Behavioral and Brain Sciences

Table of Contents - 2009 - Volume 32, Issue 02  

Cambridge Journals Online - CUP Full-Text Page
Behavioral and Brain Sciences (2009), 32:218-219 Cambridge University Press
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2009
doi:10.1017/S0140525X09001071

Open Peer Commentary

Undermining the foundations: Questioning the basic notions of associationism and mental representation

Ezequiel Morsellaa1a2, Travis A. Riddlea1 and John A. Bargha3

a1 Department of Psychology, San Francisco State University, San Francisco, CA 94132-4168 morsella@sfsu.edu http://bss.sfsu.edu/emorsella/
a2 Department of Neurology; University of California, San Francisco, San Francisco, CA 94143 triddle@sfsu.edu
a3 Department of Psychology, Yale University, New Haven, CT 06520-8205. john.bargh@yale.edu http://pantheon.yale.edu/~jab257/home.html
Article author query
morsella e [PubMed]  [Google Scholar]
riddle ta [PubMed]  [Google Scholar]
bargh ja [PubMed]  [Google Scholar]

Abstract

Perhaps the time has come to re-examine the basic notions of cognitive science. Together with previous challenges against associationism, the target article should be viewed as a call to arms to re-evaluate the empirical basis for contemporary conceptualizations of human learning and the notion of “mental representation,” a concept that has become too imprecise for describing the elements of cognition.

The propositional nature of human associative learning Chris J. Mitchell, Jan De Houwer and Peter F. Lovibond School of Psychology, University of New South Wales, Kensington 2052, Australia chris.mitchell@unsw.edu.au http://www.psy.unsw.edu.au/profiles/cmitchell.html; Department of Psychology, Ghent University, Henri Dunantlaan 2, B-9000 Ghent, Belgium jan.dehouwer@ugent.be http://users.ugent.be/~jdhouwer/">; School of Psychology, University of New South Wales, Kensington 2052, Australia p.lovibond@unsw.edu.au http://www.psy.unsw.edu.au/profiles/plovibond.html">