Entrenchment and schematisation are the two most important cognitive processes in language acquisition. In this article, the role of the two processes, operationalised by token and type frequency, in the production of overgeneralised verb forms in Croatian preschool children is investigated using a parental questionnaire and computational simulation of language acquisition. The participants of the questionnaire were parents of children aged 3;0–5;11 years (n = 174). The results showed that parents of most children (93 %) reported the parallel use (...) of both adult-like and overgeneralised verb forms, suggesting that Croatian-speaking preschool children have not yet fully acquired the verbal system. The likelihood of overgeneralised forms being reported decreases with the age of the children and verb type frequency. The results of the computational simulation show that patterns with a higher type frequency also show a greater preference for the correct form, while lexical items show both learning and unlearning tendencies during the process. (shrink)

With the rapid development of information technology, the society’s demand for innovative talents has become increasingly prominent. The purpose of this study is to optimize the teaching strategies of entrepreneurship education for college students, further cultivate college students’ entrepreneurial ideas, and promote the formation of entrepreneurial values. The problems existing in entrepreneurship education in colleges and universities are studied based on entrepreneurial psychology and attribution theory. A questionnaire survey is conducted on the problems with a high probability of entrepreneurial (...) failure of college students. The heads of new ventures in Xi’an are selected. Then, 300 questionnaires are distributed, and 209 are returned. The survey results are analyzed using failure attribution and failure learning. Suggestions are provided for management strategies of new ventures. The results show that the Corrected Item-Total Correlation value of R−1 is 0.65, and the CITC value of R−2 is 0.35. In addition, the Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin values of entrepreneurial failure attribution and entrepreneurial failure mode are both greater than 0.7, which indicates that the scale of entrepreneurial failure attribution has good validity and can be used for factor analysis. However, the KMO values of entrepreneurial failure attribution and entrepreneurial failure learning model are both greater than 0.7, and the significance of Bartlett sphericity test is 0.00, which indicates that the survey has good validity. The research has practical application and reference value for the cultivation of college students’ innovative and entrepreneurial ability. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Representation and the Mind-Body Problem in Spinoza by Michael Della RoccaWilliam SackstederMichael Della Rocca. Representation and the Mind-Body Problem in Spinoza. New York: Oxford University Press, 1996. Pp xiv + 223. Cloth, $39.95.A first virtue in elucidating any great philosopher is stating exactly the project the commentator undertakes, showing what is to be concluded, and how, and what of necessity must be omitted. Here, Della Rocca’s success is (...) exemplary.I cannot do better than to paraphrase, with running quotations, his remarkably succinct preliminaries. He undertakes two problems “crucial to Spinoza’s philosophy of mind,” first, “the requirement for having a thought about a particular object,” and second, “the traditional problem of whether or not the mind is identical with the body.” These inquiries are to be interconnected systematically by showing their dependence on Spinoza’s “denial of causal or explanatory or conceptual relations between the mental and the physical.”With exceptions I note later, the nine chapters of this book follow precisely. Chapter 1 prepares basic concepts and claims, along with formulation of the principle indicated, now called “the barrier between thought and extension.” Chapters 2 through 5 present and question Spinoza’s “theory of representation” (the first problem, as in the title) with its consequences respecting the announced principle. Chapters 7 and 8 turn to insights on “the mind-body problem” (the second problem), as illuminated by these investigations and secured by the governing principle. Della Rocca tidily exemplifies ruling expository virtues, but I question whether this very exactitude does not inhibit a needed species of escapement. Any commentator is obliged to acknowledge and detach himself from his own assumptions, from mannerisms and jargon current in the profession, from his present status or mannered tics, and from accidental skewing subsequent to current practices of language and translation. For such commitments also govern his treatment and they may often occlude his or our understanding. Let me be picky in initial illustration. [End Page 136]On pages 25f., the author correctly warns about pitfalls occasioned by lack of articles, definite or indefinite, in Latin. Thus, as he is aware, both interpretation and translation are queasy and infected with responses and glosses insinuated by demands from our own language, especially our prevailing fondness for definite articles, for solidity, univocal designation, and instantiation. So far, so good. But I invite my readers here to reflect whether Della Rocca’s own pervasive use of the definite article in the quotations I indulged in surveying his task does not distort his whole conception of that project. Momentum from the word the converts issues and verbalisms entertained into furniture of the world.Perhaps even more insidiously, Della Rocca invokes a peculiar itemization whereby recent formulations impose “at least one” and “for any x” on all quantified inferential usages. Moderns need rather liberation from membership suggestions in set theory and its associated logic. His remarks about “extension” and “intension” help, but they do not remedy modernist ineptness regarding Spinoza’s use of ipse, per se, and in se. Further, like precision obscures care about subordinate and causal differentiations. A sort of subsumed merging under a unit whole simple in nature is dear to Spinoza, though such moves are uncongenial to us.My earlier account scanted chapters 6 and 9, which also follow from the basic project, though not as tidily. Chapter 6, “Falsity,” “solves certain thorny problems” in the account of that and its opposite; Chapter 9 gathers ruling materials to shed light on “substantive monism.” Their arrangement ought to assist our perplexities about involvement and simple grasp, whereas 6 is noticeably brief and 9 sketchy. Together, they scant (rather than illuminate) subtlety in Spinoza’s investigations of intellect and its involvment in the nature of things.Expository clarity also shows in current fashions for multiple cross-references between indented and numbered claims, paraphrases, inferential premisses, and glosses by others. But beyond hiding preference for propositional reductions, and beyond hindering smooth reflection, such dismemberment prejudices against modes of reasoning tracing “some certain sort of eternity” or “what is common to all and equally in part and whole.”Efforts to work rigorously with made-up words or adapted phrases only... (shrink)

We explore the following two cognitive questions regarding crosslinguistic variation in lexical semantic systems: Why are some linguistic categories—that is, the associations between a term and a portion of the semantic space—harder to learn than others? How does learning a language‐specific set of lexical categories affect processing in that semantic domain? Using a computational word‐learner, and the domain of color as a testbed, we investigate these questions by modeling both child acquisition of color terms and adult behavior on a non‐ (...) class='Hi'>verbal color discrimination task. A further goal is to test an approach to lexical semantic representation based on the principle that the more languages label any two situations with the same word, the more conceptually similar those two situations are. We compare such a crosslinguistically based semantic space to one based on perceptual similarity. Our computational model suggests a mechanistic explanation for the interplay between term frequency and the semantic closeness of learned categories in developmental error patterns for color terms. Our model also indicates how linguistic relativity effects could arise from an acquisition mechanism that yields language‐specific topologies for the same semantic domain. Moreover, we find that the crosslinguistically inspired semantic space supports these results at least as well as—and in some aspects better than—the purely perceptual one, thus confirming our approach as a practical and principled method for lexical semantic representation in cognitive modeling. (shrink)

As the practice of medicine inevitably raises both ethical and legal issues, it had been recommended since 1999 that medical ethics and human rights be taught at every medical school. Most Nigerian medical schools still lack a formal undergraduate medical ethics curriculum. Medical education remains largely focused on traditional medical science components, leaving the medical students to develop medical ethical decision-making skills and moral attitudes passively within institutions noted for relatively strong paternalistic traditions. In conducting a needs assessment for (...) developing a curriculum germane to the Nigerian society, and by extension most of Sub-Saharan Africa, this study determined the views of Nigerian medical students on medical ethics education, ethical issues related to the doctor-patient relationship and the ethical/professional dilemmas they are confronted with. Using self-administered 63-item structured questionnaires, a cross-sectional survey of the final year medical students of the University of Nigeria was conducted in July 2015.Using the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences software (SPSS Version 17), frequency counts and percentages were generated. The sample included 100 males (71.4%) and 40 females (28.6%), with the respective mean (SD) age being 24.6(5.61) and 21.8 (6.38) years. Only 35.7% were satisfied with their medical ethics knowledge, and 97.9% indicated that medical ethics should be taught formally. Only 8.6% had never witnessed a medical teacher act unethically. The dilemmas of poor communication between physicians and patients, and the provision of sub-standard care were reported highest for being encountered ‘often’. A majority (60.7%) indicated that “a doctor should do his best always, irrespective of the patient’s wishes”. No significant difference in responses across gender was noted. There is a strong desire by the contemporary Nigerian medical student for medical ethics education. Their lack of exposure in medical ethics in an ethically challenging environment suggest a dire need for the development of an appropriate medical ethics curriculum for them and the provision of an ethically conducive learning environment. (shrink)

Maximum deviation global discrimination index is a new item selection method for cognitive diagnostic computerized adaptive testing that allows for attribute coverage balance. We developed the maximum limitation global discrimination index from MDGDI, which allows for both attribute coverage balance and item exposure control. MLGDI can realize the attribute coverage balance and exposure control of the item. Our simulation study aimed to evaluate the performance of our new method against maximum global discrimination index, modified maximum GDI, standardized (...) weighted deviation GDI, and constraint progressive with SWDGDI. The results indicated that under the condition of realizing the attribute coverage balance, MDGDI had the highest attribute classification accuracy; when the selection strategy accommodated the practical constraints of the attribute coverage balance and item exposure control, MLGDI had the highest attribute classification accuracy; adding the item exposure control mechanism to the item selection method reduces the classification accuracy of the attributes of the item selection method; and compared with GDI, MMGDI, SWDGDI, CP_SWDGDI, and MDGDI, MLGDI can better achieve the attribute-coverage requirement, control item exposure rate, and attribute correct classification rate. (shrink)

Habermas' view that contemporary philosophy and social theory can learn from religious traditions calls for closer consideration. He is correct to hold that religious traditions constitute a reservoir of potentially important meanings that can be critically appropriated without emptying them of their motivating and inspirational power. However, contrary to what he implies, his theory allows for learning from religion only to a very limited degree. This is due to two core elements of his conceptual framework, both of (...) which are key features of his account of postmetaphysical thinking. The first is the requirement of ethical agnosticism; this requires philosophy and social theory to refrain from offering guidance on questions of the good life. The second is his language-immanent conception of truth in the domain of practical reason; this follows from his rejection of any source of validity beyond human communication in this domain. I make the case for a more robust account of learning from religious traditions and metaphysical worldviews, arguing that for this purpose Habermas must modify his requirement of ethical agnosticism and relinquish his language-immanent conception of truth. (shrink)

Repetition learning is an efficient way to enhance memory performance in our daily lives and educational practice. However, it is unclear to what extent repetition or multiple exposures modulate different types of memory over time. The inconsistent findings on it may be associated with encoding strategy. In this study, participants were presented with pairs of pictures once or three times and were asked to make a same/similar/different judgment. By this, an elaborative encoding is more required for the “same” and (...) “similar” conditions than the “different” condition. Then after intervals of 10 min, 1 day, and 1 week, they were asked to perform a recognition test to discriminate a repeated and a similar picture, followed by a remember/know/guess assessment and a contextual judgment. The results showed that after learning the objects three times, both item memory and contextual memory improved. Multiple exposures enhanced the hit rate for the “same” and “similar” conditions, but did not change the false alarm rate significantly. The recollection, rather than the familiarity, contributed to the repetition effect. In addition, the memory enhancement was manifested in each encoding condition and retention interval, especially for the “same” condition and at 10-min and 1-day intervals. These results clarify how repetition influences item and contextual memories during discriminative learning and suggest that multiple exposures render the details more vividly remembered and retained over time when elaborative encoding is emphasized. (shrink)

The process dissociation procedure (PDP) of implicit sequence learning states that the correct inclusion-task response contains the incorrect exclusion-task response. However, there has been no research to test the hypothesis. The current study used a single variable (Stimulus Onset Asynchrony SOA: 850 ms vs. 1350 ms) between-subjects design, with pre-task resting-state fMRI, to test and improve the classical PDP to the mutually exclusive theory (MET). (1) Behavioral data and neuroimaging data demonstrated that the classical PDP has not (...) been validated. In the SOA = 850 ms group, the correct inclusion-task response was at chance, but the incorrect exclusion-task response occurred greater than chance. In the SOA = 850 ms group, the two responses were not correlated, but in the SOA = 1,350 ms group and putting the two groups together, the two responses were in contrast to each other. In each group, brain areas whose amplitude of low frequency fluctuations (ALFFs) in the resting-state related to the two responses were either completely different or opposite to one another. However, the results were perfectly consistent with the MET proposed by the present study which suggests that the correct inclusion-task response is equal to the correct exclusion-task response is equal toC+A1, and the incorrect exclusion-task response is equal toA2.Cdenotes the controlled response andA1andA2denote two different automatic responses. (2) The improved PDP was proposed to categorize the 12 kinds of triplets as delineating four knowledge types, namely non-acquisition of knowledge, uncontrollable knowledge, half-controllable knowledge, and controllable knowledge with the MET. ALFFs in the resting-state could predict the four knowledge types of the improved PDP among two groups. The participants’ control of the four knowledge types (degree of consciousness) gradually improved. Correspondingly, the brain areas in the resting-state positively related to the four knowledge types, gradually changed from the sensory and motor network to the somatic sensorimotor network, and then to the implicit learning network, and then to the consciousness network. The brain areas in the resting-state negatively related to the four knowledge types gradually changed from the consciousness network to the sensory and motor network. As SOA increased, the brain areas associated with almost all the four knowledge types changed. (3) The inhomogeneous hypothesis of the MET is best suited to interpret behavioral and neuroimaging data; it states that the same components among the four knowledge types are not homogeneous, and the same knowledge types are not homogeneous between the two SOA groups. (shrink)

A work of music is repeatable in the following sense: it can be multiply performed or played in different places at the same time, and each such datable, locatable performance or playing is an occurrence of it: an item in which the work itself is somehow present, and which thereby makes the work manifest to an audience. As I see it, the central challenge in the ontology of musical works is to come up with an ontological proposal (i.e. an account (...) of what sort of thing a work of music is) which enables us to explain what such repeatability consists in, whilst doing maximal justice to the way in which we conceive of musical works in our reflective critical and appreciative practice. To this end, many have found it tempting to defend some version or other of the type-token theory : the thesis that a work is a type and its occurrences are its tokens. Much of the early debate prompted by the publication of Jerrold Levinson's seminal 'What a Musical Work Is' in 1980 has taken the type-token theory for granted, choosing to focus on how musical works, qua types, are individuated. (A key question here has been whether we should hold, with the sonicist , that works are identical just in case they sound exactly alike; or whether we should agree with Levinson's contextualist thesis that exact sound-alikes are distinct, if composed in distinct musico-historical contexts.) More recently, however, the type-token theory itself has been put under pressure, and alternatives have been suggested. So, e.g. Gregory Currie and David Davies have held versions of the thesis that musical works (and artworks generally) are acts of composition, whilst Guy Rohrbaugh has recommended that we think more innovatively about our metaphysical categories, and treat musical works (along with all repeatable artworks) as historical individuals . Historical individuals, like particular substances, come into and go out of existence, could have been somewhat different than they are, and can change through time; but such items, unlike particular substances, are nonetheless capable of having occurrences. In the last few years, ontologists of music have also stepped back to consider the very nature of their enterprise. In particular, a debate has ensued concerning the cogency of ontological proposals (such as those of Nelson Goodman, Nicholas Wolterstorff and Julian Dodd) that are substantially revisionary of our folk concept of a work of music. Amie Thomasson, David Davies and Andrew Kania occupy, to a greater or lesser degree, the descriptivist standpoint, according to which such revisionary ontologies are misconceived. The debate between revisionists and descriptivists in the ontology of music – if prosecuted against the backdrop of an awareness of developments in meta-ontology more generally – is a particularly fertile area in the philosophy of music at present. Author Recommends Wollheim, Richard. Art and its Objects . 2nd ed. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1980. This seminal study nicely introduces and motivates the type-token theory, and in the course of doing so, helpfully, although perhaps contentiously, distinguishes types from both sets and properties. Wollheim's treatment was to a large part responsible for stimulating the subsequent debate as to the ontological nature of musical works. Levinson, Jerrold. 'What a Musical Work Is.' Journal of Philosophy 77 (1980); reprinted in his Music, Art and Metaphysics , 63–88. This paper has, perhaps, been the most influential account of the nature of musical works, post-Wollheim. Presuming the type-token theory to be correct, Levinson elaborates it by claiming musical works to be, not sound structures (i.e. structured patterns of sound-types), but a species of types he calls indicated structures . According to Levinson, a work of music is not to be identified with its sound structure, S ; it is, in fact, a compound of S and a performance-means structure, PM , as indicated (typically, via a score) by its composer on a certain occasion : something that we can represent as S/PM -as-indicated-by- X -at- t . Such indicated structures, Levinson argues, fit the bill for being what works of music are, because they come into being with their indication (i.e. their composition), are individuated in terms of the musico-historical context in which they were composed, and have their specified performance-means (i.e. their instrumentation) essentially. Wolterstorff, Nicholas. Works and Worlds of Art . Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1980. Part I of this book sees Wolterstorff defend a Platonistic version of the type-token theory (although Wolterstorff calls them 'kinds' rather than 'types'). According to Wolterstorff, considerations about the existence conditions of types commit us to the thesis that works of music, qua types, are entities that cannot come into or go out of existence. Kivy, Peter. 'Platonism in Music: A Kind of Defence.' Grazer Philosophische Studien 19 (1983): 109–29. In this article, Kivy ingeniously (and wittily) defends a variety of Platonism about works of music against the animadversions of Levinson. Currie, Gregory. An Ontology of Art . New York: St, Martin's Press, 1989. Here Currie introduces and defends the thesis that works of music (and, indeed, all artworks) are compositional action-types. The book also contains some well-aimed criticisms of Levinson's account. Dodd, Julian. Works of Music: An Essay in Ontology . Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007. In this book, Dodd defends the type-token theory, but argues that no version of it can escape the Platonisic consequence that musical works exist at all times (and hence, are discovered, rather than created, by their composers). Dodd also defends another controversial thesis, this time concerning musical works' individuation. According to Dodd, and pace Levinson and others, sonicism is correct: works that sound exactly alike are identical. Rohrbaugh, Guy. 'Artworks as Historical Individuals.' European Journal of Philosophy 11 (2003): 177–205. In this essay, Rohrbaugh makes some pointed criticisms of the type-token theory of repeatable artworks in the course of arguing that such works should be viewed, not as types, but as historical individuals (see above). Rohrbaugh suggests that treating musical works as historical individuals best captures our intuitions about such works' temporal and modal characteristics, and, in the course of elaborating his position, he makes some meta-ontological claims that see him endorsing a non-revisionary, descriptivist approach to the ontology of art. As Rohrbaugh sees it, ontologies of art are 'beholden to our artistic practices' (179), and 'aesthetics should not be beholden to the metaphysics on offer, but rather should drive new work in metaphysics' (197). Ridley, Aaron. 'Against Musical Ontology,' Journal of Philosophy 100 (2003): 203–220. This paper sees Ridley outlining a sceptical attitude towards the project of formulating ontological proposals. In his view, a 'serious philosophical engagement with music is orthogonal to, and may well in fact be impeded by, the pursuit of ontological issues' (203). Thomasson, Amie. 'The Ontology of Art and Knowledge in Aesthetics.' JAAC 63 (2005:221–9). Thomasson defends descriptivism in the ontology of art by arguing that such a position is a consequence of the only defensible solution to a problem in the theory of reference: the so-called 'qua' problem concerning how the reference of a term can be fixed. Davies, David. Art as Performance . Oxford: Blackwell, 2004. Davies' position is characterised by two theses: one methodological, the other ontological. The methodological claim is that the ontology of art faces a pragmatic constraint : roughly speaking, the ontology of art is answerable to the epistemology of art. The ontological claim is that the rigorous enforcement of the pragmatic constraint commits us to the thesis that all artworks are compositional action-tokens. Online Materials http://www.blackwell-compass.com/subject/philosophy/article_view?article_id=phco_articles_bpL173 Dodd, Julian. 'Musical Works: Ontology and Meta-Ontology.' Philosophy Compass 3/6 (2008): 1113–34. doi: [DOI link] http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/118557784/abstract Thomasson, Amie. 'Debates about the Ontology of Art: What are We Doing Here?' Philosophy Compass 1/3 (2006): 245–55. doi: [DOI link] http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/122517227/abstract Davies, David. 'Works and Performances in the Performing Arts.' forthcoming in Philosophy Compass . doi: [DOI link] http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/music/ Kania, Andrew. 'The Philosophy of Music.' Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy . Sample Mini-Syllabus Week 1: The Type/Token Theory Introduced Wollheim, Richard. Art and its Objects , §§4–8, 21–3, 35–7. Kivy, Peter. Introduction to a Philosophy of Music , chapter 11. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2002. Dodd, Julian. Works of Music: An Essay in Ontology , chapter 1. Wolterstorff, Nicholas. Works and Worlds of Art , chapter 2. Week 2: The Type/Token Theory and Platonism in Music Wolterstorff, Nicholas. Works and Worlds of Art , chapter 2. Levinson, Jerrold. 'What a Musical Work Is'. Dodd, Julian. Works of Music: An Essay in Ontology , chapters 2–5. Kivy, Peter. 'Platonism in Music: A Kind of Defence.' Grazer Philosophische Studien 19 (1983): 109–29. Kivy, Peter. 'Platonism in Music: Another Kind of Defence.' American Philosophical Quarterly 24 (1987): 245–52. Predelli, Stefano. 'Against Musical Platonism.' British Journal of Aesthetics 35 (1995): 338–50. Caplan, Ben and Carl Matheson. 'Can a Musical Work be Created?' British Journal of Aesthetics 44 (2004): 113–34. Week 3: Musical Works as Indicated Structures Levinson, Jerrold. 'What a Musical Work Is'. Levinson, Jerrold. 'What a Musical Work Is, Again', in his Music, Art and Metaphysics . Ithaca, NY: Cornell UP, 1990. 215–63. Dodd, Julian. 'Musical Works as Eternal Types.' British Journal of Aesthetics 40 (2000). Davies, Stephen. Musical Works and Performances: A Philosophical Account , chapter 2. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000. Howell, Robert. 'Types, Indicated and Initiated.' British Journal of Aesthetics 42 (2002): 105–27. Caplan, Ben and Carl Matheson. 'Fine Individuation.' British Journal of Aesthetics 47 (2007): 113–37. Week 4: Musical Work as Historical Individuals Rohrbaugh, Guy. 'Artworks as Historical Individuals'. Dodd, Julian. Works of Music: An Essay in Ontology , chapter 6. Caplan, Ben and Carl Matheson. 'Defending Musical Perdurantism.' British Journal of Aesthetics 46 (2006): 59–69. Caplan, Ben and Carl Matheson. 'Defending "Defending Musical Perdurantism".' British Journal of Aesthetics 48 (2008): 331–37. Week 5: Musical Works as Compositional Actions Currie, Gregory. An Ontology of Art . New York: St, Martin's Press, 1989. Davies, David. Art as Performance . Oxford: Blackwell, 2004. Dodd, Julian. Works of Music: An Essay in Ontology , chapter 7. Week 6: Meta-ontology of Music: What are we Doing When we do the Ontology of Music? Ridley, Aaron. 'Against Musical Ontology'. Thomasson, Amie. 'The Ontology of Art and Knowledge in Aesthetics'. Thomasson, Amie. Ordinary Objects , chapter 11. OUP, 2007. Davies, David. 'The Primacy of Practice in the Ontology of Art.' Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 67 (2009): 159–72. Kania, Andrew. 'Piece for the End of Time: In Defence of Musical Ontology,' British Journal of Aesthetics 48 (2008): 65–79. Kania, Andrew. 'The Methodology of Musical Ontology: Descriptivism and its Implications.' British Journal of Aesthetics 48 (2008): 426–44. Cameron, Ross. 'There are No Things That are Musical Works.' British Journal of Aesthetics 48 (2008): 295–314. Dodd, Julian. 'Musical Works: Ontology and Meta-Ontology.' Philosophy Compass 3/6 (2008): 1113–1134. doi: [DOI link] Focus Questions 1. Are musical works literally created by their composers? 2. Critically examine Levinson's thesis that musical works are 'indicated structures'. 3. What, if anything, is wrong with the thesis that musical works are identical just in case they sound exactly alike? 4. Should we immediately be sceptical of ontological proposals for works of music that are substantially revisionary of the way in which we ordinarily think of them? (shrink)

How people learn chunks or associations between adjacent items in sequences was modelled. Two previously successful models of how people learn artificial grammars were contrasted: the CCN, a network version of the competitive chunker of Servan‐Schreiber and Anderson [J. Exp. Psychol.: Learn. Mem. Cogn. 16 (1990) 592], which produces local and compositionally‐structured chunk representations acquired incrementally; and the simple recurrent network (SRN) of Elman [Cogn. Sci. 14 (1990) 179], which acquires distributed representations through error correction. The models' susceptibility to (...) two types of interference was determined: prediction conflicts, in which a given letter can predict two other letters that appear next with an unequal frequency; and retroactive interference, in which the prediction made by a letter changes in the second half of training. The predictions of the models were determined by exploring parameter space and seeing howdensely different regions of the space of possible experimental outcomes were populated by model outcomes. For both types of interference, human data fell squarely in regions characteristic of CCN performance but not characteristic of SRN performance. (shrink)

One of the goals of computerized tutoring systems is to optimize the learning of facts. Over a hundred years of declarative memory research have identified two robust effects that can improve such systems: the spacing and the testing effect. By making optimal use of both and adjusting the system to the individual learner using cognitive models based on declarative memory theories, such systems consistently outperform traditional methods. This adjustment process is driven by a continuously updated estimate of the rate of (...) forgetting for each item and learner on the basis of the learner's accuracy and response time. In this study, we investigated to what extent these estimates of individual rates of forgetting are stable over time and across different materials. We demonstrate that they are stable over time but not across materials. Even though most theories of human declarative memory assume a single underlying rate of forgetting, we show that, in practice, it makes sense to assume different materials are forgotten at different rates. If a computerized, adaptive fact-learning system allowed different rates of forgetting for different materials, it could adapt to individual learners more readily. (shrink)

Abstract:When people reason on the basis of moral rules, do they suppose that in the absence of a prohibitory rule they are free to act, or do they suppose that morality always requires a justification establishing a permission to act? In this essay we present a series of learning experiments that indicate when learners tend to close their system on the basis of natural liberty and when on the principle of residual prohibition. Those who are taught prohibitory rules tend to (...) infer natural liberty while those taught permission rules tend to infer residual prohibition. In mixed cases, where learners are taught both types of rules, there is some tendency to suppose that natural liberty is the default. Both natural liberty and its denial can be learned; is there a reason to adopt one system of moral rules or the other? We argue that systems of social morality based on a principle of natural liberty have a striking advantage over their competitors: they are well adapted to effectively exploring the constant novel circumstances that arise in open, dynamic, societies. (shrink)

Arendt is realistic: Our century has witnessed terrible atrocities, such as the rise of totalitarianism and the slaughter of millions for purely racist reasons. At the same time her position is one of profound hope, based on the human capacity to act politically, to begin, in concert with others, something new. My dissertation fills a gap in Arendt scholarship. My work attempts to appropriate Arendt from a left political perspective, gleaning all of her insights that will be of benefit to (...) political activists and revolutionaries. At the same time I must criticize her for what I consider her most blatant mistakes, such as her disregard for human suffering and economic injustice, points on which Arendt could learn much from the left. The major conceptual movement of the dissertation is from theory to practice, from abstract to concrete. Arendt's theoretical framework in which she classifies all of human activity is the starting point. Political action is seen in the broad context of contemplation, thought, work and labor. The focus proceeds to a narrower contrast between political action in the public realm and the various economic and personal relationships in the private realm. The theories unfold to express themselves in a certain kind of political practice. The two most basic characteristics are that action is free, not determined, and based on speech, not violence. Furthermore, correct political action is motivated by a concern for the whole and fueled by that power which arises from the consent and support of the people. Finally the concrete structures and practices of politics is discussed. Arendt criticizes contemporary politics, both the two-party systems of liberal democracies and one-party revolutionary governments. She then proposes an alternative, modeled on the council system of direct participation and federation, and describes both how to found and how to structure such an alternative political realm. (shrink)

While in our culture it is a common experience that hurting others is done more frequently by means of words than by physical force, the phenomena of verbal aggression and verbal discrimination have largely been neglected in the psychology of aggression. Connecting the research fields of aggression, discrimination, and discourse, and discussing the common definition of aggression as intentional harmdoing, it is argued that verbal discrimination, i.e., the verbal treatment of others as members (...) of an allegedly inferior group or category, must be considered a case of aggression as this practice is a violation of other persons’ rights or dignity. (shrink)

Research FocusThe promotion of domain-specific knowledge is a central goal of higher education and, in the field of medicine, it is particularly essential to promote global health. Domain-specific knowledge on its own is not exhaustive; confidence regarding the factual truth of this knowledge content is also required. An increase in both knowledge and confidence is considered a necessary prerequisite for making professional decisions in the clinical context. Especially the knowledge of human physiology is fundamental and simultaneously critical to medical decision-making. (...) However, numerous studies have shown difficulties in understanding and misconceptions in this area of knowledge. Therefore, we investigate how preclinical medical students acquire knowledge in physiology over the course of their studies and simultaneously gain confidence in the correctness of this knowledge as well as the interrelations between these variables, and how they affect the development of domain-specific knowledge.MethodIn a pre–post study, 169 medical students’ development of physiology knowledge and their confidence related to this knowledge were assessed via paper-pencil questionnaires before and after attending physiology seminars for one semester. Data from a longitudinal sample of n = 97 students were analyzed using mean comparisons, regression analyses, and latent class analyses. In addition, four types of item responses were formed based on confidence and correctness in the knowledge test.ResultsWe found a significant and large increase in the students’ physiology knowledge, with task-related confidence being the strongest predictor. Moreover, a significantly higher level of confidence at t2 was confirmed, with the level of prior confidence being a strong predictor. Furthermore, based on the students’ development of knowledge and confidence levels between measurement points, three empirically distinct groups were distinguished: knowledge gainers, confidence gainers, and overall gainers. The students whose confidence in incorrect knowledge increased constituted one particularly striking group. Therefore, the training of both knowledge and the ability to critically reflect on one’s knowledge and skills as well as an assessment of their development in education is required, especially in professions such as medicine, where knowledge-based decisions made with confidence are of vital importance. (shrink)

Three experiments with 88 college-aged participants explored how unlabeled experiences—learning episodes in which people encounter objects without information about their category membership—influence beliefs about category structure. Participants performed a simple one-dimensional categorization task in a brief supervised learning phase, then made a large number of unsupervised categorization decisions about new items. In all three experiments, the unsupervised experience altered participants’ implicit and explicit mental category boundaries, their explicit beliefs about the most representative members of each category, and even their (...) memory for the items encountered during the supervised learning phase. These changes were influenced by both the range and frequency distribution of the unlabeled stimuli: mental category boundaries shifted toward the middle of the range and toward the trough of the bimodal distribution of unlabeled items, whereas beliefs about the most representative category members shifted toward the modes of the unlabeled distribution. One consequence of this shift in representations is a false-consensus effect (Experiment 3) where participants, despite receiving very disparate training experiences, show strong agreement in judgments about representativeness and boundary location following unsupervised category judgments. (shrink)

Galileo's Philosophy of Science - or: Contra Feyerabend. In analyzing Galileo's methodology, philosophers of science were using, misusing, and abusing his ideas rather unashamedly to suit their own purposes. Like so many others before him, Paul Feyerabend had come to the conclusion that his methodological ideas might gain momentum by demonstrating their compatibility with those of Galileo. The reinterpretation of Galileo as a true, though disguised, anarchist, was considered by Feyerabend as the most forceful, and indeed conclusive, case against rationalism (...) in methodology which might be conceived in view of the privileged position ascribed to Galileo by both philosophers which might be conceived in view of the privileged position ascribed to Galileo by both philosophers and historians of science. The paper argues - against Feyerabend - that Galileo was not a methodological anarchist, neither in theory nor in practice. He had firm methodological convictions that remained basically the same throughout his entire career. In his view, essential and accidental causes of phenomena were not given by experience. Although mathematical and geometrical analysis was needed to discriminate between them, experience and experiment was considered by Galileo from his middle periode on as a means to identify among the set of explanations, demonstrable "ex suppositione" as being mathematically correct, those which could in addition be applied to reality. Thus, Galileo was neither an inductivist nor a naive falsificationist, nor a Copernican zealot adapting his methodology to the needs of his presumed fight for heliocentrism, come what be. Only after the reconstruction of mechanics was in a fairly advanced stage, and after his own telescopic observations had provided independent evidence in favor of the new astronomy, Galileo was in a position to appreciate the Copernican system as a most forceful ally in his fight for the recognition of his physical achievements. Through the end of his life, his view of the heliocentric system remained rather traditional in adhering firmly to the principles of epicyclic and circular motion, as far as the heavens were concerned. (shrink)

This paper considers the relation of corrective to distributive justice. I discuss the shortfalls of one sort of account that holds these are independent domains of justice. To support a more modest claim that these are sometimes independent domains of justice, I focus instead on the case of apologies. Apologies are sometimes among the measures specified by corrective justice. I argue that the sorts of injustices that apologies can help to correct need not always be departures from ideals specified (...) by distributive justice. Apologies and the moral relations they engage might thus be parts of a domain of justice that is neither distributive nor dependent on distributive justice. (shrink)