False categories in cognition: the Not-The-Liver fallacy

Bedford, Felice L.

doi:10.1016/s0010-0277(97)00019-x

Cited by 11 publications

(8 citation statements)

References 29 publications

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“…An example of an unnatural category is: "things that are not cows." Such a category is inductively poor; the only common property that members of this category share is that they are not cows -and so it is useless from a cognitive or scientific point of view (see also Bedford 1997).…”

Section: What Are Word Meanings?mentioning

confidence: 99%

Précis of How Children Learn the Meanings of Words

2001

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Normal children learn tens of thousands of words, and do so quickly and efficiently, often in highly impoverished environments. In How Children Learn the Meanings of Words, I argue that word learning is the product of certain cognitive and linguistic abilities that include the ability to acquire concepts, an appreciation of syntactic cues to meaning, and a rich understanding of the mental states of other people. These capacities are powerful, early emerging, and to some extent uniquely human, but they are not special to word learning. This proposal is an alternative to the view that word learning is the result of simple associative learning mechanisms, and it rejects as well the notion that children possess constraints, either innate or learned, that are specifically earmarked for word learning. This theory is extended to account for how children learn names for objects, substances, and abstract entities, pronouns and proper names, verbs, determiners, prepositions, and number words. Several related topics are also discussed, including naïve essentialism, children's understanding of representational art, the nature of numerical and spatial reasoning, and the role of words in the shaping of mental life.

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Section: What Are Word Meanings?mentioning

confidence: 99%

Précis of How Children Learn the Meanings of Words

2001

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“…A stronger argument for this division would be to find exact complements (and not only complements) in the two single dissociations (Bedford, 1997). The various cases reported do not satisfy this condition as they have shown specific differences that undermine an exact living/nonliving division.…”

Section: The "Living Things" Impairment Characteristicsmentioning

confidence: 92%

“…Although the double dissociation ruled out the "ease of processing nonliving items" interpretation of the most common single dissociation, it does not ensure that the two categories of items are processed by separate subsystems; it might just be the case that another underlying dimension is responsible for the observed dissociation (Bedford, 1997). A stronger argument for this division would be to find exact complements (and not only complements) in the two single dissociations (Bedford, 1997).…”

Section: The "Living Things" Impairment Characteristicsmentioning

confidence: 98%

The “living things” impairment and the nature of semantic memory organisation: An experimental study using PI-release and semantic cues

Marques

2000

Cognitive Neuropsychology

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The present paper evaluated categorical and featural proposals of memory organisation, for explaining the living/nonliving things dissociation observed in semantic memory. The experimental study used the Release from Proactive Interference (PI-release) paradigm. Normal subjects were tested with this task using word vs. picture stimuli in a standard taxonomical PI-release condition (i.e., nonliving to living things) and in a cue condition with attributes that run opposite to the taxonomical shift. Experiments 1 and 2 cued functional attributes (means of transportation; dangerousness), and experiments 3 and 4 cued perceptual attributes (size; number of legs). The overall pattern of PI-release emphasizes the role of functional attributes and the role of structural processing to semantic processing. Implications for the different proposals presented, including possible alternative accounts of the results, are also discussed.

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“…Bedford (1997) demonstrated the problem describing a physician from the mid-18th century who claimed to discover the organ system that removes toxins from the blood, which he labeled the “liver.” He further claimed to discover a second organ, which circulates the blood, absorbs nutrients, expels waste products from the body, and attacks foreign invaders. For when the liver is removed, the body is still able to do all these things and more, until such time as the toxin buildup is fatal.…”

Section: Implications For Psychology Entailed By the “As If” Heuristicsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Simplifying and Facilitating Comprehension: The “as if” Heuristic and Its Implications for Psychological Science

Keren

Breugelmans

2020

Review of General Psychology

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Simplicity is a fundamental tenet of cognition intended to cope with a complex and intricate world. Based on the writings of the German philosopher Hans Vaihinger, this article introduces a wide-ranging simplification scheme denoted the “as if” heuristic. Following this heuristic, much of our productive and constructive thoughts about the world, specifically in science, are based on idealized fictitious assumptions. Although descriptions of the world as portrayed by psychological models and theories may contain fictitious elements (antithetical or at least indifferent to the search for truth), they afford a simplification tool that facilitates our comprehension of a complex and obscured world. Numerous examples from the psychological literature in which the “as if” heuristic is apparent are presented. Specifically, we analyze the implications of exploiting the heuristic for the development of psychological constructs, theory building, and the foundations of psychological measurement. While highlighting the gains acquired from the use of the “as if” heuristic, we also discuss its possible pitfalls if not properly used.

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False categories in cognition: the Not-The-Liver fallacy

Cited by 11 publications

References 29 publications

Précis of How Children Learn the Meanings of Words

Précis of How Children Learn the Meanings of Words

The “living things” impairment and the nature of semantic memory organisation: An experimental study using PI-release and semantic cues

Simplifying and Facilitating Comprehension: The “as if” Heuristic and Its Implications for Psychological Science

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