Cognitive psychological and social psychological studies of scientific thinking are covered in 15... more Cognitive psychological and social psychological studies of scientific thinking are covered in 15 chapters by 19 contributors, including David Gooding, Nancy Nersessian, Kevin Dunbar, and others.
An illustrated inventory of all of the preparations of gold and other metals made by Faraday in 1... more An illustrated inventory of all of the preparations of gold and other metals made by Faraday in 1856. Hundreds of specimens are included.
The psycholinguistic properties of American Sign Language (ASL) have been the focus of a good dea... more The psycholinguistic properties of American Sign Language (ASL) have been the focus of a good deal of recent research. The unique characteristics of this language lead to a large number of issues which can be resolved empirically. Thus, it has been shown that ASL signs are retained in short-term memory in an encoded form based upon linguistically significant structural features (Bellugi, Klima, & Siple, 1975; Poizner, Bellugi, & Tweney, 1981). Furthermore, such features have been shown to be implicated in the production of ...
The pseudodiagnosticity task has been used as an example of the tendency on the part of participa... more The pseudodiagnosticity task has been used as an example of the tendency on the part of participants to incorrectly assess Bayesian constraints in assessing data, and as a failure to consider alternative hypotheses in a probabilistic inference task. In the task, participants are given one value, the anchor value, corresponding to P(D1|H) and may choose one other value, either P(D1|¬!H),
Abstract: Counterintuitive concepts have been identified as major aspects of religious belief, an... more Abstract: Counterintuitive concepts have been identified as major aspects of religious belief, and have been used to explain the retention and transmission of such beliefs. To resolve some inconsistencies in the literature concerning counterintuitiveness, we conducted ...
Why do men find young women more attractive than older women? Why do women find high status men m... more Why do men find young women more attractive than older women? Why do women find high status men more attractive? The answer from recent evolutionary psychologists is that younger women are more likely to be fertile and healthy, and their progeny are more likely to survive. Thus, natural selection, acting primarily on our Pleistocene huntergatherer forebears, has led men's preferences to be driven by genetic makeup to optimize the chances of their genes being preserved. Women's preferences, by contrast, have been ...
Abstract This special issue reports a project in which the replication of historically meaningful... more Abstract This special issue reports a project in which the replication of historically meaningful studies was carried out by graduate students in a history of psychology course. In this introduction, I outline the nature of the project and its rationale, and briefly sketch the results. The subsequent five papers represent scholarly presentations of five selected replications written by students in the course. These are followed by a commentary on the project by an educational psychologist.
Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 1989
Abstract While Brunswik's conception of ecological validity has been widely discussed, h... more Abstract While Brunswik's conception of ecological validity has been widely discussed, his conception of ecological unreliability, or error in the data on which inferences or predictions are based, has been largely ignored. Further, when psychologists discuss error in continuous data, that error has, perhaps because of the impact of classical psychometric theory, been thought of as Gaussian, and labeled measurement error. The present paper reports a two-cue MCPL experiment in which there are multiple observations of each cue ...
The psycholinguistic properties of American Sign Language (ASL) have been the focus of a good dea... more The psycholinguistic properties of American Sign Language (ASL) have been the focus of a good deal of recent research. The unique characteristics of this language lead to a large number of issues which can be resolved empirically. Thus, it has been shown that ASL signs are retained in short-term memory in an encoded form based upon linguistically significant structural features (Bellugi, Klima, & Siple, 1975; Poizner, Bellugi, & Tweney, 1981). Furthermore, such features have been shown to be implicated in the production of ...
The British Journal for the History of Science, 2009
So once we follow Otter and eschew dominant themes and much pre-existing historiography, what is ... more So once we follow Otter and eschew dominant themes and much pre-existing historiography, what is left? Otter wants to stay clear of such overarching concepts, and only because 'the historian must be prepared to make generalizations'(p. 255) does he cautiously offer us alternatives. The most important of these is the theme of the 'oligoptic', a term that he borrows from Bruno Latour, referring to a 'multiplicity of connected spaces'(p. 73). The oligoptic, according to Otter, is the better description of Victorian visual culture. The ' ...
Abstract Wegner's The Illusion of Conscious Will (2002) ignores an important aspect of the h... more Abstract Wegner's The Illusion of Conscious Will (2002) ignores an important aspect of the history of the concept: the determinism of Jonathan Edwards (1754) and the later response to this determinism by William James and others. We argue that Edwards's formulation, and James's resolution of the resulting dilemma, are superior to Wegner's.
Cognitive psychological and social psychological studies of scientific thinking are covered in 15... more Cognitive psychological and social psychological studies of scientific thinking are covered in 15 chapters by 19 contributors, including David Gooding, Nancy Nersessian, Kevin Dunbar, and others.
An illustrated inventory of all of the preparations of gold and other metals made by Faraday in 1... more An illustrated inventory of all of the preparations of gold and other metals made by Faraday in 1856. Hundreds of specimens are included.
The psycholinguistic properties of American Sign Language (ASL) have been the focus of a good dea... more The psycholinguistic properties of American Sign Language (ASL) have been the focus of a good deal of recent research. The unique characteristics of this language lead to a large number of issues which can be resolved empirically. Thus, it has been shown that ASL signs are retained in short-term memory in an encoded form based upon linguistically significant structural features (Bellugi, Klima, & Siple, 1975; Poizner, Bellugi, & Tweney, 1981). Furthermore, such features have been shown to be implicated in the production of ...
The pseudodiagnosticity task has been used as an example of the tendency on the part of participa... more The pseudodiagnosticity task has been used as an example of the tendency on the part of participants to incorrectly assess Bayesian constraints in assessing data, and as a failure to consider alternative hypotheses in a probabilistic inference task. In the task, participants are given one value, the anchor value, corresponding to P(D1|H) and may choose one other value, either P(D1|¬!H),
Abstract: Counterintuitive concepts have been identified as major aspects of religious belief, an... more Abstract: Counterintuitive concepts have been identified as major aspects of religious belief, and have been used to explain the retention and transmission of such beliefs. To resolve some inconsistencies in the literature concerning counterintuitiveness, we conducted ...
Why do men find young women more attractive than older women? Why do women find high status men m... more Why do men find young women more attractive than older women? Why do women find high status men more attractive? The answer from recent evolutionary psychologists is that younger women are more likely to be fertile and healthy, and their progeny are more likely to survive. Thus, natural selection, acting primarily on our Pleistocene huntergatherer forebears, has led men's preferences to be driven by genetic makeup to optimize the chances of their genes being preserved. Women's preferences, by contrast, have been ...
Abstract This special issue reports a project in which the replication of historically meaningful... more Abstract This special issue reports a project in which the replication of historically meaningful studies was carried out by graduate students in a history of psychology course. In this introduction, I outline the nature of the project and its rationale, and briefly sketch the results. The subsequent five papers represent scholarly presentations of five selected replications written by students in the course. These are followed by a commentary on the project by an educational psychologist.
Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 1989
Abstract While Brunswik's conception of ecological validity has been widely discussed, h... more Abstract While Brunswik's conception of ecological validity has been widely discussed, his conception of ecological unreliability, or error in the data on which inferences or predictions are based, has been largely ignored. Further, when psychologists discuss error in continuous data, that error has, perhaps because of the impact of classical psychometric theory, been thought of as Gaussian, and labeled measurement error. The present paper reports a two-cue MCPL experiment in which there are multiple observations of each cue ...
The psycholinguistic properties of American Sign Language (ASL) have been the focus of a good dea... more The psycholinguistic properties of American Sign Language (ASL) have been the focus of a good deal of recent research. The unique characteristics of this language lead to a large number of issues which can be resolved empirically. Thus, it has been shown that ASL signs are retained in short-term memory in an encoded form based upon linguistically significant structural features (Bellugi, Klima, & Siple, 1975; Poizner, Bellugi, & Tweney, 1981). Furthermore, such features have been shown to be implicated in the production of ...
The British Journal for the History of Science, 2009
So once we follow Otter and eschew dominant themes and much pre-existing historiography, what is ... more So once we follow Otter and eschew dominant themes and much pre-existing historiography, what is left? Otter wants to stay clear of such overarching concepts, and only because 'the historian must be prepared to make generalizations'(p. 255) does he cautiously offer us alternatives. The most important of these is the theme of the 'oligoptic', a term that he borrows from Bruno Latour, referring to a 'multiplicity of connected spaces'(p. 73). The oligoptic, according to Otter, is the better description of Victorian visual culture. The ' ...
Abstract Wegner's The Illusion of Conscious Will (2002) ignores an important aspect of the h... more Abstract Wegner's The Illusion of Conscious Will (2002) ignores an important aspect of the history of the concept: the determinism of Jonathan Edwards (1754) and the later response to this determinism by William James and others. We argue that Edwards's formulation, and James's resolution of the resulting dilemma, are superior to Wegner's.
The pseudodiagnosticity task has been used as an example of the tendency on the part of participa... more The pseudodiagnosticity task has been used as an example of the tendency on the part of participants to incorrectly assess Bayesian constraints in assessing data, and as a failure to consider alternative hypotheses in a probabilistic inference task. In the task, participants are given one value, the anchor value, corresponding to P(D1|H) and may choose one other value, either P(D1|¬!H),
Abstract: Counterintuitive concepts have been identified as major aspects of religious belief, an... more Abstract: Counterintuitive concepts have been identified as major aspects of religious belief, and have been used to explain the retention and transmission of such beliefs. To resolve some inconsistencies in the literature concerning counterintuitiveness, we conducted ...
Counterintuitive concepts have been identified as major aspects of religious belief, and have bee... more Counterintuitive concepts have been identified as major aspects of religious belief, and have been used to explain the retention and transmission of such beliefs. To resolve some inconsistencies in the literature concerning counterintuitiveness, we conducted three experiments to study the effect of context on recall. Five types of items were used: intuitive, minimally counterintuitive, maximally counterintuitive, minimally counterintuitive with contradictory context, and intuitive with contradictory context. Items were presented with context or without context and participants were asked to recall them. Maximally counterintuitive concepts were found to have the poorest recall in both immediate and delayed recall conditions and regardless of the presence or absence of context. No significant differences were found in the recall rates of minimally counterintuitive concepts and intuitive concepts, although delayed recall affected minimally counterintuitive concepts less than intuitive concepts, suggesting the possibility of differential “fitness.” Presence of contradictory context was found to be able to change minimally counterintuitive items into the functional equivalents of intuitive items (and vice versa). When relevant context was present, minimally counterintuitive concepts were recalled significantly better than intuitive concepts, which is consistent with the findings of Barrett & Nyhof (2001). For items presented as lists, intuitive items were recalled better, consistent with the findings of Norenzayan & Atran (2004b). Thus, context was the key element affecting recall and the discrepancy among prior studies (and the much earlier studies of Bartlett,
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some inconsistencies in the literature concerning counterintuitiveness, we conducted three experiments to study the effect of context on recall. Five types of items were used: intuitive, minimally counterintuitive, maximally counterintuitive, minimally counterintuitive with contradictory context, and intuitive with contradictory context. Items were presented
with context or without context and participants were asked to recall them. Maximally counterintuitive concepts were found to have the poorest recall in both immediate and delayed recall conditions and regardless of the presence or absence of context. No significant differences were found in the recall rates of minimally counterintuitive concepts and intuitive concepts, although delayed recall affected minimally counterintuitive
concepts less than intuitive concepts, suggesting the possibility of differential “fitness.”
Presence of contradictory context was found to be able to change minimally counterintuitive
items into the functional equivalents of intuitive items (and vice versa). When relevant
context was present, minimally counterintuitive concepts were recalled significantly
better than intuitive concepts, which is consistent with the findings of Barrett & Nyhof
(2001). For items presented as lists, intuitive items were recalled better, consistent with the findings of Norenzayan & Atran (2004b). Thus, context was the key element affecting recall and the discrepancy among prior studies (and the much earlier studies of Bartlett,