Behavioral and Brain Sciences



Open Peer Commentary
Dienes & Perner: Implicit and explicit knowledge

Questioning explicit properties of implicit individuals in knowledge representation


Carmen E. Westerberg a1 and Chad J. Marsolek a1
a1 Department of Psychology, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN 55455 carmen@levels.psych.umn.edu marso002@gold.tc.umn.edu

Abstract

Dienes & Perner argue that the explicit representation of an individual to which a property is attributed requires explicit representation of the attributed property. The reasons for this conclusion are similar to the reasons why another of their conclusions may be considered suspect: A property may be explicit without an explicit representation of an individual or the predication of the property to an individual. We question the latter conclusion and draw connections to neurophysiological and cognitive evidence.