New York Times 10/2/2000: Virtual Mice
One day NIMH conference on paradigm shifts in Experimental Psychology
Loftus, G.R. (1985). Johannes Kepler's computer simulation of the universe: Some remarks on theory in psychology. Behavior Research Methods, Instrumentation and Computers, 17, 149-156. Reprinted as, Computer simulation: Some remarks on theory in Psychology. In G. Kerens and C. Lewis (eds) Methodological and Quantitative Issues in the Analysis of Psychological Data (Potomac: Lawrence Erlbaum).
Abstract: Computer simulation may be an overly seductive wayh of formulating theory in the social sciences. The capability of constructing complex computer simulation models may remove some of the incentive for finding simple laws. This point is illustrated via a fantasy in which the sixteenth-century astronomical theorist, Johannes Kepler, uses his computer instead of his mind to account of extant data on stellar and planetary motion. Similarities between sixteenth-centure cosmology and twentieth-century psychology are discussed.