This is a response to Jerry Fodor’s article, Fodor, J. (1980). "Methodological solipsism as a research strategy in cognitive psychology." Behavioral and Brain Sciences 3: 63-109.

The paper explores the distinction between two doctrines, both of which inform theory construction in much of modern cognitive psychology: the representational theory of mind and the computational theory of mind. According to the former, propositional attitudes are to be construed as relations that organisms bear to mental representations. According to the latter, mental processes have access only to formal (nonsemantic) properties of the mental representations over which they are defined.The following claims are defended: (1) That the traditional dispute between (...) “rational” and “naturalistic” psychology is plausibly viewed as an argument about the status of the computational theory of mind. Rational psychologists accept a formality condition on the specification of mental processes; naturalists do not. (2) That to accept the formality condition is to endorse a version of methodological solipsism. (3) That the acceptance of some such condition is warranted, at least for that part of psychology which concerns itself with theories of the mental causation of behavior. This is because: (4) such theories require nontransparent taxonomies of mental states; and (5) nontransparent taxonomies individuate mental states without reference to their semantic properties. Equivalently, (6) nontransparent taxonomies respect the way that the organism represents the object of its propositional attitudes toitself, and it is this representation which functions in the causation of behavior.The final section of the paper considers the prospect for a naturalistic psychology: one which defines its generalizations over relations between mental representations and their environmental causes, thus seeking to account for the semantic properties of propositional attitudes. Two related arguments are proposed, both leading to the conclusion that no such research strategy is likely to prove fruitful. (shrink)

How do people make deductions? The orthodox view in psychology is that they use formal rules of inference like those of a “natural deduction” system.Deductionargues that their logical competence depends, not on formal rules, but on mental models. They construct models of the situation described by the premises, using their linguistic knowledge and their general knowledge. They try to formulate a conclusion based on these models that maintains semantic information, that expresses it parsimoniously, and that makes explicit something not directly (...) stated by any premise. They then test the validity of the conclusion by searching for alternative models that might refute the conclusion. The theory also resolves long-standing puzzles about reasoning, including how nonmonotonic reasoning occurs in daily life. The book reports experiments on all the main domains of deduction, including inferences based on prepositional connectives such as “if” and “or,” inferences based on relations such as “in the same place as,” inferences based on quantifiers such as “none,” “any,” and “only,” and metalogical inferences based on assertions about the true and the false. Where the two theories make opposite predictions, the results confirm the model theory and run counter to the formal rule theories. Without exception, all of the experiments corroborate the two main predictions of the model theory: inferences requiring only one model are easier than those requiring multiple models, and erroneous conclusions are usually the result of constructing only one of the possible models of the premises. (shrink)

Beyond modularityattempts a synthesis of Fodor's anticonstructivist nativism and Piaget's antinativist constructivism. Contra Fodor, I argue that: (1) the study of cognitive development is essential to cognitive science, (2) the module/central processing dichotomy is too rigid, and (3) the mind does not begin with prespecified modules; rather, development involves a gradual process of “modularization.” Contra Piaget, I argue that: (1) development rarely involves stagelike domain-general change and (2) domainspecific predispositions give development a small but significant kickstart by focusing the infant's (...) attention on proprietary inputs. Development does not stop at efficient learning. A fundamental aspect of human development (“representational redescription”) is the hypothesized process by which information that isina cognitive system becomes progressively explicit knowledgetothat system. Development thus involves two complementary processes of progressive modularization and progressive “explicitation.” Empirical findings on the child as linguist, physicist, mathematician, psychologist, and notator are discussed in support of the theoretical framework. Each chapter concentrates first on the initial state of the infant mind/brain and on subsequent domain-specific learning in infancy and early childhood. It then goes on to explore data on older children's problem solving and theory building, with particular focus on evolving cognitive flexibility. Emphasis is placed throughout on the status of representations underlying different capacities and on the multiple levels at which knowledge is stored and accessible. Finally, consideration is given to the need for more formal developmental models, and a comparison is made between representational redescription and connectionist simulations of development. In conclusion, I consider what is special about human cognition by speculating on the status of representations underlying the structure of behavior in other species. (shrink)

Koriat & Goldsmith's distinction between the correspondence and storehouse metaphors is valuable for both memory theory and methodology. It is questionable, however, whether this distinction underlies the heated debate about so called “everyday memory” research. The distinction between experimental and naturalistic methodologies better characterizes this debate. I compare these distinctions and discuss how the methodological distinction, between experimental and naturalistic designs, could give rise to different theoretical approaches.

Koriat & Goldsmith's abstract correspondence metaphor is unlikely to prove useful to memory science. It aims to motivate and inform the investigation of everyday memory, but that movement has prospered without it. The irrelevance of its competitor – the more concrete storehouse metaphor – as a guiding force in memory research presages a similar fate for the correspondence perspective.

Everyday memory tasks often require that researchers focus on output-bound measures of memory. As a result, nonmemorial processes (e.g., report option and grain size) may influence recall accuracy. These nonmemorial processes, usually eliminated by laboratory researchers, have the potential to explain some anomalous results and may even be useful to enhance everyday recollection.

Koriat & Goldsmith's thesis is provocative but has three problems: First, quantity and accuracy are not simply related, they are complementary. Second, the storehouse metaphor is not the driving force behind contemporary theories of memory and may not be viable. Third, the taxonomy is incomplete, leaving unclassified several extremely influential methods and measures, such as priming and response latency.

Amit's Hebbian model risks being overexplanatory, since it does not depend on specific physiological modelling of cortical ANNs, but concentrates on those phenomena which are modelled by a large class of ANNs. While offering a strong demonstration of the presence of Hebb's “cell assemblies,” it does not offer an equal account of Hebb's “phase sequence” concept.

A theory of representation is incomplete if it states “representations areX” whereXcan be symbols, cell assemblies, functional states, or the flock of birds fromTheaetetus, without explaining the nature of the link between the universe ofXs and the world. Amit's thesis, equating representations with reverberations in Hebbian cell assemblies, will only be considered a solution to the problem of representation when it is complemented by a theory of how a reverberation in the brain can be a representation of anything.