Thoughts

Diagrams about Thoughts about Thoughts about Diagrams

The study of diagrammatic reasoning often focuses on computational models of diagram use rather than on studies of human performance. This paper considers diagrams as a notational system that can be used and studied in an experimental context. It presents a review of the experimental psychology literature rather than a complete theoretical framework, and is intended as an introduction to the fi...

Parting Thoughts

It has been said that there is no stronger urge than the urge to edit someone else's writing. Upon my retirement from the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS), and concurrently from my position as co-editor-in-chief of Environmental Health Perspectives, I find that perhaps the stronger urge is not to edit but rather to editorialize. Therefore, I would like to provide some...

Final thoughts.

We live in a world so uncertain, so chancy, that we seek to fill it with certainty: fundamentalist truth, hard numbers, insurance policies, political correctness, regulatory schemes, IRBs, and tenure. But the truth is, nothing can save you from the loss at the heart of it all, the probability that you will wake, blinking, from a darkness you could not imagine, to a lit world you cannot expect. ...

First thoughts

Abstract: Jean Mandler proposes an original and richly detailed theory of how concepts relate to sensory and motor capacities. I focus on her claims about conceptual representations and the processes that produce them. On her view, concepts are declarative representations of object kind information. First, I argue that since sensorimotor representations may be declarative, there is no bar to pe...

Strange Thoughts