This article described three heuristics that are employed in making judgements under uncertainty: representativeness, which is usually employed when people are asked to judge the probability that an object or event A belongs to class or process B; availability of instances or scenarios, which is often employed when people are asked to assess the frequency of a class or the plausibility of a particular development; and adjustment from an anchor, which is usually employed in numerical prediction when a relevant value (...) is available. These heuristics are highly economical and usually effective, but they lead to systematic and predictable errors. A better understanding of these heuristics and of the biases to which they lead could improve judgements and decisions in situations of uncertainty. (shrink)

A theory of analogy must describe how the meaning of an analogy is derived from the meanings of its parts. In the structure‐mapping theory, the interpretation rules are characterized as implicit rules for mapping knowledge about a base domain into a target domain. Two important features of the theory are (a) the rules depend only on syntactic properties of the knowledge representation, and not on the specific content of the domains; and (b) the theoretical framework allows analogies to be distinguished (...) cleanly from literal similarity statements, applications of abstractions, and other kinds of comparisons.Two mapping principles are described: (a) Relations between objects, rather than attributes of objects, are mapped from base to target; and (b) The particular relations mapped are determined by systematicity, as defined by the existence of higher‐order relations. (shrink)

This, the third edition of Fundamentals of Experimental Design, has five added chapters - those on regression (Chapters 12, 14, and 15), multivariate analysis (Chapter 18), and the matrix algebra appropriate to the level of presentation of this material (Chapter 13). I have noted in the preface other additions in this third edition. The added material should enhance the value of the book as a textbook and a reference. Given these additions, however, alternative approaches in using the current edition as (...) a textbook may merit consideration. It may help to note that Chapters 16 and 17 (analysis of covariance, trend analysis) do not depend on the material in Chapters 12 through 15, although the student should know something about simple linear regression to be able to understand fully the material in Chapters 16 and 17. In any event, the instructor who wants to teach only the material in the first two editions can do so by dropping the added chapters - 12 through 15, and 18 - from the syllabus. (shrink)

In Concepts, Kinds, and Cognitive Development, Frank C. Keil provides a coherent account of how concepts and word meanings develop in children, adding to our understanding of the representational nature of concepts and word meanings at all ages. Keil argues that it is impossible to adequately understand the nature of conceptual representation without also considering the issue of learning. Weaving together issues in cognitive development, philosophy, and cognitive psychology, he reconciles numerous theories, backed by empirical evidence from nominal kinds studies, (...) natural-kinds studies, and studies of fundamental categorical distinctions. He shows that all this evidence, when put together, leads to a better understanding of semantic and conceptual development. The book opens with an analysis of the problems of modeling qualitative changes in conceptual development, investigating how concepts of natural kinds, nominal kinds, and artifacts evolve. The studies on nominal kinds document a powerful and unambiguous developmental pattern indicating a shift from a reliance on global tabulations of characteristic features to what appears to be a small set of defining ones. The studies on natural kinds document an analogous shift toward a core theory instead of simple definition. Both sets of studies are strongly supported by cross cultural data. While these patterns seem to suggest that the young child organizes concepts according to characteristic features, Keil argues that there is a framework of conceptual categories and causal beliefs that enables even very young children to understand kinds at a deeper, theoretically guided, level. This account suggests a new way of understanding qualitative change and carries strong implications for how concepts are represented at any point in development. A Bradford Book. (shrink)

This systematic investigation of computation and mental phenomena by a noted psychologist and computer scientist argues that cognition is a form of computation, that the semantic contents of mental states are encoded in the same general way as computer representations are encoded. It is a rich and sustained investigation of the assumptions underlying the directions cognitive science research is taking. 1 The Explanatory Vocabulary of Cognition 2 The Explanatory Role of Representations 3 The Relevance of Computation 4 The Psychological Reality (...) of Programs: Strong Equivalence 5 Constraining Functional Architecture 6 The Bridge from Physical to Symbolic: Transduction 7 Functional Architecture and Analogue Processes 8 Mental Imagery and Functional Architecture 9 Epilogue: What is Cognitive Science the Science of? (shrink)

It seems to me that the ingredients of most theories both in Artificial Intelligence and in Psychology have been on the whole too minute, local, and unstructured to account–either practically or phenomenologically–for the effectiveness of common-sense thought. The "chunks" of reasoning, language, memory, and "perception" ought to be larger and more structured; their factual and procedural contents must be more intimately connected in order to explain the apparent power and speed of mental activities.

Six experiments explored the hypothesis that the members of categories which are considered most prototypical are those with most attributes in common with other members of the category and least attributes in common with other categories. In probabilistic terms, the hypothesis is that prototypicality is a function of the total cue validity of the attributes of items. In Experiments 1 and 3, subjects listed attributes for members of semantic categories which had been previously rated for degree of prototypicality. High positive (...) correlations were obtained between those ratings and the extent of distribution of an item's attributes among the other items of the category. In Experiments 2 and 4, subjects listed superordinates of category members and listed attributes of members of contrasting categories. Negative correlations were obtained between prototypicality and superordinates other than the category in question and between prototypicality and an item's possession of attributes possessed by members of contrasting categories. Experiments 5 and 6 used artificial categories and showed that family resemblance within categories and lack of overlap of elements with contrasting categories were correlated with ease of learning, reaction time in identifying an item after learning, and rating of prototypicality of an item. It is argued that family resemblance offers an alternative to criterial features in defining categories. (shrink)