Representing the task in Bayesian reasoning: Comment on Lovett and Schunn (1999).

The RCCL model (M. C. Lovett and C. D. Schunn, 1999; see record 1999-05245-001) produces predictions that are non-novel or that do not truly spring from its principles. However, it offers the valuable insight that learning processes may affect the selection of both representations and strategies within those representations, and points the way to possible theoretical progress on implicit and explicit control. The authors' account of base-rate neglect under direct experience is compared with RCCL, and it is concluded that learning-based models allow for tests that are not fostered by representation-based models. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

In defense of reasoning: A reply to Greene (1992).

Responds to S. B. Greene's (see record 1992-15270-001) argument that assertions of the form "None of the A are in the same place as some of the C" are difficult for Ss to generate and that this explains the results of multiply quantified reasoning without having to invoke mental models or deductive reasoning by P. N. Johnson-Laird et al (see record 1990-03501-001). This article shows (1) that the phenomenon fails to explain most of the principal results; (2) that, far from undermining the theory of mental models, it can actually be explained by the theory; and (3) that the best available account of the results is that Ss both reason and rely on mental models to do so. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Illusory conjunctions are alive and well: A reply to Donk (1999).

When presented with a red T and a green O, observers occasionally make conjunction responses and indicate that they saw a green T. These errors have been interpreted as reflecting separable processing stages of feature detection and integration with the illusory conjunctions arising from a failure at the integration stage. Recently, M. Donk (see record 1999-11444-003) asserted that the phenomenon of illusory conjunctions is an artifact. Conjunction reports are actually the result of confusing a nontarget item (O in the example above) for a target item (the letter T) and (correctly) reporting the color associated with the (incorrectly) selected target. The authors demonstrate that although target–nontarget confusion errors are a potential source of conjunction reports, there is a plethora of findings that cannot be accounted for by this confusion model. A review of the literature indicates that in many studies, illusory conjunctions do result from a failure to properly integrate features. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

How to improve Bayesian reasoning: Comment on Gigerenzer and Hoffrage (1995).

G. Gigerenzer and U. Hoffrage (1995) claimed that Bayesian inference problems, which have been notoriously difficult for laypeople to solve using base rates, hit rates, and false-alarm rates, become computationally simpler when information is presented with frequencies based on natural sampling. They made an evolutionary argument for the improved performance. The authors of the present article show that performance can improve with either probabilities or frequencies, depending on the rareness of the events and the type of information presented. When events are rare, probabilities are more difficult to understand than frequencies (i.e., 5 out of 1,000 vs. .005.). Furthermore, when the information is presented as joint and marginal events, nested sets become more apparent. Frequencies based on natural sampling have these desirable properties. The authors agree with Gigerenzer and Hoffrage that frequencies can improve Bayesian reasoning, but they attribute that improvement to the use of mental models that involve elements of nested sets. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

On the difficulties underlying Bayesian reasoning: A comment on Gigerenzer and Hoffrage.

G. Gigerenzer and U. Hoffrage (1995) suggested that formulating problems in frequentistic terms would facilitate the practice of Bayesian inference. The authors of the present article propose that there are two different factors at work in this context: the use of frequency or probability statements and the use of joint or conditional sampling information. An experiment is reported demonstrating that, even with the use of frequency statements, Bayesian reasoning is more difficult with conditional than with joint information. Broader implications of the proposed distinction are briefly discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

More differences about gender differences in marriage: A reply to Beach, Davey, and Fincham (1999).

S. R. H. Beach, A. Davey, and F. D. Fincham (see record 1999-15264-018) suggest that my (L. A. Kurdek, 1998; see record 1998-11410-003) failure to replicate their finding that the prospective links between depressive symptoms and marital quality differ between husbands and wives was due, in part, to the selection of a time lag that was too long and a sample that was homogenous on risk factors. Accordingly, the author reexamined the prospective links between depressive symptoms and marital quality using only a 1-year time lag and an expanded sample (N?=?406) that included spouses in first marriages and remarriages with appreciable variability on depressive symptoms. There was still no evidence that husbands and wives differed in the pattern of these prospective links. The author also addresses concerns that the growth-curve analyses did not provide a good fit to the observed data, speculates about reasons for the differences in findings, and makes recommendations for future longitudinal work in this area. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Mystery and meaning: A reply to Green (2000).

In "George A. Miller, Language, and the Computer Metaphor of Mind" (see record 1999-00168-003), the author sought to explain how and why Miller invested the computer metaphor of mind with such strongly revolutionary, antibehaviorist meanings. In reply, C. Green (see record 2000-07174-004) has argued that the answer to this question has to do with the importance of mental representation to the cognitivists. In response, the author argues that, though mental representation was an important issue to cognitivists, there were several other factors of equal or greater importance: specifically, the fascination of Miller and his cohort with language and communication, their frustration with the narrowness of the disciplinary vision of the behaviorists, and their involvement in a different experimental program than that of mainstream behaviorists. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Substance use and AIDS: A reply to Fisher (1993).

Replies to the comment by D. G. Fisher (see record 1993-39094-001) on the authors' original article (see record 1992-36889-001) concerning the neglect of the substance abuse field by health care practitioners. H. J. Shaffer et al point out that nothing in their original article should be misconstrued as condoning or encouraging the use of psychoactive drugs. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Contingent attentional capture: A reply to Yantis (1993).

The authors (1992) recently proposed that involuntary shifts of spatial attention, even those elicited by abrupt visual onsets, are contingent on variable internal control settings. S. Yantis (1993) argues that the results of J. Jonides and Yantis (1988) significantly challenge this hypothesis and that the paradigm of C. L. Folk et al (1992) is inappropriate for investigating stimulus-driven attentional capture. Yantis's concerns are addressed, and it is concluded that the contingent involuntary orienting hypothesis in fact provides a unified and parsimonious account of the data on attentional capture. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

A better approach to goodness: Reply to Wagemans (1999).

In P. A. van der Helm and E. L. J. Leeuwenberg (see record 1996-01780-002), the authors presented a representation model for the goodness, or detectability, of visual regularities such as mirror symmetry and repetition. J. Wagemans (see record 1999-03499-009) acknowledged that this holographic goodness model has considerable explanatory power, but he also argued that it is not good enough yet. He challenged van der Helm and Leeuwenberg to qualify some open ends of their representation model, in particular those concerning its process assumptions. He also questioned the authors' assessment of previous goodness accounts such as S. E. Palmer's (1982, 1983) transformational approach and his own bootstrap model. He concluded that it is expedient to aim at a synthesis of useful aspects of diverse accounts of goodness, but he did not establish such a synthesis. Van der Helm and Leeuwenberg agree with his conclusion that such a synthesis is a worthy cause, but they disagree with his evaluation of the issues involved. This article is a reply with an alternative evaluation of these issues, advancing the discussion to a process-representation synthesis called holographic bootstrapping. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Bayesian eggs and Bayesian omelettes: Reply to Stern (2005).

In this response to Stern's (2005) (see reocord 2005-16136-010) discussion of Klugkist, Laudy, and Hoijtink (2005), model inference based on posterior probabilities on the parameter space is discussed. Furthermore, the authors respond to Stern's example in which all possible orderings are included via a short discussion of exploratory versus theory-based modeling. Finally, the authors show that the Bayesian approach is flexible and can deal with many types of constraints. This is illustrated using a model with constraints on the differences between means. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Hard heads and open minds: A reply to Panksepp (2003).

In the authors' original article (M. S. Blumberg & G. Sokoloff, 2001), they provided evidence that the ultrasonic vocalizations of infant rats are acoustic by-products of a physiological maneuver. In J. Panksepp's (2003) comment, he sidestepped the authors' empirical findings and focused on his concern that their perspective might prevent progress toward his ultimate goal of understanding the neural substrates of emotion in mammals. In this reply, the authors question the reliability of J. Panksepp's strategy for studying emotion on the basis that anthropomorphism has yet to prove itself an effective research tool. In addition, the authors believe that J. Panksepp's anthropomorphic-zoomorphic strategy defeats the goal of building a comparative psychobiology of behavior and cognition that does not reify false distinctions between humans and other animals. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Pancultural self-enhancement reloaded: A meta-analytic reply to Heine (2005).

C. Sedikides, L. Gaertner, and Y. Toguchi (2003; see record 2002-08440-007) reported findings favoring the universality of self-enhancement. S. J. Heine (2005; see record 2005-13803-005) challenged the authors' research on evidential and logical grounds. In response, the authors carried out 2 meta-analytic investigations. The results backed the C. Sedikides et al. (2003) theory and findings. Both Westerners and Easterners self-enhanced tactically. Westerners self-enhanced on attributes relevant to the cultural ideal of individualism, whereas Easterners self-enhanced on attributes relevant to the cultural ideal of collectivism (in both cases, because of the personal importance of the ideal). Self-enhancement motivation is universal, although its manifestations are strategically sensitive to cultural context. The authors respond to other aspects of Heine's critique by discussing why researchers should empirically validate the comparison dimension (individualistic vs. collectivistic) and defending why the better-than-average effect is a valid measure of self-enhancement. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Confronting health care realities: A reply to Sank (1997).

The author responds to L. I. Sank's (1997) proposal that an effective way to oppose the continuing growth of managed behavioral health care is to lodge professional ethics complaints against licensed behavioral health professionals acting as case managers. The author argues that this is not only a patently ineffective strategy, it also ignores the obvious—that no amount of effort by behavioral health professionals can turn back the clock and reimpose the fee-for-service system apparently favored by a majority of professionals in independent practice. It would behoove psychologists and other mental health professionals, then, to acknowledge the contributions of managed care to clinical and fiscal accountability as well as the problems arising from managed care models and methods of implementation. More important, they should consider what they can do to influence the shape of the service delivery systems of the future. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Assertions of therapeutic excess: A reply to Mills (2005).

Mills (see record 2005-04819-001) suggests that the tradition of relational psychoanalysis may hold an inherent risk of "therapeutic excess" which leads to unprofessional behavior. In his critique, Mills constructs an argument based upon a series of unsubstantiated claims which wrongly conclude that a particular theory in psychoanalysis can lead to a particular type of behavior, in this case, of the unethical type. This discussion attempts to clarify the errors in reasoning which this critique contains. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The final reply to Stolorow (2003) and Orange (2003).

In his final word in this heated exchange, Strozier dismisses the relevance of Donna Orange's (2003) comments and notes how peculiar were the comments of Robert Stolorow (2003). Strozier's point is that Kohut warmly supported the work of Stolorow, but he notes, again, that the essential concept of so-called intersubjective theory is entirely based in Kohut's ideas from the 1970s. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Family factors and adolescents' alcohol use: A reply to Chassin and Handley (2006) and Fromme (2006).

In this reply, the authors address the comments of L. Chassin and E. D. Handley (see record 2006-07521-006) and of K. Fromme (see record 2006-07521-007) on the authors' article, "Parental Attachment, Parental Control, and Early Development of Alcohol Use: A Longitudinal Study" (see record 2006-07521-002). Further, the authors elaborate on some topics in the area of parenting and substance use-for example, testing bidirectional associations between parenting and adolescents' substance use, the importance of measuring substance-specific socialization, and the relevance of using within-family designs and multi-informant data. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

On psychological identity and training: A reply to Thomas and Chan (2000).

K. R. Thomas and F. Chan (see record 2000-13209-005) raised several concerns about the legitimacy and primacy of the Boulder model in the training of rehabilitation psychologists, particularly with regard to the unique needs and history of rehabilitation psychology. We address several of the issues they raise and maintain that the utility of the Boulder model, although in need of some revision to meet the evolving nature of health care service delivery systems, remains the most appropriate model for the training of professional psychologists. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Latent inhibition and compound conditioning: A reply to Holmes and Harris (2009).

Schmajuk, Lam, and Gray (SLG, 1996) presented a neural network model of classical conditioning that addresses the multiple properties of latent inhibition (LI). According to the model, LI is the result of the decreased attention to the target stimulus during preexposure and testing. Recently, Holmes and Harris (2009) suggested that, although the model was able to describe their experimental results showing that LI to a preexposed stimulus disappears with extended compound conditioning, it could not describe the fact that LI is not affected by a delay following compound conditioning. However, computer simulations demonstrate that the SLG model describes and explains both results. Because the model also explains both the deleterious and the facilitating effects on LI of a delay following simple conditioning, the SLG model seems unique in explaining the complete range of reported effects of temporal delays on LI as well as most of the properties of LI. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Gestures and speech, interactions and separations: A reply to McNeill (1985).

Data from aphasiology and from developmental and experimental psychology are reviewed that give evidence for partial separability of the gestural and the verbal systems. According to McNeill (1985), who argued for a shared computational stage at the conceptual level, these cases of dissociation may be accounted for only by assuming separation at the output level. This explanation seems incompatible with other data provided by McNeill that indicate similarities in the surface characteristics of gestures and speech. Thus it is concluded that gestures and speech could also interact on an intermediate level between conceptualization and the output processing or that the shared computational stage must be specified by assuming separate subprocesses that may dissociate. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)