Rethinking associations in psychology

Dacey, Mike

doi:10.1007/s11229-016-1167-0

Cited by 13 publications

(5 citation statements)

References 44 publications

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“…27 This leaves the researchers shadow-boxing with Fred Skinner (see also, footnote 1). 28 Clearly, the foundational challenges posed by Asymmetric Dependency Problem are orthogonal to the parochial disputes involving behaviorist boogey-monsters (especially the creature colloquially known as "associative learning"; see Dacey, 2016;Penn & Povinelli, 2013;. To emphasize: our theory of our chimpanzees' understanding of seeing, 29 not to mention Candy's understanding of her coconut, 26 Some scholars (mistakenly) believe our position does, in fact, have strong ties to behaviorism.…”

Section: Experimentalists React To the Asymmetric Dependency Problemmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…For a further discussion of the problem of equivocation in the use of the term behaviorist, see Povinelli and Eddy (1996a, p. 139). 27 I recommend Mike Dacey's (2016) masterful examination of the history and contemporary usage of the term "association" in psychology. He concludes: "...[A]ssociation should...be seen as a highly abstract filler term, standing in for causal relations between representational states in a system.…”

Section: Experimentalists React To the Asymmetric Dependency Problemmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Can Comparative Psychology Crack its Toughest Nut?

Povinelli¹

2020

AB&C

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What is the likelihood that humans will ever determine if other animals engage in higher-order thinking? In examining what has happened in the twenty years since the publication of our book, Folk Physics for Apes, I conclude that comparative psychologists, the academic stalwarts charged with making progress on this front, are stuck in a series of intractable, and largely unacknowledged, conceptual problems. Because higher-order mental states depend on the existence of first-order, perceptually-based representations of objects and events, and because those first-order representations are necessary and sufficient to explain current experimental and observational results, the approaches deployed by comparative psychologists are doomed to failure. I examine this Asymmetric Dependency Problem in detail and show how the failure to confront its implications leads to viciously circular arguments that cannot be fixed within the current paradigm of research. Next, I offer a seven-step method for isolating the common structural flaw in any given experiment, and work through several examples. Finally, I examine the central claims that my colleagues and I made in Folk Physics through the lens of the Asymmetric Dependency Problem and current research trends. Although the optimism we expressed that experimental approaches could implicate the presence of higher-order thinking in animals requires considerable dampening, the challenges we isolated remain as vital today as they were twenty years ago.

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Section: Experimentalists React To the Asymmetric Dependency Problemmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Experimentalists React To the Asymmetric Dependency Problemmentioning

confidence: 99%

Can Comparative Psychology Crack its Toughest Nut?

Povinelli¹

2020

AB&C

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“…Philosophers have written a great deal on the methods of comparative psychology and how to study animal minds and behaviour. Two elements of methodological practice that have received particular attention are Morgan's Canon (Allen-Hermanson, 2005;Sober, 2005;Fitzpatrick, 2008;Meketa, 2014;Andrews & Huss, 2014;Currie, 2021) and the distinction between associative learning and cognition (Buckner, 2011;Heyes, 2012;Dacey, 2016a;Andrews, 2020;Starzak & Gray, 2021). Those writing in this area are often practicing comparative psychologists or philosophers working closely with comparative psychologists.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Morgan’s Canon and the Associative-Cognitive Distinction Today: A Survey of Practitioners

Voudouris,

Farrar,

Cheke

et al. 2024

Preprint

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Philosophers of science and mind have paid increasing attention to the field of comparative psychology. Two recurring points of discussion in the literature are the methodological value of Morgan's Canon and the distinction between associative and cognitive processes. Although the existing literature regularly makes claims about the beliefs and attitudes of comparative psychologists, there are few empirical studies verifying these claims. This paper fills this gap by presenting and analysing the views of over two hundred comparative psychologists on Morgan’s Canon and the associative-cognitive distinction. We found that while there is some agreement between the claims in the existing literature and the views of the practitioners surveyed here (e.g., that Morgan’s Canon is a parsimony principle), there are also surprising points of divergence (e.g., practitioners do not view the associative-cognitive distinction as a version of Morgan’s Canon). We intend for this study to inform existing philosophical and theoretical work on perennial questions regarding how to study animal minds and behaviour.

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“…Interestingly, this process in humans can be seen as similar to performing multiple associations of different tasks. Thus, associative mechanisms could play a key role in solving these types of problems [Anderson & Bower, 2014;Buckner & DiNicola, 2019;Darcey, 2016Darcey, , 2020Lansner, 2009;Mandelbaum, 2015]. As such, an interesting avenue would be to use recurrent neural associative memories (RNAM) [Anderson, 1983], a type of ANN that explains how learned patterns may correspond to attractors in the brain's neuronal state space.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Using Bidirectional Associative Memory Neural Networks to Solve the N-bit Task

Rolon-Merette

Chartier

2023

FLAIRS

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Nowadays, artificial neural networks can easily solve the N-bit parity problem. However, each time a different level must be learned, the network must be retrained. This, combined with the exponential increase of learning trials required as N grows, make these models too different from how their biological counterpart solves them. This is because humans learn to recognize patterns, count, and determine if numbers are odd or even. Once they have learned these tasks, they can have them interact to solve any level without further training. This behavior is akin to performing multiple associations of different tasks. Therefore, it is proposed that by using bidirectional associative memory neural networks, it would be possible to solve the N-bit parity problem in a similar fashion to humans. To achieve this, two networks interacted; one served as a task Identifier and the other as a memory Extractor, giving the desired behavior influenced by the Identifier. Results showed that the model could solve the 2- to 9-bit in linear time once the associations were learned. Moreover, this was possible with 97% fewer inputs and no retraining. In addition, because of the recurrent nature of the model, it could also solve the tasks even under high noise levels.

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Rethinking associations in psychology

Cited by 13 publications

References 44 publications

Can Comparative Psychology Crack its Toughest Nut?

Can Comparative Psychology Crack its Toughest Nut?

Morgan’s Canon and the Associative-Cognitive Distinction Today: A Survey of Practitioners

Using Bidirectional Associative Memory Neural Networks to Solve the N-bit Task

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