Decision theorists widely accept a stochastic dominance principle: roughly, if a risky prospect A is at least as probable as another prospect B to result in something at least as good, then A is at least as good as B. Recently, philosophers have applied this principle even in contexts where the values of possible outcomes do not have the structure of the real numbers: this includes cases of incommensurable values and cases of infinite values. But in these contexts the usual (...) formulation of stochastic dominance is wrong. We show this with several counterexamples. Still, the motivating idea behind stochastic dominance is a good one: it is supposed to provide a way of applying dominance reasoning in the stochastic context of probability distributions. We give two new formulations of stochastic dominance that are more faithful to this guiding idea, and prove that they are equivalent. (shrink)

The ability to extrapolate essential gist through the analysis and synthesis of information, prediction of potential outcomes, abstraction of ideas, and integration of relationships with world knowledge is critical for higher-order learning. The present study investigated the efficacy of cognitive training to elicit improvements in gist-reasoning and fact recall ability in 556 public middle-school students (grades seven and eight), versus a sample of 357 middle school students who served as a comparison group, to determine if changes in gist-reasoning and fact (...) recall were demonstrated without cognitive training. The results showed that, in general, cognitive training increased gist-reasoning and fact recall abilities in students from families in poverty as well as students from families living above poverty. However, the magnitude of gains in gist-reasoning varied as a function of gender and grade-level. Our primary findings were that seventh and eighth grade girls and eighth grade boys showed significant increases in gist-reasoning after training regardless of socioeconomic status. There were no significant increases in gist-reasoning or fact recall ability for the 357 middle school students who served in the comparison group. We postulate that cognitive training in middle school is efficacious for improving gist-reasoning ability and fact recall in students from all socioeconomic levels. (shrink)

The Huntington, Salamonie, and Mississinewa reservoirs in northern Indiana control seasonal flooding in the Upper Wabash River drainage area. They appeared in the 1960s after a long period of study and planning in response to large-scale flooding in central and southern Indiana in the first half of the twentieth century. Their construction disrupted the pattern of human ecology along the Wabash and its tributaries for many of the watershed’s inhabitants. Supporters touted the projects’ economic and recreational benefits, while opponents experienced (...) the change as a desecration of sacred space. The projects saved millions in property damage and perhaps many human lives, but at the cost of an enduring sense of place amid the advent of a new regime of scientific watershed management and state control over natural resources in the region. (shrink)

Wynn suggests that the imposition of symmetry on stone tools is indicative of the evolutionary development of cognitive abilities of the tool makers, particularly that of creating mental images. I suggest that it is more likely indicative of the evolutionary development of the perceptual ability to detect resources for behavior of hand-held objects.

Order and pattern abound in the natural world. However, whereas the emergence of order and pattern in physical or biological systems is typically explained by means of self-organization and field dynamics, the emergence of order and pattern in psychological systems is typically explained by means of mediating endogenous entities or mechanisms . I review a self-organization and field-based approach to understanding order and patterns in a variety of physical and biological systems. I then provide a sketch of recent research that (...) has applied such an approach to understanding order and pattern in psychological phenomena . Such an approach promises to reduce the explanatory burden associated with psychological phenomena and brings explanations of such phenomena into greater congruence with natural law. 2012 APA, all rights reserved). (shrink)

In the "cratylus", Plato presents two theories about the correctness of names, I.E., Names are correct by nature and names are correct by convention. In this paper, I argue that plato holds both views because he recognizes that the word 'name' is ambiguous as between type and token. Name tokens (individual strings of marks and noises) are conventional for plato. But name types (the role played by the tokens or the concept expressed by the tokens) are not conventional for plato.

Rather than proclaiming the "death of God," in the fashion of Nietzsche's madman, F. LeRon Shults proudly proclaims the "birth of God" in his incendiary, radically iconoclastic book Theology after the Birth of God. Shults argues, drawing on the multidisciplinary findings of the biocultural study of religion, that the commonplace belief in supernatural agents is the result of a variety of evolved cognitive and coalitional mechanisms that cause human beings to overdetect agency and that contribute to in-group cohesion—traits that would (...) have been selected because they aided the survival of early hominids living in hunter-gatherer societies, but that are maladaptive in our contemporary context. In his most recent book... (shrink)

In 1988, the control of the American Psychological Association shifted to those advocating the interests of professional practice and a substantial segment of the scientific community in psychology seceded to form the American Psychological Society, devoted to scientific psychology and scientific-based practice. In this climate, it has become increasingly difficult for scientists and practitioners to maintain analytical discussions of the philosophical and methodological issues that divide these two groups. For over 25 years, the authors have been fortunate to have the (...) professional and intellectual luxury of just such a discussion, and present here a dialogue that attempts to capture their initial stark differences in perspective and the process by which differences have been clarified, and areas of agreement established. 2012 APA, all rights reserved). (shrink)

From the perspective of ecological psychology, perception and action are not separate, linear, and mechanistic processes that refer to the immediate present. Rather, they are reciprocal and continuous and refer to the impending future. Therefore, from the perspective of ecological psychology, delays in perception and action are impossible, and delay compensation mechanisms are unnecessary.

In contrast to the views put forth by Stein & Glasier, we support the use of inbred strains of rodents in studies of the immunobiology of neural transplants. Inbred strains demonstrate homology of the major histocompatibility complex (MHC). Virtually all experimental work in transplantation immunology is performed using inbred strains, yet very few published studies of immune rejection in intracerebral grafts have used inbred animals.

In the academic world, a researcher's number of publications can carry huge professional and financial rewards. This truth has led to many unethical authorship assignments throughout the world of publishing, including within faculty-student collaborations. Although the American Psychological Association passed a revised code of ethics in 1992 with special rules pertaining to such collaborative efforts, it is widely acknowledged that unethical assignments of authorship credit continue to occur regularly. This study found that of the 604 APA-member respondents, 165 felt they (...) had been involved in an unethical or unfair authorship assignment. Furthermore, nontenured faculty members and women were statistically more likely to be involved in an unethical or unfair assignment of authorship credit than tenured faculty members or men. (shrink)

Theory in Africa, Africa in Theory explores the place of Africa in archaeological theory, and the place of theory in African archaeology. The centrality of African models in reconstructions is explored, focusing on materiality and agency in the past. The differences between how African models are used in western theoretical discourse and the use of that theory within Africa are also highlighted, as a means to explore the nature of theory itself. Thus, this dual purposed volume is a timely intervention (...) into archaeological theory, deconstructing the taken-for-granted foundations of the ways we approach the past. (shrink)

We investigate the complexity of finding solutions to infinite recursive constraint satisfaction problems. We show that, in general, the problem of finding a solution to an infinite recursive constraint satisfaction problem is equivalent to the problem of finding an infinite path through a recursive tree. We also identify natural classes of infinite recursive constraint satisfaction problems where the problem of finding a solution to the infinite recursive constraint satisfaction problem is equivalent to the problem of finding an infinite path through (...) finitely branching recursive trees or recursive binary trees. There are a large number of results in the literature on the complexity of the problem of finding an infinite path through a recursive tree. Our main result allows us to automatically transfer such results to give equivalent results about the complexity of the problem of finding a solution to a recursive constraint satisfaction problem. (shrink)

Index sets are used to measure the complexity of properties associated with the differentiability of real functions and the existence of solutions to certain classic differential equations. The new notion of a locally computable real function is introduced and provides several examples of Σ04 complete sets.

We give resource bounded versions of the Completeness Theorem for propositional and predicate logic. For example, it is well known that every computable consistent propositional theory has a computable complete consistent extension. We show that, when length is measured relative to the binary representation of natural numbers and formulas, every polynomial time decidable propositional theory has an exponential time (EXPTIME) complete consistent extension whereas there is a nondeterministic polynomial time (NP) decidable theory which has no polynomial time complete consistent extension (...) when length is measured relative to the binary representation of natural numbers and formulas. It is well known that a propositional theory is axiomatizable (respectively decidable) if and only if it may be represented as the set of infinite paths through a computable tree (respectively a computable tree with no dead ends). We show that any polynomial time decidable theory may be represented as the set of paths through a polynomial time decidable tree. On the other hand, the statement that every polynomial time decidable, relative to the tally representation of natural numbers and formulas, is equivalent to P = NP. For predicate logic, we develop a complexity theoretic version of the Henkin construction to prove a complexity theoretic version of the Completeness Theorem. Our results imply that that any polynomial space decidable theory △ possesses a polynomial space computable model which is exponential space decidable and thus △ has an exponential space complete consistent extension. Similar results are obtained for other notions of complexity. (shrink)

We consider the version of Pure Inductive Logic which obtains for the language with equality and a single unary function symbol giving a complete characterization of the probability functions on this language which satisfy Constant Exchangeability.

Although we agree with Hommel et al. that perception and action refer to one another, we disagree that they do so via a code. Gibson (1966; 1979) attempted to frame perception-action as a field phenomenon rather than as a particle phenomenon. From such a perspective, perception and action are adjoint, mutually interacting through an information field, and codes are unnecessary.

In this paper, we study the lattice of r.e. subspaces of a recursively presented vector space V ∞ with regard to the various complexity-theoretic speed-up properties such as speedable, effectively speedable, levelable, and effectively levelable introduced by Blum and Marques. In particular, we study the interplay between an r.e. basis A for a subspace V of V ∞ and V with regard to these properties. We show for example that if A or V is speedable , then V is levelable (...) . We also show that if A is an r.e. subset of a recursive basis for V ∞ , then A is levelable iff V is speedable while it is not the case that A is levelable iff V is speedable. We also provide several contrasts between the lattice of r.e. subspaces and the lattice of r.e. sets with respect to these speed-up properties. For example, every maximal set is levelable but we show that there exist supermaximal spaces which are nonspeedable in all possible r.e. degrees as well as supermaximal spaces which are levelable in all r.e. degrees which contain levelable sets. (shrink)

We define certain properties of subsets of models of arithmetic related to their codability in end extensions and elementary end extensions. We characterize these properties using some more familiar notions concerning cuts in models of arithmetic.

A computable graph is constructed which is not computably isomorphic to any polynomial-time graph with a standard universe . Conditions are given under which a computable graph is computably isomorphic to a polynomial-time graph with a standard universe — for example, if every vertex has finite degree. Two special types of graphs are studied. It is shown that any computable tree is recursively isomorphic to a p-time tree with standard universe and that any computable equivalence relation is computably isomorphic to (...) a p-time equivalence relation with standard universe. (shrink)

An ω-language is a set of infinite sequences on a countable language, and corresponds to a set of real numbers in a natural way. Languages may be described by logical formulas in the arithmetical hierarchy and also may be described as the set of words accepted by some type of automata or Turing machine. Certain families of languages, such as the equation image languages, may enumerated as P0, P1, … and then an index set associated to a given property R (...) of languages is just the set of e such that Pe has the property. The complexity of index sets for 7 types of languages is determined for various properties related to the size of the language. (shrink)

The first-order theory of the lattice of recursively enumerable closed subsets of an effective topological space is proved undecidable using the undecidability of the first-order theory of the lattice of recursively enumerable sets. In particular, the first-order theory of the lattice of recursively enumerable closed subsets of Euclidean n -space, for all n , is undecidable. A more direct proof of the undecidability of the lattice of recursively enumerable closed subsets of Euclidean n -space, n ⩾ 2, is provided using (...) the method of reduction and the recursive inseparability of the set of all formulae satisfiable in every model of the theory of SIBs and the set of all formulae refutable in some finite model of the theory of SIBs. (shrink)

This manuscript is the introductory article for the special issue of the Journal of Social Studies Research titled Teaching Disciplinary Thinking, Literacy, and Argumentation Skills. In it, the authors provide an historical overview of disciplinary thinking as outlined by Edwin Fenton and Sam Wineburg. They talk about how the C3 Framework is a melding of a focus on disciplinary thinking outlined by Fenton and Wineburg with the emphasis on preparing K-12 students for their future roles as democratic citizens as stressed (...) by scholars like Shirley Engle. Then, the focus of the manuscript shifts to highlight the underdeveloped areas of disciplinary thinking in civics, geography, and economics. The authors define economic, civic, and geographic thinking and provide habits of mind for each of these disciplines along with classroom activities for each. They close with arguments for why K-12 social studies teachers and social studies education scholars should focus on developing K-12 students’ civic, economic, and geographic thinking skills. (shrink)