Michael L Anderson
Biographic Data
| ID | 3873300 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Michael L Anderson |
| GIVEN NAMES | Michael L |
| FAMILY NAME | Anderson |
| SIGNATURE | ANDERSON M L |
| AFFILIATIONS | Western University |
| ORCID | 0000-0003-0572-115X |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 16 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 15 |
| WORKS AS AUTHOR | 16 |
| WORKS AS EDITOR | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1980 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 2 |
Debt-free intelligence
Cognitive scientists and neuroscientists typically understand the brain as a complex communication/information-processing system. A limitation of this framework is that it requires cognitive systems to have prior knowledge about their environment to successfully perform some of their basic functions, such as perceiving. It is unclear how the source of such knowledge can be explained from within this framework. Drawing on Dennett (1981), we refer …
Uber and Traffic Fatalities
Previous studies of the effect of ridesharing on traffic fatalities have yielded inconsistent conclusions. We revisit this question using proprietary data from Uber measuring monthly rideshare activity at the Census tract level. We find a consistent negative effect of ridesharing on traffic fatalities, with impacts concentrated during nights and weekends. Our results imply that ridesharing has decreased U.S. traffic fatalities by 5.2% in areas wh…
Some dilemmas for an account of neural representation
Radical Embodied Cognitive Neuroscience
A radical embodied cognitive neuroscience (RECN) based on ecological psychology requires the understanding of the brain, its structure, and its functions to be compatible with the main tenets of the Gibsonian theory. In this paper, we propose neural reuse as a promising candidate to achieve such understanding. We base our proposal on two fundamental ideas. In section two, we review what we take to be the two central requirements for a RECN based …
What phantom limbs are
The Benefits of College Athletic Success
Spending on big-time college athletics is often justified on the grounds that athletic success attracts students and raises donations. We exploit data on bookmaker spreads to estimate the probability of winning each game for college football teams. We then condition on these probabilities using a propensity score design to estimate the effects of winning on donations, applications, and enrollment. The resulting estimates represent causal effects …
Mining the Brain for a New Taxonomy of the Mind
In this paper, I summarize an emerging debate in the cognitive sciences over the right taxonomy for understanding cognition - the right theory of and vocabulary for describing the structure of the mind - and the proper role of neuroscientific evidence in specifying this taxonomy. In part because the discussion clearly entails a deep reconsideration of the supposed autonomy of psychology from neuroscience, this is a debate in which philosophers sh…
After Phrenology
A proposal for a fully post-phrenological neuroscience that details the evolutionary roots of functional diversity in brain regions and networks. The computer analogy of the mind has been as widely adopted in contemporary cognitive neuroscience as was the analogy of the brain as a collection of organs in phrenology. Just as the phrenologist would insist that each organ must have its particular function, so contemporary cognitive neuroscience is c…
Subways, Strikes, and Slowdowns
Public transit accounts for 1 percent of US passenger miles traveled but attracts strong public support. Using a simple choice model, we predict that transit riders are likely to be individuals who commute along routes with severe roadway delays. These individuals' choices thus have high marginal impacts on congestion. We test this prediction with data from a strike in 2003 by Los Angeles transit workers. Estimating a regression discontinuity des…
The Effect of Health Insurance on Emergency Department Visits
Health insurance affects the rate at which individuals visit hospitals and emergency departments (EDs). We identify the causal effect of losing health insurance using a regression discontinuity design. We compare individuals just before and after their twenty third birthday, which insurers have used as a cutoff after which students are no longer eligible for their parents' health insurance: 1.5% of young adults lose their health insurance upon tu…
After Phrenology
Neural reuse
An emerging class of theories concerning the functional structure of the brain takes the reuse of neural circuitry for various cognitive purposes to be a central organizational principle. According to these theories, it is quite common for neural circuits established for one purpose to be exapted (exploited, recycled, redeployed) during evolution or normal development, and be put to different uses, often without losing their original functions. N…
Multiple Inference and Gender Differences in the Effects of Early Intervention
The view that the returns to educational investments are highest for early childhood interventions is widely held and stems primarily from several influential randomized trials—Abecedarian, Perry, and the Early Training Project—that point to super-normal returns to early interventions. This article presents a de novo analysis of these experiments, focusing on two core issues that have received limited attention in previous analyses: treatment eff…
Massive redeployment, exaptation, and the functional integration of cognitive operations
Embodied Cognition
Approaches to the History of the Western Family, 1500–1914
Mining the Brain for a New Taxonomy of the Mind
In this paper, I summarize an emerging debate in the cognitive sciences over the right taxonomy for understanding cognition - the right theory of and vocabulary for describing the structure of the mind - and the proper role of neuroscientific evidence in specifying this taxonomy. In part because the discussion clearly entails a deep reconsideration of the supposed autonomy of psychology from neuroscience, this is a debate in which philosophers sh…
Massive redeployment, exaptation, and the functional integration of cognitive operations
Approaches to the History of the Western Family, 1500–1914
Embodied Cognition
Massive redeployment, exaptation, and the functional integration of cognitive operations
Multiple Inference and Gender Differences in the Effects of Early Intervention
The view that the returns to educational investments are highest for early childhood interventions is widely held and stems primarily from several influential randomized trials—Abecedarian, Perry, and the Early Training Project—that point to super-normal returns to early interventions. This article presents a de novo analysis of these experiments, focusing on two core issues that have received limited attention in previous analyses: treatment eff…
Neural reuse
An emerging class of theories concerning the functional structure of the brain takes the reuse of neural circuitry for various cognitive purposes to be a central organizational principle. According to these theories, it is quite common for neural circuits established for one purpose to be exapted (exploited, recycled, redeployed) during evolution or normal development, and be put to different uses, often without losing their original functions. N…
After Phrenology
A proposal for a fully post-phrenological neuroscience that details the evolutionary roots of functional diversity in brain regions and networks. The computer analogy of the mind has been as widely adopted in contemporary cognitive neuroscience as was the analogy of the brain as a collection of organs in phrenology. Just as the phrenologist would insist that each organ must have its particular function, so contemporary cognitive neuroscience is c…
Subways, Strikes, and Slowdowns
Public transit accounts for 1 percent of US passenger miles traveled but attracts strong public support. Using a simple choice model, we predict that transit riders are likely to be individuals who commute along routes with severe roadway delays. These individuals' choices thus have high marginal impacts on congestion. We test this prediction with data from a strike in 2003 by Los Angeles transit workers. Estimating a regression discontinuity des…
The Effect of Health Insurance on Emergency Department Visits
Health insurance affects the rate at which individuals visit hospitals and emergency departments (EDs). We identify the causal effect of losing health insurance using a regression discontinuity design. We compare individuals just before and after their twenty third birthday, which insurers have used as a cutoff after which students are no longer eligible for their parents' health insurance: 1.5% of young adults lose their health insurance upon tu…
After Phrenology
Mining the Brain for a New Taxonomy of the Mind
In this paper, I summarize an emerging debate in the cognitive sciences over the right taxonomy for understanding cognition - the right theory of and vocabulary for describing the structure of the mind - and the proper role of neuroscientific evidence in specifying this taxonomy. In part because the discussion clearly entails a deep reconsideration of the supposed autonomy of psychology from neuroscience, this is a debate in which philosophers sh…
The Benefits of College Athletic Success
Spending on big-time college athletics is often justified on the grounds that athletic success attracts students and raises donations. We exploit data on bookmaker spreads to estimate the probability of winning each game for college football teams. We then condition on these probabilities using a propensity score design to estimate the effects of winning on donations, applications, and enrollment. The resulting estimates represent causal effects …
What phantom limbs are
Radical Embodied Cognitive Neuroscience
A radical embodied cognitive neuroscience (RECN) based on ecological psychology requires the understanding of the brain, its structure, and its functions to be compatible with the main tenets of the Gibsonian theory. In this paper, we propose neural reuse as a promising candidate to achieve such understanding. We base our proposal on two fundamental ideas. In section two, we review what we take to be the two central requirements for a RECN based …
Some dilemmas for an account of neural representation
Debt-free intelligence
Cognitive scientists and neuroscientists typically understand the brain as a complex communication/information-processing system. A limitation of this framework is that it requires cognitive systems to have prior knowledge about their environment to successfully perform some of their basic functions, such as perceiving. It is unclear how the source of such knowledge can be explained from within this framework. Drawing on Dennett (1981), we refer …
Uber and Traffic Fatalities
Previous studies of the effect of ridesharing on traffic fatalities have yielded inconsistent conclusions. We revisit this question using proprietary data from Uber measuring monthly rideshare activity at the Census tract level. We find a consistent negative effect of ridesharing on traffic fatalities, with impacts concentrated during nights and weekends. Our results imply that ridesharing has decreased U.S. traffic fatalities by 5.2% in areas wh…
Psychology (10 works) · Computer Science (9 works) · Cognitive science (7 works) · Neuroscience (6 works) · Action Observation and Synchronization (5 works) · Cognition (5 works) · Embodied and Extended Cognition (5 works) · Artificial Intelligence (4 works) · Cognitive psychology (4 works) · Economics (4 works)