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Commentaries and ReportsBEHAVIORAL ECONOMICS2006-07-16 Behavior-centric versus reinforcer-centric descriptions of behavior The paper is a brilliant tour-de-force, but a subtext to the paper is what I will call the behavior-centric view. In this view, stimuli are remembered until a response is emitted, and reinforcers reach back in time to effect this response in the presence of the remembered stimulus... Davison [ DavisonRachlin2006.pdf ] NEUROECONOMICS2006-07-16 Will you take 'neuro' with that? Neuroeconomics is an interesting idea that has an epistemological worm at its core... but there is no guarantee at all that the optimizing process corresponds to "explicit optimization" in which courses of action are well-defined... Staddon [ StaddonRangel2006.pdf ] LANGUAGE PROCESSING2006-09-07 Language Processing: A Challenge for the Interactive Activation Framework? Two factors often have additive effects on timed performance in language tasks. Despite 25 years of work, fans of the dominant theoretical framework for language processing have yet to publicly address even a single instance of such additivity... Besner [ Besner2006.pdf ] EMOTION2006-09-20 Emotion is Natural but Categories are Not Barrett argues against the construct of emotion by conflating the basic-emotions perspective in neural physiology with a type of category discussed in reference philosophy... Alvarado [ AlvaradoBarrett2006.pdf ] SOCIAL SCIENCE2006-10-27 Ill-defined What is happening to political science when leading thinkers can pretend to advance knowledge by little more than re-defining words? In their article "Anti-Americanisms", an abstract of a forthcoming book, Katzenstein and Keohane begin thus... Bertrand [ BertrandKatzenstein2006.pdf ] PARAPSYCHOLOGY2007-01-02 Guess for Success Parapsychology is a term coined by J. B. Rhine that covers phenomena such as telepathy the direct transmission of information from mind to mind. The landmark work is Rhine, J. B. (1964) Extra-sensory perception. (Boston: Bruce Humphries), and a flow of other publications by Rhine’s associates and others. In this extended article, Lockhead shows how very small deviations from randomness in the to-be-guessed sequence can give rise to better- or worse-than-chance guessing performance. Lockhead [ LockheadRhine2006.pdf ] METACOGNITION2007-03-15 Metacognition: A problem not a process "Metacognition" in animals can be explained by familiar learning principles... Staddon [ StaddonEtAlCrystal2007.pdf ] CRIME AND PUNISHMENT2007-03-15 Minority Report It is perhaps unfair to critique in a scientific journal an interview in a popular magazine... The idea is this: perhaps we should forcibly treat and restrain "abnormal" individuals before they can do harm if the propensity can be detected in some way... Staddon [ StaddonChurchland2007.pdf ] | valign=top width=50% | RATIONALITY2007-05-25 Rationality and Process There is a philosophical (or perhaps definitional) problem with the analysis so engagingly presented by Basu. Definition: The rational choice is the one that (for defensible reasons) gains the most payoff. Thus, buying a lottery ticket on a hunch is not rational even if you win... Staddon [ StaddonBasu2007.pdf ] VOLUNTARINESS2007-10-11 Is it human? Judgments of choice responding Neuringer et al. believe their experiments can tell us something about what 'voluntary behavior' is. Davison disagrees... Davison [ DavisonNeuringer2007.pdf ] EVOLUTION2007-12-28 Paley Redivivus Fodor once more presents us with a persuasive, entertaining – and profoundly wrong – view of a great man. Not B. F. Skinner this time, but a much grander figure, none other than Charles Darwin. Fodor's often misdirected attacks on an extinct behaviorism.. Staddon [ StaddonFodor2007.pdf ] 2008-02-12 Response: A dialogue between Fodor and Staddon Jerry Fodor responded to John Staddon’s comment, and a dialogue ensued. The focal point seems to be whether natural selection should (Fodor), or potentially does (Staddon) provide a causal account of evolutionary adaptation. Fodor [ FodorStaddon2008.pdf ] ATTENTION2008-09-01 Attention to Intention: Fact or artifact? Lau et al. (2004) aimed to identify through fMRI the brain region that codes for the intention to perform a motor act, and concluded that the pre-Supplementary Motor Area is where this happens. Machado and Silva’s account (2007) for these results is similar to previous attempts (Bridgeman, 1985; Gomes, 2002) to interpret Libet’s original data (Libet et al., 1983). To the extent of our knowledge, however, such accounts have never been subjected to empirical test. Our objective with this paper was to provide such a test. Marques-Smith [ SmithMachado.Lau.et.al_2008.pdf ] HUMAN DEVELOPMENT2008-07-26 Emerging Discourse about Emerging Adulthood This review presents impressions of Konstam's (2007) book entitled “Emerging and Young Adulthood: Multiple Perspectives and Diverse Narratives”. The review critiques the limited focus of current research, and highlights Konstam's contribution: expanding our understanding by extending the depth and range of existing scholarship on emerging adulthood. Blustein [ BlusteinKonstam2008.pdf ] INTELLIGENCE2009-02-03 Revisiting basic notions of human intelligence Herrnstein & Murray (1994) claim that intelligence is largely inherited and can hardly be altered. They are wrong. Intelligence is substantially determined by the environment, disproportionately constraining the disadvantaged. Schick [ SchickLockheadHerrnsteinMurray2008.pdf ] NEUROPOLITICS2009-02-23 Physiology may not be (political) destiny Oxley et al. (2008) translate an eyeblink and a slight sweat, provoked by different kinds of pictures, into a political position. Science magazine apparently raised no objections. Charney points out that both eye blinks and GSR changes can be interpreted in very many ways. Oxley et al.’s grand conclusions leave their modest data well behind. Charney [ Charney.Oxley.2009.pdf ] |} [refresh] |
