Generics and the Structure of the Mind

Reasoning about Instrumental and Communicative Agency in Human Infancy

“…First, Kir aly, Jovanovic, Aschersleben, Prinz, and Gergely (2003) and Jovanovic et al (2007) have shown that if 8-and even 6-month olds are first familiarized with one of two toys being repeatedly not only contacted but also slightly displaced by the unfamiliar back-of-the-hand action, then they look longer in the test if the back-of the-hand action displaces a novel toy at the old location instead of the same toy now at the new location. Second, Biro and Leslie (2007) have shown that if 6-month olds see a rigid rod approach one of two targets from several different angles, repeatedly pick it up by contacting three different parts of the toy (cues of equifinal variations of behavior), then they look longer if the rod performs the same action on a different target at the old location rather than on the same target at a different location. Luo and Baillargeon (2005) report a study in which 5-month olds first saw a self-propelled box repeatedly move to and contact one of two targets.…”

“…Leslie (2007) has argued that generics in natural languages ("birds fly"), which contain no explicitly encoded quantifiers, have peculiar semantic properties that make them strongly resistant to counterevidence and furthermore that humans are biased toward making kind-wide generalizations with such a peculiar generic content. Arguably, the causal essentialist construal of kinds can provide an explanation for why generalizations about kinds should not be easily dismissed by putative negative evidence based on the observable features of instances of kinds.…”

Generics Articulate Default Generalizations

“…Thus, I proposed that generics are likely to be rejected even if the property is highly prevalent, if there are these "positive counterinstances." (For a more detailed presentation of these aspects of the proposal, see Leslie, 2007Leslie, , 2008, in press a; for a discussion of social prejudice in light of this account, see Leslie, in press b. ) In this earlier work, I relied on my own evaluations of the generics in question, and on evaluations that have been made in the literature by linguists and philosophers for a number of years now (e.g., Carlson, 1977;Carlson & Pelletier, 1995;Lawler, 1973).…”

“…That it was possible to do so-that is, to construct a range of generics that predicate strikingly dangerous properties and are accepted despite having low associated prevalence estimates and mid-range cue validity estimates-lends indirect support to the hypothesis in Leslie (2007Leslie ( , 2008. However, the support is only indirect, since it does not involve directly testing the impact of a property's being dangerous on people's judgments.…”

Dissolving the epistemic/ethical dilemma over implicit bias

“…Leslie 2007). They are not universal claims, but they suggest that members of a group typically, characteristically or strikingly possess certain features.…”