Policy Insights from the Behavioral and Brain Sciences
Why do people have conflicting views of equality concerning the distribution of income, wealth, a... more Why do people have conflicting views of equality concerning the distribution of income, wealth, and satisfaction of vital needs? How do people form and sometimes change their views of equality and related issues, such as gender identity? Answers to such questions can benefit from cognitive science—the interdisciplinary field that includes neuroscience and computer modeling as well as psychology. According to principles of emotional coherence, attitudes develop and change because of connections among the values attached to systems of concepts, beliefs, and goals. People attach a positive value to concepts such as equality, if the concept fits with other positive concepts such as human needs, and opposes negative concepts such as poverty. Emotional coherence balances positive and negative values to yield an overall conclusion. Computer models based on emotional coherence explain people’s differing attitudes about equality and issues such as transgender rights. They also model how peop...
Abstract: Recent theorizing about the nature of the cognitive impairment in autism suggests that ... more Abstract: Recent theorizing about the nature of the cognitive impairment in autism suggests that autistic individuals display abnormally weak central coherence, the capacity to integrate information in order to make sense of one's environment. Our article shows the relevance of computational models of coherence to the understanding of weak central coherence.
Introduction: The complexity of cell-biological systems has an ���inherent��� basis, related to t... more Introduction: The complexity of cell-biological systems has an ���inherent��� basis, related to the nature of cells (large number and variety of components, nonlinear, spatiotemporal interactions, constant modification of the components) and arises also from the means we have for studying cells (technological and methodological limitations).
Debates about evolution and creation inevitably raise philosophical issues about the nature of sc... more Debates about evolution and creation inevitably raise philosophical issues about the nature of scientific knowledge. What is a theory? What is an explanation? How is science different from non-science? How should theories be evaluated? Does science achieve truth? Te aim of this chapter is to give a concise and accessible introduction to the philosophy of science, focusing on questions relevant to understanding evolution by natural selection, creation, and intelligent design.
What cognitive capabilities underlie our fundamental human achievements? Although a complete answ... more What cognitive capabilities underlie our fundamental human achievements? Although a complete answer remains elusive, one basic component is a special kind of symbolic ability-the ability to pick out patterns, to identify recurrences of these patterns despite variation in the elements that compose them, to form concepts that abstract and reify these patterns, and to express these concepts in language. Analogy, in its most general sense, is this ability to think about relational patterns. As Douglas Hofstadter (chap.
Abstract: Mirror neurons are brain systems found in monkeys and humans that respond similarly to ... more Abstract: Mirror neurons are brain systems found in monkeys and humans that respond similarly to actions and to the perception of actions of others. This paper explores the implications of mirror neurons for several important philosophical problems, including knowledge of other minds, the nature of empathy, and moral motivation. It argues that mirror neurons provide a more direct route to other minds, empathy, and moral motivation that complements the more familiar route based on conscious, verbal inference.
The central concern of my research over the past two decades has been to contribute to understand... more The central concern of my research over the past two decades has been to contribute to understanding of the development of scientific knowledge. From a variety of perspectivesphilosophical, historical, psychological, computational, and sociological-I have attempted to describe the nature of the discovery, development, and acceptance of scientific ideas.
Abstract. Collaboration is ubiquitous in the natural and social sciences. How collaboration contr... more Abstract. Collaboration is ubiquitous in the natural and social sciences. How collaboration contributes to the development of scientific knowledge can be assessed by considering four different kinds of collaboration in the light of Alvin Goldman's five standards for appraising epistemic practices. A sixth standard is proposed to help understand the importance of theoretical collaborations in cognitive science and other fields.
Resumo Este artigo investiga as mudan��as conceituais revolucion��rias que ocorreram quando a teo... more Resumo Este artigo investiga as mudan��as conceituais revolucion��rias que ocorreram quando a teoria do flogisto de Stahl foi substitu��da pela teoria do oxig��nio de Lavoisier. Utilizando t��cnicas extra��das da intelig��ncia artificial, o artigo descreve os est��gios cruciais no desenvolvimento conceitual de Lavoisier, de 1772 at�� 1789. Em seguida, �� esbo��ada uma teoria computacional da mudan��a conceitual de modo a explicar a descoberta de Lavoisier da teoria do oxig��nio ea substitui����o da teoria do flogisto.
Almost all computational models of the mind and brain ignore details about neurotransmitters, hor... more Almost all computational models of the mind and brain ignore details about neurotransmitters, hormones, and other molecules. The neglect of neurochemistry in cognitive science would be appropriate if the computational properties of brains relevant to explaining mental functioning were in fact electrical rather than chemical.
Harman and Kulkarni (2007) provide a rigorous and informative discussion of reliable reasoning, d... more Harman and Kulkarni (2007) provide a rigorous and informative discussion of reliable reasoning, drawing philosophical conclusions from the elegant formal results of statistical learning theory. They have presented a strong case that statistical learning theory is highly relevant to issues in philosophy and psychology concerning inductive inferences. Although I agree with their general thrust, I want to take issue with some of the philosophical and psychological conclusions they reach.
The authors call for a more thorough testing of the empirical claims of recent theories of scient... more The authors call for a more thorough testing of the empirical claims of recent theories of scientific change. To facilitate this the empirical claims of Kuhn, Feyerabend, Lakatos and Laudan are listed in nontechnical language, both by author and by topic. A bibliography of case studies is included.
���HQ 5% ARI Research Note 95-24 Keith J. Judith M. A Cognitive Architecture for Solving Ill-Defi... more ���HQ 5% ARI Research Note 95-24 Keith J. Judith M. A Cognitive Architecture for Solving Ill-Defined Problems Holyoak _g University of Califomia at Los Angeles ; Esra Paul R. Thagard A PR 2 5 7995 Princeton University 1* for Contracting Officer's Representative Orasanu Research and Advanced Concepts Office Michael Drillings, Acting Director i 19950424 05 February 1995 (��3 av a _ _J-->37 F'RMYl?[5[AR[H ms WW 1 ~4 e United States Army r Research Institute for the Behavioral and Social Sciences Approved for public release; distribution is unlimited.
Abstract Recent research has yielded an explosion of literature that establishes a strong connect... more Abstract Recent research has yielded an explosion of literature that establishes a strong connection between emotional and cognitive processes. Most notably, Antonio Damasio draws an intimate connection between emotion and cognition in practical decision making. Damasio presents a" somatic marker" hypothesis which explains how emotions are biologically indispensable to decisions.
Policy Insights from the Behavioral and Brain Sciences
Why do people have conflicting views of equality concerning the distribution of income, wealth, a... more Why do people have conflicting views of equality concerning the distribution of income, wealth, and satisfaction of vital needs? How do people form and sometimes change their views of equality and related issues, such as gender identity? Answers to such questions can benefit from cognitive science—the interdisciplinary field that includes neuroscience and computer modeling as well as psychology. According to principles of emotional coherence, attitudes develop and change because of connections among the values attached to systems of concepts, beliefs, and goals. People attach a positive value to concepts such as equality, if the concept fits with other positive concepts such as human needs, and opposes negative concepts such as poverty. Emotional coherence balances positive and negative values to yield an overall conclusion. Computer models based on emotional coherence explain people’s differing attitudes about equality and issues such as transgender rights. They also model how peop...
Abstract: Recent theorizing about the nature of the cognitive impairment in autism suggests that ... more Abstract: Recent theorizing about the nature of the cognitive impairment in autism suggests that autistic individuals display abnormally weak central coherence, the capacity to integrate information in order to make sense of one's environment. Our article shows the relevance of computational models of coherence to the understanding of weak central coherence.
Introduction: The complexity of cell-biological systems has an ���inherent��� basis, related to t... more Introduction: The complexity of cell-biological systems has an ���inherent��� basis, related to the nature of cells (large number and variety of components, nonlinear, spatiotemporal interactions, constant modification of the components) and arises also from the means we have for studying cells (technological and methodological limitations).
Debates about evolution and creation inevitably raise philosophical issues about the nature of sc... more Debates about evolution and creation inevitably raise philosophical issues about the nature of scientific knowledge. What is a theory? What is an explanation? How is science different from non-science? How should theories be evaluated? Does science achieve truth? Te aim of this chapter is to give a concise and accessible introduction to the philosophy of science, focusing on questions relevant to understanding evolution by natural selection, creation, and intelligent design.
What cognitive capabilities underlie our fundamental human achievements? Although a complete answ... more What cognitive capabilities underlie our fundamental human achievements? Although a complete answer remains elusive, one basic component is a special kind of symbolic ability-the ability to pick out patterns, to identify recurrences of these patterns despite variation in the elements that compose them, to form concepts that abstract and reify these patterns, and to express these concepts in language. Analogy, in its most general sense, is this ability to think about relational patterns. As Douglas Hofstadter (chap.
Abstract: Mirror neurons are brain systems found in monkeys and humans that respond similarly to ... more Abstract: Mirror neurons are brain systems found in monkeys and humans that respond similarly to actions and to the perception of actions of others. This paper explores the implications of mirror neurons for several important philosophical problems, including knowledge of other minds, the nature of empathy, and moral motivation. It argues that mirror neurons provide a more direct route to other minds, empathy, and moral motivation that complements the more familiar route based on conscious, verbal inference.
The central concern of my research over the past two decades has been to contribute to understand... more The central concern of my research over the past two decades has been to contribute to understanding of the development of scientific knowledge. From a variety of perspectivesphilosophical, historical, psychological, computational, and sociological-I have attempted to describe the nature of the discovery, development, and acceptance of scientific ideas.
Abstract. Collaboration is ubiquitous in the natural and social sciences. How collaboration contr... more Abstract. Collaboration is ubiquitous in the natural and social sciences. How collaboration contributes to the development of scientific knowledge can be assessed by considering four different kinds of collaboration in the light of Alvin Goldman's five standards for appraising epistemic practices. A sixth standard is proposed to help understand the importance of theoretical collaborations in cognitive science and other fields.
Resumo Este artigo investiga as mudan��as conceituais revolucion��rias que ocorreram quando a teo... more Resumo Este artigo investiga as mudan��as conceituais revolucion��rias que ocorreram quando a teoria do flogisto de Stahl foi substitu��da pela teoria do oxig��nio de Lavoisier. Utilizando t��cnicas extra��das da intelig��ncia artificial, o artigo descreve os est��gios cruciais no desenvolvimento conceitual de Lavoisier, de 1772 at�� 1789. Em seguida, �� esbo��ada uma teoria computacional da mudan��a conceitual de modo a explicar a descoberta de Lavoisier da teoria do oxig��nio ea substitui����o da teoria do flogisto.
Almost all computational models of the mind and brain ignore details about neurotransmitters, hor... more Almost all computational models of the mind and brain ignore details about neurotransmitters, hormones, and other molecules. The neglect of neurochemistry in cognitive science would be appropriate if the computational properties of brains relevant to explaining mental functioning were in fact electrical rather than chemical.
Harman and Kulkarni (2007) provide a rigorous and informative discussion of reliable reasoning, d... more Harman and Kulkarni (2007) provide a rigorous and informative discussion of reliable reasoning, drawing philosophical conclusions from the elegant formal results of statistical learning theory. They have presented a strong case that statistical learning theory is highly relevant to issues in philosophy and psychology concerning inductive inferences. Although I agree with their general thrust, I want to take issue with some of the philosophical and psychological conclusions they reach.
The authors call for a more thorough testing of the empirical claims of recent theories of scient... more The authors call for a more thorough testing of the empirical claims of recent theories of scientific change. To facilitate this the empirical claims of Kuhn, Feyerabend, Lakatos and Laudan are listed in nontechnical language, both by author and by topic. A bibliography of case studies is included.
���HQ 5% ARI Research Note 95-24 Keith J. Judith M. A Cognitive Architecture for Solving Ill-Defi... more ���HQ 5% ARI Research Note 95-24 Keith J. Judith M. A Cognitive Architecture for Solving Ill-Defined Problems Holyoak _g University of Califomia at Los Angeles ; Esra Paul R. Thagard A PR 2 5 7995 Princeton University 1* for Contracting Officer's Representative Orasanu Research and Advanced Concepts Office Michael Drillings, Acting Director i 19950424 05 February 1995 (��3 av a _ _J-->37 F'RMYl?[5[AR[H ms WW 1 ~4 e United States Army r Research Institute for the Behavioral and Social Sciences Approved for public release; distribution is unlimited.
Abstract Recent research has yielded an explosion of literature that establishes a strong connect... more Abstract Recent research has yielded an explosion of literature that establishes a strong connection between emotional and cognitive processes. Most notably, Antonio Damasio draws an intimate connection between emotion and cognition in practical decision making. Damasio presents a" somatic marker" hypothesis which explains how emotions are biologically indispensable to decisions.
" Brain mechanisms explain emotion and consciousness " in cooperation with the Bernstein Center f... more " Brain mechanisms explain emotion and consciousness " in cooperation with the Bernstein Center for Computational Neuroscience, Berlin Is love a judgment, a body process, or a cultural interpretation? Emotion theorists dispute whether emotions are cognitive appraisals, responses to physiological changes, or social constructions. That emotions are all of these can be grasped by identifying brain mechanisms for emotions, including representation by groups of spiking neurons, binding of representations into semantic pointers, and competition among semantic pointers. Semantic pointers are patterns of firing in groups of neurons that function like symbols while incorporating sensory and motor information that can be recovered. Emotions are semantic pointers that bind representations of situations, physiology, and appraisal into unified packages that can guide behavior if they outcompete other semantic pointers. Social and linguistic information is incorporated into cognitive appraisal. This view of emotions is supported by computer simulations (using Chris Eliasmith's Semantic Pointer Architecture) that model dynamic appraisal, embodiment, interaction of physiological input and appraisal, and reasoning about emotions. Unlike traditional theories, the semantic pointer theory of emotion can also explain why people have conscious experiences such as happiness and sadness.
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Papers by Paul Thagard