Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences

About: Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences is a based out in . It is known for research contribution in the topics: Population & Philosophy of language. The organization has 227 authors who have published 281 publications receiving 19511 citations. The organization is also known as: CASBS & casbs.org.

Belief in the law of small numbers

Abstract: Reports that people have erroneous intuitions about the laws of chance. In particular, they regard a sample randomly drawn from a population as highly representative, I.e., similar to the population in all essential characteristics. The prevalence of the belief and its unfortunate consequences for psychological research are illustrated by the responses of 84 professional psychologists to a questionnaire concerning research decisions. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved) Language: en

Expression of Emotion as Part of the Work Role

Abstract: Research in organizational behavior focuses on expressed and felt emotions as indicators of employee health and satisfaction. In contrast, less conceptual and empirical work addresses the display of feelings as part of the job. This paper proposes a conceptual framework to guide theory development and research about the causes, qualities, and consequences of emotions that are expressed to fulfill role expectations.

Computation and cognition: Issues in the foundations of cognitive science.

Abstract: The computational view of mind rests on certain intuitions regarding the fundamental similarity between computation and cognition. We examine some of these intuitions and suggest that they derive from the fact that computers and human organisms are both physical systems whose behavior is correctly described as being governed by rules acting on symbolic representations. Some of the implications of this view are discussed. It is suggested that a fundamental hypothesis of this approach (the “proprietary vocabulary hypothesis”) is that there is a natural domain of human functioning (roughly what we intuitively associate with perceiving, reasoning, and acting) that can be addressed exclusively in terms of a formal symbolic or algorithmic vocabulary or level of analysis.Much of the paper elaborates various conditions that need to be met if a literal view of mental activity as computation is to serve as the basis for explanatory theories. The coherence of such a view depends on there being a principled distinction between functions whose explanation requires that we posit internal representations and those that we can appropriately describe as merely instantiating causal physical or biological laws. In this paper the distinction is empirically grounded in a methodological criterion called the “cognitive impenetrability condition.” Functions are said to be cognitively impenetrable if they cannot be influenced by such purely cognitive factors as goals, beliefs, inferences, tacit knowledge, and so on. Such a criterion makes it possible to empirically separate the fixed capacities of mind (called its “functional architecture”) from the particular representations and algorithms used on specific occasions. In order for computational theories to avoid being ad hoc, they must deal effectively with the “degrees of freedom” problem by constraining the extent to which they can be arbitrarily adjusted post hoc to fit some particular set of observations. This in turn requires that the fixed architectural function and the algorithms be independently validated. It is argued that the architectural assumptions implicit in many contemporary models run afoul of the cognitive impenetrability condition, since the required fixed functions are demonstrably sensitive to tacit knowledge and goals. The paper concludes with some tactical suggestions for the development of computational cognitive theories.

On the universality of human nature and the uniqueness of the individual: the role of genetics and adaptation.

Abstract: The concept of a universal human nature, based on a species-typical collection of complex psychological adaptations, is defended as valid, despite the existence of substantial genetic variation that makes each human genetically and biochemically unique. These apparently contradictory facts can be reconciled by considering that (a) complex adaptations necessarily require many genes to regulate their development, and (b) sexual recombination makes it improbable that all the necessary genes for a complex adaptation would be together at once in the same individual, if genes coding for complex adaptations varied substantially between individuals. Selection, interacting with sexual recombination, tends to impose relative uniformity at the functional level in complex adaptive designs, suggesting that most heritable psychological differences are not themselves likely to be complex psychological adaptations. Instead, they are mostly evolutionary by-products, such as concomitants of parasite-driven selection for biochemical individuality. An evolutionary approach to psychological variation reconceptualizes traits as either the output of species-typical, adaptively designed development and psychological mechanisms, or as the result of genetic noise creating perturbations in these mechanisms.