Conceptual spaces are a frequently applied framework for representing concepts. One of its central aims is to find criteria for what makes a concept natural. A prominent demand is that natural concepts cover convex regions in conceptual spaces. The first aim of this paper is to analyse the convexity thesis and the arguments that have been advanced in its favour or against it. Based on this, I argue that most supporting arguments focus on single-domain concepts (e.g., colours, smells, shapes). Unfortunately, (...) these concepts are not the primary examples of natural concepts. Building on this observation, the second aim of the paper is to develop criteria for natural multi-domain concepts. The representation of such concepts has two main aspects: features that are associated with the concept and the probabilistic correlation pattern which the concept captures. Conceptual spaces, together with probabilistic considerations, provide a helpful framework to approach these aspects. With respect to feature representation, the existence of characteristic features (i.e., that apples have a specific taste) is essential. Moreover, natural concepts capture peaks of a probabilistic distribution over complex spaces. They carve up nature at its joints, that is, at areas with no or low probabilistic density. This last aspect is shown to be closely related to the convexity demand. (shrink)

According to the recent Perceptual Confidence view, perceptual experiences possess not only a representational content, but also a degree of confidence in that content. The motivations for this view are partly phenomenological and partly epistemic. We discuss both the phenomenological and epistemic motivations for the view, and the resulting account of the interface between perceptual experiences and degrees of belief. We conclude that, in their present state of development, orthodox accounts of perceptual experience are still to be favoured over the (...) perceptual confidence view. (shrink)

Tenenbaum and Griffiths (2001) have proposed that their Bayesian model of generalisation unifies Shepard’s (1987) and Tversky’s (1977) similarity-based explanations of two distinct patterns of generalisation behaviours by reconciling them under a single coherent task analysis. I argue that this proposal needs refinement: instead of unifying the heterogeneous notion of psychological similarity, the Bayesian approach unifies generalisation by rendering the distinct patterns of behaviours informationally relevant. I suggest that generalisation as a Bayesian inference should be seen as a complement to, (...) instead of a replacement of, similarity-based explanations. Furthermore, I show that the unificatory powers of the Bayesian model of generalisation can contribute to the selection of one of these models of psychological similarity. (shrink)

Tenenbaum and Griffiths (Behavioral and Brain Sciences 24(4):629–640, 2001) have proposed that their Bayesian model of generalisation unifies Shepard’s (Science 237(4820): 1317–1323, 1987) and Tversky’s (Psychological Review 84(4): 327–352, 1977) similarity-based explanations of two distinct patterns of generalisation behaviours by reconciling them under a single coherent task analysis. I argue that this proposal needs refinement: instead of unifying the heterogeneous notion of psychological similarity, the Bayesian approach unifies generalisation by rendering the distinct patterns of behaviours informationally relevant. I suggest that (...) generalisation as a Bayesian inference should be seen as a complement to, instead of a replacement of, similarity-based explanations. Furthermore, I show that the unificatory powers of the Bayesian model of generalisation can contribute to the selection of one of these models of psychological similarity. (shrink)

The feature-matching approach pioneered by Amos Tversky remains a groundwork for psychological models of similarity and categorization but is rarely explicitly justified considering recent advances in thinking about cognition. While psychologists often view similarity as an unproblematic foundational concept that explains generalization and conceptual thought, long-standing philosophical problems challenging this assumption suggest that similarity derives from processes of higher-level cognition, including inference and conceptual thought. This paper addresses three specific challenges to Tversky’s approach: (i) the feature-selection problem, (ii) the problem (...) of cognitive implausibility, and (iii) the problem of unprincipled tweaking. It subsequently supports key insights from Tversky’s account based on recent developments in Bayesian modeling of cognition. A novel computational view of similarity as inference is proposed that addresses each challenge by considering the contrast class as constitutive of similarity and selecting for highly informative features. In so doing, this view illustrates the ongoing promise of the feature-matching approach in explaining perception, generalization and conceptual thought by grounding them in principles of probabilistic inference. (shrink)

Children acquire complex concepts like DOG earlier than simple concepts like BROWN, even though our best neuroscientific theories suggest that learning the former is harder than learning the latter and, thus, should take more time (Werning 2010). This is the Complex- First Paradox. We present a novel solution to the Complex-First Paradox. Our solution builds on a generalization of Xu and Tenenbaum’s (2007) Bayesian model of word learning. By focusing on a rational theory of concept learning, we show that it (...) is easier to infer the meaning of complex concepts than that of simple concepts. (shrink)

: In this article I discuss Athanasios Raftopoulos’ view on the epistemic role of attention and early vision, as outlined in his most recent book. I start by examining his view on attention, which he illustrates during his discussion of structured cognitive contents and their interactions with perceptual contents, as well as during his discussion of selection effects. According to Raftopoulos, attention not only operates pre-perceptual input selection, but also influences perceptual processing during late vision biasing the sampling of the (...) iconic image for perceptual hypotheses-testing. Afterwards, I critically assess Raftopoulos’ conclusions about the epistemic role of early vision, which are based on his view about the role of attention. From this assessment, I raise a potential concern for his proposal in the form of a new problem of selection: the interesting epistemic consequences of cognitive penetrability either follow or do not follow from selection effects, depending on how these selection effects are construed, but regardless of the stage of visual processing in which they take place. Keywords: Cognitive Penetration; Attention; Constructivism; Selection Effects; Perceptual Epistemology Il ruolo epistemico della visione primaria: penetrazione cognitiva e selezione attentiva Riassunto: In questo articolo discuto la proposta di Athanasios Raftopoulos riguardo al ruolo epistemico dell’attenzione e della early vision, contenuta nella sua recente monografia. La mia discussione comincia da un esame delle sue idee riguardo all’attenzione, che illustra sia durante la sua discussione dei contenuti cognitivi strutturati e delle loro interazioni con i contenuti percettivi, sia durante la sua discussione degli effetti di selezione. Secondo Raftopoulos, l’attenzione non opera solamente una selezione pre-percettiva degli input, ma influenza anche i processi percettivi di late vision orientando il processo di valutazione delle ipotesi percettive sulla base dell’immagine iconica. Successivamente, valuto criticamente le conclusioni di Raftopoulos’ riguardo al ruolo epistemico di early vision, fondate sulla sua concezione del ruolo dell’attenzione. Da questo esame, evidenzio una potenziale criticità nella sua proposta costituita da un nuovo problema della selezione: le conseguenze epistemiche della penetrabilità cognitiva seguono o non seguono dai processi di selezione, a seconda di come tali effetti sono concepiti, ma indipendentemente dal livello nella serie dei processi visivi nel quale si verificano. Parole chiave: Penetrabilità cognitiva; Attenzione; Costruttivismo; Effetti di Selezione; Epistemologia percettiva. (shrink)

This paper proposes and develops the feelings of goals hypothesis (FGH). It has two aims: first, to describe the evolutionary function of emotional feelings (EFs), and second, to describe the content and the format of EFs. According to FGH, the evolutionary function of EFs is to enable motoric flexibility. Specifically, EFs are a component of a psychological mechanism that permits differential motoric reactions to the same stimulus. Further, according to FGH, EF is a special type of mental representation with the (...) content of an action goal, and with a non-motoric, non-conceptual format. This paper thoroughly clarifies the assumptions underlying FGH and discusses its theoretical implications and empirical predictions. (shrink)

Debunking arguments aim to undermine common sense beliefs by showing that they are not explanatorily or causally linked to the entities they are purportedly about. Rarely are facts about the aetiology of common sense beliefs invoked for the opposite aim, that is, to support the reality of entities that furnish our manifest image of the world. Here I undertake this sort of un-debunking project. My focus is on the metaphysics of ordinary physical objects. I use the view of perception as (...) approximate Bayesian inference to show how representations of ordinary objects can be extracted from sensory input in a rational and truth-tracking manner. Drawing an analogy between perception construed as Bayesian hypothesis testing and scientific inquiry, I sketch out how some of the intuitions that traditionally inspired arguments for scientific realism also find application with regards to proverbial tables and chairs. (shrink)

In this paper, I use the predictive processing theory of perception to tackle the question of how perceptual states can be rationally involved in cognition by justifying other mental states. I put forward two claims regarding the epistemological implications of PP. First, perceptual states can confer justification on other mental states because the perceptual states are themselves rationally acquired. Second, despite being inferentially justified rather than epistemically basic, perceptual states can still be epistemically responsive to the mind-independent world. My main (...) goal is to elucidate the epistemology of perception already implicit in PP. But I also hope to show how it is possible to peacefully combine central tenets of foundationalist and coherentist accounts of the rational powers of perception while avoiding the well-recognized pitfalls of either. (shrink)

Conceptual spaces have become an increasingly popular modeling tool in cognitive psychology. The core idea of the conceptual spaces approach is that concepts can be represented as regions in similarity spaces. While it is generally acknowledged that not every region in such a space represents a natural concept, it is still an open question what distinguishes those regions that represent natural concepts from those that do not. The central claim of this paper is that natural concepts are represented by the (...) cells of an optimally designed similarity space. (shrink)

Proponents of cognitive penetration often argue for the thesis on the basis of combined intuitions about categorical perception and perceptual learning. The claim is that beliefs penetrate perceptions in the course of learning to perceive categories. I argue that this "diachronic" penetration thesis is false. In order to substantiate a robust notion of penetration, the beliefs that enable learning must describe the particular ability that subjects learn. However, they cannot do so, since in order to help with learning they must (...) instruct learners to employ previously existing abilities. I argue that a better approach recognizes that we can have sophisticated causal precursors to perceptual learning, but that the learning process itself must operate outside of cognitive influence. (shrink)

Bayesianism can be characterized as the following twofold position: (i) rational credences obey the probability calculus; (ii) rational learning, i.e., the updating of credences, is regulated by some form of conditionalization. While the formal aspect of various forms of conditionalization has been explored in detail, the philosophical application to learning from experience is still deeply problematic. Some philosophers have proposed to revise the epistemology of perception; others have provided new formal accounts of conditionalization that are more in line with how (...) we learn from perceptual experience. The current investigation argues that Bayesian epistemology is still incomplete; the epistemology of perception and the epistemology of rational reasoning have not been reconciled. (shrink)