Is prediction necessary to understand language? Probably not

Language is not necessary for color categories.

The origin of color categories is under debate. Some researchers argue that color categories are linguistically constructed, while others claim they have a pre-linguistic, and possibly even innate, basis. Although there is some evidence that 4-6-month-old infants respond categorically to color, these empirical results have been challenged in recent years. First, it has been claimed that previou...

Is the phenotype-genotype relationship necessary to understand cardiomyopathies?

Why τ is Probably not Used to Guide Reaches Geoffrey

We suggest that τ may not be used to guide reaches. The reasons are: (1) targeted reaching is an intrinsically spatial task that requires information about length dimensioned properties (i.e. object distance, size, and/or velocity); (2) τ is time dimensioned and thus provides no spatial information. A τ variable can be constructed from perceived spatial variables and then used in a control dyna...

Policy Capacity Is Necessary but Not Sufficient; Comment on “Health Reform Requires Policy Capacity”

Policy capacity focuses on the managerial and organizational abilities to inform policy decisions with sound research and analysis, and facilitate policy implementation with operational efficiency. It stems from a view of the policy process that is rational and positivistic, in which optimal policy choices can be identified, selected, and implemented with objectivity. By itself, however, policy...

Learning how to understand language