, math modeling, implicit memory, psycholinguistics (text processing, inference, syntax, prosody), connectionist modeling, virtual reality and memory representation, reaction time, etc. Our general expectation is that the person would work on collaborative research with one or both of us at least 50 % of their time and on their own research the rest of the time. We prefer for them to begin with new collaborative projects in the first year, phasing in independent projects in the second and subsequent years. Our aim is to expose them to a range of issues and research domains so they will have broader interests and expertise when they move to a tenure track job. We have had a good record of placing post docs (OK, OK, they were able to place themselves well) and we expect future post docs will be very competitive in the job market. Our lab is easy to use and efficient. Modeling and programming of all sorts is done on a variety of workstations. Real-time data is collected on an extremely user-friendly system connected to the workstations. Other post docs have found that they were proficient with the system in a week. Subjects are available from introductory psychology courses or from a paid subject pool. For psycholinguistic work, we have a large corpus of text and software with which to search it. Collaborations with Beth Levin in Linguistics would be an attractive possibility. The city of Evanston provides a lot of attractions. It is a pleasant older suburb with abundant parks, beaches, sports such as bicycling, sailing, and swimming, lakeside concerts and fairs, and so on, and everything is within five to ten minutes of the university. Although the winters are cold, O'Hare is only 45 minutes away. Chicago is 20 minutes away with interesting areas in which to live, restaurants, entertainment, etc. and can provide a wide range of opportunities for spouse employment if that is an issue. Please encourage anyone who might be interested to contact us either with an application by mail or a phone call or email for additional information (Ratcliff: (708) 491 7702, roger@eccles.psych.nwu.edu, McKoon: (708) 491-7701), gail@thynne.psych.nwu.edu. Roger Ratcliff, Professor of Psychology Gail McKoon, Professor of Psychology Dept. of Psychology, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL 60201 ------------------------------ From: Ingrid Pfanschilling Subject: (2) Employment: Dissertation & Investigator grants, Jacobs Foundation DISSERTATION AND YOUNG INVESTIGATOR GRANTS IN ADOLESCENCE AND YOUTH RESEARCH The Johann Jacobs Foundation (JJF), a foundation devoted to the study of youth in a changing world and to the improvement of youth-related services, announces a five-year (1991-1995) competitive grant program for empirical research investigations conducted either in conjunction with dissertation projects or as independent projects by young investigators. Fields covered include the behavioral, educational, and social sciences. The program is directed toward young investigators, particularly from Eastern Europe and from developing countries in Asia, Africa, Middle and South America. Topical Emphases The JJF has identified six problem and opportunity areas as its framework for support in research on youth and adolescence: - Positive beliefs about self agency and the future - Social relations and generational nexus - Life skills and life planning - Cultural and individual diversity - Educational values - Match between institutions and individual development. Dissertation Grants Dissertation grants are available to predoctoral students whose dissertation proposal has the approval of a dissertation mentor or a committee. Funds up to US $5,000 are available for materials, subject fees, research assistance, personal costs for field work, and other expenses required for conducting a study, analyzing data, presenting the data at an international conference, or for other forms of technical support. Personal stipends (salaries) are not covered by the grant program. Young Investigator Grants This program is aimed at postdoctoral investigators (normally within four to six years of award of the doctorate) who are initiating their own research in the field of adolescence and youth. Funds are available up to a maximum of US $10,000. Personal stipends (salaries) are not covered by the grant program. Institutions which administer or sponsor grants can receive an overhead of 10%. Application The JJF requires that research grant applicants (except for dissertation grants) hold a doctoral degree, earned in an academic discipline, and have an affiliation with a college or university, a research facility, or a cultural or educational institution. The JJF does not issue formal grant application forms. To initiate a proposal, grant applicants should contact: Johann Jacobs Foundation Administrative Assistant Seefeldquai 17 P.O.Box 101 CH-8034 Zurich Switzerland Fax: (+41)1-383 6550 Tel.: (+41)1-384 9823 The applications will be reviewed by an international Expert Committee: Helmut Fend (University of Zurich, Switzerland), Harry McGurk (University of London, United Kingdom), Lea Pulkkinen (University of Jyvaskyla, Finland), Rainer K. Silbereisen (Chair, Pennsylvania State University, U.S.A.) ------------------------------ From: "Bruce C. Dudek" Subject: (3) Employment: Asst Prof, Behavioural Neuroscience, SUNY at Albany Position in Behavioral Neuroscience. The Department of Psychology at the State University of New York at Albany is seeking to fill a position in behavioral neuroscience and biopsychology at the visiting assistant professor level for Sept. 1994 or Jan. 1995. Specific area of research interest is open, but should complement a Biopsychology program which has strengths in behavior genetics, behavioral endocrinology, animal models of psychopathology, psychopharmacology, animal learning, and animal behavior. Ph.D. should be completed by 9-94 and strong candidates might show interest in collaborative work on a research program on genetics and neurobehavioral effects of alcohol. Responsibilities would include both undergraduate and graduate teaching (including psychopharmacology). This is a temporary replacement position (1-3 years), with a possibility of renewal through five years. Applicants should submit CV, sample reprints/preprints, a statement of research interests, and three letters of recommendation. All materials should be sent to N.B. McCutcheon, Chair, Behavioral Neuroscience Search Committee, Department of Psychology, State University of New York at Albany, Albany NY, 12222 by May 1, 1994. The State University of New York at Albany is an Equal Opportunity Employer. ------------------------------ From: Ann Cooreman Subject: (4) Employment: Chair of Psychology, U of Glasgow, October 1994 UNIVERSITY OF GLASGOW Department of Psychology Chair of Psychology The University of Glasgow intends to proceed to the appointment of a Professor of Psychology from 1 October 1994 or such other date as may be arranged. As part of this process, applications are invited from candidates with an established international reputation and proven record of leadership in research and of teaching in any of the Department's areas of activity. However preference may be given to those with interests which are complementary to the psycholinguistics group in the Department, possible areas including human neuropsychology; aspects of cognition particularly those relating to clinical and experimental approaches; memory and attention; perception; decision making; cognitive development and associated disorders. Further particulars may be obtained from the Academic Personnel Office, University of Glasgow, Glasgow G11 8QQ, where applications (3 copies, 1 copy in the case of overseas applicants), giving the names and addresses of three referees, should be lodged on or before 15th April 1994. In your reply please quote Ref No 8208. ------------------------------ From: JIM STARR Subject: (5) Employment: Asst Prof (2 posts), Psychology, Howard University The following positions are to be filled pending their funding: The Department of Psychology at HOWARD UNIVERSITY invites applications for tenure-track positions at the Assistant Professor level in three areas, Soci Personality, Clinical, and Developmental/Statistical Psychology. Candidates sho have strong research skills, an active research program, a commitment to excel in teaching and good academic promise. In addition to research activity, all positions involve teaching one course at the undergraduate level and one at the graduate level each semester and direction of graduate students. The Department offers PhDs in Clinical (APA approved), Social, Personality, Developmental, Experimental and Neuropsychology and has a strong commitment to research. Applicants should send their vita and have three recommenders send letters of evaluation to the Search Committee, Department of Psychology, Howard University, 525 Bryant St. NW, Washington, D.C. 20059. Examination of applications will begin immediately and will continue until acceptable candidate are found. Howard, a historically Black University, is composed of nearly 20 schools and colleges including Law, Medicine, Dentistry, Health Sciences, Communications, Engineering, Arts & Sciences and the Graduate School. Students number about 12, with over 300 Psychology Majors served by a Department of 20 faculty. The University is an urban campus set in one of the most enriching and multicultural cities in the country. Nine-month salaries are competitive in the area. Howard University is an Equal Opportunity Employer which encourages applications from Minority Group Members. ------------------------------ From: ohlmann@grenet.fr (Jean Louis EMBS) Subject: (6) Employment: Prof, Cognitive Psychology, U Pierre Mendes, Grenoble UNIVERSITE PIERRE MENDES FRANCE (GRENOBLE II) Applications are invited for the post of Professor of Cognitive Psychology The successful applicant will be expected to take up his/her duties at the beginning of the next academic year (October 1994). Profile: Preference will be given to a candidate specialized in one or more of the following areas : Human memory and its modeling, spoken and written language and their modeling. Teaching duties: Lectures and tutorials in Licence and Maitrise de Psychologie (third and fourth years), DEA de Psychologie Cognitive (post-graduate) and, if the courses are organised, in Licence and Maitrise de Sciences cognitives. Further details: Obtainable by writing to: M. Theophile OHLMANN, directeur, Laboratoire de Psychologie Experimentale BP 47 38040 - GRENOBLE Cedex 9 Tel. (33) 76 84 56 74 (secretariat du Laboratoire) ou (33) 76 82 58 80 (ligne directe) Fax (33) 76 82 56 65 Internet : ohlmann@ccomm.grenet.fr ------------------------------ PSYCOLOQUY is sponsored by the Science Directorate and the Office of Publications and Communication of the American Psychological Association (APA) Editors: (scientific discussion) (professional/clinical discussion) Stevan Harnad Cary Cherniss (Assoc Ed.) Psychology Department Graduate School of Applied Princeton University Professional Psychology Rutgers University Assistant Editor: Colleen Wirth (wirth@clarity.princeton.edu) Newsletter and Subscriptions: Turgut Kalfaoglu (TURGUT@TREARN.bitnet) End of PSYCOLOQUY Digest ****************************** 26-Mar-94 20:25:11-GMT,879;000000000000 Received: from rutvm1.rutgers.edu by aramis.rutgers.edu (5.59/SMI4.0/RU1.5/3.08) id AA10039; Sat, 26 Mar 94 15:25:10 EST Message-Id: <9403262025.AA10039@aramis.rutgers.edu> Received: from RUTVM1.RUTGERS.EDU by RUTVM1.RUTGERS.EDU (IBM VM SMTP R1.2.1MX) with BSMTP id 8602; Sat, 26 Mar 94 15:26:27 EST Received: from RUTVM1.RUTGERS.EDU (NJE origin LISTSERV@RUTVM1) by RUTVM1.RUTGERS.EDU (LMail V1.1d/1.7f) with BSMTP id 5664; Sat, 26 Mar 1994 15:26:26 -0500 Date: Sat, 26 Mar 1994 15:24:58 -0500 Reply-To: psyc@pucc.bitnet Sender: "PSYCOLOQUY: Refereed Electronic Journal of Peer Discussion" From: PSYCOLOQUY Subject: psycoloquy.94.5.21.base-rate.13.koehler (203 lines) Comments: To: psyc@pucc.bitnet To: Multiple recipients of list PSYC MAIL DELETED BECAUSE OF LACK OF DISK SPACE 26-Mar-94 21:05:46-GMT,10828;000000000000 Received: from rutvm1.rutgers.edu by aramis.rutgers.edu (5.59/SMI4.0/RU1.5/3.08) id AA12817; Sat, 26 Mar 94 16:05:45 EST Message-Id: <9403262105.AA12817@aramis.rutgers.edu> Received: from RUTVM1.RUTGERS.EDU by RUTVM1.RUTGERS.EDU (IBM VM SMTP R1.2.1MX) with BSMTP id 8692; Sat, 26 Mar 94 16:07:02 EST Received: from RUTVM1.RUTGERS.EDU (NJE origin LISTSERV@RUTVM1) by RUTVM1.RUTGERS.EDU (LMail V1.1d/1.7f) with BSMTP id 6016; Sat, 26 Mar 1994 16:07:01 -0500 Date: Sat, 26 Mar 1994 16:05:21 -0500 Reply-To: psyc@pucc.bitnet Sender: "PSYCOLOQUY: Refereed Electronic Journal of Peer Discussion" From: PSYCOLOQUY Subject: psycoloquy.94.5.21.base-rate.13.koehler (203 lines) Comments: To: psyc@pucc.bitnet.Princeton.EDU To: Multiple recipients of list PSYC psycoloquy.94.5.21.base-rate.13.koehler Saturday 26 March 1994 ISSN 1055-0143 (13 paragraphs, 8 references, 203 lines) PSYCOLOQUY is sponsored by the American Psychological Association (APA) Copyright 1994 Jonathan J. Koehler FALLACY UNDER FIRE: ROUND 2 Reply to Fletcher, Funder and Macchi on Base-rate Jonathan J. Koehler Department of Management Science & Information Systems University of Texas at Austin Austin TX 78712-1175 Koehler@utxvm.cc.utexas.edu ABSTRACT: Commentators Fletcher, Funder and Macchi question the significance of laboratory studies that purportedly demonstrate failings in human probabilistic judgment. Fletcher and Funder challenge the usefulness of Bayes' theorem for assessing human judgment and Funder offers alternative standards. Macchi does not challenge the standard, but argues that the alleged base rate fallacy arises from ambiguous information transmission in the laboratory problems. These commentaries bolster conclusions drawn in the target article and suggest that we do not yet understand how well people reason in real-world base rate tasks. I. INTRODUCTION 1. In many cases, a response to commentators includes claims of misinterpretation, counterattacks, or, at the very least, clarifications and analyses of major points of disagreement. But I do not seriously dispute the primary theses in the commentaries by Fletcher (1994), Funder (1994) and Macchi (1994). Indeed, their comments increase my confidence in many of the positions taken in the target article. II. ON THE SILENCE OF LABS 2. In my response to an earlier set of commentators, I expressed surprise at the degree to which the target article's central arguments had gone unchallenged. Surely, it cannot be that everyone agrees with a paper entitled, "The base rate fallacy myth." David Funder actually does agree, but he is less surprised than I was by "The silence of the labs" (his clever phrase, not mine). Funder charges that "error theorists" failed to acknowledge similar criticisms in the past, and that their research continues to be informed by like-minded others only. 3. Although the silence of the labs remains unbroken here, I call attention to a recent exception in the judgment literature: the Gigerenzer-Kahneman exchanges on the heuristics and biases program (Bower, 1994; Gigerenzer, 1992; Kahneman, 1992). I suspect that the provocative exchange between these two skilled orators at the 1992 Judgment and Decision Making Society meeting inspired many others to think about the value and limits of the heuristics framework. III. THE INSIGNIFICANCE OF LABORATORY ERRORS 4. Fletcher, Funder and Macchi are appropriately skeptical about the significance of certain laboratory demonstrations of error in base rate and other prob