Explanatory Principle Research Articles

The Construction of “Mental Models”: Its Essence and Use in Various Fields of Psychology

Introduction. Mental models are a scientific psychological construct, which means that people create models of the external world in their minds and operate them to plan their activities. Today, mental models have found application in various fields: explaining the principles of human thinking and solving logical problems, creating models about time, sets, causes and effects, as well as in the field of learning, social relations, teamwork. However, in Russian, the subject of the study of mental models is practically not presented.Purpose. To examine works devoted to the study of mental models in various fields of psychology.Mental models in the field of thinking process research. A leading expert in the field of human thinking mechanisms P. N. Johnson-Laird put forward and substantiated idea, that in the process of reasoning, people actively create mental models that accompany logical operations and can influence them. Mental models are iconic, reflecting the meaning of objects of the external world, are deployed in a sequence corresponding to external events, and reflect external operations schematically.Mental models in learning. Mental models can be useful tools for constructing the educational process. Understanding and competent use of the natural mechanisms of the psyche of students can improve the process of modeling their knowledge of the world around them.Mental models in socio-psychological processes. The interaction of an individual with other people generates the process of forming their reflections in the internal space, creating models of behavior and possible reactions of others. In team interaction, an important factor in the effectiveness and viability of the team is the presence of common (team) mental models.Discussion. The use of the concept of mental models in various fields and a large number of conceptual and empirical works on this topic may indicate the universality of the phenomenon of models. Mental models as an explanatory principle are built into existing theories and enrich them.

Theorizing about persuasive message repetition in communication research: a systematic review

ABSTRACT Understanding the effects of persuasive message repetition and the related concept of message fatigue is uniquely relevant to the field of communication, and an account of the state of theory and research in the field can be provided through a systematic review. We reviewed studies detailing quantitative research of persuasive message repetition and/or message fatigue published in communication journals between 1970 and 2020. Among other things, our review indicates that the field’s theorizing in this area often focuses on descriptive models but (1) infrequently considers explanatory principles and (2) rarely makes explicit arguments for the mechanisms driving the effects of persuasive message repetition or message fatigue. We consider what these findings tell us about the field’s theoretical contributions and suggest an agenda for future work.

Productive pluralism: The coming of age of ecological psychology.

The ecological approach to psychology has been a main antecedent of embodied and situated approaches to cognition. The concept of affordances in particular has gained currency throughout psychological science. Yet, contemporary ecological psychology has seemed inaccessible to outsiders and protective of its legacy. Indeed, some prominent ecological psychologists have presented their approach as a "package deal"-a principled and unified perspective on perception and action. Looking at the history of the field, however, we argue that ecological psychology has developed in rich and pluriform ways. Aiming to open the field to critical engagement and productive exchange, we identify three major strands of thought within ecological psychology, each of which emerged in the 20 years after Gibson's death: physical, biological, and social ecological psychology. Each of these strands develop ecological ideas in quite different directions, making different use of some of its central concepts, adopting different explanatory principles, and embodying different philosophical worldviews. Proponents of the ecological approach have been arguing for pluralism within cognitive science to make room for ecological psychology. Given the diversity of the strands, we extend this plea to within ecological psychology itself; the field is better off aiming for a productive pluralism in which the different strands are in dialogue with each other. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

Richard Bentley against atheists

Summary: In his Boyle lectures, Richard Bentley presented arguments designed to stop the growing tide of atheistic and deistic sentiment in England. He argued for the existence of the soul and the existence of God using arguments based on science of his time, in particular, the Newtonian physics. He argued against randomness as an explanatory principle and addressed the problem of theodicy.

The idea of God as a condition for the reason functionning in Kant's transcendental Theology

According to I. Kant, reflecting on reality, the mind inevitably comes to the idea of an entity possessing the highest perfection and absolutely necessary by its nature. The idea of God as the supreme being is considered by transcendental theology as a hypothesis of pure reason, without which its practical application is impossible. The author of the article explores why and how the concept of God plays a coordinating role in the work of speculative reason. In this regard, the structure and tasks of Kant's transcendental theology are discussed, its problematic nature as a form of cognition, the prerequisites for the emergence of the idea of God in pure reason, the possibility of proving His existence solely based on a priori concepts, the problem of excluding empirical definitions from the idea of God. The idea of God is analyzed in the light of the natural tasks of the mind formulated by Kant, as a necessary condition for the possibility of achieving them. The study is based on the analysis of Kantian texts. These are mainly the works "The only possible basis for proving the existence of God" (1763), the First and Second criticisms, manuscripts from 1778-1780 (the so-called materials for the "Critique of Pure Reason"), Lectures on Rational Theology of the winter semester of 1783/84, etc. As a result of the research, it is shown that the idea of God acts as an unprovable position, which, nevertheless, the mind must accept, since this is necessary for the completeness of its application. The author explains the organizing role of the concept of God by its a priori "genetic" connection with such categories of pure reason as reality and necessity. The concept of God is "involved" in the work of these categories and is simultaneously shaped by their application. It allows, ultimately, to think about the order and expediency of reality and satisfies the requirement of reason to be economical with respect to the number of explanatory principles. The author's special contribution to the research of the topic is to demonstrate the specifics of the transcendental approach to the stated problem. It is shown that the unprovability of the existence of God is a necessary element of transcendental theology. The very idea of the supreme essence appears in it as a limit, indicating the limit of the possibilities of the mind. In this regard, it is productive, as it allows us to idealize, model consciousness and construct a different type of rationality within the boundaries of our understanding of our own mind.

Clustering Professional Communication Exploring the Methodology of Clustering the Thematic Dimension in Professional Communication (Politics)

This article examines the challenges associated with selecting appropriate methodologies and principles for organizing the intricate thematic dimension of professional communication. By employing suitable methods, fragmented knowledge can be synthesized, while the explanatory principle facilitates the identification of essential attributes within a given cluster. The rational application and integration of fundamental scientific principles, concepts, and methodological approaches establish specific criteria for objectively evaluating the construct of a cluster. Clustering is recognized as one of the most effective techniques for segmenting the diverse thematic dimensions of professional communication. The article analyzes the “Politics” cluster as an exemplar within the broader thematic dimensions of professional communication. The clustering process within the thematic dimension aims to encompass an expansive scope with a sense of comprehensive coherence. The model for clustering the thematic dimension provides a range ofconstraints and assumptions crucial in creating appropriate constructs.

Toward a new phase of Du Châtelet scholarship: From Institutions de Physique (1740) to Institutions Physiques (1742)

Abstract There is a mysterious twofold change in Du Châtelet’s position on Newtonian attraction: from acceptance thereof as an explanatory principle in Essai sur l’optique (ca. 1738–39), to rejection in the 1740 Institutions, and returning to acceptance again in her Commentary (1756) to Newton’s Principia. In this article, I suggest that we turn to the 1742 Institutions for answers. There, Du Châtelet introduces physical explanation and maintains that we can appeal to certain physical qualities (such as attraction) for explanatory force. Using this case study, I argue that the scholarship will benefit greatly from turning to the 1742 edition going forward.

Introduction: the limits of the explanatory potential of the alienability contrast

Abstract This introductory article outlines the central topic of the present special issue, viz. the contrast between alienable and inalienable possession, and how this contrast is reflected in the grammars and lexicons of natural languages. It sketches the historical background of the alienability contrast in the linguistic literature and points to a number of biases that need to be overcome in order to (1) advance our understanding of the contrast and (2) face the limits of its explanatory potential. Specifically, the present introduction, as well as the contributions to the present issue, proposes to move beyond prototypical possessive relationships (ownership, part-whole, and kinship relations), prototypical possessor categories (human possessors) as well as prototypical possessee categories (artifacts, body-parts and kin). In addition, the issue contains three contributions dealing with Amazonian languages, thus filling in an important gap in previous crosslinguistic studies on possession. The data presented in the special issue show that many morphosyntactic phenomena that have been explained in terms of the alienability contrast – or are amenable to such explanations – cannot be reduced to it, and are sometimes even better described without recourse to alienability at all. The present article thus concludes that the alienability contrast is at best regarded as a heuristic tool in exploring linguistic data, and cautions that, if used as the only explanatory principle, it could actually hamper an adequate description of the data.

Persuasive message effects via activated and modified belief clusters: toward a general theory

Abstract This article proposes a general theory of persuasive message effects based on four sets of arguments. The first set commits to theorizing that focuses on specifying causal order and the explanatory principle driving that order. The second set makes the case that specifying a complex causal order among a series of cognitions is unjustifiable in many cases. The third set contends that many cognitions in the persuasion process can be conceptually treated as distinct beliefs within a network. The fourth and final set theorizes that persuasive message effects occur via the activation and modification of belief clusters. This article works through these arguments in detail and then provides examples of how this framework could be implemented to guide theorizing about persuasive message effects.

Overlooked advantages of interactive book reading in early childhood? A systematic review and research agenda

Previous reviews of the nature and consequences of adult-child book reading have focused on seeking impacts of interactive reading on the acquisition of vocabulary and emergent literacy skills. In this systematic review we examined to what extent there has been systematic study of the effects of interactive reading on four less frequently studied developmental outcomes important to children's academic and life prospects: socio-emotional and socio-cognitive (SEL) skills, narrative skills, grammar, and world knowledge. We identified 67 studies of interactive reading that met the inclusion criteria and that examined the targeted outcomes, using either experimental, quasi-experimental, correlational, or single-group intervention methods. We found that studies of effects on grammar and world knowledge outcomes were very sparsely represented; though narrative was often studied as an outcome, the wide variation in conceptualizing and assessing the construct hampered any clear conclusion about book-reading effects. The most robust research strand focused on SEL skill outcomes, though here too the outcome assessments varied widely. We speculate that better instrumented approaches to assessing vocabulary and emergent literacy have led to the persistent emphasis on these domains, despite robust evidence of only modest associations, and argue that work to develop sound shared measures of narrative and SEL skills would enable cross-study comparison and the accumulation of findings. In addition, we note that the various studies implicated different explanatory principles for the value of reading with children: specific interactional features (open-ended questions, following the child's lead, expanding child utterances) or content features (emotion-enhanced books, talk about mental states, science topics), raising another topic for more focused study in the future.

Rumbo a una metafísica homérica

This article explores some general notions of what could be called a “Homeric metaphysics”, as it underlies the poems, setting some philosophical problems. In the first place, the Homeric arché is analyzed as the explanatory principle of the gods and the totality of the cosmos through theogonic and cosmogonic allusions in the Iliad. Then, the structural principles of the divine order and its projection in the human and natural cosmos are presented, closely linked to the limits of Zeus’s power as ruler of the universe, along with its direct implications on the political level. Thirdly and lastly, the notion of time in the poems is briefly analyzed, as a metaphysical concept that operates in human reality and on which an ethical-existential dimension of the hero is projected, as will be seen in the case of Achilles.

Convergence and depopulation processes in the Center-Periphery system

The paper proposes advancement of a stratum demographic model characterized by the presence of two strata — the Center and the Periphery, which are different in respects of their way of life, development level and social values. The processes of convergence and depopulation in the heterogeneous system of the Center-Periphery type were studied. Various variants of “catch-up development” of the Periphery are considered within the framework of numerical simulation. Modes of economic growth that contribute to the convergence of income levels in the countries of the Center and the Periphery are indicated, depending on the value of the characteristic time of convergence. There are identified the regimes of a stable and supposedly irreversible depopulation of the Periphery. It is shown that economic participation of the Center in changing the situation in the Periphery countries might be necessary to achieve economic convergence for maintaining the stability of the entire system. As an explanatory principle of the observed phenomena, the institutional trap concept is proposed. A number of socio-economic interpretations of the dynamics of the Center-Periphery system as well as the possibility of the System behavior control by appropriate management decisions are discussed on the results of computer modeling. Further development of the proposed model may include studying other scenarios of economic interaction and taking into account additional demographic and migration parameters in the equations of economic growth.

The causality-chance binomial: explanatory principle of scientific knowledge in medicine?

This essay questions mathematical truths as an explanatory principle of the medical scientific knowledge. It analyzes, in the first place, the current concept of normality based on a distribution of probabilistic values and its limitations and mistakes to capture the complexity of the human condition are highlighted. The closed systems (gambling) origin of the theory of probabilities and the binomial causality-chance are compared with open systems typical of the complexity of the vital process, and their extreme differences are argued. The nonsense of depositing in the causality-chance binomial the meaning of associations between events typical of the complexity of human life in health and disease is highlighted. The characteristics of mechanistic causality (punctual, homogeneous, linear, unidirectional and fixed), which equates the organism with a machine and is the only accepted scientific explanation of events of human life, are confronted with those of contextual causality (diffuse, heterogeneous, hierarchical, multidirectional and changing), which specifies various interacting causal orders that shape of human condition: the historical, the social, the political, the economical, the cultural or the biological that represents a scrutinizing and penetrating look at the complexity of human beings. It concludes the superiority of contextual causality over mechanistic causality that opens up explanatory possibilities of the vital events that are usually put away as "effects of chance". This integrative approach to the human complexity can enrich and strengthen the clinical method that is now degraded and at risk of extinction.

Why We Gather: A New Look, Empirically Documented, at Émile Durkheim's Theory of Collective Assemblies and Collective Effervescence.

For Durkheim, individuals' survival and well-being rest on cultural resources and social belonging that must be revived periodically in collective assemblies. Durkheim's concern was to clarify how these assemblies achieve this revitalization. An intensive examination of primitive religions led him to identify successive levels of engagement experienced by participants and to develop explanatory principles relevant to all types of collective gatherings. Durkheim's conception is widely referred to nowadays. However, the question of its empirical status remains open. We extracted from his text his main statements and translated them into research questions. We then examined each question in relation to current theories and findings. In particular, we relied on the plethora of recent cognitive and social-psychology studies that document conditions of reduced self-other differentiation. Abundant data support that each successive moment of collective assemblies contributes to blurring this differentiation. Ample support also exists that because shared emotions are increasingly amplified in collective context, they can fuel high-intensity experiences. Moreover, recent studies of self-transcendent emotions can account for the self-transformative effects described by Durkheim at the climax of collective assemblies. In conclusion, this century-old model is remarkably supported by recent results, mostly collected in experimental settings.

La biologie et la révolution moléculaire : récits choisis (volume 2)

In the 1970s the development of an embryo was seen as a problem that may be impossible to solve. Forty years later, molecular genetics have elucidated its explanatory principles and the new embryology calls for a refoundation of the theory of Evolution. It is a brief history of what happened between these two moments, as I experienced it, that I present here. The questions that caught me are: 1) what were the driving forces of this story 2) what new theory of development followed and how does it compare to those before this revolution.

Features of the creation and development of organizations in the management of socio-cultural activities

The article substantiates and analyzes the peculiarities of the creation of organizations as a strategic tool that can ensure an effective implementation process in the activities of the manager of the socio-cultural sphere. The factors influencing the manager’s activity on the formation and promotion of the individual’s own socio-cultural experience are characterized. The principles of the organization, the philosophy of which corresponds to the institutional theory, the balance between the tasks determined by the specific internal socioeconomic policy and the public interests of the economic system in which this organization operates are emphasized and defined. The category “organization” serves as a fundamental basis for the formation of general explanatory principles, which are used to analyze the relationships between the subject and the object of management and other phenomena and processes. The structure, directions and forms of activity of the manager of the socio-cultural sphere, who carry out their activities while applying the principles of formation, functioning of the management system, professional experience, technologies, finances and legal components for the development of the organization, are characterized.

Domination of Domination Idea: “The Will to Power” in Contemporary Social Theory. Part I.

The core idea of this article is that in contemporary sociological and, more generally, social theories the concept of power, and especially in such its variety as domination, plays a key role. Moreover, there is a kind of seizure of the conceptual space in theoretical sociology by power and domination concepts. These latter concepts today claim to be the main explanatory principle of all social life. The author qualifies this theoretical position as a kind of "power determinism" and "power reductionism". This trend can be traced in general theory, as well as in different particular fields of sociology. Conceptual expansion of power and domination may also be seen in the fact that concepts close to them ("force", "violence", "oppression", "coercion", "hegemony", etc.), as well as their antonyms (such as "subordination", "obedience", "subordination", "dependence", "resistance", "disagreement", etc.) are becoming increasingly important. These categories occupy an important place in a number of the most popular social theories of our time (P. Bourdieu, E. Laclau, S. Mouffe, J. Agamben, J. Butler and many others). But it was Foucault who played the main role in substantiating omnipotent and ubiquitous presence of power in social life. He tried to implement Nietzsche's call to turn sociology into a doctrine of power. The author analyzes the nature and intellectual origins of these ideas.

Chimera of Naturalism and Free Will

This article is devoted to the analysis of arguments from empirical science against free will. Its main purpose is to reveal their deep anti-naturalism. This anti-naturalism lies in the use of a concept of free will that cannot be the subject of naturalistic consideration, as well as in the various explanatory and ontological paradoxes that arguments from empirical science lead in case when someone is trying to generalize the explanatory principles underlying them. At the beginning of the article, the author gives a general notion of the free will problem, a working definition of naturalism and the place of arguments from empirical science in discussions about free will. To achieve the main goal of the article, the author suggests a classification of arguments from empirical science, which includes five types: from prediction, from manipulation, from the brain, from illusion, from the substitution of concepts. In accordance with this classification, the structure of the article is defined, where each of the presented types is sequentially considered. The logic of considering each type of argument is approximately the same: explication of the essence of the argument of a particular type, its analysis, identification of basic principles and their generalization, demonstration of the negative consequences that it leads to, and answers to possible objections. In the course of the consideration, the author formulates an ontologically neutral concept of free will as a set of abilities associated with the agent’s control over his actions. At the end of the article, the main points is summed up, the idea of naturalistic compatibilism is proposed, the role of arguments from empirical science in discussions about free will is clarified, as is the problem of free will itself, the question of the sources of “chimerization” of naturalism is briefly highlighted, and the problem of completeness of the proposed reasoning is touched upon.

The Happiness that Qualifies Nonduality: Jñāna, Bhakti, and Sukha in Rāmānuja’s Vedārthasaṃgraha

The great eleventh-century figure, Rāmānuja, belonged to the Śrīvaiṣṇava community that worshiped the divine as Viṣṇu-with-Śrī, the Lord-and-Consort. But he also embarked on a project to develop an interpretation of the first-century Vedāntasūtra, which presented the supposedly core teachings of the major Upaniṣads, traditionally the last segment of the sacred corpus of the Vedas. Rāmānuja sought to reconcile the devotional commitments of Śrīvaiṣṇavism—which was built on the human yearning for the divine that was incomprehensibly Other while graciously accessible—with the conceptual demands of the Vedānta in which a profound identity between the individual self (ātman) and the impersonal, ultimate explanatory principle (brahman) was taught. This reconciliation of difference and identity came to be called “Qualified Nondualism.” In his earliest work, the Vedārthasaṃgraha, one of the ways Rāmānuja points to reconciliation is through identifying a single state of consciousness as both cognition of nonduality (the Vedāntic project) and the emotionally valent experience of happiness (the supreme expression of the human encounter with the divine). It does not seem that he systematically pursues this conception of how a state can be both cognitive and affective, and such an analysis will require independent philosophical analysis. Thus, this article argues that if a state of consciousness were indeed both cognitive and affective in this way, we would have a full explanation for how the devotional approach of a human being to Viṣṇu-with-Śrī can also be the self’s realization of identity with brahman.

Parsers and Grammars: A Tutorial Overview from the Linguistics Building.

The purpose of this paper is to re-examine the relationship between grammars and processing systems in light of the various forms of experimental research (especially of an electrophysiological nature) that has been conducted in the last fifteen years or so. First, the notion of 'processing strategy' or 'heuristics processing' is considered followed by a discussion of structures of great morphosyntactic complexity that parsing systems seem to tackle by simply respecting complex grammatical laws, instead of by resorting to shortcuts. Then, grammatical illusions and what these can teach us about the processing of grammar are considered. It is argued that illusions allow us to discern a few explanatory principles that may redefine the way we see parser-grammar relations. Among these is the idea that how long illusions last in the online-to-offline transition depends in part on their 'templatability', that is, the ease with which they become gestaltic templates. Another key idea is that some apparent illusions are in fact nothing more than grammar contemplated at work as in slow motion.