rba@petrus.UUCP (05/15/85)
SOCIETY FOR PHILOSOPHY AND PSYCHOLOGY
Annual Meeting, University of Toronto, 15 - 18 May 1985
Theme: "EXPLAINING COGNITION: CONSCIOUS AND UNCONSCIOUS"
For program information the unixnet address for the chairman is:
bellcore!princeton!mind!srh
or write to: Stevan Harnad, Behavioral & Brain Sciences, 20 Nas-
sau Street, Suite 240, Princeton NJ 08540
For information about local arrangements, write to: David Olson,
McLuhan Center, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, CANADA
For information about the Society and attendance, write to: Owen
Flanagan, Secretary/Treasurer, Society for Philosophy & Psycholo-
gy, Philosophy Department, Wellesley College, Wellesley, MA 02181
P R O G R A M
Wednesday 15 May: 9am - 12 noon
Symposium: "The Empirical Status of Psychoanalytic Theory"
Chairman: P. Carvath
The empirical status of psychoanalytic theory will be considered
in terms of the following questions: (1) Is psychoanalytic theory
testable? (2) If so, how much of it is testable, and, in particu-
lar, what parts? (3) How is it testable (clinically? experimen-
tally? epidemiologically?)? (4) How much of psychoanalytic theory
has actually been tested in these ways, and was the theory sup-
ported by the evidence? (5) Are future tests of psychoanalytic
theory likely to yield outcomes that support the theory, and is
this theory the best one to use to guide future research? (6) Is
the proportion of psychoanalytic theory that is testable compar-
able to the proportions of other scientific theories that are te-
stable, or is evidence disproportionately remote from or ir-
relevant to psychoanalytic theory? (7) Is testability irrelevant
to some kinds of theoretical understanding? (8) Is psychoanalytic
theory based on adequate views of conscious and unconscious
processes and explanation? These questions will be discussed by
clinicians, experimentalists and methodologists of science.
THE VALIDITY OF HIDDEN MOTIVES IN PSYCHOANALYTIC THEORY
(A. Grunbaum)
EXPERIMENTAL STUDIES OF FREUDIAN THEORY (E. Erwin)
OBLIQUE TESTS OF PSYCHOANALYTIC HYPOTHESES (M. Eagle)
Discussants: B. von Eckardt, R. Woolfolk, J. Masling
----------
(Parrallel) Paper Session: "Perception and Cognition"
Chairman: C. Normore
To What Extent Do Beliefs Affect Apparent Motion?
(M. Dawson & R. Wright; discussant: P. Kolers)
Images, Pictures and Percepts
(D. Reisberg & D. Chambers; discussant: W. Savage)
What the First Words Tell Us About Meaning and Cognition
(A. Gopnik; discussant: G. Matthews)
_________________________________________________________________
Wednesday 15 May: 2pm - 5pm
Symposium: "Unconscious Processing"
Chairman: P. Kolers
It is undeniable that most cerebral information processing is un-
conscious. Not only are vegetative functions such as posture and
respiration (as well as automatized, overlearned skills) uncons-
ciously controlled by the brain, but even the basic processes
underlying higher cognitive activity are unavailable to conscious
introspection: No one knows "how" he actually adds two and two,
retrieves a name, recognizes a face. This is what makes cognitive
modeling a nontrivial enterprise. But apart from these basic cog-
nitive processes (about which our ignorance is sufficient to
demonstrate that that they are not conscious), there are some
kinds of processes that are at least normally accompanied by some
awareness of their occurrence. These include the detection,
discrimination and identification of verbal and perceptual in-
puts. New data indicate that even these activities may sometimes
occur without introspective awareness of their occurrence. This
new look at "subliminal perception" and related phenomena in a
contemporary psychophysical, information processing framework
will examine the evidence, methodological criteria and theoreti-
cal interpretations of the newer findings.
CONSCIOUSNESS AND PROCESSING (A. J. Marcel)
ON GETTING INFORMATION FROM THE COGNITIVE UNCONSCIOUS
(T. Carr)
DISTINGUISHING CONSCIOUS FROM UNCONSCIOUS PERCEPTUAL PROCESSES
(P. Merikle)
Discussants: W. Savage, A. Treisman, TBA
----------
(Parallel) Paper Session: "Induction and Information"
Chairman: R. Cohen
Beyond Holism: Induction in the Context of Problem-Solving
(P. Thagard & K. Holyoak; discussant: C. F. Schmidt)
The Pragmatics of Semantics
(M.A. Gluck & C.E. Corter; discussant: D. H. Helman)
About Promises
(J. Astington; discussant: L. Forgerson)
_________________________________________________________________
Wednesday 15 May: 7pm - 10pm
Symposium: "Paradoxical Neurological States"
Chairman: R. Puccetti
This symposium will consider neurological states that (based on
their symptoms and inferences from their symptoms) are very hard
to imagine "being in." These include: (1) "blindsight," i.e., the
loss of all conscious visual experience, but with the retention
of "visual" information (e.g., object location); (2) the anosag-
nosias and attentional disorders, i.e., the apparent unawareness
and denial of dramatic neurological deficits such as loss of
large portions of the visual field or of body sensation; (3)
deconnection phenomena such as alexia without agraphia (intact
vision with the loss of all ability to read but the retention of
the ability to write) or the split-brain patient's ability to
match but inability to name out-of-sight objects grasped with the
left hand; (4) various memory disorders such as the ability to
acquire cognitive information and skills with complete inability
to remember the episodes in which they were acquired;
(5) confabulations arising from these paradoxical
states (i.e., the unusual way patients rationalize having these
deficits). The clinical phenomenology of these paradoxical states
will be described and then they will be discussed in terms of
current philosophical, psychological and neurological theories of
cognition and consciousness.
ON BEING UNAWARE OF BEING UNAWARE: AGNOSTICISM AND CONFABULATION
ABOUT ONE'S AGNOSIA (O. Sacks)
NEW OBSERVATIONS ON VERBAL DISSOCIATIONS IN SPLIT-BRAIN PATIENTS
(M.S. Gazzaniga)
VISUAL AGNOSIA: SEPARATION OF PERCEPT FROM PRECEPT
(A. Kertesz)
Discussants: A. Marcel, P.Churchland, TBA
----------
(Parallel) Paper Session: "Category Formation - I"
Chairman: M. Thornton
On Beyond Zebra: The Relation of Linguistic and Visual Informa-
tion (R. Jackendoff)
Discussant: R. Millikan ("Back Before Aardvark")
_________________________________________________________________
Thursday 16 May: 9am - 12 noon
Symposium: "Category Formation - II"
Chairman: G. Hirst
Categorization is a fundamental human activity. It is involved in
everything from operant discrimination to perceptual recognition
to naming to describing. Five different approaches to categori-
zation now exist more or less in parallel: (1) The nativist ap-
proach, which holds that there are few, if any, nontrivial induc-
tive categories, and hence that most categories are preformed
(2) the statistical pattern recognition and
multidimensional scaling approach, which computer-models category
formation probabilistically; (3) the artificial intelligence ap-
proach, which models categorization with symbol-manipulation
rules; (4) the natural category approach, which investigates
categorization through reaction time studies and typicality judg-
ments and developmentally; (5) the categorical perception ap-
proach, which investigates categorization through discrimination
and identification studies. These approaches will be presented
and the interaction will aim at a synthesis.
CATEGORICAL PERCEPTION, CATEGORY INDUCTION AND CATEGORY REPRESEN-
TATION (S. Harnad)
INDEXING AND LEARNING (R. Schank)
ON THE EXISTENCE, NATURE AND PLASTICITY OF PERCEPTUAL
CATEGORIES (N. Macmillan)
Discussants: M. Lipton, G. Matthews, D. Young
_________________________________________________________________
Thursday 16 May: 2pm - 5pm
Workshop I: "Artificial Intelligence Versus Neural Modeling In
Psychological Theory"
Chairman: J. Barnden
The issues will be discussed at two levels, a practical one (P)
and a foundational one (F). At the practical level the following
two questions will be considered: (P1) Is psychological theory-
building more successful with or without constraints from neuros-
cientific evidence and neuroscientific considerations? (P2) Are
the current differences between models that are neurally motivat-
ed (which tend to be statistical, connectionistic, and lately,
parallel) and models that are not neurally motivated (which tend
to be symbol/sentence manipulative) fundamental differences, and
is one approach more promising than the other?
At the foundational level the questions will be: (F1) What are
the data that psychological theory should account for (behavioral
performance? cognitive competence? real-time topography and exe-
cution? neural activity?)? (F2) Is a successful functional theory
of higher cognitive performance and competence necessarily
"implementation-independent" (i.e., independent of the architec-
ture of the mechanism that embodies it)? Tne issues will be dis-
cussed in the context of actual current work in modeling.
ARCHITECTURAL LEVELS, SYMBOLS AND SUCH-LIKE THINGS (A.
Newell)
EPISTEMOLOGY AND THE NEW CONNECTIONISM (A. Goldman)
CORTICAL CONNECTIONS AND PARALLEL PROCESSING (D. Ballard)
NEURAL DYNAMICS OF ADAPTIVE PATTERN RECOGNITION: AUTOMATIC MATCH-
ING, SEARCH AND CATEGORY FORMATION (S. Grossberg)
PSYCHOLOGICAL THEORY AS EPISTEMOLOGY (P.C. Dodwell)
Discussants: J. Feldman, S.J. Hanson, P. Kitcher,
W. Lycan, A. Pellionisz, R. Schank
----------
Thursday 16 May: 7pm - 10pm
Workshop II: "AI vs. NM" (continuation of Workshop I)
Chairman: W. Seager
(see Workshop I)
_________________________________________________________________
Friday 17 May: 9am - 12 noon
Symposium: "Memory and Consciousness"
Chairman: R. Lockhart
The symposium will examine the distinction between memory (the
consequence of some experience) and remembering (the awareness of
past events), which involves consciousness of a past experience.
The distinction involves the relation between mental processes
that reasonably decribe the performance of intelligent systems
(whether animals, people or machines), that is, "subpersonal"
cognitive psychology, and the intentional mental activities and
states of conscious human adults: "intentional psychology."
MEMORY, INTUITION AND MENO'S PARADOX (K. Bowers)
MEMORY AND CONSCIOUSNESS IN ORGANIC AMNESIA (D.L.
Schacter)
MEMORY AS CONSCIOUS RECOLLECTION: COMPARATIVE AND DEVELOPMENTAL
ASPECTS (M.M. Moscovitch)
Discussants: A. Marcel, E. Tulving, TBA
----------
(Parallel) Paper Session: "Inferences About the Mind"
Chairman: J. Poland
The Puzzle of the Split-Brain Phenomenon
(S.C. Bringsjord; discussant: R. Puccetti)
The Mark of the Mental
(R. Puccetti; discussant: L. Alanen)
Natural Teleology
(S. Silvers; discussant: J. Barnden)
__________________________________________________________________
Friday 17 May: 2pm - 5pm
Symposium: "The Reality of the 'G' (General) Factor in the
Measurent and Modeling of Cognitive Capacity"
Chairman: P. Hertzberg
When intelligence tests are factor-analyzed (i.e., the structure
of their correlations with one another is reduced to a small
number of underlying variables), one general, overall factor al-
ways emerges, along with a number of special factors peculiar to
some groups of tests and not others. The general ("g") factor has
been interpreted as a unitary measure of general intelligence.
Some have challenged the reality of "g" on the grounds that indi-
vidual test items (and indeed entire tests) are so constructed as
to correlate with one another, and hence the overall positive
correlation factor is built in; moreover, it is argued that it is
fallacious to think in terms of an underlying, one-dimensional
unitary intelligence. Others have argued that "g" is an empirical
finding after all, because even tests constructed and validated
to measure the special abilities (e.g., verbal versus spatial
skills) have high "g" loadings, and indeed the more discriminat-
ing tests (the ones that are more sensitive to and predictive of
individual differences) tend to have the higher "g" loadings. The
technical and conceptual problems of measuring, validating and
modeling human cognitive capacities will be discussed in the con-
text of the interpretation of "g."
USING BASIC COGNITIVE TASKS TO PREDICT INTELLECTUAL FUNCTIONING
(D. K. Detterman)
THE 'G' BEYOND FACTOR ANALYSIS (A. Jensen)
TBA
Discussants: W. Rozeboom, R. Traub, TBA
----------
(Parallel) Paper Session: "Evolution of Social and Cognitive Structures"
Chairman: C. Olsen
Is Decision Theory Reducible to Evolutionary Biology?
(W.S, Cooper; discussant: F. Wilson)
Human Nature, Love and Morality: The Possibility of Altruism
(L. Thomas; discussant: N. Mrosovsky)
On How To Get Rid of the Craftsman
(B. Dahlbom; discussant: K. Norwich)
_________________________________________________________________
Friday 17 May: 7pm - 8:30pm
Presidential Address
Chairman: F. Dretske (president-elect)
REDUCTIONISM IN THE INVESTIGATION OF CONSCIOUSNESS
P. S. Churchland (president, SPP)
_________________________________________________________________
Saturday 18 May: 9am - 12 noon
Symposium: New Directions in Evolutionary Theory
Chairman: A. Jensen
Among the current developments in evolutionary theory and their
implications for psychology that will be discussed are: (1) The
"new preformationism," arising chiefly from develomental biology,
according to which there are substantial structural constraints
on the variation on which selection can operate; this implies
that there are structures and functions that cannot be regarded
as having been shaped by random variation and selection by conse-
quences but rather as having arisen from boundary conditions on
biological structures. The issue is particularlly relevant to
questions about the origins of cognitive and linguistic struc-
tures. (2) Current sociobiological theory has be-
come concerned with cognitive questions, in particular, the ex-
istence of "cognitive primitives" on which selection would
operate in a way that is analogous to its effects on traits coded
by genes: Is this "gene-culture co-evolution" and its new unit,
the "culturgen" just overinclusive curve-fitting or is there a
real empirical phenomenon here? (3) In general, are the kinds of
assumptions and inclusive-fitness calculations that characterize
sociobiological theorizing (and that have been critically re-
ferred to as "just-so stories") a reasonable explanatory handicap
or signs of taking the wrong theoretical direction? In particu-
lar, when is a conscious, cognitive explanation of a behavior
preferable to an unconscious, fitness-related one?
THE NEW PREFORMATIONISM: AN EMBRYOLOGIST'S PERSPECTIVE
(E. Balon; discussant: M. Ruse)
METHODOLOGICAL BEHAVIORISM, EVOLUTION AND GAME THEORY
(E. Sober; discussant: A. Rapoport)
EVOLUTIONARY VERSUS COGNITIVE EXPLANATIONS OF CRIME AND PUNISH-
MENT: A FALSE DICHOTOMY
(W. Shields; discussant: A. Rosenberg)
------------------------------
(Parallel) Symposium: "Psychology, Pictures and Drawing"
Chairman: W. Savage
The past decade has seen considerable interest in theory of dep-
iction and allied theories of drawing. Current theories are
technically well constructed, significant in themselves and, in
addition, have important implications for neighboring areas of
psychology. Yet they are often distinct in the assumptions they
make about perception, communication and the environment. The
present symposium draws together philosophers, educators and
psychologists who have developed theories about pictures, percep-
tion and drawing. Assumptions will be reviewed and implications
will be discussed.
PRODUCTION PROCESSES FOR DRAWING: FUNCTIONAL UNITS OF INFORMATION
PROCESSING (J. Caron-Pargue)
A NEOSTRUCTURALIST ANALYSIS OF DRAWING DEVELOPMENT (S.
Dennis)
MENTALISM AND PICTURES: THE POWERS OF ELEMENTS, CHOICES OVER
GEOMETRIES AND PICTORIAL METAPHORS (J.M. Kennedy)
THEORIES OF PICTURES AND THE PICTURE THEORY OF PERCEPTION
(S. Wilcox)
CLASSIFYING PICTURES: A THEORY OF PICTORIAL REPRESENTATION BASED
ON MARR'S ACCOUNT OF VISION (J. Willats)
Discussants: S. Brison, D. Pariser
_________________________________________________________________
Saturday 18 May: 2pm - 5pm
Symposium: "The Scientific Status of Parapsychological Research"
Chairman: I. P. Howard
In parapsychology there appears to be a chronic polarization of
rival views in a way that only occurs occasionally and briefly at
the frontiers of other kinds of scientific research. The polari-
zation consists of those who accept the validity of the reported
phenomena and of the theoretical framework accounting for them
and those who do not. The following questions will be considered:
(1) Is the polarization merely a prejudice, or are there objec-
tive characteristics that set this field of research apart? (2)
Are there special problems with furnishing replicable positive
evidence in this area? (3) Are there logical problems with the
theoretical framework in which the research is undertaken? (4)
Are there statistical problems with the data-analysis and the
underlying assumptions? (5) Is there any possibility of resolu-
tion, or will the field always continue to split among believers
and nonbelievers, and if the latter, (6) what does that imply
about the scientific validity of this domain of inquiry? These
questions will be discussed, in the context of representative
current experimental work in parapsychological research, by
parapsychologists, skeptics and (as yet) uncommitted methodolo-
gists.
THE MANIFESTATIONS OF BIAS IN CRITICISM OF PARAPSYCHOLOGY (R. L.
Morris)
PARAPSYCHOLOGY: WHERE IS THE PHENOMENON ABOUT WHICH TO BUILD A
SCIENCE? (J.E. Alcock)
AN EXPERIMENTALIST'S PERSPECTIVE ON THE RESOLUTION OF THE PSI
CONTROVERSY (C. Honorton)
Discussants: K. Emmett, R. Hyman, M. Truzzi
------------------------------
(Parallel) Symposium: "The Ascription of Knowledge States to
Children: Seeing, Believing and Knowing
Chairman: TBA
Considerable discussion in cognitive science surrounds the issue
of the ascription of beliefs to animals, machines and young chil-
dren. Opinions range from that of Davidson, who argues that one
cannot have beliefs unless one has a concept of belief, to that
of Searle, who argues that "only someone in the grip of a philo-
sophical theory would deny that dogs and children have beliefs."
Recent research on children's ascription of beliefs to others and
to themselves in the interpretation of visual events may cast
some light on this question.
SEEING, THINKING AND KNOWING: ON THE ASCRIPTION OF MENTAL STATES
TO CHILDREN (D.R. Olson & J.W. Astington)
THE APPEARANCE/REALITY DISTINCTION AND CONCEPTUAL PERSPECTIVE-
TAKING (M. Taylor & J. H. Flavell)
IGNORANCE VERSUS FALSE BELIEF: A DEVELOPMENTAL LAG IN EPISTEMIC
STATE ATTRIBUTION (J. Perner & H. Wimmer)
Discussants: F. Dretske, S. Kuczaj
_________________________________________________________________
Saturday 18 May: 7pm - 10pm
Symposium: "Interpretation Versus Explanation in Cognitive and
Social Theory"
Chairman: A. Grunbaum
The following questions will be considered: (1) What is an expla-
nation, and is "scientific" explanation an atypical case or a
paradigmatic one? (2) What is the role of testability and falsi-
fiability in explanation? (3) What is the role of considerations
of satisfyingness, coherence, elegance and other subjective cri-
teria in explanation? (4) Are there different explanatory metho-
dologies in the natural sciences and ther "human" sciences? (5)
Is there an objective way to choose among rival interpretations?
(Should there be? Is there one in the case of rival scientific
theories?) (6) Is there anything objective to replace the outmod-
ed "positivistic" stereotype? Pro and antihermeneuticists will
participate and the discussion will focus on the role of in-
terpretation in psychological and social scientific theory.
TOWARDS AN INTERPRETIVE PSYCHOLOGY (E.V. Sullivan)
INTERPRETATION IN PERCEPTION (G. Nicholson)
EMOTION AS A MATRIX FOR INTERPRETATION (R. de Sousa)
Discussants: S. Harnad, A. Rosenberg, R. Woolfolk