Humans are poorer at identifying smells and communicating about them, compared to other sensory domains. They also cannot easily organize odor sensations in a general conceptual space, where geometric distance could represent how similar or different all odors are. These two generalities are more or less accepted by psychologists, and they are often seen as connected: If there is no conceptual space for odors, then olfactory identification should indeed be poor. We propose here an important revision to this conclusion: We (...) believe that the claim that there is no odor space is true only if by odor space, one means a conceptual space representing all possible odor sensations, in the paradigmatic sense used for instance for color. However, in a less paradigmatic sense, local conceptual spaces representing a given subset of odors do exist. Thus the absence of a global odor space does not warrant the conclusion that there is no olfactory conceptual map at all. Here we show how a localist account provides a new interpretation of experts and cross‐cultural categorization studies: Rather than being exceptions to the poor olfactory identification and communication usually seen elsewhere, experts and cross‐cultural categorization are here taken to corroborate the existence of local conceptual spaces. (shrink)

Humans are poorer at identifying smells and communicating about them, compared to othersensory domains. They also cannot easily organise odour sensations in a general conceptual space like with colours. We challenge the conclusion that there is no olfactory conceptual map at all. Instead we propose a new framework, with local conceptual spaces.

This paper considers Kamp and Partee's account of graded membership within a conceptual spaces framework and puts the account to the test in the domain of colors. Three experiments are reported that are meant to determine, on the one hand, the regions in color space where the typical instances of blue and green are located and, on the other hand, the degrees of blueness/greenness of various shades in the blue–green region as judged by human observers. From the locations of the (...) typical blue and typical green regions in conjunction with Kamp and Partee's account follow degrees of blueness/greenness for the color shades we are interested in. These predicted degrees are compared with the judged degrees, as obtained in the experiments. The results of the comparison support the account of graded membership at issue. (shrink)

So far, color-naming studies have relied on a rather limited set of color stimuli. Most importantly, stimuli have been largely limited to highly saturated colors. Because of this, little is known about how people categorize less saturated colors and, more generally, about the structure of color categories as they extend across all dimensions of color space. This article presents the results from a large Internet-based color-naming study that involved color stimuli ranging across all available chroma levels in Munsell space. These (...) results help answer such questions as how English speakers name a more complex color set, whether English speakers use so-called basic color terms (BCTs) more frequently for more saturated colors, how they use non-BCTs in comparison with BCTs, whether non-BCTs are highly consensual in less saturated parts of the solid, how deep inside color space basic color categories extend, or how they behave on the chroma dimension. (shrink)

Why do we draw the boundaries between “blue” and “green”, where we do? One proposed answer to this question is that we categorize color the way we do because we perceive color categorically. Starting in the 1950’s, the phenomenon of “categorical perception” (CP) encouraged such a response. CP refers to the fact that adjacent color patches are more easily discriminated when they straddle a category boundary than when they belong to the same category. In this paper, I make three related (...) claims. (1) Although what seems to guide discrimination performances seems to indeed be categorical information, the evidence in favor of the fact that categorical perception infl uences the way we perceive color is not convincing. (2) That CP offers a useful account of categorization is not obvious.While aiming at accounting for categorization, CP itself requires an account of categories. This being said, CP remains an interesting phenomenon. Why and how is our discrimination behavior linked to our categories? It is suggested that linguistic labels determine CP through a naming strategy to which participants resort while discriminating colors. This paper’s fi nal point is (3) that the naming strategy account is not enough. Beyond category labels, what seems to guide discrimination performance is category structure. (shrink)

For over a century, the question of the relation of language to thought has been extensively discussed in the case of color categorization, where two main views prevail. The relativist view claims that color categories are relative while the universalistic view argues that color categories are universal. Relativists also argue that color categories are linguistically determined, and universalists that they are perceptually determined. Recently, the argument for the perceptual determination of color categorization has been undermined, and the relativist view has (...) regained some ground. This paper argues that although the universalistic account of color categorization has been called into question, this is not enough to establish relativism. Color categories can still be said to be universal or particular, independent of the accounts of their universality or relativity. Because of its polarization, the debate has disregarded some issues that are key in our understanding of color categorization: the question of what a color category is and how to identify it. (shrink)

For over a century, the question of the relation of language to thought has been extensively discussed in the case of color categorization, where two main views prevail. The relativist view claims that color categories are relative while the universalistic view argues that color categories are universal. Relativists also argue that color categories are linguistically determined, and universalists that they are perceptually determined. Recently, the argument for the perceptual determination of color categorization has been undermined, and the relativist view has (...) regained some ground. This paper argues that although the universalistic account of color categorization has been called into question, this is not enough to establish relativism. Color categories can still be said to be universal or particular, independent of the accounts of their universality or relativity. Because of its polarization, the debate has disregarded some issues that are key in our understanding of color categorization: the question of what a color category is and how to identify it. (shrink)

This article addresses two questions related to colour categorization, to wit, the question what a colour category is, and the question how we identify colour categories. We reject both the relativist and universalist answers to these questions. Instead, we suggest that colour categories can be identified with the help of the criterion of psychological saliency, which can be operationalized by means of consistency and consensus measures. We further argue that colour categories can be defined as well-structured entities that optimally partition (...) colour space. We provide some empirical support for this claim by presenting experimental results, which indicate that internal structure is a better predictor of colour categories than perceptual saliency. (shrink)

What makes it the case that we draw the boundary between “blue” and “green” where we draw it? Do we draw this boundary where we draw it because our perceptual system is biologically determined in this way? Or is it culture and language that guide the way we categorize colors? These two possible answers have shaped the historical discussion opposing so-called universalists to relativists. Yet, the most recent theoretical developments on color categorization reveal the limits of such a polarization.

A widely held view on color cognition is that it is structured by a set of color fundamentals. Three sorts of evidence may be invoked in favor of such a ‘foundational’ approach to color cognition: physiological, phenomenal and lexical. This paper focuses on the lexical evidence, which draws from a predominant view in color categorization, the Basic color terms theory (BCTT). It argues that the BCTT does not consist in a foundational approach to color cognition and does not provide such (...) evidence. (shrink)

We designed a new protocol requiring French adult participants to group a large number of Munsell colour chips into three or four groups. On one, relativist, view, participants would be expected to rely on their colour lexicon in such a task. In this framework, the resulting groups should be more similar to French colour categories than to other languages categories. On another, universalist, view, participants would be expected to rely on universal features of perception. In this second framework, the resulting (...) groups should match colour categories of three and four basic terms languages. In this work, we first collected data to build an accurate map of French colour terms categories. We went on testing how native French speakers spontaneously sorted a set of randomly presented coloured chips and, in line with the relativist prediction, we found that the resulting colour groups were more similar to French colour categories than to three and four basic terms languages. However, the same results were obtained in a verbal interference condition, suggesting that participants rely on language specific and nevertheless perceptual, colour categories. Collectively, these results suggest that the universalist/relativist dichotomy is a too narrow one. (shrink)

Philosophers have long debated whether, if determinism is true, we should hold people morally responsible for their actions since in a deterministic universe, people are arguably not the ultimate source of their actions nor could they have done otherwise if initial conditions and the laws of nature are held fixed. To reveal how non-philosophers ordinarily reason about the conditions for free will, we conducted a cross-cultural and cross-linguistic survey (N = 5,268) spanning twenty countries and sixteen languages. Overall, participants tended (...) to ascribe moral responsibility whether the perpetrator lacked sourcehood or alternate possibilities. However, for American, European, and Middle Eastern participants, being the ultimate source of one’s actions promoted perceptions of free will and control as well as ascriptions of blame and punishment. By contrast, being the source of one’s actions was not particularly salient to Asian participants. Finally, across cultures, participants exhibiting greater cognitive reflection were more likely to view free will as incompatible with causal determinism. We discuss these findings in light of documented cultural differences in the tendency toward dispositional versus situational attributions. (shrink)

This article examines whether people share the Gettier intuition (viz. that someone who has a true justified belief that p may nonetheless fail to know that p) in 24 sites, located in 23 countries (counting Hong Kong as a distinct country) and across 17 languages. We also consider the possible influence of gender and personality on this intuition with a very large sample size. Finally, we examine whether the Gettier intuition varies across people as a function of their disposition to (...) engage in “reflective” thinking. (shrink)

We designed a new protocol requiring French adult participants to group a large number of Munsell colour chips into three or four groups. On one, relativist, view, participants would be expected to rely on their colour lexicon in such a task. In this [ramework, the resulting groups should be more similar to French colour categories than to other languages categories. On another, universalist, view, participants would be expected to rely on universal features of perception. In this second framework, the resulting (...) groups should match colour categories of three and four basic terms languages. In this work, we first collected data to build an accurate map of French colour terms categories (Experiment 1). We went on testing how native French speakers spontaneously sorted a set of randomly presented coloured chips and, in line with the relativist prediction, we found that the resulting colour groups were more similar to French colour categories than to three and four basic terms languages (Experiment 2). However, the same results were obtained in a verbal interference condition (Experiment 3), suggesting that participants rely on language specific and nevertheless perceptual, colour categories. Collectively, these results suggest that the universalist/relativist dichotomy is a too narrow one. (shrink)

In the remainder of this article, we will disarm an important motivation for epistemic contextualism and interest-relative invariantism. We will accomplish this by presenting a stringent test of whether there is a stakes effect on ordinary knowledge ascription. Having shown that, even on a stringent way of testing, stakes fail to impact ordinary knowledge ascription, we will conclude that we should take another look at classical invariantism. Here is how we will proceed. Section 1 lays out some limitations of previous (...) research on stakes. Section 2 presents our study and concludes that there is little evidence for a substantial stakes effect. Section 3 responds to objections. The conclusion clears the way for classical invariantism. (shrink)

Since at least Hume and Kant, philosophers working on the nature of aesthetic judgment have generally agreed that common sense does not treat aesthetic judgments in the same way as typical expressions of subjective preferences—rather, it endows them with intersubjective validity, the property of being right or wrong regardless of disagreement. Moreover, this apparent intersubjective validity has been taken to constitute one of the main explananda for philosophical accounts of aesthetic judgment. But is it really the case that most people (...) spontaneously treat aesthetic judgments as having intersubjective validity? In this paper, we report the results of a cross‐cultural study with over 2,000 respondents spanning 19 countries. Despite significant geographical variations, these results suggest that most people do not treat their own aesthetic judgments as having intersubjective validity. We conclude by discussing the implications of our findings for theories of aesthetic judgment and the purpose of aesthetics in general. (shrink)

Does the Ship of Theseus present a genuine puzzle about persistence due to conflicting intuitions based on “continuity of form” and “continuity of matter” pulling in opposite directions? Philosophers are divided. Some claim that it presents a genuine puzzle but disagree over whether there is a solution. Others claim that there is no puzzle at all since the case has an obvious solution. To assess these proposals, we conducted a cross-cultural study involving nearly 3,000 people across twenty-two countries, speaking eighteen (...) different languages. Our results speak against the proposal that there is no puzzle at all and against the proposal that there is a puzzle but one that has no solution. Our results suggest that there are two criteria—“continuity of form” and “continuity of matter”— that constitute our concept of persistence and these two criteria receive different weightings in settling matters concerning persistence. (shrink)

Is behavioral integration a necessary feature of belief in folk psychology? Our data from over 5,000 people across 26 samples, spanning 22 countries suggests that it is not. Given the surprising cross-cultural robustness of our findings, we argue that the types of evidence for the ascription of a belief are, at least in some circumstances, lexicographically ordered: assertions are first taken into account, and when an agent sincerely asserts that p, nonlinguistic behavioral evidence is disregarded. In light of this, we (...) take ourselves to have discovered a universal principle governing the ascription of beliefs in folk psychology. (shrink)

This study examines the effects of transformational, transactional, and non-transactional leadership on hotel employees’ outcomes including extra effort, perceived efficiency, and satisfaction with managers. Employees from eleven 4-star hotels in Spain provided the collected data. A series of statistical analyses identify the elements of three leadership styles using a multi-factor leadership questionnaire ; examine the effect of leadership styles on employees’ outcomes. The results of this study indicate that “idealized attributes” of transformational leadership and “contingent reward” from transactional leadership are (...) the most important factors that positively affect all three outcomes ; and to assess the moderating effect of different types of ownership of hotel properties on the relationship between styles of leadership and outcomes of employees’ activities other than these two elements, the significant factors indicating positive or negative relationships vary depending on the types of individual outcomes as well as ownership of hotel properties. The discussion sections indicate theoretical and practical implications of the findings. (shrink)

Explaining moral intuitions is one of the hot topics of recent cognitive science. In the present article we focus on a factor that attracted surprisingly little attention so far, namely the temporal order in which moral scenarios are presented. We argue that previous research points to a systematic pattern of order effects that has been overlooked until now: only judgments of actions that are normally regarded as morally acceptable are susceptible to be affected by the order of presentation, and this (...) in turn is only the case if the dilemma is immediately preceded by a dilemma in which the proposed action was considered as not morally acceptable. We conducted an experiment that largely confirmed this pattern and allowed us to analyze by what individual level responses it was generated. We argue that investigating order effects is necessary for approaching a complete descriptive moral theory. Furthermore, we discuss the implications of these findings for moral philosophy. (shrink)

Expanded version of author's thesis --Universite Paris IV, 1999.

Evidence about whether reflective thinking may be induced and whether it affects utilitarian choices is inconclusive. Research suggests that answering items correctly in the Cognitive Reflection Test (CRT) before responding to dilemmas may lead to more utilitarian decisions. However, it is unclear to what extent this effect is driven by the inhibition of intuitive wrong responses (reflection) versus the requirement to engage in deliberative processing. To clarify this issue, participants completed either the CRT or the Berlin Numeracy Test (BNT) – (...) which does not require reflection – before responding to moral dilemmas. To distinguish between the potential effect of participants’ previous reflective traits and that of performing a task that can increase reflectivity, we manipulated whether participants received feedback for incorrect items. Findings revealed that both CRT and BNT scores predicted utilitarian decisions when feedback was not provided. Additionally, feedback enhanced performance for both tasks, although it only increased utilitarian decisions when it was linked to the BNT. Taken together, these results suggest that performance in a numeric task that requires deliberative thinking may predict utilitarian responses to moral dilemmas. The finding that feedback increased utilitarian decisions only in the case of BNT casts doubt upon the reflective-utilitarian link. (shrink)

Dysfunction in motor skills can be linked to alterations in motor processing, such as the anticipation of forthcoming graphomotor sequences. We expected that the difficulties in motor processing in schizophrenia would be reflected in a decrease of motor anticipation. In handwriting, motor anticipation concerns the ability to write a letter while processing information on how to produce the following letters. It is essential for fast and smooth handwriting, that is, for the automation of graphomotor gestures. In this study, we examined (...) motor anticipation by comparing the kinematic characteristics of the first l in the bigrams ll and ln written on a digitiser. Previous studies indicated that the downstroke duration of the first l is modulated by the anticipation of the local constraints of the following letter. Twenty-four adult individuals with diagnosis of schizophrenia and 24 healthy adults participated in the study. The classic measures of duration, trajectory, and dysfluency were used for the kinematic analysis of the upstroke and downstroke. In the control group, the duration of the downstroke of the l was longer in ln than ll whereas no differences were found for the group with schizophrenia. Likewise, the control group showed a longer DS trajectory for the l of ln than ll in downstrokes, while the group of patients failed to show this effect. These results suggest that the motor alterations in patients with schizophrenia could also affect their ability for motor anticipation. (shrink)

In order to train healthcare professionals in the announcement of serious medical diagnoses, we propose the de-sign of a section of a website that aims to enable caregivers to better control this professional activity that they dread. These diagnoses materialize through language interactions between doctors and patients that are emotion-ally charged. The analysis of these announcement interviews involves access to interactions that are as close as possible to those that take place in real work situations through role-playing. We will show (...) that the design of the website based on the architectural dimension (functional structure of the activity), the relational dimension (roles, co-constructed communication contract) and the communicational dimension (mobilized language processes) allows to identify this sensitive professional activity in its characteristic aspects. Based on a study commissioned by the Ligue contre le cancer, we will show how and in what way the identified dimensions have formative potential and we will highlight their contribution to improving the understanding of the activity and developing training materi-als. (shrink)

Si l’héroïsme médiéval s’élabore avant tout, dans sa composante guerrière, au masculin singulier, la tradition narrative française prévoit néanmoins quelques espaces à l’expression de la prouesse féminine. Du xiie au xve siècle, les romans illustrent plusieurs figures d’amazones ou de veuves viriles. Cependant, cette promotion à l’héroïsme semble difficile à concevoir dans le cas de personnages féminins assumant le rôle d’épouse ou d’amante. Pour vérifier cette constatation, l’enquête se tourne vers les romans idylliques qui ont connu un certain succès au (...) Moyen Age. La relation d’amour réciproque et relativement égalitaire pourrait nous laisser croire que les jeunes amants sont susceptibles de partager le renom de leurs aventures. L’analyse de plusieurs romans montre qu’il n’en est rien. Une exception cependant permet de distinguer le Roman de Floriant et Florete et surtout sa source directe, Erec et Enide de Chrétien de Troyes comme ferment possible d’un héroïsme de l’épouse. (shrink)

La integración del Imperio Otomano y la progresista aparición, en su seno, de estados independientes a lo largo del siglo XIX trajo consigo la inevitable confluencia del espíritu ilustrado-romántico europeo, impulsor de las revoluciones en Europa y América, y el peso de la identidad nacional, arraigada en los esquemas patriarcales tradicionales. En ese exigente proceso de remodelación sociopolítica e ideológica, surgen discursos femeninos que, pese la escasa capacidad de maniobra, sitúan a la mujer en el epicentro del cambio y diseñan (...) una estrategia de lucha feminista.Presentamos dos discursos femeninos, los de la activista griega Kalirroe Parén (1861-1940) y la libanesa-palestina Mayy Ziyada (1866-1941), afincada en Egipto. Ambos se fundamentan en la actividad intelectual y literaria de sus creadoras, en los primeros y sólidos idearios feministas griego y árabe, y en la capacidad política de cambio de la mujer en un entorno hostil. (shrink)

Presentación de las editoras del Suplemento 4 (2011) de Daimon.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Philosophy and Literature 26.1 (2002) 199-206 [Access article in PDF] Notes and FragmentsArt and Friendship Noël Carroll YASMINA REZA'S PLAY Art is about one man, Serge, who buys a painting, and the reactions of his friends, Marc and Yvan, to his purchase. 1 Marc's response is quite volcanic; for him, Serge's purchase of the painting threatens to wreck their friendship. Yvan tries to mediate the disaffection between Serge (...) and Marc, often at the cost of redirecting their hostilities at himself.As the play opens, Marc addresses the audience directly. He says: My friend Serge has bought a painting. It's a canvas about five foot by four: white. The background is white and if you screw up your eyes, you can make out some fine white diagonal lines. Serge is one of my oldest friends. He's done very well for himself, he's a dermatologist and he's keen on art. On Monday, I went to see the painting; Serge had actually got hold of it on the Saturday, but he's been lusting after it for several months. This white painting with white lines. 2This prelude explicitly connects the two major themes of the play—art and friendship (Serge is one of Marc's oldest friends), and the relation thereof. After this brief exposition, then, there is a flashback to the scene where Marc first sees Serge's painting, a painting by Antrios, a famous artist. At first Marc reacts warily, tentatively, but, in almost no time at all, he denounces the painting as shit, despite its whiteness. Marc tries to pass off his vituperation as humor and invites Serge to [End Page 199] laugh along with him. But Serge finds nothing funny about the situation, which deteriorates throughout the play as everyone's nerves fray and angers mount.The action of the play raises an immediate question. Why is Marc's reaction to the painting by Antrios so intense, so violent? Why would a painting endanger a friendship? Why do Marc and Serge seem to be willing to split apart after fifteen years over a matter of taste? Can't they just agree to disagree and leave it at that?But Marc, at least, cannot. He says, "It's a complete mystery to me, Serge buying this painting. It's unsettled me, it's filled me with some undefinable unease." And that undefinable unease is enough to motivate Marc to attack Serge and Yvan savagely to the point where the friendship among them seems no longer possible. But what is the nature of this undefinable unease and what does its existence tell us about the relation of art to friendship?Marc and Serge obviously see the painting very differently. Marc keeps referring to the Antrios as white, prompting Serge to correct him—pointing out that it has diagonals as well as bits of various other colors in it. Perhaps this is author Yasmina Reza's way of signaling that Serge, so to speak, sees something in the painting—sees that there's something to it—whereas for Marc, it's a blank, it's empty, it's nothing, it's worthless. Marc continues to be amazed that Serge has paid two hundred thousand francs for the painting. But it's not the money, as such, that bothers Marc; it is what the money symbolizes: that Serge sees something worthy in that which Marc finds worthless. And this threatens their friendship. Why?One of the earliest conceptions of friendship in Western thought is Aristotle's notion of what he calls the friendship of character or character friendship. This is not the only type of friendship there is—there are also friendships based on such things as expediency—but, for Aristotle, character friendship is the highest sort. This is the type of friendship that obtains between equals—people of equal virtue and excellence.Now you might think that people who are virtuous and excellent already should have little need of friends. They already have it all. 3 But Aristotle suggests that without friends—friends who are... (shrink)

Spoiled Distinctions investigates crises of evaluation in twentieth-century France. Taking Marcel Proust as its central figure, the book theorizes the disorienting force of everyday aesthetic experience. In a series of surprising readings, Hannah Freed-Thall frees Proust from his reputation as the most refined of high modernists. The author of In Search of Lost Time appears here as a journalist and newspaper enthusiast, a literary ventriloquist and connoisseur of popular scandals, and a writer attentive to the unsophisticated phenomenology of the here (...) and now.The final chapters of the book consider the legacy of Proust's experiments with inestimable worth. Authors Francis Ponge, Nathalie Sarraute, and Yasmina Reza also explore the underside of cultural distinction. With Proust, they elaborate modernist variations on the beautiful and sublime--from nuance to the "whatever" and from the awkward to the sickly-sweet. Spoiled Distinctions thus revitalizes the critical discourse on aesthetics. Mapping the intersection of phenomenology, aesthetic theory, and the sociology of culture, the book reveals how enchanting the ordinary can be. (shrink)

Introduction / Sihem Sebai -- "Je" est-il connaissable? / Michel Malherbe -- Peut-il y avoir un "je" si rien n'est privé? / Mélika Ouelbani -- Peut-on parler du "Je" dans une philosophie de la déconstruction / Sihem Sebai -- Le naturalisme biologique dans Le mystère de la consicence de Searle / Yasmina Kefi-Ghodbane -- Métamorphose de l'intelligence / Sondes Khamlia -- Doute et vérité : Bertrand Russell lecteur de Descartes / Zouheir Brahmia.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:The Journal of Aesthetic Education 38.3 (2004) 107-115 [Access article in PDF] The Search for Narrative Laura Felleman Fattal The most cursory cultural investigator cannot help but notice that the visual arts have become a significant source and impetus for the narrative of contemporary books, theater, and dance. In recent memory, the following theatrical and dance performances "Contact" by Susan Stroman and John Weidman, "Art" by Yasmina Reza, (...) "Sunday in the Park with George" by Stephen Sondheim, book by James Lapine, "Les Miserables" by Claude-Michel Schfonberg/music and others, "Picasso at the Lapin Agile" by Steve Martin, and "The Sleep of Reason," by Antonio Buero-Vallego have taken the not-so-dead-life (natura morta) or still life of painting into the vital arena of the performing arts. The quest to seek intra-discipline aesthetics among dance, music, theater, and the visual arts is not the charge, but instead a turn to establish a narrative that has brought about this invasion of interactivity between the arts. Clearly defined boundaries between the arts have beenfading since Fluxus, Happenings, and Performance Art for over half a century. In the early part of the twentieth century, Marcel Duchamp's chess games and use of the fourth dimension of time in his numerous produced and pondered pieces all speak to the interrelatedness of the arts.Contemporary novels based on historical themes and subjects have created characters based on the lives and works of famous and intriguing artists such as Michelangelo Caravaggio, Georges de La Tour, and Jan Vermeer. The silence and pensive qualities of the figures of Jan Vermeer, the seventeenth-century Dutch painter, have been the catalyst for two books, The Girl in Hyacinth Blue by Susan Vreeland and the Girl with the Pearl Earring by Tracy Chevalier.1 Vreeland combines the mystic of the Vermeer paintings' characters with the impoverished history of the refugee status of its owners. In various parts of Vreeland's book the authenticity of the Vermeer painting becomes a subtext for describing the work. [End Page 107] Just the lament of some Dutch art historians. Where has such a treasure gone, or some such thing? He turned to pour us both a brandy. So why could this not be? It's his same window opening inward at the left that he has used so often, the same splash of pale yellow light. Take a look at the figures in the tapestry on the table. Same as in nine other paintings. Same Spanish chair with lion's head finials that he used in eleven canvases, same brass studs in the leather. Same black and white tiles placed diagonally on the floor.2A few pages later the interest in the authenticity of the painting continues: No, no signature. But that was not unusual. He often failed to sign his work. Besides, he had at least seven styles of signature. For Vermeer, signatures are not definite evidence. Technique is. Look at the direction of the brush's stroke, those tiny grooves of the brush hairs. They have their lighted and their shaded side. Look elsewhere. You'll find overlapping layers of paint no thicker than silk thread that give a minute difference in shade. That's what makes it a Vermeer.3In Girl with a Pearl Earring, Vermeer's slow and meticulous technique, obsessive involvement with his models and his assiduous composition of light over textures of both animate and inanimate surfaces in the painting become the core of the novel. He had come in and was standing in the studio, looking out a window. "Take a seat, please, Greit," he said, his back to me.I sat in the chair by the harpsichord. I did not touch it — I had never touched an instrument except to clean it. As I waited I studied the paintings he had hung on the back wall that would form part of the concert painting. There was a landscape on the left, and on the right a picture of three people — a woman playing a lute, wearing a dress that revealed much of... (shrink)