The case for rules in reasoning

A number of theoretical positions in psychology--including variants of case-based reasoning, instance-based analogy, and connectionist models--maintain that abstract rules are not involved in human reasoning, or at best play a minor role. Other views hold that the use of abstract rules is a core aspect of human reasoning. We propose eight criteria for determining whether or not people use abstract rules in reasoning, and examine evidence relevant to each criterion for several rule systems. We argue that there is substantial evidence that several different inferential rules, including modus ponens, contractual rules, causal rules, and the law of large numbers, are used in solving everyday problems. We discuss the implications for various theoretical positions and consider hybrid mechanisms that combine aspects of instance and rule models.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/30251/1/0000646.pd

Enlivening The Machinist Perspective: Humanising The Information Processing Theory With Social And Cultural Influences

AbstractThe information processing theory has been a prevalent framework for understanding cognitive function for over five decades. Theory which explains human cognitive processing similar to computer processing has limitations however, as contemporary literature continues to illuminate. The first section of this paper is organised according to features of the information processing model including sensory input, sensory memory, attention, pattern recognition, working memory, encoding, retrieval, and long term memory, with a brief description of each component followed by compelling, recent literature describing social and cultural influences on the component. In the second section, the information processing model is redefined to incorporate social and cultural influences on cognition, reflecting the significance of social and cultural influences on human cognitive function. The third section includes implications for teaching and learning, highlighting the relevance of helping learners to make connections

AGL StimSelect: Software for automated selection of stimuli for artificial grammar learning

Artificial Grammar Learning (AGL) is an experimental paradigm that has been used extensively in cognitive research for many years to study implicit learning, associative learning, and generalization based either on similarity or rules. Without computer assistance it is virtually impossible to generate appropriate grammatical training stimuli along with grammatical or non-grammatical test stimuli that control relevant psychological variables. We present the first flexible, fully automated software for selecting AGL stimuli. The software allows users to specify a grammar of interest, and to manipulate characteristics of training and test sequences, and their relationship to each other. The user thus has direct control over stimulus features that may influence learning and generalization in AGL tasks. The software enables researchers to develop AGL designs that would not be feasible without automatic stimulus selection. It is implemented in Matlab

Why Legal Formalism Is Not a Stupid Thing

Legal formalism is the foil for many theories of law. Yet formalism remains controversial, meaning that its critics focus on claims that are not central. This paper sets out a view of formalism using a methodology that embraces one of formalism’s most distinct claims, that formalism is a scientific theory of law. This naturalistic view of formalism helps to distinguish two distinct types of formalism, “doctrinal formalism,” the view that judicial behaviour can be represented using rules, and “rule formalism,” the view that judges follow external rules when they are deciding cases. Doctrinal formalism, understood in naturalistic terms, overcomes many of the criticisms that have been levelled at formalism and can also be used to rehabilitate the currently out‐of‐favour “declaratory theory of law.” Doctrinal formalism is also a longstanding view of law, reflecting both what the original formalists thought of law, and what many present‐day doctrinal lawyers seem to believe. The naturalistic methodology is used to show that the main dispute between doctrinal formalism and American legal realism can be explained by a difference of assumptions concerning whether the values of judges are relative to society, or relative to other judges

Cultural preferences for formal versus intuitive reasoning

Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/91932/1/cultural_preferences.pd

The extended organism: A framework for examining strategic media skill in a digital ecology

This dissertation presents an extended organism framework that is directly applicable to the study of strategic media skill. The framework posits that it can be helpful in understanding the human cognizer’s adaptiveness and success of memory in a digital ecology to consider the characteristics of digital memory—the body of rote knowledge and various features of digital technology—as part of the human-technology extended organism, rather than an external environment on which the cognizer acts. It proposes three major subprocesses of strategic media skill: strategic encoding, metacognition, and identifying technological biases. This paper applies the framework to the case of offloading cognition to external devices to demonstrate its applicability. The extended organism framework, as it stands now, provides a conceptual-theoretical lens for predicting and explaining findings about strategic media skill, especially from an effects tradition, and for asking questions about the cognitive processing underlying strategic media skill. Using this perspective and these approaches to empirical investigations, researchers should be able to better understand the successes and failures of memory and cognition in a digital ecology, currently characterized by near-constant access to external information via dynamic and changing digital media devices. The ability to do this will allow media users to know the cognitive consequences associated with different actions and strategies and to make better decisions about when and how to use digital media to accomplish their goals

Music Expectation by Cognitive Rule-Mapping

Iterative rules appear everywhere in music cognition, creating strong expectations. Consequently, denial of rule projection becomes an important compositional strategy, generating numerous possibilities for musical affect. Other rules enter the musical aesthetic through reflexive game playing. Still other kinds are completely constructivist in nature and may be uncongenial to cognition, requiring much training to be recognized, if at all. Cognitive rules are frequently found in contexts of varied repetition (AA), but they are not necessarily bounded by stylistic similarity. Indeed, rules may be especially relevant in the processing of unfamiliar contexts (AB), where only abstract coding is available. There are many kinds of deduction in music cognition. Typical examples include melodic sequence, partial melodic sequence, and alternating melodic sequence (which produces streaming). These types may coexist in the musical fabric, involving the invocation of both simultaneous and nested rules. Intervallic expansion and reduction in melody also involve higherorder abstractions. Various mirrored forms in music entail rule-mapping as well, although these may be more difficult to perceive than their analogous visual symmetries. Listeners can likewise deduce additivity and subtractivity at work in harmony, tempo, texture, pace, and dynamics. Rhythmic augmentation and diminution, by contrast, rely on multiplication and division. The examples suggest numerous hypotheses for experimental research