Language is often regarded as a rich source of evidence about the mind. However, a number of find... more Language is often regarded as a rich source of evidence about the mind. However, a number of findings challenge this position, at least at the level of words: Where languages differ in their lexical distinctions, conceptual differences are not always observed. We ask here how language might serve as a window into the mind despite an apparently loose connection between words and concepts. We propose that prominent conceptual distinctions, though not necessarily captured by individual words, may be revealed by elements of meaning shared by multiple words. Testing this hypothesis in the domain of space, we show that clusters of spatial terms, identified through dimensionality reduction analyses of semantic similarity data, align with conceptual categories spontaneously accessed during the perceptual discrimination of spatial relations. These findings suggest that aspects of semantic structure beyond the level of words may provide considerable insight into the conceptual system. Implications for research on linguistic relativity are discussed.
Causal composition allows people to generate new causal relations by combining existing causal kn... more Causal composition allows people to generate new causal relations by combining existing causal knowledge. We introduce a new computational model of such reasoning, the force theory, which holds that people compose causal relations by simulating the processes that join forces in the world, and compare this theory with the mental model theory and the causal model theory , which explain causal composition on the basis of mental models and structural equations, respectively. In one experiment, the force theory was uniquely able to account for people's ability to compose causal relationships from complex animations of real-world events. In three additional experiments, the force theory did as well as or better than the other two theories in explaining the causal compositions people generated from linguistically presented causal relations. Implications for causal learning and the hierarchical structure of causal knowledge are discussed.
Metaphor has a double life. It can be described as a directional process in which a stable, famil... more Metaphor has a double life. It can be described as a directional process in which a stable, familiar base domain provides inferential structure to a less clearly specified target. But metaphor is also described as a process of finding commonalities, an inherently symmetric process. In this second view, both concepts may be altered by the metaphorical comparison. Whereas most theories of metaphor capture one of these aspects, we offer a model based on structure-mapping that captures both sides of metaphor processing. This predicts (a) an initial processing stage of symmetric alignment; and (b) a later directional phase in which inferences are projected to the target. To test these claims, we collected comprehensibility judgments for forward (e.g., ''A rumor is a virus'') and reversed (''A virus is a rumor'') metaphors at early and late stages of processing, using a deadline procedure. We found an advantage for the forward direction late in processing, but no directional preference early in processing. Implications for metaphor theory are discussed.
While haptic feedback is vital to how we gather information in the world, most research on causal... more While haptic feedback is vital to how we gather information in the world, most research on causal perception has focused on visual information. To assess how haptics affects people's perception of causal events, we ran a psychophysical study modeled after Michotte's launching paradigm. Participants watched trains move on the screen and judged whether one train caused the other to move, with half the trials providing 1-DoF kinesthetic haptic feedback synchronized to the motion of the second train. We manipulated the temporal offsets between when the first train stopped and the second train started. The results show that adding haptic feedback increases causal perception for events with positive offsets.
The world presents a dazzlingly rich array of sights and sounds, actions, and events to its obser... more The world presents a dazzlingly rich array of sights and sounds, actions, and events to its observers. The cognitive processes that allow humans to make sense of this rich sensory input and that guide their interactions with the world are, in a number of respects, shared ...
Causal relations permeate human knowledge across a wide range of domains, from the physical to th... more Causal relations permeate human knowledge across a wide range of domains, from the physical to the abstract. The existence of causal relations in many different domains raises an interesting challenge for accounts of causation. On the one hand, the word cause, and related words, can be used to describe a very wide range of situations, consistent with the possibility that people's representation of causation is based on a single notion of causation, a perspective often called causal monism. On the other hand, as discussed in this chapter, it has proven difficult to develop a unitary theory of causation capable of addressing the various phenomena associated with causation. The difficulty in developing such a theory points to the possibility that people
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, Feb 5, 2018
We use big data methods to investigate how decision-making might depend on future sightedness (th... more We use big data methods to investigate how decision-making might depend on future sightedness (that is, on how far into the future people's thoughts about the future extend). In study 1, we establish a link between future thinking and decision-making at the population level in showing that US states with citizens having relatively far future sightedness, as reflected in their tweets, take fewer risks than citizens in states having relatively near future sightedness. In study 2, we analyze people's tweets to confirm a connection between future sightedness and decisionmaking at the individual level in showing that people with long future sightedness are more likely to choose larger future rewards over smaller immediate rewards. In study 3, we show that risk taking decreases with increases in future sightedness as reflected in people's tweets. The ability of future sightedness to predict decisions suggests that future sightedness is a relatively stable cognitive characteristic. This implication was supported in an analysis of tweets by over 38,000 people that showed that future sightedness has both state and trait characteristics (study 4). In study 5, we provide evidence for a potential mechanism by which future sightedness can affect decisions in showing that far future sightedness can make the future seem more connected to the present, as reflected in how people refer to the present, past, and future in their tweets over the course of several minutes. Our studies show how big data methods can be applied to naturalistic data to reveal underlying psychological properties and processes. future thinking | decision-making | big data
Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Cognitive Science, Oct 27, 2010
The central question in research on linguistic relativity, or the Whorfian hypothesis, is whether... more The central question in research on linguistic relativity, or the Whorfian hypothesis, is whether people who speak different languages think differently. The recent resurgence of research on this question can be attributed, in part, to new insights about the ways in which language might impact thought. We identify seven categories of hypotheses about the possible effects of language on thought across a wide range of domains, including motion, color, spatial relations, number, and false belief understanding. While we do not find support for the idea that language determines the basic categories of thought or that it overwrites preexisting conceptual distinctions, we do find support for the proposal that language can make some distinctions difficult to avoid, as well as for the proposal that language can augment certain types of thinking. Further, we highlight recent evidence suggesting that language may induce a relatively schematic mode of thinking. Although the literature on linguistic relativity remains contentious, there is growing support for the view that language has a profound effect on thought.
Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society, 2021
Features of the physical world may be acquired from the statistical properties of language. Here ... more Features of the physical world may be acquired from the statistical properties of language. Here we investigate how the Transformer Language Model T5 is able to gain knowledge of the visual world without being able to see or feel. In a series of four studies, we show that T5 possesses an implicit understanding of the relative sizes of animals, their weights, and their shapes, but not their colors, that aligns well with that of humans. As the size of the models was increased from 60M to 11B parameters, we found that the fit to human judgments improved dramatically, suggesting that the difference between humans and these learning systems might ultimately disappear as the parameter sizes grow even larger. The results imply that knowledge of the perceptual world-and much of semantic memory-might be acquired in dis-embodied learning systems using real-time inferential processes.
Human behavior is plagued by shortsightedness. When faced with two options, smaller rewards are o... more Human behavior is plagued by shortsightedness. When faced with two options, smaller rewards are often chosen over larger rewards, even when such choices are potentially costly. In three experiments, we use big data techniques to examine how such choices might be driven by people's temporal horizons. In Experiment 1, we determine the average distance into the future people talk about in their tweets in order to determine the temporal horizon of each U.S. state. States with further future horizons had lower rates of risk taking behavior (smoking, binge drinking) and higher rates of investment (e.g., education, infrastructure). In Experiment 2, we used an individual's tweets to establish their temporal horizon and found that those with longer temporal horizons were more willing to wait for larger rewards. In Experiment 3, we were once again able to predict the choice behaviors of individuals from their tweets, this time showing that those with longer future horizons were less likely to take risks. The findings help establish a powerful relationship between people's thoughts about the future and their decisions.
Abstract In English, causation can be expressed with either a lexical or periphrastic causative v... more Abstract In English, causation can be expressed with either a lexical or periphrastic causative verb. Lexical causatives include both the notion of CAUSE and the notion of RESULT (frequently change-of-state)(eg Mulder sunk the boat); Periphrastic causatives ...
Causal relationships range from the physical to the abstract: from friction causing heat to stres... more Causal relationships range from the physical to the abstract: from friction causing heat to stress causing forgetfulness. This broad spectrum of relationships motivates the question of what all causal relationships have in common. One approach has been to specify the ...
Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society, 2006
Everyday language suggests we use forces in causal reasoning. We say, for example, The force of h... more Everyday language suggests we use forces in causal reasoning. We say, for example, The force of his argument cannot be denied, or Your argument doesn't go through, or The social progressive argument has tremendous moral force. Recent work in force dynamics suggests how these intuitions might be fleshed out computationally. According to force dynamics, people represent causal relationships in terms of configurations of force (Talmy, 1988; Wolff & Zettergren, 2002). One force, F A , is associated with an affector, that is, the entity that acts on another entity. Another force, F B , is associated with a patient, the entity that is acted on by the affector. A third force, F BA , is the resultant produced from the addition of these forces. Various causal concepts entail different configurations of force. For example, as shown in Figure 1, in a CAUSE configuration F A and F B are in opposition and the resultant, F BA , is towards the endstate, E.
The current research investigates whether people's everyday language contains sufficient signal t... more The current research investigates whether people's everyday language contains sufficient signal to predict the future occurrence of mental illness. Language samples were collected from the social media website Reddit drawing on posts to discussion groups focusing on different kinds of mental illness (clinical subreddits), as well as to discussion groups focusing on non-mental health topics (non-clinical subreddits). As expected, words drawn from clinical subreddits could be used to distinguish several kinds of mental illness (ADHD, Anxiety, Bipolar, Depression). Interestingly, words drawn from non-clinical subreddits (e.g., travel, cooking, cars) could also be used to distinguish different categories of mental illness, implying that the impact of mental illness spills over to into topics unrelated to mental illness. Most importantly, words derived from nonclinical subreddits predicted future postings to clinical subreddits, implying that everyday language contains signal about the likelihood of future mental illness, possibly before people are aware of their mental health condition. Finally, while models trained on clinical subreddits learned to focus on words indicating disorder-specific symptoms, models trained to predict future mental illness learned to focus on words indicating life stress, providing insight into the time-course of developing a mental illness.
Causation by omission is instantiated when an effect occurs from an absence, as in The absence of... more Causation by omission is instantiated when an effect occurs from an absence, as in The absence of nicotine causes withdrawal or Not watering the plant caused it to wilt. The phenomenon has been viewed as an insurmountable problem for process theories of causation, which specify causation in terms of conserved quantities, like force, but not for theories that specify causation in terms of statistical or counterfactual dependencies. A new account of causation challenges these assumptions. According to the force theory, absences are causal when the removal of a force leads to an effect. Evidence in support of this account was found in 3 experiments in which people classified animations of complex causal chains involving force removal, as well as chains involving virtual forces, that is, forces that were anticipated but never realized. In a 4th experiment, the force theory's ability to predict synonymy relationships between different types of causal expressions provided further evidence for this theory over dependency theories. The findings show not only how causation by omission can be grounded in the physical world but also why only certain absences, among the potentially infinite number of absences, are causal.
Language is often regarded as a rich source of evidence about the mind. However, a number of find... more Language is often regarded as a rich source of evidence about the mind. However, a number of findings challenge this position, at least at the level of words: Where languages differ in their lexical distinctions, conceptual differences are not always observed. We ask here how language might serve as a window into the mind despite an apparently loose connection between words and concepts. We propose that prominent conceptual distinctions, though not necessarily captured by individual words, may be revealed by elements of meaning shared by multiple words. Testing this hypothesis in the domain of space, we show that clusters of spatial terms, identified through dimensionality reduction analyses of semantic similarity data, align with conceptual categories spontaneously accessed during the perceptual discrimination of spatial relations. These findings suggest that aspects of semantic structure beyond the level of words may provide considerable insight into the conceptual system. Implications for research on linguistic relativity are discussed.
Causal composition allows people to generate new causal relations by combining existing causal kn... more Causal composition allows people to generate new causal relations by combining existing causal knowledge. We introduce a new computational model of such reasoning, the force theory, which holds that people compose causal relations by simulating the processes that join forces in the world, and compare this theory with the mental model theory and the causal model theory , which explain causal composition on the basis of mental models and structural equations, respectively. In one experiment, the force theory was uniquely able to account for people's ability to compose causal relationships from complex animations of real-world events. In three additional experiments, the force theory did as well as or better than the other two theories in explaining the causal compositions people generated from linguistically presented causal relations. Implications for causal learning and the hierarchical structure of causal knowledge are discussed.
Metaphor has a double life. It can be described as a directional process in which a stable, famil... more Metaphor has a double life. It can be described as a directional process in which a stable, familiar base domain provides inferential structure to a less clearly specified target. But metaphor is also described as a process of finding commonalities, an inherently symmetric process. In this second view, both concepts may be altered by the metaphorical comparison. Whereas most theories of metaphor capture one of these aspects, we offer a model based on structure-mapping that captures both sides of metaphor processing. This predicts (a) an initial processing stage of symmetric alignment; and (b) a later directional phase in which inferences are projected to the target. To test these claims, we collected comprehensibility judgments for forward (e.g., ''A rumor is a virus'') and reversed (''A virus is a rumor'') metaphors at early and late stages of processing, using a deadline procedure. We found an advantage for the forward direction late in processing, but no directional preference early in processing. Implications for metaphor theory are discussed.
While haptic feedback is vital to how we gather information in the world, most research on causal... more While haptic feedback is vital to how we gather information in the world, most research on causal perception has focused on visual information. To assess how haptics affects people's perception of causal events, we ran a psychophysical study modeled after Michotte's launching paradigm. Participants watched trains move on the screen and judged whether one train caused the other to move, with half the trials providing 1-DoF kinesthetic haptic feedback synchronized to the motion of the second train. We manipulated the temporal offsets between when the first train stopped and the second train started. The results show that adding haptic feedback increases causal perception for events with positive offsets.
The world presents a dazzlingly rich array of sights and sounds, actions, and events to its obser... more The world presents a dazzlingly rich array of sights and sounds, actions, and events to its observers. The cognitive processes that allow humans to make sense of this rich sensory input and that guide their interactions with the world are, in a number of respects, shared ...
Causal relations permeate human knowledge across a wide range of domains, from the physical to th... more Causal relations permeate human knowledge across a wide range of domains, from the physical to the abstract. The existence of causal relations in many different domains raises an interesting challenge for accounts of causation. On the one hand, the word cause, and related words, can be used to describe a very wide range of situations, consistent with the possibility that people's representation of causation is based on a single notion of causation, a perspective often called causal monism. On the other hand, as discussed in this chapter, it has proven difficult to develop a unitary theory of causation capable of addressing the various phenomena associated with causation. The difficulty in developing such a theory points to the possibility that people
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, Feb 5, 2018
We use big data methods to investigate how decision-making might depend on future sightedness (th... more We use big data methods to investigate how decision-making might depend on future sightedness (that is, on how far into the future people's thoughts about the future extend). In study 1, we establish a link between future thinking and decision-making at the population level in showing that US states with citizens having relatively far future sightedness, as reflected in their tweets, take fewer risks than citizens in states having relatively near future sightedness. In study 2, we analyze people's tweets to confirm a connection between future sightedness and decisionmaking at the individual level in showing that people with long future sightedness are more likely to choose larger future rewards over smaller immediate rewards. In study 3, we show that risk taking decreases with increases in future sightedness as reflected in people's tweets. The ability of future sightedness to predict decisions suggests that future sightedness is a relatively stable cognitive characteristic. This implication was supported in an analysis of tweets by over 38,000 people that showed that future sightedness has both state and trait characteristics (study 4). In study 5, we provide evidence for a potential mechanism by which future sightedness can affect decisions in showing that far future sightedness can make the future seem more connected to the present, as reflected in how people refer to the present, past, and future in their tweets over the course of several minutes. Our studies show how big data methods can be applied to naturalistic data to reveal underlying psychological properties and processes. future thinking | decision-making | big data
Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Cognitive Science, Oct 27, 2010
The central question in research on linguistic relativity, or the Whorfian hypothesis, is whether... more The central question in research on linguistic relativity, or the Whorfian hypothesis, is whether people who speak different languages think differently. The recent resurgence of research on this question can be attributed, in part, to new insights about the ways in which language might impact thought. We identify seven categories of hypotheses about the possible effects of language on thought across a wide range of domains, including motion, color, spatial relations, number, and false belief understanding. While we do not find support for the idea that language determines the basic categories of thought or that it overwrites preexisting conceptual distinctions, we do find support for the proposal that language can make some distinctions difficult to avoid, as well as for the proposal that language can augment certain types of thinking. Further, we highlight recent evidence suggesting that language may induce a relatively schematic mode of thinking. Although the literature on linguistic relativity remains contentious, there is growing support for the view that language has a profound effect on thought.
Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society, 2021
Features of the physical world may be acquired from the statistical properties of language. Here ... more Features of the physical world may be acquired from the statistical properties of language. Here we investigate how the Transformer Language Model T5 is able to gain knowledge of the visual world without being able to see or feel. In a series of four studies, we show that T5 possesses an implicit understanding of the relative sizes of animals, their weights, and their shapes, but not their colors, that aligns well with that of humans. As the size of the models was increased from 60M to 11B parameters, we found that the fit to human judgments improved dramatically, suggesting that the difference between humans and these learning systems might ultimately disappear as the parameter sizes grow even larger. The results imply that knowledge of the perceptual world-and much of semantic memory-might be acquired in dis-embodied learning systems using real-time inferential processes.
Human behavior is plagued by shortsightedness. When faced with two options, smaller rewards are o... more Human behavior is plagued by shortsightedness. When faced with two options, smaller rewards are often chosen over larger rewards, even when such choices are potentially costly. In three experiments, we use big data techniques to examine how such choices might be driven by people's temporal horizons. In Experiment 1, we determine the average distance into the future people talk about in their tweets in order to determine the temporal horizon of each U.S. state. States with further future horizons had lower rates of risk taking behavior (smoking, binge drinking) and higher rates of investment (e.g., education, infrastructure). In Experiment 2, we used an individual's tweets to establish their temporal horizon and found that those with longer temporal horizons were more willing to wait for larger rewards. In Experiment 3, we were once again able to predict the choice behaviors of individuals from their tweets, this time showing that those with longer future horizons were less likely to take risks. The findings help establish a powerful relationship between people's thoughts about the future and their decisions.
Abstract In English, causation can be expressed with either a lexical or periphrastic causative v... more Abstract In English, causation can be expressed with either a lexical or periphrastic causative verb. Lexical causatives include both the notion of CAUSE and the notion of RESULT (frequently change-of-state)(eg Mulder sunk the boat); Periphrastic causatives ...
Causal relationships range from the physical to the abstract: from friction causing heat to stres... more Causal relationships range from the physical to the abstract: from friction causing heat to stress causing forgetfulness. This broad spectrum of relationships motivates the question of what all causal relationships have in common. One approach has been to specify the ...
Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society, 2006
Everyday language suggests we use forces in causal reasoning. We say, for example, The force of h... more Everyday language suggests we use forces in causal reasoning. We say, for example, The force of his argument cannot be denied, or Your argument doesn't go through, or The social progressive argument has tremendous moral force. Recent work in force dynamics suggests how these intuitions might be fleshed out computationally. According to force dynamics, people represent causal relationships in terms of configurations of force (Talmy, 1988; Wolff & Zettergren, 2002). One force, F A , is associated with an affector, that is, the entity that acts on another entity. Another force, F B , is associated with a patient, the entity that is acted on by the affector. A third force, F BA , is the resultant produced from the addition of these forces. Various causal concepts entail different configurations of force. For example, as shown in Figure 1, in a CAUSE configuration F A and F B are in opposition and the resultant, F BA , is towards the endstate, E.
The current research investigates whether people's everyday language contains sufficient signal t... more The current research investigates whether people's everyday language contains sufficient signal to predict the future occurrence of mental illness. Language samples were collected from the social media website Reddit drawing on posts to discussion groups focusing on different kinds of mental illness (clinical subreddits), as well as to discussion groups focusing on non-mental health topics (non-clinical subreddits). As expected, words drawn from clinical subreddits could be used to distinguish several kinds of mental illness (ADHD, Anxiety, Bipolar, Depression). Interestingly, words drawn from non-clinical subreddits (e.g., travel, cooking, cars) could also be used to distinguish different categories of mental illness, implying that the impact of mental illness spills over to into topics unrelated to mental illness. Most importantly, words derived from nonclinical subreddits predicted future postings to clinical subreddits, implying that everyday language contains signal about the likelihood of future mental illness, possibly before people are aware of their mental health condition. Finally, while models trained on clinical subreddits learned to focus on words indicating disorder-specific symptoms, models trained to predict future mental illness learned to focus on words indicating life stress, providing insight into the time-course of developing a mental illness.
Causation by omission is instantiated when an effect occurs from an absence, as in The absence of... more Causation by omission is instantiated when an effect occurs from an absence, as in The absence of nicotine causes withdrawal or Not watering the plant caused it to wilt. The phenomenon has been viewed as an insurmountable problem for process theories of causation, which specify causation in terms of conserved quantities, like force, but not for theories that specify causation in terms of statistical or counterfactual dependencies. A new account of causation challenges these assumptions. According to the force theory, absences are causal when the removal of a force leads to an effect. Evidence in support of this account was found in 3 experiments in which people classified animations of complex causal chains involving force removal, as well as chains involving virtual forces, that is, forces that were anticipated but never realized. In a 4th experiment, the force theory's ability to predict synonymy relationships between different types of causal expressions provided further evidence for this theory over dependency theories. The findings show not only how causation by omission can be grounded in the physical world but also why only certain absences, among the potentially infinite number of absences, are causal.
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Papers by Phillip Wolff