I will present the rationale followed for the conceptualization and the following development the Dual PECCS system that relies on the cognitively grounded heterogeneous proxytypes representational hypothesis [Lieto 2014]. Such hypothesis allows integrating exemplars and prototype theories of categorization as well as theory-theory [Lieto 2019] and has provided useful insights in the context of cognitive modelling for what concerns the typicality effects in categorization [Lieto, 2021]. As argued in [Lieto et al., 2018b] a pivotal role in this respect (...) is played by the use of the conceptual spaces framework and by its integration with a symbolic knowledge representation layer. (shrink)

In creative cognition research, the Romantic view about creative cognition is traditionally rejected in favor of the modern view. The modern view about creative cognition maintains that creativity is neither mysterious nor unintelligible and that it is indeed susceptible to analysis. The paradigmatic objects of analysis in creative cognition research have been creative output and the creative process. The degree of creativity of an output is assessed in accordance with certain criterial definitions. The degree of creativity of a cognitive process (...) is assessed in accordance with certain models of creative cognition, psychometric test measures, and neuroimaging studies that are grounded in certain criteria for assessment. The reliance on criterial definitions and criteria for assessment in analyzing either the creative output or the creative process suggests that creative cognition researchers remain under the sway of the classical, bundles-of-criteria theory of meaning. In this paper, I will critically evaluate the criterial problems that confront both criterial definitions and criteria for assessment before proposing an alternative theory of meaning. (shrink)

Probabilistic methods are providing new explanatory approaches to fundamental cognitive science questions of how humans structure, process and acquire language. This review examines probabilistic models defined over traditional symbolic structures. Language comprehension and production involve probabilistic inference in such models; and acquisition involves choosing the best model, given innate constraints and linguistic and other input. Probabilistic models can account for the learning and processing of language, while maintaining the sophistication of symbolic models. A recent burgeoning of theoretical developments and (...) online corpus creation has enabled large models to be tested, revealing probabilistic constraints in processing, undermining acquisition arguments based on a perceived poverty of the stimulus, and suggesting fruitful links with probabilistic theories of categorization and ambiguity resolution in perception. (shrink)

The nosological diagnosis is a particular type of nontheoretical diagnosis consisting of identifying the disease that afflicts the patient without explaining the underlying etiopathological mechanisms. Its origins are within the essentialist point of view on the nature of diseases, which dates back at least to 18th-century taxonomy studies. In this article, we propose a model of nosological diagnosis as a two-phase process composed of the categorization of inductive inferences and argumentations by analogy. In the inductive phase, disease entities (...) are identified by means of typicality-based categorization processes, and meaningful clinical samples are learned ; in the subsequent phase, those samples are used as the bases of argumentations by analogy to obtain a diagnosis for a given patient. This model extends the prototype resemblance theory of disease including also the exemplar theory proposed in cognitive science and, moreover, it frames the clinical activity of nosological diagnosis and how it can be explained within the theory of argumentation. According to it, diagnosis based on the recognition of a typical syndrome is explained in terms of the prototype theory of categorization and the antisymmetrical argumentation by analogy, while diagnosis based on a comparison with a previous clinical case is explained by the exemplar theory of categorization and by the symmetrical argumentation by analogy. (shrink)

Many philosophers, and particularly those of a Kantian stripe, have suspected that claims about the ways the world and its Joints are (in contrast to claims about the joints in our models of the world and the way they are) make little sense. Recently, similar views have gained prominence in the philosophy of science and in cognitive psychology. The demise of the strong distinction between theoretical and observational terms over the past two decades is just one, among many, developments in (...) the philosophy of science which is of a piece with such suspicions. Meanwhile, a great deal of recent theoretical work on the psychology of categorization also affirms the fundamentality of our cognitive constructs in structuring human experience. (shrink)

Socially responsible human resource management (SR‐HRM) is becoming increasingly important for academics and managers. The interface between HRM and corporate social responsibility (CSR) is the subject of analysis in this article. It adopts a contextual perspective to analyze whether the institutional context influences the implementation of socially responsible HRM (SR‐HRM). Considering the differences in the national institutional contexts across Europe, this study explores the different models of SR‐HRM in that region. The research is focused on a sample of 153 companies (...) headquartered in Germany, Spain, Sweden, and the United Kingdom. The findings evidence the influence exerted by the national institutional context on the implementation of SR‐HRM. Differences among country clusters suggest the existence of different models of SR‐HRM in Europe. However, these models do not correspond to the blocks on HRM or on CSR identified by the literature but instead provide a novel categorization. (shrink)

How do we make causal judgments? Many studies have demonstrated that people are capable causal reasoners, achieving success on tasks from reasoning to categorization to interventions. However, less is known about the mental processes used to achieve such sophisticated judgments. We propose a new process model—the mutation sampler—that models causal judgments as based on a sample of possible states of the causal system generated using the Metropolis–Hastings sampling algorithm. Across a diverse array of tasks and conditions encompassing over (...) 1,700 participants, we found that our model provided a consistently closer fit to participant judgments than standard causal graphical models. In particular, we found that the biases introduced by mutation sampling accounted for people's consistent, predictable errors that the normative model by definition could not. Moreover, using a novel experimental methodology, we found that those biases appeared in the samples that participants explicitly judged to be representative of a causal system. We conclude by advocating sampling methods as plausible process‐level accounts of the computations specified by the causal graphical model framework and highlight opportunities for future research to identify not just what reasoners compute when drawing causal inferences, but also how they compute it. (shrink)

The enhancement of social inclusion is a key to maintaining cohesion in society and to foster the benefits of cultural diversity. Using insights from the Dual Identity Model with a special focus on active categorization, we develop an intervention to increase social inclusion. Our intervention encourages the participants to categorize on a superordinate level while being exposed to their own culture. Across a set of experiments, we test the efficacy of our intervention against control conditions on the effect (...) of social inclusion, measured by perceived social distance. Results show an increase in cultural closeness and provide preliminary support for the use of a DIM-based intervention to increase intercultural inclusion. (shrink)

Abstract Since their inception, distributional models of semantics have been criticized as inadequate cognitive theories of human semantic learning and representation. A principal challenge is that the representations derived by distributional models are purely symbolic and are not grounded in perception and action; this challenge has led many to favor feature-based models of semantic representation. We argue that the amount of perceptual and other semantic information that can be learned from purely distributional statistics has been underappreciated. We compare the representations (...) of three feature-based and nine distributional models using a semantic clustering task. Several distributional models demonstrated semantic clustering comparable with clustering-based on feature-based representations. Furthermore, when trained on child-directed speech, the same distributional models perform as well as sensorimotor-based feature representations of children’s lexical semantic knowledge. These results suggest that, to a large extent, information relevant for extracting semantic categories is redundantly coded in perceptual and linguistic experience. Detailed analyses of the semantic clusters of the feature-based and distributional models also reveal that the models make use of complementary cues to semantic organization from the two data streams. Rather than conceptualizing feature-based and distributional models as competing theories, we argue that future focus should be on understanding the cognitive mechanisms humans use to integrate the two sources. (shrink)

Current research findings on metaphor in language and thought may be interpreted as producing a paradox of metaphor; that is, most metaphor is not processed metaphorically by a cross-domain mapping involving some form of comparison. This paradox can be resolved by attending to one crucial aspect of metaphor in communication: the question whether metaphor is used as deliberately metaphorical or not. It is likely that most deliberate metaphor is processed metaphorically (by comparison), as opposed to most nondeliberate metaphor, which may (...) be assumed to be typically not processed metaphorically (that is, by categorization). This resolves the paradox of metaphor because it suggests that all “metaphor in communication” (all deliberate metaphor) is processed metaphorically. Detailed comments are offered on the notion of metaphor deliberateness and on the nature of a three-dimensional model of metaphor in discourse involving metaphor in language, thought, and communication. (shrink)

Australian law affirms a binary construction of fertility/infertility. This model is based upon the medical categorization of infertility as a disease. Law supports medicine in prioritizing technology, such as in vitro fertilization, as treatment for infertility. This prioritization of a medico-legal model of infertility in turn marginalizes alternative means of family creation such as adoption, fostering, traditional surrogacy, and childlessness. This paper argues that this binary model masks the impact of medicalization upon reproductive choice and limits (...) opportunity for infertile individuals to create families. While medical technology should be available to enhance reproductive opportunity, infertile individuals will benefit from regulatory change which disentangles the medico-legal construct of infertility as a disease from the desire to create a family. This paper suggests that the medico-legal model of infertility should be reframed to support all opportunities for family creation equally, including non-medical opportunities such as adoption, fostering, and childlessness. (shrink)

Many different, seemingly mutually exclusive, theories of categorization have been proposed in recent years. The most notable theories have been those based on prototypes, exemplars, and causal models. This chapter provides “representation theorems” for each of these theories in the framework of probabilistic graphical models. More specifically, it shows for each of these psychological theories that the categorization judgments predicted and explained by the theory can be wholly captured using probabilistic graphical models. In other words, probabilistic graphical models (...) provide a lingua franca for these disparate categorization theories, and so we can quite directly compare the different types of theories. These formal results are used to explain a variety of surprising empirical results, and to propose several novel theories of categorization. (shrink)

We apply the “wisdom of the crowd” idea to human category learning, using a simple approach that combines people's categorization decisions by taking the majority decision. We first show that the aggregated crowd category learning behavior found by this method performs well, learning categories more quickly than most or all individuals for 28 previously collected datasets. We then extend the approach so that it does not require people to categorize every stimulus. We do this using a model‐based method (...) that predicts the categorization behavior people would produce for new stimuli, based on their behavior with observed stimuli, and uses the majority of these predicted decisions. We demonstrate and evaluate the model‐based approach in two case studies. In the first, we use the general recognition theory decision‐bound model of categorization (Ashby & Townsend, ) to infer each person's decision boundary for two categories of perceptual stimuli, and we use these inferences to make aggregated predictions about new stimuli. In the second, we use the generalized context model exemplar model of categorization (Nosofsky, ) to infer each person's selective attention for face stimuli, and we use these inferences to make aggregated predictions about withheld stimuli. In both case studies, we show that our method successfully predicts the category of unobserved stimuli, and we emphasize that the aggregated crowd decisions arise from psychologically interpretable processes and parameters. We conclude by discussing extensions and potential real‐world applications of the approach. (shrink)

I argue that the principle of care, developed in care ethics, can be a better ground for civic solidarity than that of civic friendship. To make my argument, I present a preliminary categorization of extant discussion on civic solidarity as either falling under the commonality model or the relationship model. I argue that the reciprocity model of civic friendship proposed by Danielle Allen and Sibyl Schwarzenbach serves as a synthesis of the two models, constructing the most (...) compelling theory of civic friendship available.Despite the many virtues of the reciprocity model of civic friendship, I argue that the principle of care is practically prior and more appealing as a model of civic solidarity than that of civic friendship. In unpacking this argument, I present the concept of care as a political principle developed in care ethics and compare and contrast it with the concept of civic friendship. (shrink)

A theory of categorization is presented in which knowledge of causal relationships between category features is represented in terms of asymmetric and probabilistic causal mechanisms. According to causal‐model theory, objects are classified as category members to the extent they are likely to have been generated or produced by those mechanisms. The empirical results confirmed that participants rated exemplars good category members to the extent their features manifested the expectations that causal knowledge induces, such as correlations between feature pairs (...) that are directly connected by causal relationships. These expectations also included sensitivity to higher‐order feature interactions that emerge from the asymmetries inherent in causal relationships. Quantitative fits of causal‐model theory were superior to those obtained with extensions to traditional similarity‐based models that represent causal knowledge either as higher‐order relational features or “prior exemplars” stored in memory. (shrink)

The acquisition of syntactic categories is a crucial step in the process of acquiring syntax. At this stage, before a full grammar is available, only surface cues are available to the learner. Previous computational models have demonstrated that local contexts are informative for syntactic categorization. However, local contexts are affected by sentence-level structure. In this paper, we add sentence type as an observed feature to a model of syntactic category acquisition, based on experimental evidence showing that pre-syntactic children (...) are able to distinguish sentence type using prosody and other cues. The model, a Bayesian Hidden Markov Model, allows for adding sentence type in a few different ways; we find that sentence type can aid syntactic category acquisition if it is used to characterize the differences in word order between sentence types. In these models, knowledge of sentence type permits similar gains to those found by extending the local context. (shrink)

In this chapter I discuss the role of mind perception in the categorization of individuals as moral agents and moral patients. Moral agents are defined as individuals that can commit morally wrong actions and deserve to be held accountable for those actions; moral patients are defined as individuals that can be morally wronged and whose interests are worthy of moral consideration. It is generally agreed that the attribution of moral agency and moral patiency is linked to the attribution of (...) mental capacities and traits. The chapter surveys a variety of models of mind perception, some of which focus on the representation of mental capacities, some of which focus on the representation of mental traits. The dominant model of mind perception in moral psychology is the experience-agency model (Gray et al., 2007), which divides the space of mindedness into experiential capacities like sentience and self-awareness, and agentic capacities like deliberative reasoning and self-control. Reviewing the empirical literature on moral categorization, I argue that neither the experience-agency model nor any of the major alternatives to it (i.e., the warmth-competence model, the agency-communion model, and the human nature–human uniqueness model), captures the full panoply of mental features to which everyday attributions of moral agency and moral patiency are sensitive. (shrink)

Recent metaphor research has revealed that metaphor comprehension involves both categorization and comparison processes. This finding has triggered the following central question: Which property determines the choice between these two processes for metaphor comprehension? Three competing views have been proposed to answer this question: the conventionality view (Bowdle & Gentner, 2005), aptness view (Glucksberg & Haught, 2006b), and interpretive diversity view (Utsumi, 2007); these views, respectively, argue that vehicle conventionality, metaphor aptness, and interpretive diversity determine the choice between the (...) categorization and comparison processes. This article attempts to answer the question regarding which views are plausible by using cognitive modeling and computer simulation based on a semantic space model. In the simulation experiment, categorization and comparison processes are modeled in a semantic space constructed by latent semantic analysis. These two models receive word vectors for the constituent words of a metaphor and compute a vector for the metaphorical meaning. The resulting vectors can be evaluated according to the degree to which they mimic the human interpretation of the same metaphor; the maximum likelihood estimation determines which of the two models better explains the human interpretation. The result of the model selection is then predicted by three metaphor properties (i.e., vehicle conventionality, aptness, and interpretive diversity) to test the three views. The simulation experiment for Japanese metaphors demonstrates that both interpretive diversity and vehicle conventionality affect the choice between the two processes. On the other hand, it is found that metaphor aptness does not affect this choice. This result can be treated as computational evidence supporting the interpretive diversity and conventionality views. (shrink)

This work contrasts Giovanni Sartor’s view of inferential semantics of legal concepts with a probabilistic model of theory formation. The work further explores possibilities of implementing Kemp’s probabilistic model of theory formation in the context of mapping legal concepts between two individual legal systems. For implementing the legal concept mapping, we propose a cross-categorization approach that combines three mathematical models: the Bayesian Model of Generalization, the probabilistic model of theory formation, i.e., the Infinite Relational (...) class='Hi'>Model first introduced by Kemp et al. and its extended model, i.e., the normal-IRM proposed by Herlau et al.. We apply our cross-categorization approach to datasets where legal concepts related to educational systems are respectively defined by the Japanese- and the Danish authorities according to the International Standard Classification of Education. The main contribution of this work is the proposal of a conceptual framework of the cross-categorization approach that, inspired by Sartor, attempts to explain reasoner’s inferential mechanisms. (shrink)

The representation of similarities is a viable concept for a cognitive extension of visual psychophysics to the recognition of shapes, bringing issues such as similarity and categorization back into that field. However, as a framework it appears too general to place constraints on a particular process model for categorization. In particular, a preference for Chorus-like schemes with respect to structure-oriented approaches is unwarranted.

How do essentialist beliefs about categories arise? We hypothesize that such beliefs are transmitted via language. We subject large language models (LLMs) to vignettes from the literature on essentialist categorization and find that they align well with people when the studies manipulated teleological information -- information about what something is for. We examine whether in a classic test of essentialist categorization -- the transformation task -- LLMs prioritize teleological properties over information about what something looks like, or is (...) made of. Experiments 1 and 2 find that telos and what something is made of matter more than appearance. Experiment 3 manipulates all three factors and finds that what something is for matters more than what it's made of. Overall, these studies suggest that language alone may be sufficient to give rise to essentialist beliefs, and that information about what something is for matters more. (shrink)

This paper draws attention to a simple distinction that, when ignored, considerably distorts discussion of what should be subject to what form of ethical review and by whom. The distinction is between two types of ethical questions that can be asked about any investigation, and indeed about many other types of activity. First, there are questions of the kind: Is it ethical to conduct this investigation at all? Second, there are questions such as: How can this investigation be conducted in (...) an ethical way? Consideration of these questions and of the categorization of research based on study design can lead to a model for triage, however the aim of the paper is not so much to make a real practical suggestion but rather the to highlight the distinction between two types of ethical question. It is clear thinking on the relationship between the two types of question that might lead to some practical suggestions and serve to better define the scope of research ethics review. (shrink)

The origin of features from nonfeatural information is a problem that should concern all theories of object categorization and recognition, not just the flexible feature approach. In contrast to the idea that new features must originate from combinations of simpler fixed features, we argue that holistic features can be created from a direct imprinting on the visual medium. Furthermore, featural descriptions can emerge from processes that by themselves do not operate on feature detectors. Once acquired, features can be decomposed (...) into component features if required by other categorizations. We therefore argue that it is not necessary to separate holistic and componential approaches to representations, because the latter is a development of the former. The requirements for representational flexibility outstrip the performance of any existing computational models, but specific mechanisms of feature creation are discussed and evaluated. Challenges for feature creation mechanisms are discussed together with the constraints (perceptual, statistical, functional, and task) they will need to satisfy. (shrink)

Two categorization arguments pose particular problems for localist connectionist models. The internal representations of localist networks do not reflect the variability within categories in the environment, whereas networks with distributed internal representations do reflect this essential feature of categories. We provide a real biological example of perceptual categorization in the monkey that seems to require population coding (i.e., distributed internal representations).

This paper discusses contemporary advancements in the affective sciences that can inform the music-emotion literature. Key concepts in these theories are outlined, highlighting their points of agreement and disagreement. This summary shows the importance of appraisal within the emotion process, provides a greater emphasis upon goal-directed accounts of behavior, and a need to move away from discrete emotion “folk” concepts and toward the study of an emotional episode and its components. Consequently, three contemporary music emotion theories are examined through a (...) skeptical lens. This critique highlights the over-reliance upon categorization and a lack of acknowledgment of appraisal processes, specifically goal-directed appraisal, in examining how individual experiences of music emerge in different contexts. Based on this critique of current music-emotion models, we present our skeptically informed CODA model - Constructivistly-Organised Dimensional-Appraisal model. This model addresses skeptical limitations of existing theories, reinstates the role of goal-directed appraisal as central to what makes music relevant and meaningful to an individual in different contexts and brings together different theoretical frameworks into a single model. From the development of the CODA model, several hypotheses are proposed and applied to musical contexts. These hypotheses address theoretical issues such as acknowledging individual and contextual differences in emotional intensity and valence, as well as differentiating between induced and perceived emotions, and utilitarian and aesthetic emotions. We conclude with a sections of recommendations for future research. Altogether, this theoretical critique and proposed model points toward a positive future direction for music-emotion science. One where researchers can take forward testable predictions about what makes music relevant and meaningful to an individual. (shrink)

This paper introduces an active–passive framework to the conceptualization and measurement of counterproductive work behavior (CWB), in order to establish a dimension that categorizes the content of behaviors within the existing interpersonally directed (CWBI) and organizationally directed (CWBO) framework. Doing so provides new insights into the relationship between workplace counterproductivity and sleep. Stressor-emotion models of CWB predict that employees engage in counterproductivity in response to workplace stressors, but extant research suggests that counterproductive behavior increases strain, including reduced sleep quality. We (...) develop a new scale for measuring CWB that differentiates active and passive behaviors and demonstrates the potential for positive intrapsychic consequences for passive CWBI. In Study 1, using five samples, we demonstrate the convergent and discriminant validity, reliability, and acceptable psychometric properties of a 19-item scale that reconceptualizes CWB into four dimensions: active CWBI, passive CWBI, active CWBO, and passive CWBO. In Study 2, using experience-sampling methodology, we found that when employees engage in active CWBO at work in the afternoon they experience reduced sleep quality that evening, whereas engaging in passive CWBI was related to increased sleep quality. (shrink)

Two experiments examined the impact of causal relations between features on categorization in 5‐ to 6‐year‐old children and adults. Participants learned artificial categories containing instances with causally related features and noncausal features. They then selected the most likely category member from a series of novel test pairs. Classification patterns and logistic regression were used to diagnose the presence of independent effects of causal coherence, causal status, and relational centrality. Adult classification was driven primarily by coherence when causal links were (...) deterministic (Experiment 1) but showed additional influences of causal status when links were probabilistic (Experiment 2). Children’s classification was based primarily on causal coherence in both cases. There was no effect of relational centrality in either age group. These results suggest that the generative model (Rehder, 2003a) provides a good account of causal categorization in children as well as adults. (shrink)

Two experiments examined the impact of causal relations between features on categorization in 5- to 6-year-old children and adults. Participants learned artificial categories containing instances with causally related features and noncausal features. They then selected the most likely category member from a series of novel test pairs. Classification patterns and logistic regression were used to diagnose the presence of independent effects of causal coherence, causal status, and relational centrality. Adult classification was driven primarily by coherence when causal links were (...) deterministic (Experiment 1) but showed additional influences of causal status when links were probabilistic (Experiment 2). Children’s classification was based primarily on causal coherence in both cases. There was no effect of relational centrality in either age group. These results suggest that the generative model (Rehder, 2003a) provides a good account of causal categorization in children as well as adults. (shrink)

Though individual categorization or decision processes have been studied separately in many previous investigations, few studies have investigated how they interact by using a two-stage task of first categorizing and then deciding. To address this issue, we investigated a categorization-decision task in two experiments. In both, participants were shown six faces varying in width, first asked to categorize the faces, and then decide a course of action for each face. Each experiment was designed to include three groups, and (...) for each group, we manipulated the probabilistic contingencies between stimulus, category assignments, and decision consequences. For each group, each participant received three different sequences of category response, category feedback, decision response, and decision feedback. We found that participants were only partially responsive in the appropriate directions to the contingencies assigned to each group. Comparisons of results from different sequences provided evidence for empirical interference effects of categorization on decisions. The empirical interference effect is defined as the difference between the probability of taking a hostile action in decision-alone conditions and the total probability of taking a hostile action in categorization-decision conditions. To test competing accounts for multiple empirical results, including two-stage choice probabilities and empirical interference effects, we compared a quantum cognition model versus a two-stage exemplar categorization model at both aggregate and individual levels. Using a Bayesian information criterion, we found that the quantum model provided an overall better model fit than the exemplar model. Although both models predicted empirical interference effects, the exemplar model was able to generate probabilistic deviation by incorporating category information of the first stage into the feature representation of the subsequent decision stage, while the quantum model produced interference effect by superposition, measurement, and quantum entanglement. (shrink)

As a result of a spate of studies geared to investigating Brazilian racial categories, it is now believed by many that Brazilians reason about race in a manner quite different to that of Americans. This paper will argue that this conclusion is premature, as the studies in question have not, in fact, investigated Brazilian categories. What they have done is elicit sorting tasks on the basis of appearances, but the cognitive models of respondents have not been investigated in order to (...) determine what are the boundaries of their concepts. Sorting based on appearances is not sufficient to infer the boundaries of concepts whenever appearance is not a defining criterion for the concepts in question, as the case appears to be for racial and ethnic categories. Following a critique of the methods used, I review a terminological and theoretical confusion concerning the use of the terms 'emic' and 'etic' in anthropology that appears directly responsible for the failure so far to choose methods appropriate to parsing the conceptual domain of 'race' in Brazil. (shrink)