harnad@seismo.CSS.GOV@mind.UUCP (03/12/87)
The following is the abstract of a forthcoming article on which BBS
[Behavioral and Brain Sciences -- An international, interdisciplinary
Journal of Open Peer Commentary, published by Cambridge University Press]
invites self-nominations by potential commentators.
(Please note that the editorial office must exercise selectivity among the
nominations received so as to ensure a strong and balanced cross-specialty
spectrum of eligible commentators. The procedure is explained after
the abstract.)
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THE COMPARATIVE PSYCHOLOGY OF INTELLIGENCE
Euan M. Macphail
Department of Psychology
University of York
Heslington, York YO1 5DD
United Kingdom
Recent decades have seen a number of influential attacks on
the comparative psychology of learning and intelligence. Two
specific charges have been that the use of distantly related
species has prevented making valid evolutionary inferences and that
learning mechanisms are species-specific adaptations to
ecological niches and hence not properly comparable between
species. It is argued here that investigating distantly related
species may allow valuable insights into the structure of
intelligence and that the question of whether learning
mechanisms are niche-specific is one that can only be answered
by comparative work in "non-natural" situations. The problems
involved in the definition and assessment of intelligence are
discussed. Experimental work has not succeeded in
demonstrating differences in intellect among nonhuman
vertebrates; hence the null hypothesus that there exist no
differences in intellect amongst nonhuman vertebrates should
be adopted. The superiority of human intelligence stems from
our possession of a species-specific language-aquisition
device. One implication of the null hypothesis is that general
problem-solving capacity is independent of niche-specific
adaptations. A second implication is that problem-solving may
involve relatively simple mechanisms: Association formation in
particular may play a central role in nonhuman intelligence,
allowing the successful detection of causal links between
events, causality being a common constraint to all niches.
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This is an experiment in using the Net to find eligible commentators
for articles in the Behavioral and Brain Sciences (BBS), an
international, interdisciplinary journal of "open peer commentary,"
published by Cambridge University Press, with its editorial office in
Princeton NJ.
The journal publishes important and controversial interdisciplinary
articles in psychology, neuroscience, behavioral biology, cognitive science,
artificial intelligence, linguistics and philosophy. Articles are
rigorously refereed and, if accepted, are circulated to a large number
of potential commentators around the world in the various specialties
on which the article impinges. Their 1000-word commentaries are then
co-published with the target article as well as the author's response
to each. The commentaries consist of analyses, elaborations,
complementary and supplementary data and theory, criticisms and
cross-specialty syntheses.
Commentators are selected by the following means: (1) BBS maintains a
computerized file of over 3000 BBS Associates; the size of this group
is increased annually as authors, referees, commentators and nominees
of current Associates become eligible to become Associates. Many
commentators are selected from this list. (2) The BBS editorial office
does informal as well as formal computerized literature searches on
the topic of the target articles to find additional potential commentators
from across specialties and around the world who are not yet BBS Associates.
(3) The referees recommend potential commentators. (4) The author recommends
potential commentators.
We now propose to add the following source for selecting potential
commentators: The abstract of the target article will be posted in the
relevant newsgroups on the net. Eligible individuals who judge that they
would have a relevant commentary to contribute should contact the editor at
the e-mail address indicated at the bottom of this message, or should
write by normal mail to:
Stevan Harnad
Editor
Behavioral and Brain Sciences
20 Nassau Street, Room 240
Princeton NJ 08542
(phone: 609-921-7771)
"Eligibility" usually means being an academically trained professional
contributor to one of the disciplines mentioned earlier, or to related
academic disciplines. The letter should indicate the candidate's
general qualifications as well as their basis for wishing to serve as
commentator for the particular target article in question. It is
preferable also to enclose a Curriculum Vitae. (This self-nomination
format may also be used by those who wish to become BBS Associates,
but they must also specify a current Associate who knows their work
and is prepared to nominate them; where no current Associate is known
by the candidate, the editorial office will send the Vita to
approporiate Associates to ask whether they would be prepared to
nominate the candidate.)
BBS has rapidly become a widely read read and highly influential forum in the
biobehavioral and cognitive sciences. A recent recalculation of BBS's
"impact factor" (ratio of citations to number of articles) in the
American Psychologist [41(3) 1986] reports that already in its fifth year of
publication (1982) BBS's impact factor had risen to become the highest of
all psychology journals indexed as well as 3rd highest of all 1300 journals
indexed in the Social Sciences Citation Index and 50th of all 3900 journals
indexed in the Science Citation index, which indexes all the scientific
disciplines.
Potential commentators should send their names, addresses, a description of
their general qualifications and their basis for seeking to comment on
this target article in particular to the address indicated earlier or
to the following e-mail address:
{allegra, bellcore, seismo, rutgers, packard} !princeton!mind!harnad
harnad%mind@princeton.csnet
[Subscription information is available from Harry Florentine at
Cambridge University Press: 800-221-4512]