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674The Curious Case of the Self-Refuting Straw Man: Trafimow and Earp’s Response to Klein (2014)Theory and Psychology 26. 2016.In their critique of Klein (2014a), Trafimow and Earp present two theses. First, they argue that, contra Klein, a well-specified theory is not a necessary condition for successful replication. Second, they contend that even when there is a well-specified theory, replication depends more on auxiliary assumptions than on theory proper. I take issue with both claims, arguing that (a) their first thesis confuses a material conditional (what I said) with a modal claim (T&E’s misreading of what I s…Read more
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4195Decisions and the Evolution of Memory: Multiple Systems, Multiple FunctionsPsychological Review 109 306-329. 2002.Memory evolved to supply useful, timely information to the organism’s decision-making systems. Therefore, decision rules, multiple memory systems, and the search engines that link them should have coevolved to mesh in a coadapted, functionally interlocking way. This adaptationist perspective suggested the scope hypothesis: When a generalization is retrieved from semantic memory, episodic memories that are inconsistent with it should be retrieved in tandem to place boundary conditions on the scop…Read more
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573Images and Constructs: Can the Neural Correlates of Self be revealed through Radiological Analysis?International Journal of Psychological Research 6 117-132. 2013.In this paper I argue that radiological attempts to elucidate the properties of self -- an endeavor currently popular in the social neurosciences -- are fraught with conceptual difficulties. I first discuss several philosophical criteria that increase the chances we are posing the “right” questions to nature. I then discuss whether these criteria are met when empirical efforts are directed at one of the central constructs in the social sciences – the human self. In particular, I consider whet…Read more
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7206What memory isWIREs Cognitive Science 6 (1): 1-38. 2015.I argue that our current practice of ascribing the term “ memory ” to mental states and processes lacks epistemic warrant. Memory, according to the “received view”, is any state or process that results from the sequential stages of encoding, storage and retrieval. By these criteria, memory, or its footprint, can be seen in virtually every mental state we are capable of having. This, I argue, stretches the term to the breaking point. I draw on phenomenological, historical and conceptual considera…Read more
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1601The Feeling of Personal Ownership of One’s Mental States: A Conceptual Argument and Empirical Evidence for an Essential, but Underappreciated, Mechanism of MindPsychology of Consciousness: Theory, Research, and Practice 2 (4): 355-376. 2015.I argue that the feeling that one is the owner of his or her mental states is not an intrinsic property of those states. Rather, it consists in a contingent relation between consciousness and its intentional objects. As such, there are (a variety of) circumstances, varying in their interpretive clarity, in which this relation can come undone. When this happens, the content of consciousness still is apprehended, but the feeling that the content “belongs to me” no longer is secured. I discuss …Read more
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669Lost feeling of ownership of one’s mental states: the importance of situating patient R.B.’s pathology in the context of contemporary theory and empiricismPhilosophical Psychology 29 (4): 490-493. 2016.In her re-analysis of the evidence presented in Klein and Nichols (2012) to support their argument that patient R.B. temporarily lost possessory custody of consciously apprehended objects (in this case, objects that normally would be non-inferentially taken as episodic memory), Professor Roache concludes Klein and Nichols's claims are untenable. I argue that Professor Roache is incorrect in her re-interpretation, and that this is due, in part, to lack of sufficient familiarity with psychological…Read more
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