Year: 2012
Type: article
Abstract: Miller (1990) suggests that communication between linguistics and psychology is hampered for essentially cognitive reasons: linguists favor simplifying explanations while psychologists favor causal explanations.This paper reformulates this suggestion as three testable hypotheses.First, scientists vary in cognitive style from rationalist/nomological to empiricist/mechanistic.Second, linguistics is primarily a rationalist/nomological science, while psychology is primarily an empiricist/mechanistic one.Strikingly, even among nativists, linguistic and psychological research still contrast along the rationalist/empiricist dimension.Third, cognitive styles are relatively intractable, as suggested by empirical evidence that they are associated with intrinsic individual differences and by formal arguments that highlight their selfisolating nature.
Author: James Myers
Institution: National Chung Cheng University
Language: English
Subfield: Experimental and Cognitive Psychology
Field: Psychology
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
Funder: National Science Council
Award: G1923519799
OpenAlex ID: W2407294119