Friends and Foes of Theory Construction in Psychological Science
- 24 March 2011
- journal article
- Published by SAGE Publications in Perspectives on Psychological Science
- Vol. 6 (2), 192-201
- https://doi.org/10.1177/1745691611400239
Abstract
Newell (1973) criticized the use of vague theoretical dichotomies to account for narrowly defined empirical phenomena. Many of the problems raised by Newell persist today. We argue that these problems derive not from any peculiarity of psychological science but from the hindrances inherent to empirical theory testing. To show the contemporary relevance of these problems, we present two modern illustrations of the encumbrances faced by dichotomy-based research, we review some attempts to rely on nonempirical criteria to overcome the empirical impediments in theory testing, and we bring the question of theoretical mimicry to bear on these problems. Next, we discuss an alternative to theoretical dichotomies: the Unified Theories of Cognition (Newell, 1990). Finally, we introduce the “new experimentalism” approach in philosophy of science (Mayo, 1996), which provides a new perspective on theory construction in psychological science. We conclude with suggestions on how this new perspective can be implemented.This publication has 63 references indexed in Scilit:
- A critical look at the embodied cognition hypothesis and a new proposal for grounding conceptual contentJournal of Physiology-Paris, 2008
- The Role of Falsification in the Development of Cognitive Architectures: Insights from a Lakatosian AnalysisCognitive Science, 2007
- The Representation of Object Concepts in the BrainAnnual Review of Psychology, 2007
- You can play 20 questions with nature and win: Categorical versus coordinate spatial relations as a case studyNeuropsychologia, 2006
- Predictive engineering models based on the EPIC architecture for a multimodal high-performance human-computer interaction taskACM Transactions on Computer-Human Interaction, 1997
- Conditional Probability May be a Flawed Measure of Associative StrengthSocial Cognition, 1997
- Fact retrieval in younger and older adults: The role of mental models.Psychology and Aging, 1996
- Resolving the apparent discrepancy between the incongruency effect and the expectancy-based illusory correlation effect: The TRAP model.Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 1996
- Cognitive organization of impressions: Effects of incongruency in complex representations.Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 1989
- The rate of “mental rotation” of images: A test of a holistic analogue hypothesisMemory & Cognition, 1979