ABSTRACT
Carnap construed science as fundamentally bound in language, and one of the roles philosophers can play toward bettering science is a careful analysis of definitions and concepts used in the exploration of the empirical world. 1 To that end, I have completed an empirical study in order to examine a few of the concepts fundamental to the production and proclamation of results. While this specific study is well within the boundaries of cognitive neuroscience and uses simple psychometric methods, questions raised here bear on the sciences and social sciences. How do enculturated definitions and assumptions constrain test design and the interpretation of results? How do expectations regarding what is normal or obvious infiltrate and potentially distort our systems of measurement? What are the biases of the experimenters and test designers, how might they be a result of enculturation, and can we ever overcome test bias?
