The ability to reason by analogy is particularly important because it permits the extension of knowledge of a target domain by virtue of its similarity to a base domain via a process of analogical inference. The general procedure for analogical inference involves copying structure from the base to the target in which missing information is generated, and substitutions are made for items for which analogical correspondences have already been found. A pure copying with substitution and generation process is too profligate (...) to be useful, and so constraints must be placed on what information is to be carried over. In this paper, the importance of systematicity as a constraint on inference is explored in four studies in which subjects find correspondences between domains and also make inferences. This work suggests that people prefer to make inferences of information connected to systematic correspondences between domains. A second important theme of this paper is that violations of one‐to‐one mapping can lead to inconsistent object substitutions in inference. The data reveal no such inconsistent substitutions in people's inferences, suggesting that they do respect one‐to‐one mapping in analogical inference. These findings are discussed relative to four prominent computational models of analogical mapping and inference. (shrink)

There are two roadblocks to using game theory as a unified theory of the behavioral sciences. First, there may not be a single explanatory framework suitable for explaining psychological processing. Second, even if there is such a framework, game theory is too limited, because it focuses selectively on decision making to the exclusion of other crucial cognitive processes. (Published Online April 27 2007).

This essay argues that the affective component inherent in the enthymeme is the essence of aristotle's concept of the enthymeme as practical reasoning. 'affective component' refers to emotions and feelings. The three proofs of the thesis are the etymology of 'enthymeme', Aristotle's works on human action and practical wisdom, And aristotle's rhetoric. These sources show the inherent relation between enthymemes and phronesis, Or practical reasoning, Not nous, Or abstract intellect.

It is important to take a developmental approach to the problem of analogy. One limitation of this approach, however, is that it does not deal with the complexity of making analogical inferences. There are a few key principles of analogical inference that are not well captured by the analogical relational priming (ARP) model.

One observes regulation at every biological level. Organisms, cells, and biochemical processes operate efficiently, normally wasting neither material nor energy, and adjusting their functions to external influences. Nature evidently has evolved mechanisms specifically dedicated to regulation at many levels. What is the molecular basis of this control?In the 1950s these molecular control mechanisms began to be explored seriously. The discoveries of feedback inhibition of enzyme activity were important because they gave an initial example of how regulation is achieved at the (...) molecular level. We showed that certain enzymes are composed of two parts, one for catalysis and another distinct part present only to regulate this catalysis. Catalytic activity can be either stimulated or inhibited when a small molecule in the environment combines with the enzyme's regulatory site. In particular, a final product of a metabolic pathway generates a feedback loop which automatically limits its own excessive production, by combining with the regulatory site of an early enzyme in that pathway. Later studies showed that catalytic and regulatory structures of some enzymes could be separated physically.The discovery of regulatory sites and their interaction with molecules unrelated to their substrates was the basis for the generalized allosteric concept. This concept extends the regulatory site idea to a wide variety of processes such as control of gene expression, hormone action, and cellular growth. (shrink)

The Pajama (Pardee, Jacob, Monod) experiment provided a breakthrough in our understanding of the molecular mechanisms by which gene expression is regulated. Today, twenty‐five years later it provides a paradigm for thinking about problems of gene expression, such as growth regulation and differentiation. From this experiment emerged entities such as repressors, regulatory genes, the operon as a group of jointly controlled genes, and messenger RNA.

In order to develop sophisticated models of the core domains of knowledge that support complex cognitive processing in infants and children, developmental psychologists have mapped out the content of these knowledge domains. This research strategy may provide a blueprint for advancing research on adult cognitive processing. I illustrate this suggestion with examples from analogical reasoning and decision making.

Pickering & Garrod (P&G) suggest that communicators synchronize their processing at a number of linguistic levels. Whereas their explanation suggests that representations are being compared across individuals, there must be some representation of all conversation participants in each participant's head. At the level of the situation model, it is important to maintain separate representations for each participant. At other levels, it seems less crucial to have a separate representation for each participant. This analysis suggests that different mechanisms may synchronize representations (...) at different linguistic levels. (shrink)

The proposed model is put forward as a template for the dynamical systems approach to embodied cognition. In order to extend this view to cognitive processing in general, however, two limitations must be overcome. First, it must be demonstrated that sensorimotor coordination of the type evident in the A-not-B error is typical of other aspects of cognition. Second, the explanatory utility of dynamical systems models must be clarified.

Twenty-four capitals of Nazi-occupied countries suffered grievously under the jackboot heel of the Third Reich. In one capital, however, the situation was truly bizarre, and it takes an artful work...

It seems to have been taken for granted that we all know what a human action is. However in attempting to draw from what philosophers have said about actions the necessary clues as to their distinguishing features, one finds little to discourage the idea that there is no way of distinguishing one category of occurrences, human actions, from the complex of different sorts of things which happen. From this I am tempted to conclude that there is no category of human (...) action. But before drawing such a conclusion an ancient but terrible question must be faced: What sorts of things happen in the world ? This ancient question is faced but not answered. It is brought up because the failure to find a satisfactory answer to the question, Is human action a category? is a failure even to find a satisfactory assumption about what kind of reference the term ?human action? is supposed to have. (shrink)

Tests of economic theory often focus on choice outcomes and find significant individual differences in these outcomes. This variability may mask universal psychological processes that lead to different choices because of differences across cultures in the information people have available when making decisions. On this view, decision making research within and across cultures must focus on the processes underlying choice.

Pothos suggests dispensing with the distinction between rules and similarity, without defining what is meant by either term. We agree that there are problems with the distinction between rules and similarity, but believe these will be solved only by exploring the representations and processes underlying cases purported to involve rules and similarity.

To say that a single human action can be given different descriptions is to imply that the contrast between action and description is intelligible. There are several ways in which such a contrast is easily understood, but those ways do not meet philosophers? needs. They have said that the descriptions are all true, thereby excluding that interpretation in which no more than one description could be true. They have emphasized the word ?different?, therefore that interpretation in which the descriptions are (...) partial and consequently combinable into one larger description is excluded. The descriptions must be different and true while remaining descriptions of the same single action. How can we conceive of this sort of contrast between description and action? It is not a familiar one. Several attempts are made in this paper to provide a way of conceiving of the contrast. All fail. The conclusion is hesitantly drawn that we have no other way to conceive of different human actions than by descriptions which are different from one another and true. (shrink)

The Theory of Evolution has, since Darwin, been sustained by contributions from many sciences, most especially from molecular biology. Philosophers, like biologists and the man in the street, have accepted the idea that the contemporary form of evolutionary theory has arrived at a convincing and final structure. As it now stands, natural selection is thought to work through the information-handling mechanism of the DNA molecule. Variation in the genome?s constructive message is achieved through random errors of processing called mutations. How (...) that mechanism and its revision works, and how much information it can hold are fundamental questions for the Neo-Darwinian theory to face. It is argued here that neither the operation nor the data content of the genome, as science understand them, can underpin the role Darwinism assigns to natural selection. It follows that we cannot put our confidence in the explanatory force of Darwinian reasoning, but neither is there an alternative to it. (shrink)

Man's belief in God is often contrasted with man's disbelief, Atheism; but the nature of human belief is contrastable with the nature of the belief of demons. A point of contrast lies in the consequences of the different sort of reasons men and demons must be understood to have. One consequence has to do with the vision of the world, seeing the world as God's creation, which men are expected to achieve and demons are not. The logic of the ?seeing (...) as? formula is explored and found wanting even though it seems inescapable in connection with human belief. In the end human belief appears more peculiar than demonic. (shrink)

The causal theory of action had suffered from inattention or linguistically motivated rejection until it was revived in 1963 by Donald Davidson. Since then the causal theory has had a continuing acceptance without having had an inspection of its assumptions. There are reasons to suspect that the theory is as unfounded as it is undoubted. Those reasons are reviewed here which have to do with the definitive moment when states such as beliefs and desires must change character to become causal (...) events. (shrink)

It is tempting to explicate the mastery of language, as many philosophers have, with how we come to learn language. Interpreting how we come to learn a language necessarily involves saying what the mind's relevant capacities are. Too long we have been told that those capacities are adaptive to, as well as within, a social context; it seemed plausible to argue that we learn to have (propositional) thoughts as we learn and use the language conatively. This essay tries to persuade (...) the reader that there is something else besides, something that cannot be taught. That something, elusive as it is, is caught in one of the phrases with which the OED defines passion , 'An eager outreaching of the mind towards something'. Passion understood in this way is conceptually indispensable to human language. (shrink)

Representation is a central part of models in cognitive science, but recently this idea has come under attack. Researchers advocating perceptual symbol systems, situated action, embodied cognition, and dynamical systems have argued against central assumptions of the classical representational approach to mind. We review the core assumptions of the dominant view of representation and the four suggested alternatives. We argue that representation should remain a core part of cognitive science, but that the insights from these alternative approaches must be incorporated (...) into models of cognitive processing. (shrink)

Across America, especially in the aftermath of 9/11, parents rely on K12 schooling to prepare their children for the shocks, the perils, and especially the bright possibilities that are part of our warp-speed future. A new generation of school staffers is forging a fresh learning partnership with youngsters for whom creative computer-based schooling is as natural as breathing.

The European Legacy, Volume 17, Issue 4, Page 561-562, July 2012.

Each contributor to this book has used personal experience as the basis from which to frame his individual sociological perspectives. Because they have personalized their work, their accounts are real, and recognizable as having come from 'real' persons, about 'real' experiences. There are no objectively-distanced disembodied third person entities in these accounts. These writers are actual people whose stories will make you laugh, cry, think, and want to know more.

Multidimensional space representations like those posited in Edelman's target article are not sufficient to capture all similarity phenomena. We discuss phenomena that are compatible with models of similarity that assume structured relational representations. An adequate model of similarity and perception will require multiple approaches to representation.

The target article suggests that many practices of experimental economists are preferable to those used by psychologists studying judgment and decision making. The advantages of the psychological approach become clear when the focus of research shifts from choice output to choice processes. I illustrate this point with an example from research on similarity comparisons.

Machery argues that concepts are too heterogeneous to be a natural kind. I argue that the book does not go far enough. Theories of concepts assume that the task of categorizing warrants a unique set of cognitive constructs. Instead, cognitive science must look across tasks to find a fundamental set of cognitive mechanisms.

Relational representation abilities are a crucial cognitive difference between human and nonhuman animals. We argue that relational reasoning and representation supports the development of culture that increases in complexity. Thus, these abilities are a force that magnifies the apparent difference in cognitive abilities between humans and nonhumans.