Our previous work interpreted single-lognormal fits to inter-gaze distance (i.e., "gaze steps") histograms as evidence of multiplicativity and hence interactions across scales in visual cognition. Bogartz and Staub (2012) proposed that gaze steps are additively decomposable into fixations and saccades, matching the histograms better and…

In this paper we question the theoretical tenability of Hertwig, Benz, and Krauss's (2008) (HBK) argument that responses commonly taken as manifestations of the conjunction fallacy should be instead considered as reflecting "reasonable pragmatic and semantic inferences" because the meaning of and does not always coincide with that of the logical…

Recent evidence from cognitive neuroscience suggests that certain cognitive processes employ perceptual representations. Inspired by this evidence, a few researchers have proposed that cognition is inherently perceptual. They have developed an innovative theoretical approach that rests on the notion of perceptual simulation and marshaled several…

The debate between Simulation-Theory (ST) and Theory-Theory (TT) provides the dominant theoretical framework for research on "theory of mind" (ToM). Behavioural research has failed to provide clear methods for discriminating between these theories, but a number of recent studies have claimed that neuroimaging methods do allow key predictions of ST…

Theories of number concepts often suppose that the natural numbers are acquired as children learn to count and as they draw an induction based on their interpretation of the first few count words. In a bold critique of this general approach, Rips, Asmuth, Bloomfield [Rips, L., Asmuth, J. & Bloomfield, A. (2006). Giving the boot to the bootstrap:…

A fundamental question in psycholinguistic research concerns the universality of comprehension strategies. We investigated this issue by examining the so-called "subject preference" in Turkish, a language which allows for a natural (unmarked) object reading of an initial ambiguous argument. Using event-related brain potentials (ERPs), we observed…

Are small and large numbers represented similarly or differently on the mental number line? The size effect was used to argue that numbers are represented differently. However, recently it has been argued that the size effect is due to the comparison task and is not derived from the mental number line per se. Namely, it is due to the way that the…

Although Sloutsky agrees with our interpretation of our data, he argues that the totality of the evidence supports his claim that children make inductive generalisations on the basis of similarity. Here we take issue with his characterisation of the alternative hypotheses in his informal analysis of the data, and suggest that a thorough Bayesian…

People's reactions to coincidences are often cited as an illustration of the irrationality of human reasoning about chance. We argue that coincidences may be better understood in terms of rational statistical inference, based on their functional role in processes of causal discovery and theory revision. We present a formal definition of…

On the basis of a review of the literature and the results of three experiments with dog experts, Robbins and McKone [Robbins, R. A., & McKone, E. (2006). No face-like processing for objects-of-expertise in three behavioural tasks, "Cognition"] argue that there is little or no evidence supporting an expertise account of the differences in…

In Robbins, R. & McKone, E. (2006). No face-like processing for object-of-expertise in three behavioural tasks. "Cognition" this issue, we showed face-like holistic/configural processing does not occur for objects-of-expertise on standard paradigms including inversion, part-whole, part-in-configurally-transformed-whole, and the standard composite…

Quinlan et al. [Quinlan, p., van der Mass, H., Jansen, B., Booij, O., & Rendell, M. (this issue). Re-thinking stages of cognitive development: An appraisal of connectionist models of the balance scale task. "Cognition", doi:10.1016/j.cognition.2006.02.004] use Latent Class Analysis (LCA) to criticize a connectionist model of development on the…

In contrast to Shultz and Takane [Shultz, T.R., & Takane, Y. (2007). Rule following and rule use in the balance-scale task. "Cognition", in press, doi:10.1016/j.cognition.2006.12.004.] we do not accept that the traditional Rule Assessment Method (RAM) of scoring responses on the balance scale task has advantages over latent class analysis (LCA):…

Thanks to Barsalou's, Damasio's, Glenberg's, Prinz' and others' work, neo-empiricism is gaining a deserved recognition in the psychology and philosophy of concepts. I argue, however, that neo-empiricists have underestimated the difficulty of providing evidence against the amodal approach to concepts and higher cognition. I highlight three key…

Six unsuccessful attempts at replicating a key finding in the linguistic relativity literature [Boroditsky, L. (2001). Does language shape thought?: Mandarin and English speakers' conceptions of time. "Cognitive Psychology," 43, 1-22] are reported. In addition to these empirical issues in replicating the original finding, theoretical issues…