Philosophy 482/Psychology 382
Introduction to Cognitive Science


 

Syllabus

and

Readings

 



News

and
Announcements

 

Lecture Slides
and
Related links

 

Study

Questions

 

General
Links

Lexicon

Dr Chuck's Lexicon

Note: This is a general lexicon for ALL the classes I teach, so not every entry is relevant to your particular class.  I am always interested in improving this study aid, so send me your suggestions for entries and/or comments on current entries.  (Last revision 2/20/2010)

 

Accommodation: The accommodation reflex is a reflexive action by the eyes that allows a person to switch their gaze between objects at different distances.  In order, for example, to switch from viewing a nearby object to viewing a distant object the eye must adjust the shape of its lens, alter its pupil size, and coordinate its movements with the other eye so as to maintain the position of the object in the center of the retinas of each eye.  The coordinated movement of the eyes is called vergence, and it makes binocular depth perception possible.  

ad: In Latin the preposition, ad, means "to," "towards," "up to," etc..  In general, it indicates a direction or tendency.

ad infinitum:  ad infinitum is a Latin phrase that translates as "forever," "without limit," or "to infinity."

ad hoc: Strictly speaking, ad hoc, means for or towards a specific purpose.  However, its most common connotation, especially in philosophy, is an after the fact and/or incongruous element introduced to a theory to fix a particular difficulty or failing.

Analytic Statements:  Statements that are true in virtue of the meaning of the constitutive terms.  Denying an analytic statement will result in a contradiction (see contradiction below).  For example, "All unmarried human males are bachelors," is an analytic statement, as is "A square is a four-sided figure."   "It's false that all unmarried human males are bachelors" is a contradiction, since by the definition of bachelor the negated statement asserts that "It's false that all unmarried human males are unmarried human males."  Analytic statements are said to be true by definition and/or their logical structure.

Anhedonia: Anhedonia refers to a condition in which a person no longer feels pleasure from experiences that are normally pleasurable or from acting in ways that normally give pleasure.  So, for instance, one wouldn't find the taste of one's favorite food pleasurable.  If someone enjoys, say, attending Wallis' class, they would no longer experience pleasure from this act. 

A priori knowledge: Knowledge had prior to, or independent of experience, also called non-empirical knowledge. For instance, "An object is identical to itself," would be known without consulting experience.

A posteriori knowledge: Knowledge had as a result of or after experience, also called empirical knowledge. For instance, "Wallis owns a cat," is a posteriori since its truth is determined by experience.

Arational: Something is arational when it is not subject to rational evaluation or norms.  For example, gravity is arational in that it is neither a reasonable behavior for objects, nor is it an irrational behavior.   Likewise, arguments will not affect one's gravitational tendencies.

British Empiricists: The 18th century British philosophical movement usually thought to originate with Francis Bacon's New Organon, in which he coins the term.   The primary philosophical figures in British Empiricism are John Locke, David Hume, and George Berkelely.  The British empiricist maintained that all knowledge and ideation traces back to immediate sensual experiences and internal mental experiences (viz, emotions, introspection, etc.).   The empiricists universally reject all other sources of ideas, especially the theory of innate ideas.   

Capillary bed: The system of fine vessels connecting arteries and veins which facilitates the exchange of materials from the blood to cells.

Categorical Imperative: See also "imperative" and "hypothetical imperative."  A categorical imperative is the verbal expression of a command of reason (i.e., an objective truth) which commands an action as being objectively necessary in itself without regard to any.  Thus, a categorical imperative is both necessary and universal in its applications.

Certainty: It is generally thought that all beliefs have a qualitative feature providing a subjective assessment of the likelihood of the imbedded proposition.  These qualitative features are thought to have a range of values between certainty and total doubt.   Certainty is a qualitative feature of beliefs normally taken to provide one with a subjective assessment of the likelihood of the imbedded proposition equal to perfect (100%) likelihood.  Total doubt is normally taken to provide one with a subjective assessment of the likelihood of the imbedded proposition equal to perfect (0%) unlikelihood.  For example, “I’m certain that I don’t understand Wallis’ definition,” reports two things:  (1) One has a belief that one does not understand the definition.  (2) One’s belief has an associated qualitative feature that indicates that one’s subjective estimate of the likelihood of the proposition, “I do not understand Wallis’ definition,” is 100%.  In epistemology in general people tend to suppose that one's subjective estimate of the likelihood of a belief is perfectly or nearly perfectly calibrated with its actual (objective) likelihood or its conditional likelihood--that is, its likelihood given one's evidence.  Different conceptions of certainty in epistemology have different interpretations of the estimate of the likelihood of a belief.  For instance, if one equates "clear and distinct" in Descartes with "certain," then one gets a view of certainty whereby if one is certain of a proposition, then it is metaphysically impossible for the proposition to be false.  Most modern notions of certainty interpret the likelihood of a proposition to be an estimate of its probability as understood in probability and statistics. 

Character or Personality Trait: To attribute a character or personality trait says, among other things, that someone is disposed to behave a certain way in certain circumstances.  That is, you are supposing that a person has a stable general inclination to act a certain way.  For example, miserly people are mean with money.

Cogent: Logicians use the term, "cogent," as a positive evaluative term for inductive arguments.  Cogent arguments are strong inductive arguments with true premises.  Since inductive strength admits of degrees, some cogent arguments are more cogent that weaker arguments with true premises.

Consequentialists: Consequentialists locate the source of the authority of ethical norms or the ethical rightness/wrongness of actions in their facilitation of intrinsic good(s).  For example, some utilitarian ethical theorists believe that actions are ethically right in so far as they promote the greatest happiness for the greatest number.

Contextualized: A term used to describe how human reasoning and assessment of one’s own reasoning and the reasoning of others is strongly shaped by the content of one’s inferences or argument as well as the context of those inferences and arguments. For example, people tend to judge arguments as better when they agree with the conclusion of the argument and worse when they disagree with the conclusion. This particular content effect is called the belief bias.

Contractarianism: The view in ethics and political philosophy that societal and ethical norms gain their authority because reason compels assent by rational agents to the social contract given their own nature and the nature of the world absent any such contracts and norms (the initial condition).  Likewise, the nature of societal and ethical norms as well as our knowledge of those norms comes from understanding how rational agents would craft the social contract given the nature of rational agents and the nature of the initial condition.

Contradiction: A contradiction is a statement that both asserts and denies some state of affairs.  For example, "Calvin is a dog and Calvin is not a dog."  So, a contradiction cannot be true.

Contralateral: In physiology, anatomy, and neuroscience, contralateral refers to opposite side.  For instance, information from the right side of the left eye is processed contralaterally, i.e., the left hemisphere processes information from the left side of your right eye.

Corpuscularian philosophy: The corpuscularian philosophy (or theory) was a revival and elaboration, principally by Pierre Gassendi (1592-1655) and Robert Boyle (1627-1691), of the ancient Greek atomistic doctrine associated with Democritus (460-370 BC) and Epicurus (341-270 BC).  Essentially the theory holds that the physical world is composed of atoms, called corpuscles by Boyle, and "the void."  Corpuscles are microscopic, distinct, indivisible bodies.  Corpuscularians sought to explain the nature of objects, properties, and events of the observable world by the movement and interactions of their underlying corpuscles. 

Counterexample: A counterexample is an instance which violates a proposed rule or definition, or which illustrates the invalidity of a deductive argument.  In all cases, one employs a counterexample as a form of demonstration.  Thus, the goal of a counterexample is to present a clear-cut, easily comprehensible case illustrating the rule violation, failure of definition, or invalid form. 

Definition: In general, a definition seeks to explicate the meaning of a word, the definiendum, using some description couched in more familiar words, the definiens.  In philosophy the goal of a definition is the specification of a set of necessary and sufficient conditions for membership in a category of class.  For example, knowledge is often defined as justified true belief.

Descriptive Moral Relativism: The view that it is a matter of empirical fact, there are deep and widespread moral disagreements across different societies.

Deontic: Derived from the Greek word for duty or necessity, "deon,"  this word is an adjective describing the noun as being related to duty or obligations.  For instance, deontic logic is a logic concerned with arguments about obligation and permission.

Deontologist: Deontologists are theorists who assert that immutable universal principles dictate ethical obligations, most often in the form of duties or respect for others.  For the deontologist, the ethical rightness or wrongness of actions is determined by their consistency with (whether the action is dictated, forbidden, or permitted) by these universal principles. 

Descriptive Moral Relativism: The view that it is a matter of empirical fact, there are deep and widespread moral disagreements across different societies.

Diamagnetic Materials: Diamagnetic materials respond to the application of a magnetic field with an induced magnetic field in the with the opposite polarity that creates a repulsive force.

Dissociation: A disruption in the usually integrated functions of consciousness, memory, identity, or perception of the environment. The disturbance may be sudden or gradual, transient or chronic.  Dissociations are useful in cognitive science in that they demonstrate independence of one function from the other.

Doxastic: Of or relating to belief or belief-like states (i.e., propositional attitudes like desires, fears, etc..).

Doubt:  See certainty above.

Duty: A duty is the requirement to act or to refrain from acting in some way out of respect (i.e., a recognition of the universal and necessary nature of the action) for the law. 

Electroencephalography:  Electroencephalography (EEG) uses a device to record electrical signals from the brain [specifically postsynaptic potentials of neurons] through electrodes attached either to the scalp, subdurally [i.e., beneath the dura matter; the outermost, toughest and most fibrous of three membranes covering and protecting the brain and the spinal cord], or even to the surface of the cortex.  EEGs record neuronal activity by recording the ionic current generated by neuronal activity through non-empty extracellular space between the neurons and the scalp.  The measured EEG activity is the sum of all the synchronous activity of all the neurons in the area below the electrod that have the same approximate vertical orientation to the scalp. 

Empirical: Something that can be observed, sensed, or experienced.

Ex hypothesi: by hypothesis.  For example, Wallis is ex hypothesi an expert in the field.  

Explanandum: The thing (data, phenomena, fact, etc.) to be explained.   This term and the one below are normally linked to Hempel Oppenheim (Studies in the Logic of Explanation) who cite Carnap.  "From the preceding sample cases let us now abstract some general characteristics of scientific explanation. We divide an explanation into two major constituents, the explanandum and the explanans.2 By the explanandum, we understand the sentence describing the phenomenon to be explained (not that phenomenon itself); by the explanans, the class of those sentences which are adduced to account for the phenomenon.   2 These two expressions, derived from the Latin explanare, were adopted in preference to the perhaps more customary terms "explicandum" and "explicans" in order to reserve the latter for use in the context of explication of meaning, or analysis. On explication in this sense, cf. Carnap, [Concepts], p. 513.-Abbreviated titles in brackets refer to the bibliography at the end of this article." (pp. 136-137)

Explanans: The thing (data, law, etc..) that does the explaining.

Fallacy: Fallacies are faulty arguments.  Formal fallacies are invalid deductive arguments.  Informal fallacies are deductive or inductive arguments unsound, uncogent, or otherwise specious arguments in which the presentation of the argument obscures its defect so that one discovers the arguments flaw only by taking content and context into account.

fMRI: Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging or FMRI is a non-invasive technique for imaging the activation of brain areas by different types of physical sensation (sight, sound, touch, taste, smell) or activity such as problem solving and/or movement (limited by the machine).

Hallucination: A conscious experience, often a seeming sensory experience, with compelling sense of reality or veridicality (accurate or truthful), which nevertheless occurs without the relevant sensory input and which lacks veridicality.  Common hallucinations include hearing voices, geometric images, smells, and tastes.

Hedonism: The view that pleasure is the highest or the only human value or goal, and the moral theory that holds that human beings should act in ways that maximize that goal.

Hedonistic Psychological Egoism: The (descriptive) theory (a more specific or concrete version of psychological egoism) that the only desire motivating human actions is the desire to get or to prolong pleasant experiences, and to avoid or to cut short unpleasant experiences for oneself. For example, if one asks, "Why don't the chicken cross the road?", the hedonistic psychological egoist answers, "because the chicken was seeking pleasure, the prolongation of pleasure, avoiding unpleasantness, or minimizing unpleasantness."

Hydrocephalus: A build-up of cerebrospinal fluid (CSF), the liquid that surrounds the brain and spinal cord, fluid inside the skull, leading to brain swelling.

Hyperacusis: Hypersensitivity to sounds stemming from either an emotional or an organic basis.

Hypnagogic sensations: Hypnagogic sensations collectively describe the vivid dream-like auditory, visual, or tactile sensations that people sometimes experience in a hypnagogic state (i.e., a semiconscious state immediately prior to falling asleep) or hypnopompic state (i.e., a semiconscious state immediately prior to waking-up).

Hypothetical Imperative: See also "imperative" and "categorical imperative."  A hypothetical imperative is the verbal expression of a command of reason (an objective truth), where the command of reason relates means to ends.  So, hypothetical imperatives are always conditional statements stating the relationship between a means and an end.  For instance, "if you want to pass Wallis' class, you must study," is a hypothetical imperative relating the goal of passing Wallis' class to the means of studying the material.  

Illusion: When a person misperceives or misinterprets one's sensory input from some external source so as to inaccurately judge the real properties of an object or event.

Imperative:  See also "hypothetical imperative" and "categorical imperative."  An imperative is the verbal expression of a command of reason.  That is, it is the verbal expression of an objective principle.  For example, "walk 2-3 times a week for at least ten minutes," is an imperative because it is an objective truth that such activity significantly decreases your risk of most major illnesses.

Incorrigible: In ordinary parlance, usually refers to a person or behavior that is difficult or impossible to correct, especially by punishment.  For example, "We've tried to get Wallis to stay on topic--even punishing him with electric shocks--but he is incorrigible."  In philosophical parlance, however, the term designates beliefs, statements, etc. about which it is impossible for one to mistakenly form a false belief.  For example, one's belief that, "I am here." seems prima facie incorrigible.  That is, since the indexical "I" always refers to the user and the indexical "here" always refers to the position of the user, the sentence always seems to correctly pick-out the location of the user when thought or uttered.

Information Ecosystem: An information ecosystem consists of a set of places and/or people one regularly consults to gather information, evaluate claims, or when pondering the adequacy of one’s worldview.  Good information ecosystems should include straight news sources from primary and aggregated news providers, analysis and commentary sources, as well as fact-checking and debunking sources. These sources should provide information on a range of important topics like history, law, science, politics, economics, as well as current world, national and local events.  One must maintain one's information ecosystem just as one would maintain one's car or home by occasionally stepping outside of the normal mix to calibrate the accuracy, reach, and slant of one’s ecosystem. Specifically, one ought to explore new information sources, sites from other countries, sites with different political slants, with different informal specializations, etc. to compare the reporting and emphasis of these sources to those in one’s own ecosystem. Likewise, one ought to evaluate whether important information appears in one’s ecosystem in a timely and accurate fashion.

The Initial Condition:  Contractarian ethical and political philosophers hold that ethical and societal norms gain their authority because reason compels assent by rational agents to the social contract given their own nature and the nature of the world absent any such contracts and norms. Therefore, the contractarian must characterize how the world would be if there were no contracts and ethical norms; such a characterization is called the initial condition. The initial condition serves to frame the reasons for the explicit or implicit consent to the social contract and acts as the backdrop against which the terms of the contract are negotiated. 

Introspection: Introspection is a mental process whereby people come to gain insights into or form beliefs regarding their own mental states such as conscious thoughts, desires and sensations.  There are at least three general models of introspection:  The perceptual or observational model construes introspection as a sort of perceptual capacity, an inner sense, allowing one to view the contents of one's own mind.  The constitutive or immediate model supposes that many mental states are such that one cannot have the state without also having the ability to form beliefs about it.  The inferential or theory-based view suggests that introspection is a sort of inferential process through which one comes to form beliefs about one's mental states.  Philosophers have often held that introspection has the properties of being infallible, unmediated or direct, and/or self-justifying.  Additionally, philosophers have often also held that many states are completely and universally transparent to introspection. 

Intuition: Intuition can refer to both an ability and to the products of that ability.  Intuition is often likened to perception.  It's Latin root, intuitus, means to look at or watch over.  In general, there are two notions of intuitions: (1) An ability to immediately, non-inferentially judge or grasp the truth regarding some object, question, or issue likened to a direct perception of the truth or a judgement informed by the relevant concept.  (2) An immediate, non-inferential judgement or impression suggesting a potential insight with regard to some object, question, or issue.   Notion (1) tends to drive analytic philosophy, and attributes high epistemic status to intuitions.  Notion (2) tends to drive cognitive science, which views intuitions as judgments formed using diverse processes with diverse epistemic status.

In vivo: In vivo translates from the Latin into within the living organism.  In general, in vivo is used to describe studies in which cellular activity is studied as it occurs in the body.

Ipsilateral: In physiology, anatomy, and neuroscience, ipsilateral refers to same side.  For instance, information from the right side of the right eye is processed ipsilaterally, i.e., the right hemisphere processes information from the right side of your right eye.

Justificandum: The thing to be justified.  For example, justificandum belief = the belief to be justified.  Presumably, as in the above distinction between explanandum and explanans, the things (beliefs, perceptions, etc..) would be called the justificans, though I haven't seen  this term used.

 

Logical Form: Logical form refers to the underlying structure of arguments and inferences—specifically, the underlying relationships between ideas, classes, concepts, statements, etc. when distinguished from and the content of those arguments, i.e., the specific ideas, classes, concepts, statements, etc.. One implication of logical form is that arguments about different topics can have identical logical forms. For instance, the two arguments below have the same logical form despite having different contents and despite the different truth values of their constitutive statements:

  Argument 1
If dogs are cats, then Wallis is a genius.
Dogs are cats.
Conclusion: Wallis is a genius.
 
  Argument 2
If this liquid is water, then it consists primarily of H2O.
This liquid is water.
Conclusion: This liquid consists primarily of H2O.
 
  Shared Logical Form
If A is true, then B is true.
A is true.
Conclusion: B is true.


Maxim: As it relates to ethics, a maxim is a rule or principle that prescribes conduct.   For instance, "Never leave your wing man" is a fighter pilot maxim in the movie Top Gun.

Mental Chronometry: In psychology and related sciences mental chronometry is the study of the relative speed and temporal sequencing of mental process under some specified set of conditions.  For instance, when vision researchers determine the time it takes to recognize an object, they are engaging in mental chronometry.

Metaethical Moral Objectivism: The view that  true moral judgments are true universally or objectively, and false moral judgments are false universally.  In short, there is one, universal morality.

Metaethical Moral Nihilism: The view that there are no true or false moral judgments.

Metaethical Moral Relativism: The assertion that moral judgments, in so far as they are true or false, justified or unjustified, have that status only relative to the traditions, convictions, or practices of some group of persons or person.

Metaethical Moral Scepticism: The view that moral truths, and even the possibility of moral truths, cannot be known. 

Macrosomatognosia and microsomatognosia:  Macrosomatognosia refers to a disorder of the body image in which a person perceives a part or parts of his or her body as disproportionately large. Researchers associate macrosomatognosia with lesions in the parietal lobe, particularly the right parietal lobe, which integrates perceptual-sensorimotor functions concerned with the body image.  Microsomatognosia, as the name suggests, refers to perceptions of part or parts of one's body as disproportionately small.

Moral Psychology:  Moral psychology studies the psychological dimensions of morality, particularly psychology of moral action and moral judgment.

MRI: MRI is a non-invasive imaging technique used to create highly detailed anatomic images in medicine.

Near Pupil Reflex: The automatic adjustment of pupil dilation in response to changes in distance between the viewer and the object viewed. Specifically, looking a objects in the distance results in increased pupil dilation, and looking at objects nearby results in decreased pupil dilation.

Normative: In philosophy, normative refers to two projects: (1) The description or explicit rendering of a standard or correctness of behavior thoughts, and/or thought processes in terms of norms--rules or tendencies prescribing praiseworthy or blameworthy (right or wrong) behaviors, thoughts, and/or thought processes.  (2) The attempt to establish a system of norms (rules or tendencies) to serve as a standard of correctness of behavior or thought.  Many philosophers see no difference between the projects in so far as our native norms are optimal.  See normative ethics and normative moral relativism below for examples.

Normative Ethics: The project in the philosophic field of ethics to develop and justify theories of right and wrong action.  For example, Utilitarianism is a normative ethical theory asserting, roughly, that right and wrong actions can be differentiated in that the former maximize the greatest good for the greatest number.

Norms: Norms refer to rules or tendencies prescribing praiseworthy or blameworthy (right or wrong) behaviors, thoughts, and/or thought processes.  One can think of norms as explicit and conscious (conscious rule following), implicit and unconscious (unconscious rule following), or formally encoded rules or laws (e.x. formal logic).

Normative Moral Relativism: The position that what one ought to do is relative to the traditions, convictions, or practices of the group or culture in which you find yourself.

Paradox: A paradox is a statement or group of statements that seem true or intuitively obvious, but which imply a contradiction or describe a situation which is intuitively false or impossible.

Paramagnetic Materials: These are material that are weakly attracted to magnets. They include aluminum, magnesium and (diatomic) oxygen. The atoms of these substances contain electrons most of which spin in the same direction ... but not all . This gives the atoms some polarity. Paramagnetic materials respond to the application of a magnetic field with a weak induced magnetic field with the same polarity creating an attractive force.  Thus, they are only weakly influenced by a magnetic field, and since some of the atoms can be turned to point their poles in the same direction, these metals can become very weak magnets. Their attractive force can only be measured with sensitive instruments.

Pineal gland: The pineal gland is the melatonin producing epithalamic structure.  It is an reddish-gray evagination (outpocketing) of the posterior roof of the third ventricle measuring roughly 8mm, and found between the the thalamic bodies, just rostro-dorsal to the superior colliculus.

Population: A population is a collection of individuals about which statisticians wish to make inferences. For example, the statistics lecture uses the example of a population consisting of a jar of marbles containing 50% red marbles and 50% non-red marbles.   The U.S. census has the residents of the United States as its population.  Election polls typically take "likely voters" as their population.

Prima Facie: Prima facie is a Latin phrase that translates as "at first sight."  In philosophy it generally indicates that an idea, assertion, or course of action is plausible or intuitive initially, though further evidence might show it to be otherwise.

Psychological Egoism: The doctrine that the only thing anyone is capable of desiring or pursuing ultimately (as an end in itself) is one’s own self-interest. In other words, the answer a psychological egoist gives to the question, "Why did X do Y?", is always, "because X wanted Y or whatever Y brought about."  For example, if one asks, "Why don't the chicken cross the road?", the psychological egoist answers, "because the chicken was pursuing it's own self-interested goals." Psychological egoism is a descriptive theory of human motivation.

Reaction Time: Reaction time (RT) is the time it takes for an organism to generate a behavioral response once presented with sensory stimulus.

Referential Opacity: Two terms are referentially opaque if they refer to the same object or property, but they cannot be substituted salva veritate (i.e. without changing the truth value of the statement). For instance, "Circle" and "Set of points equidistant from a center point on a Euclidian plane" are referentially opaque to your average 5 year old. That is, when shown a picture of a circle and asked, "Is this a picture of a circle," a 5 year old would answer "yes." When shown a picture of a circle and asked, "Is this a picture of a set of points equidistant from a center point on a Euclidian plane," a 5 year old would likely say the didn't know or answer "no."

Relative Frequency: The relative frequency consists of the ratio of individuals (in either the sample or the population) exhibiting the target property over the total number of individuals.  Thus, the statistics lecture uses the example of a population consisting of a jar of marbles containing 50% red marbles and 50% non-red marbles. The relative frequency of red marbles in the marble jar population equals .5.  Similarly, in a given sample from the marble jar, the relative frequency of the sample will consist of the ratio of red marbles to the total number in that sample.

Representativeness: In their 2002 paper, "Extensional Versus Intuitive Reasoning: The Conjunction Fallacy in Probability Judgment," Amos Tversky and Daniel Kahneman characterize representativeness as: “Representativeness is an assessment of the degree of correspondence between a sample and a population, an instance and a category, an act and an actor or, more generally, between and outcome and a model.”  (p. 22)  In short, representativeness indicates the degree to which a sample or element reflects the properties, objects, events, or relations of the whole or collection from which one has taken it.  For instance, Michael Moore is fairly unrepresentative of the members of the national rifle association, NRA, in that he supports more restrictions on guns and ammunition.  In contrast, having five fingers and an opposable thumb makes your hand very representative of the hands one finds in the larger human population.

Salience: Literally, salience refers to something's prominence, conspicuousness, etc..  In cognitive science salience refers the tendency of an object, property, or event to draw and capture attention. 

Sample:A sample consists of the relatively small number of individuals selected from the population (see above) by statisticians as the source of data for their inferences.   Thus, the statistics lecture uses the example of a population consisting of a jar of marbles containing 50% red marbles and 50% non-red marbles.  The sample consists of the individual marbles randomly drawn from the jar.  The sample for the census consists of those individuals who receive and return their census forms.  Most polls take a sample from the population by calling people.

Skinner's Concept of Functional Analysis: Skinner adopts a methodology for psychology called functional analysis.  The goal of functional analysis is to characterize dependencies between observable behaviors--not meticulously detailed step-wise causal relationships.  That is, functional analysis specifies relationships between observable phenomena, i.e., between conditioning histories and environments.  Specifically, Skinner understands functional analysis as a method for establishing relationships between stimuli and responses through the application of operant conditioning.  Skinner's analysis is often called a "three-term contingency" analysis in that it characterizes the environmental features that act as a trigger for the behavior (sometimes called the discrimative stimulus), the response (the specific rigorously characterized behavior), and reinforcement (the consequence of the behavior that positively or negatively influences the probability of the behavior in the eliciting conditions).

Sound: Logicians use the term, "sound," as a positive evaluative term for deductive arguments.   If the premises are true and the argument valid, then the argument is sound.

Strong: Logicians use the term, "strong," as a positive evaluative term for inductive arguments.  Strong arguments are inductive arguments having a logical form such that the truth of their premises makes the conclusion highly probable (significantly more probable than by chance alone).

Substance Dualism: The view in the philosophy of mind holding that the mind and the body are utterly distinct sorts of entities, each having their own distinct kinds of properties.  For example, Descartes tells readers that physical substance has properties such as shape, extension, and number, while mental substance can have none of these properties.

Subtraction Method: The subtraction method in psychology and related feilds determines a value for some variable in a complex phenomena by subtracting the values of other components of the phenomena.  For instance, one might determine the time it takes to read a word by subtracting the time it takes to press a button in response to a flash of a light from the time it takes to press a button after reading the word.  That is, word reading time = the time it takes to respond after reading the word - the time it takes to respond to a stimulus would reading.

Supervenience: Supervenience is a relation between properties, facts, or events.  For the supervenient properties, facts, or events, call them S, and the properties upon which they supervene, call those P: All instances of P are instances of S, but not all instances of S are  necessarily the instances of P, and for all Ss that are Ps, any changes in S must also be changes in P.  Supervenience differs from type-type reductionism because many different properties can be Ss.  Supervenience differs from token-token reductionism in that for any P upon which S supervenes all instances of P are instances of S.

Synthetic Statements: A statement that can be negated without a contradiction. For example, "Long Beach has a population of 360,000 people," can negated without a contradiction.  "It's false that Long Beach has a population of 360,000 people." is not a contradiction.

T1 or Spin Lattice Relaxation Time: In MRI and fMRI, the amount of time it takes for the atoms in MRI-induced, high energy resonation to return to their equilibrium value, i.e., the time it takes for Z dimension equilibrium magnetization value to return from zero after a radio frequency pulse.  Typical T1 values are around 1s.

T2 or Spin-Spin Relaxation Time: In MRI and fMRI, the measure of the rate of change of spin phases from MRI-induced, high energy resonation to their normal low energy; typical values are around 100ms.

T2* or BOLD or Blood-oxygen Level Dependent Signal: The measure of signal variation due to spatial and temporal variation in local concentrations of deoxygenated hemoglobin in capillary beds as a result fo radio frequency pulse in fMRI.

Target (Property, Object, event, or Relation): The target property, target object, target event, or target relation consists of the aspect of the population, i.e., the property-type, object-type, event-type, or relation-type about which statisticians wish to make inferences.  In the marble jar example, the target property consists of redness.  Thus, the statistics lecture uses the example of a population consisting of a jar of marbles containing 50% red marbles and 50% non-red marbles.  The target property, the property about which the example turns, is the property of being red.  In political polling, the target property might be favorable feelings about a candidate.

Tautology: A statement which is necessarily true in virtue of its logical structure, i.e., in virtue of the logical relationships between it's elements.  For example, "Either it is raining or it not raining," is a tautology.

Tesla: A tesla is a unit measure of magnetic force.  A single tesla is defined as enough magnetic force to induce 1 volt of electricity in a single-coil circuit during 1 second of time for every square meter.

Thought Experiment: The technique of employing imaginary or counterfactual scenarios to explore the functioning or nature of some event, concept, or relation.  The name--or, more accurately the Latin/German name: Gedankenexperiment--dates back to the Danish physicist/chemist Hans Christian Ørsted (1812) and entered into the English as "thought experiment" through an 1897 translation of a paper by Austrian Physicist Erst Mach.

Universal Statement: A universal statement asserts something about every instance of an object, property, or event.  For instance, "All humans are mortal."  asserts that every human is mortal.  Likewise,  "Triangles are three-sided figures." is a universal statement asserting that every triangle is also a three-sided figure.

Valence: The degree of attraction or aversion that an individual feels toward a specific object or event.

Valid: Logicians use the term, "valid," as a positive evaluative term for deductive arguments.  Specifically, valid arguments have a logical form (structure) such that if the premises of a valid argument are true, the conclusion must be true as well.

Ventricles of the Brain: The human ventricles of the brain are a system of four structures continuous with the central canal of spinal cord, which are with filled with cerebrospinal fluid that bathes the brain and spinal cord, cushioning them from damage.  Cells in most areas of the ventricles produce cerebrospinal fluid. 

Verification Theory of Meaning or Verificationism:  One important aspect of logical empiricism is the attempt to give an explicit criteria for meaning.  Early on, the Vienna Circle espoused a strong doctrine about meaning called Verificationism.  According to the verification theory of meaning a statement is meaningful only if there exists a specific, finite operation or observation for definitively determining its truth or falsity.   For example, the statement "Calvin weighs twelve pounds" is meaningful because there are standardized devices (scales) and operations (properly used scales) that would definitively give one a truth-value for the statement.

Voxel: A contraction for volume element, which is the basic unit of CT or MR reconstruction; represented as a pixel in the display of the CT or MR image.  There are approximately 60,000 brains cells in a given voxel.

Worldview: The collection of beliefs, likelihood estimates, values, etc. that provide one with one’s general understanding of one’s identity, one’s position in society and the universe, the manner in which the society and the universe work, as well as one's goals and acceptable behaviors in pursuing those goals.

 

Some Online Philosophy Dictionaries


A Dictionary of Philosophical Terms and Names

Glossary of Philosophic Terms

Larry Hauser's Philosophical Glossary

UC San Diego Ethics Glossary

Dictionary of the Philosophy of Mind