I am extremely happy to be part of a tribute for Larry Barsalou. Having worked on word meaning, concepts, and related issues for a number of years, Larry’s ideas have strongly influenced me, just like they continue to influence a large number of young and older researchers. Larry’s work on ad hoc concepts, embodied/grounded cognition, simulation, and the importance of situations have played key roles in our lab’s research for many years.
I remember meeting Larry at Psychonomics when I was a graduate student, although I can’t remember precisely what question(s) I asked him. I asked him about concepts and the feature norms that I was collecting way back then. I do distinctly remember that Larry took time to talk to me for quite a while. He provided me with great ideas, was extremely positive and supportive, and offered to provide any insights that he could if I wanted to talk again.
A few years later, as a young Assistant Professor, a graduate student and I were working on a project to apply our feature norms and other statistics to understanding category specific deficits. We were implementing Wu and Barsalou’s feature taxonomy, and we were struggling with applying some aspects of it. I thought, hey, why don’t I try calling him (like, on a telephone, this was a while ago). In typical Larry fashion, not only did he actually take my cold call, but he got extremely excited and exuberant while we talked about category specific deficits for a couple of hours. That day, and many times later, Larry provided a huge amount of insight and encouragement. In these cases, and ever since then, I was a beneficiary of Larry’s uncommonly high levels of positivity, warmth, and creativity.
I’ve been lucky enough to know Larry ever since that phone call, and we have been close friends for quite a while. Getting together at conferences, at each other’s homes, or over Zoom to talk about research and life has been a fabulous experience. We’ve even published a few articles together. Larry has been an influential mentor for me, although we’re both older now…
There are a number of pieces of advice that Larry has given me and that I pass on to my students. One line of advice sticks out. I remember talking with Larry about manuscript reviews and reviewing quite a while ago. Larry talked about a reasonably common scenario: you get a short positive review (or reviews) that essentially says “I like it”, and also get a longer more detailed review that goes into criticisms. Often, the Editor sides with the longer review or reviews for reasons that are understandable. Larry really impressed upon me that if you like a manuscript, you need to take the time to explain in some detail why you like it. He went even further than that. Larry described how you might imagine that it is highly likely that another reviewer could criticize an important idea or design choice in a manuscript, but that you would disagree. He taught me that if that was case, then you shouldn’t be afraid to say something along the lines of “another review might say X, but I think that would be mistaken for these reasons.” Finally, as another example of Larry’s positivity, he stressed the idea that reviews should function to help people improve a (to be published) product, and they should be approached that way.
Overall, knowing Larry has been an absolute pleasure that has enriched my research and approach to it. More importantly however, Larry has enriched my life, and I thank him for that.
1 Comment
Ken, thanks for reminding me of the conversations, collaborations, and great times we’ve had over the years. They’ve meant a lot to me. Thanks for your collegiality, friendship, and support, and for capturing it so well.
In particular, thanks for reminding me of those early conversations at Psychonomics and the cold call about category-specific deficits. Thankfully, none of my suggestions appeared to produce any significant damage. Seriously, your work on feature norms, category-specificity, events, prediction, etc. has always been innovative, informative, and compelling. I’ve always enjoyed reading and learning from it. You’ve always had a great feel for interesting problems and how to address them effectively and elegantly, qualities that have clearly shaped the work emerging from your lab over the years.
I’ve also enjoyed the way our conversations have flowed from work to life, whether sitting on the beach in Barcelona at a conference break, visiting each other’s homes and families on professional visits, or connecting over the internet together with other colleagues. These moments have enriched my life immensely. I’m grateful not just for the professional collaborations we’ve shared but for the friendship we’ve built along the way.
I’m glad to hear that some of the advice I’ve shared has resonated with you and your students. Your approach to mentorship and reviewing reflects a clear generosity and commitment to encouraging others and helping them grow, not just to the students in your research group, but also to your Western colleagues when you served as research dean for many years. I’ve always admired these qualities in you.