Mode distinctions in knowing: The view from perception. Comments on Rönnberg (1990)

Information available for perception has been shown to be specific, to have validity extending over time, and to be meaningful. Thus, cognition cannot be distinguished as that which exclusively provides adaptive coherence of action and reliance on constraints. Transitions between perception and memory/cognition, as two qualitatively distinct modes of knowing, must instead be expected to occur for purposes of ensuring optimal utilization of information relative to its temporal validity and usefulness.     

A commentary on Rönnberg's distinction between perception and cognition

In a commentary on a note by Rönnberg (Rönnberg, J. On the distinction between perception and cognition. Scandinavian Journal of Psychology , 1990, 31 , 154–156), it is argued that one of Rönnberg's criteria for theoretically distinguishing perception from cognition, that of different biological purposes, is invalid. Congruent with a broad definition of perception and cognition which most researchers agree upon, Rönnberg's two other criteria essentially state that how internally represented information is processed distinguishes between perception and cognition. However, the more strict criterion of whether explicit retrieval of information from memory is necessary is too dependent on a particular, rather limited theoretical framework. A third, less theory-dependent criterion of whether the information available in the stimulus is sufficient to account for comprehension may be useful in research which investigates hypotheses about similarities between perception and cognition.     

Women’s perception of men’s sensation seeking propensity from their dance movements

Risk-taking behaviour in men, an expression of the more general personality trait sensation seeking, has been hypothesized to be an evolved aspect of male psychology that arose through sexual selection. Sensation seeking could be seen as a costly behavioural trait that signals a man’s health and vigour and is preferred by women. This study extends knowledge about risk-taking as a cue in human mate choice by examining whether women can perceive men’s sensation seeking propensity (assessed with the Sensation Seeking Scale Form V; SSS-V) by viewing their dance movements. We videotaped 50 men’s dancing and had 60 women judge each dancer on perceived attractiveness and risk-taking. A positive and significant correlation was found between women’s attractiveness judgements and male’s SSS-V total score, thrill and adventure seeking, disinhibition and boredom susceptibility. Further, women’s risk-taking judgements were related to men’s boredom susceptibility. We conclude that (i) male sensation seeking propensity is signalled via their dance movements, and (ii) women are sensitive to these cues as they consider men who score high on sensation seeking as attractive. We discuss our results with reference to the evolutionary psychology concept of sexual selection and mate preferences.     

Impulsivity,sensation seeking and reproductive behaviour: A life history perspective

Impulsivity has often been invoked as a proximate driver of different life-history strategies. However, conceptualisations of “impulsivity” are inconsistent and ambiguities exist regarding which facets of impulsivity are actually involved in the canalisation of reproductive strategies. Two variables commonly used to represent impulsivity were examined in relation to reproductive behaviour. Results demonstrated that sensation seeking was significantly related to strategy-based behaviour, but impulsivity (defined as a failure to deliberate) was only weakly correlated. The effect of impulsivity disappeared when sensation seeking was controlled. Sex differences emerged for sensation seeking but not impulsivity. We conclude that “impulsivity” is not a unitary trait and that clearer distinctions should be made between facets of this construct.     

Differentiation and unification in perception and cognition

It has been suggested that the development of distinctions between perception and cognition depends upon the perspective and the level of analysis chosen. Similarly, the unification of perception and cognition may be achieved from other perspectives and when other levels of analyses are applied. The fruitfulness, and disadvantages, of diverse suggestions for differentation/unification of perception and cognition are discussed briefly.     

Causal perception of action-and-reaction sequences in 8- to 10-month-olds

Four experiments with 202 8- to 10-month-old infants studied their sensitivity to causation-at-a-distance in schematic events seen as goal-directed action and reaction by adults and whether this depends on attributes associated with animate agents. In Experiment 1, a red square moved toward a blue square without making contact; in “reaction” events blue moved away while red was approaching, whereas in “delay” events blue started after red stopped. Infants were habituated to one event and then tested on its reversal. Spatiotemporal features reversed for both events, but causal roles changed only in reversed reactions. Infants dishabituated more to reversed reaction events than to reversed delay events. Squares moved rigidly or in a nonrigid animal-like fashion. Infants discriminated these, but motion pattern did not affect responses to reversal. Infants also discriminated reactions from launching and dishabituated to reversed reactions lacking self-initiated motion. These results suggest that sensitivity to causation-at-a-distance depends on the event structure but not pattern or onset typical of animal motion.     

Relative contribution of perception/cognition and language on spatial categorization

This study investigated the relative contribution of perception/cognition and language-specific semantics in nonverbal categorization of spatial relations. English and Korean speakers completed a video-based similarity judgment task involving containment, support, tight fit, and loose fit. Both perception/cognition and language served as resources for categorization, and allocation between the two depended on the target relation and the features contrasted in the choices. Whereas perceptual/cognitive salience for containment and tight-fit features guided categorization in many contexts, language-specific semantics influenced categorization where the two features competed for similarity judgment and when the target relation was tight support, a domain where spatial relations are perceptually diverse. In the latter contexts, each group categorized more in line with semantics of their language, that is, containment/support for English and tight/loose fit for Korean. We conclude that language guides spatial categorization when perception/cognition alone is not sufficient. In this way, language is an integral part of our cognitive domain of space.     

How extending your middle finger affects your perception of others: Learned movements influence concept accessibility

Body movements both express and influence how people feel and think. Conceptualizations of this bidirectional influence assume that movement-concept associations can be innate or learned, although evidence for learned associations remained ambiguous. Providing a conservative test of learned movement-concept associations, two studies investigate the influence of culture-specific body movements, which involve an arbitrary relationship between movements and associated concepts. Paralleling the influence of hostility primes, extending the middle finger influenced the interpretation of ambiguously aggressive behaviors as hostile, but did not influence unrelated trait judgments (Study 1). Paralleling the effects of global evaluative primes, upward extension of the thumb resulted in more positive evaluations of the same target along all trait dimensions and higher liking of the target (Study 2).     

Re-evaluating evidence for linguistic relativity: reply to Boroditsky (2001)

Six unsuccessful attempts at replicating a key finding in the linguistic relativity literature [Boroditsky, L. (2001). Does language shape thought?: Mandarin and English speakers' conceptions of time. Cognitive Psychology, 43, 1-22] are reported. In addition to these empirical issues in replicating the original finding, theoretical issues present in the original report are discussed. In sum, we conclude that Boroditsky (2001) provides no support for the Whorfian hypothesis.     

Formal,systematic, and metasystematic operations with a balance-beam task series: A reply to Kallio's claim of no distinct systematic stage

This reply discusses the measurement of formal, systematic, and metasystematic stages. Recent multidomain studies have shown disparate results and we suggest that these results could be attributed not to actual variations in adult development or the existence or non-existence of stage, but instead may reflect differences in methodology regarding task, domain, and scoring. Our study indicates that when tested in only one domain—balance beams and extensions of those tasks—participants who performed at the higher stage were also able to perform at the lower stages. These results also coincide with similar studies conducted.     

Motivation and appraisal in perception of poorly specified speech

Normal-hearing students (n = 72) performed sentence, consonant, and word identification in either A (auditory), V (visual), or AV (audiovisual) modality. The auditory signal had difficult speech-to-noise relations. Talker (human vs. synthetic), topic (no cue vs. cue-words), and emotion (no cue vs. facially displayed vs. cue-words) were varied within groups. After the first block, effects of modality, face, topic, and emotion on initial appraisal and motivation were assessed. After the entire session, effects of modality on longer-term appraisal and motivation were assessed. The results from both assessments showed that V identification was more positively appraised than A identification. Correlations were tentatively interpreted such that evaluation of self-rated performance possibly depends on subjective standard and is reflected on motivation (if below subjective standard, AV group), or on appraisal (if above subjective standard, A group). Suggestions for further research are presented.     

网络词语与非网络词语的知觉差异:时间知觉、空间距离知觉与知觉范围

根据具身认知理论,人们的认知会受到身体活动的影响。网络环境下人的身体活动受到限制,因而其认知活动与非网络环境存在很大的差异。本研究目的在于考察人们对网络词语与非网络的日常词语的时间知觉,空间距离知觉与知觉范围是否有差异。结果发现被试对网络词语的时间知觉更长;网络词语的空间距离感与日常词语没有显著差异;在启动网络词语之后,被试的知觉范围缩小,对中心刺激的反应显著快于边缘刺激。本研究发现了网络词语加工在时间知觉和知觉范围上的变化。     

Risk perception and victim perception: The judgment of HIV cases

There is a vast literature confirming that reactions to different risks are strongly affected by characteristics other than scientific risk estimates; most of this research has concentrated on mapping people's representations of sets of widely varying dangers (e.g. diseases, natural disasters, accidents). This study explored a potentially vital component of risk that cannot be studied by eliciting general reactions to many hazards: the extent to which who is at risk contributes to perceptions and judgments of a risk. While it may be preferable to assume that misfortunes affect the population uniformly, of course the truth is not so egalitarian. Thus, for both theoretical and policy reasons, it is worth exploring psychometrically representations of a particular risk as it affects different people. Using multidimensional scaling and hierarchical cluster analysis, we constructed models of respondents' representations of a disease assumed to be particularly affected by victim perception: Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV). Subjects rated the similarity of all possible pairs among 16 scenarios involving HIV infection; the scenarios contained information about both the victim and the method of contraction. A set of attribute scales as well as political/demographic information allowed us both to interpret the structures and to predict individual differences. The results confirmed that reactions to HIV infection are greatly affected by reactions to the victim. In particular, the perceived distastefulness and riskiness of the method of infection loomed larger than did either the overall likability of the victim or the general riskiness of the victim's behavior. Further, the salience of the most statistically influential dimension, ‘deservedness’, depended significantly on demographic and political characteristics of the respondents, suggesting that the relationship between personal values and risk perception is in part mediated by victim perception. Implications for risk perception work and public policy are discussed.     

Task effects, performance levels, features, configurations, and holistic face processing: A reply to Rossion

A recent article in Acta Psychologica (“Picture-plane inversion leads to qualitative changes of face perception” by Rossion [Rossion, B. (2008). Picture-plane inversion leads to qualitative changes of face perception. Acta Psychologica (Amst), 128(2), 274-289]) criticized several aspects of an earlier paper of ours [Riesenhuber, M., Jarudi, I., Gilad, S., & Sinha, P. (2004). Face processing in humans is compatible with a simple shape-based model of vision. Proceedings of the Royal Society of London B (Supplements), 271, S448-S450]. We here address Rossion’s criticisms and correct some misunderstandings. To frame the discussion, we first review our previously presented computational model of face recognition in cortex [Jiang, X., Rosen, E., Zeffiro, T., Vanmeter, J., Blanz, V., & Riesenhuber, M. (2006). Evaluation of a shape-based model of human face discrimination using FMRI and behavioral techniques. Neuron, 50(1), 159-172] that provides a concrete biologically plausible computational substrate for holistic coding, namely a neural representation learned for upright faces, in the spirit of the original simple-to-complex hierarchical model of vision by Hubel and Wiesel. We show that Rossion’s and others’ data support the model, and that there is actually a convergence of views on the mechanisms underlying face recognition, in particular regarding holistic processing.     

On the distinction between perception and cognition

To uphold the distinction between perception and cognition for certain classes of tasks or phenomena, it is proposed that three criteria must be met: (1) when perceptual and cognitive functions serve different biological purposes, (2) when stimulus information in dynamic events is necessary, but not sufficient for veridical perception, and (3) when the task emphasizes explicit retrieval, as opposed to implicit use of information. Conversely, when the three criteria have not been met, conditions for theoretical unification exist.