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SUSTAIN (Supervised and Unsupervised STratified Adaptive Incremental Network) is a model of how humans learn categories from examples. SUS-TAIN initially assumes a simple category structure. If simple solutions prove inadequate and SUSTAIN is confronted with a surprising event (e.g., it is told that a bat is a mammal instead of a bird), SUSTAIN recruits an additional cluster to represent the surprising event. Newly recruited clusters are available to explain future events and can themselves evolve into

Three theories currently compete to explain the conceptual deficits that result from brain damage: sensory-functional theory, domain-specific theory, and conceptual structure theory. We argue that all three theories capture important aspects of conceptual deficits, and offer different insights into their origins. Conceptual topography theory (CTT) integrates these insights, beginning with A. R. Damasio’s (1989) convergence zone theory and elaborating it with the similarity-in-topography (SIT) principle. According to CTT, feature maps in sensory-motor systems represent the features of a category’s exemplars. A hierarchical system of convergence zones then conjoins these features to form both property and category representations. According to the SIT principle, the proximity of two conjunctive neurons in a convergence zone increases with the similarity of the features they conjoin. As a result, conjunctive neurons become topographically organised into local regions that represent properties and categories. Depending on the level and location of a lesion in this system, a wide variety of deficits is possible. Consistent with the literature, these deficits range from the loss of a single category to the loss of multiple categories that share sensory-motor properties.

Although most adults are considered to be experts in the identification of faces, fewer people specialize in the recognition of other objects, such as birds and dogs. In this research, the neurophysiological processes associated with expert bird and dog recognition were investigated using event-related potentials. An enhanced early negative component (N170, 164 ms) was found when bird and dog experts categorized objects in their domain of expertise relative to when they categorized objects outside their domain of expertise. This finding indicates that objects from well-learned categories are neurologically differentiated from objects from lesser-known categories at a relatively early stage of visual processing.

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This thesis aims to develop a psychologically plausible account of concepts by integrating key insights from philosophy (on the metaphysical basis for concept possession) and psychology (on the mechanisms underlying concept acquisition). I adopt an approach known as informational atomism, developed by Jerry Fodor. Informational atomism is the conjunction of two theses: (i) informational semantics, according to which conceptual content is constituted exhaustively by nomological mind–world relations; and (ii) conceptual atomism, according to which (lexical) concepts have no internal structure. I argue that informational semantics needs to be supplemented by allowing content-constitutive rules of inference (“meaning postulates”). This is because the content of one important class of concepts, the logical terms, is not plausibly informational. And since, it is argued, no principled distinction can be drawn between logical concepts and the rest, the problem that this raises is a general one.

Rather than having universal linguistic categories for some sets of common objects, languages develop their own, idiosyncratic naming patterns for them. Accounting for these patterns requires reference not only to the understanding of stimulus properties by individual speakers of a language, but also to the linguistic and cultural histories of the language they speak. To better understand how these two sources of influence work together to produce linguistic categories, we examined the relations among linguistic categories for 60 common containers for speakers of English, Spanish, and Chinese. We discriminated among several possibilities that imply different relative contributions of the two sources of influence. No single type of relation dominated; the contributions of the two influences varied across different parts of this single domain. We suggest an interaction that is constrained by structure in the stimulus space.

The cognitive and neurosciences have made great strides in uncovering the nature of human psychobiology in recent years. Moral educators have yet to make much of their findings. The theories presented here capitalize on recent research that has implications for building moral personalities and cultivating morally adept citizens. The two theories presented in brief are the Integrative Ethical Education model, intended for educators of all levels, and Triune Ethics Theory, a more comprehensive theory of moral development that has implications for moral education. Approaches to education for moral character are typically divided into two opposing views which are rooted in different philosophical paradigms (Lapsley & Narvaez, 2006; Narvaez, 2006). One philosophical paradigm represents particularist claims regarding virtue with a focus on the agent and the deliberate cultivation of virtues or excellences (MacIntyre, 1981). Of primary concern is the nature of a good life and the characteristics necessary to live a good life (e.g., Anscombe, 1958; Hursthouse, 1999; McDowell, 1997). The individual takes on the responsibility for discovering the virtues and values inherent in the self, and cultivates them with the support of the community (Urmson, 1988). Moreover, nearly everything in a life has moral meaning, from friend selection to leisure activities. Traditional character education emerges from

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This article explores the development of observation in scientific and everyday contexts. Fundamental to all scientific activity, expert observation is a complex practice that requires the coordination of disciplinary knowledge, theory, and habits of attention. On the surface, observation appears to be a simple skill. Consequently, children may be directed to observe, compare, and describe phenomena without adequate disciplinary context or support, and so fail to gain deeper scientific understanding. Drawing upon a review of science education, developmental psychology, and the science studies literatures, this article examines what it means to observe within a disciplinary framework. In addition, everyday observers are characterized and a framework is proposed that hypothesizes how everyday observers could develop practices that are more like scientific observers.