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The authors propose a parallel-constraint-satisfaction theory of impression formation that assumes that social stereotypes and individuating information such as traits or behaviors constrain each other's meaning and jointly influence impressions of individuals. Building on models of text comprehension (W. Kintsch, 1988), the authors describe a connectionist model that can account for the major findings on how stereotypes affect impressions of individuals in the presence of different kinds of individuating information; how stereotypes, behaviors, and traits affect each other's meaning; and how multiple stereotypes jointly affect impressions. Most of these findings can be modeled by constraint networks, which suggests that they may be due to relatively automatic processes that require little conscious inference. The authors also point to a small number of phenomena that involve more controlled processes. The advantages of the authors' parallel model over serial models are discussed.How friendly is the person you have just met at the party? How aggressive is your neighbor? How decisive is President Clinton? Your answers to such questions may be shaped by your understanding of the implications of these people's behavior, profession, age, sex, ethnicity, interpersonal relations, personality traits, physical appearance, abilities, goals, family background, or any other information about them that you consider relevant. These diverse varieties of information that can shape our impressions of others are typically classified by social psychologists into two major kinds-stereotypes and individuating information (Brewer, 1988;Fiske & Neuberg, 1990;Locksley, Hepburn, & Ortiz, 1982). Stereotypes refer to membership in social categories such as sex, race, age, or profession that are believed to be associated with certain traits and behaviors. Individuating information refers to anything else known about the individual-behavior (e.g., hit someone), personality (e.g., introverted), family circumstances (e.g., has two brothers), etc. As we shall discuss later, the distinction between these two kinds of information is not always clear. But many theorists have treated them as qualitatively different, and a great deal of theoretical and empirical effort has gone into determining how an

This target article presents a new computational theory of explanatory coherence that applies to the acceptance and rejection of scientific hypotheses as well as to reasoning in everyday life. The theory consists of seven principles that establish relations of local coherence between a hypothesis and other propositions. A hypothesis coheres with propositions that it explains, or that explain it, or that participate with it in explaining other propositions, or that offer analogous explanations. Propositions are incoherent with each other if they are contradictory. Propositions that describe the results of observation have a degree of acceptability on their own. An explanatory hypothesis is accepted if it coheres better overall than its competitors. The power of the seven principles is shown by their implementation in a connectionist program called ECHO, which treats hypothesis evaluation as a constraint satisfaction problem. Inputs about the explanatory relations are used to create a network of units representing propositions, while coherence and incoherence relations are encoded by excitatory and inhibitory links. ECHO provides an algorithm for smoothly integrating theory evaluation based on considerations of explanatory breadth, simplicity, and analogy. It has been applied to such important scientific cases as Lavoisier's argument for oxygen against the phlogiston theory and Darwin's argument for evolution against creationism, and also to cases of legal reasoning. The theory of explanatory coherence has implications for artificial intelligence, psychology, and philosophy.

This book is an essay on how people make sense of each other and the world they live in. Making sense is the activity of fitting something puzzling into a coherent pattern of mental representations that include concepts, beliefs, goals, and actions. Paul Thagard proposes a general theory of coherence as the satisfaction of multiple interacting constraints, and discusses the theory's numerous psychological and philosophical applications. Much of human cognition can be understood in terms of coherence as constraint satisfaction, and many of the central problems of philosophy can be given coherence-based solutions. Thagard shows how coherence can help to unify psychology and philosophy, particularly when addressing questions of epistemology, metaphysics, ethics, politics, and aesthetics. He also shows how coherence can integrate cognition and emotion. Bradford Books imprint

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