On 25 Jun 2005 02:28:36 GMT, "Buster Mudd"
wrote:


But in order for a psychologist to postulate unconscious representation
they need to observe something in a subject's behavior that suggests
that Perceived-But-Not-Brought-To-Consciousness thing *was* affecting
the subject's cognitive economy. This gets right back to my previous
question: How would you go about *proving* (confirming? demonstrating?)
that something was in someone's "cognitive economy" if that something
could not enable that someone to perform a task?

Mark wrote:
Well, just as you say, by observing behavior that, together
with everything else that is observed, is best explained
by that hypothesis, in the context of a larger theory.

p.s. If you are thinking: but specifically what behavior or what sort
of behavior? DeBellis isn't telling me that! That is because the
relevant behavior would vary from one case to another. It would
depend on what the mental item was and what role it was playing in
somebody's psychology. The relevant behavior would be specified in
the psychological theory itself, not by you or I looking at the
theory, as it were, "from outside."

Mark