A uniform model of computational conceptual blending

We present a mathematical model for the cognitive operation of conceptual blending that aims at being uniform across different representation formalisms, while capturing the relevant structure of this operation. The model takes its inspiration from amalgams as applied in case-based reasoning, but lifts them into category theory so as to follow Joseph Goguen’s intuition for a mathematically precise characterisation of conceptual blending at a representation-independent level of abstraction. We prove that our amalgam-based category-theoretical model of conceptual blending is essentially equivalent to the pushout model in the ordered category of partial maps as put forward by Goguen. But unlike Goguen’s approach, our model is more suitable to capture computational realisations of conceptual blending, and we exemplify this by concretising our model to computational conceptual blends for various representation formalisms and application domains.     

Gender differences in the incentive salience of adult and infant faces

Facial appearance can motivate behaviour and elicit activation of brain circuits putatively involved in reward. Gender differences have been observed for motivation to view beauty in adult faces—heterosexual women are motivated by beauty in general, while heterosexual men are motivated to view opposite-sex beauty alone. Although gender differences have been observed in sensitivity to infant cuteness, infant faces appear to hold equal incentive salience among men and women. In the present study, we investigated the incentive salience of attractiveness and cuteness in adult and infant faces, respectively. We predicted that, given alternative viewing options, gender differences would emerge for motivation to view infant faces. Heterosexual participants completed a “pay-per-view” key-press task, which allowed them to control stimulus duration. Gender differences were found such that infants held greater incentive salience among women, although both sexes differentiated infant faces based on cuteness. Among adult faces, men exerted more effort than women to view opposite-sex faces. These findings suggest that, contrary to previous reports, gender differences do exist in the incentive salience of infant faces as well as opposite-sex faces.     

The effect of mortality salience and belief in afterlife on the manifestation of homonegativity

If derogation of out-groups serves the function of bolstering self-esteem, it is possible that this effect can be counteracted by means of existential relief. Two variables were presented in a 2 × 2 factorial to a population of primarily college students: a mortality salience (MS) variable and an afterlife variable, in which participants read “scientific” accounts that either supported or denied the existence of a literal afterlife. Homonegativity was utilised as a dependent measure of out-group derogation. In the predicted manner, mortality salience and afterlife variables interacted to predict significantly different levels of homonegativity. When participants were subconsciously primed with MS, their psychological need to derogate dissimilar others was significantly lowered if they were assured of an afterlife. These results demonstrate that the effects of MS can be attenuated by presenting existential relief through assurance of literal afterlife.     

Repetition priming within and between languages in verb generation: Evidence for shared verb concepts

Although translation equivalents for concrete nouns are known to have shared core conceptual representations in bilingual memory (Francis, 1999), the status of translation-equivalent verbs has not been systematically tested. Three repetition-priming experiments using a verb generation task were used to determine whether verbs have shared representations across languages and to identify the processes facilitated in repeated verb generation. In Experiment 1 fluent Spanish–English bilingual speakers exhibited repetition priming both within and between languages, but between-language priming was weaker. In Experiment 2 performance of non-bilingual English and Spanish speakers was equivalent to that of bilingual speakers responding in their dominant language. Experiment 3 used manipulations meant to isolate noun comprehension, verb concept selection, and verb production. The between-language priming in Experiments 1 and 3 indicates that verb concepts are shared across languages and that verb concept selection exhibits facilitation. Experiment 3 showed that the greater within-language priming was due primarily to facilitation of verb production processes.     

Role salience and support as moderators of demand/conflict relationships in China

This study examined the effects of role demand on both work–family conflict and family–work conflict, and the moderating effects of role salience and support on these relationships. Based on 391 dual-career (managerial and blue-collar employees) couples from a Taiwanese company in China, the results of this survey study showed clear gender differences in the patterns of relationships observed. For men, the most important demands that negatively impacted on work–family conflict were frequency of overtime and frequency of socializing for work purposes (yingchou), and supervisory support buffered the negative impact of frequent overtime. For women however, strong supervisory support and low work role salience were more important for reducing work–family conflict, and there was no significant main effect found for any of the role demand factors. Furthermore, women with high work role salience were more likely to feel the impact of yingchou on work–family conflict. In the family domain, the most influential demand for men was hours spent on household tasks, but for women, it was the frequency of family-related leave. Interestingly, males reported higher family role salience than females and spouse support intensified rather than buffered the positive impact of hours spent on household tasks on family–work conflict for males.     

Hopelessly mortal: The role of mortality salience,immortality and trait self-esteem in personal hope

Do people lose hope when thinking about death? Based on Terror Management Theory, we predicted that thoughts of death (i.e., mortality salience) would reduce personal hope for people low, but not high, in self-esteem, and that this reduction in hope would be ameliorated by promises of immortality. In Studies 1 and 2, mortality salience reduced personal hope for people low in self-esteem, but not for people high in self-esteem. In Study 3, mortality salience reduced hope for people low in self-esteem when they read an argument that there is no afterlife, but not when they read “evidence” supporting life after death. In Study 4, this effect was replicated with an essay affirming scientific medical advances that promise immortality. Together, these findings uniquely demonstrate that thoughts of mortality interact with trait self-esteem to cause changes in personal hope, and that literal immortality beliefs can aid psychological adjustment when thinking about death. Implications for understanding personal hope, trait self-esteem, afterlife beliefs and terror management are discussed.     

The development of prospective memory in young schoolchildren: The impact of ongoing task absorption,cue salience,and cue centrality

This study presents evidence that 9- and 10-year-old children outperform 6- and 7-year-old children on a measure of event-based prospective memory and that retrieval-based factors systematically influence performance and age differences. All experiments revealed significant age effects in prospective memory even after controlling for ongoing task performance. In addition, the provision of a less absorbing ongoing task (Experiment 1), higher cue salience (Experiment 2), and cues appearing in the center of attention (Experiment 3) were each associated with better performance. Of particular developmental importance was an age by cue centrality (in or outside of the center of attention) interaction that emerged in Experiment 3. Thus, age effects were restricted to prospective memory cues appearing outside of the center of attention, suggesting that the development of prospective memory across early school years may be modulated by whether a cue requires overt monitoring beyond the immediate attentional context. Because whether a cue is in or outside of the center of attention might determine the amount of executive control needed in a prospective memory task, findings suggest that developing executive control resources may drive prospective memory development across primary school age.     

Leading future orientations for current effectiveness: The role of engagement and supervisor coaching in linking future work self salience to job performance

Recent research suggests that the salience of a future work self has a considerable impact on future-oriented activities such as skill development, career planning, career networking, and job searching. However, little is known as to whether, how, and under what conditions a more salient future work self may influence concomitant work outcomes such as job performance. Drawing on self-regulation theory, we argue that future work self salience (FWSS) affects job performance via its influence on engagement, with this influence amplified as a function of supervisor coaching. Using multi-source and lagged data collected from employees (N = 441), their direct supervisors (N = 98), and archival records in an insurance company, we found that engagement mediated the relationships between FWSS and both supervisor-rated and archival sales performance. Furthermore, the relationships FWSS has with employee engagement and sales performance, as well as the indirect effects of FWSS on two performance indicators, were stronger for employees exposed to higher levels of supervisor coaching.     

Productivity is not enough: A comparison of interactive and nominal brainstorming groups on idea generation and selection

The conclusion that nominal brainstorming groups outperform interactive brainstorming groups has been exclusively based on studies of idea generation. This study tested whether the productivity advantage of nominal groups would also result in better idea selection. Nominal and interactive groups performed a task that involved idea generation and selection. Idea generation and selection were strictly separated for half the groups, but were combined for the other half. Nominal groups generated more ideas than interactive groups, and the ideas generated by nominal groups were more original and less feasible than the ideas generated by interactive groups. However, there were no differences among conditions in quality of the selected ideas. Further, idea selection was not significantly better than chance. This suggests that high productivity in brainstorming is not sufficient to lead to better solutions.     

When being far away is good: Exploring how mortality salience,regulatory mode,and goal progress affect judgments of meaning in life

Research indicates that death‐relevant thoughts (mortality salience) have a nuanced effect on judgments of life's meaningfulness. Thoughts of death diminish meaning in life only among people who lack or do not readily engage psychological structures that confer meaning. Building on this past research, the current research examined how an important source of meaning, long‐term goal progress, affects the ways that death‐relevant cognitions impact judgments of life's meaning. In Study 1 (N = 118), mortality salience decreased perceptions of meaning in life only among participants who were induced to feel closer to (vs. farther from) completing a long‐term goal. Study 2 (N = 259) extended these findings by demonstrating the moderating influence of individual differences in locomotion. Mortality salience again decreased perceptions of meaning in life among participants who felt closer to accomplishing a long‐term goal, but it only did so among people who do not quickly adopt new goals to pursue (i.e., those low in locomotion). The implications of these findings for better understanding how people maintain meaning in the face of existential concerns and how aspects of goal pursuit affect these processes are discussed.     

Hemispheric asymmetries in processing L1 and L2 idioms: effects of salience and context

This study investigates the contribution of the left and right hemispheres to the comprehension of bilingual figurative language and the joint effects of salience and context on the differential cerebral involvement in idiom processing. The divided visual field and the lexical decision priming paradigms were employed to examine the activation of salient and nonsalient ambiguous idiom interpretations (i.e., literal vs. non-literal) in the two hemispheres. Literally plausible ambiguous idioms, L1 (Polish) and L2 (English), were embedded in unconstraining ambiguous (e.g., I knew he kept an ace up his sleeve) or constraining unambiguous context clearly favoring their conventional idiomatic interpretation (e.g., The debating president kept an ace up his sleeve). Idioms were presented centrally, followed by laterally presented targets related to the figurative (e.g., GAIN) or literal (e.g., SHIRT) meaning of the idiom and displayed at Interstimulus Intervals (ISIs) of 0 ms (Experiment 1), 300 ms (Experiment 2), and 800 ms (Experiment 3). Results indicate that context and salience effects are significantly modulated by the language (native vs. nonnative) of the stimulus materials being presented to each hemisphere. Literal facilitation was found for L2 idioms in all three ISI conditions, which supports the notion of the special status that literal meanings of L2 idioms enjoy in the course of their processing by nonnative language users. No significant differences were found between the right and left hemispheres in regards to their sensitivity to contextual constraints. Results are discussed in terms of the Graded Salience Hypothesis and the Fine/Coarse Coding Theory.     

Argumentation and Explanation in Conceptual Change: Indications From Protocol Analyses of Peer-to-Peer Dialog

In this paper we attempt to identify which peer collaboration characteristics may be accountable for conceptual change through interaction. We focus on different socio-cognitive aspects of the peer dialog and relate these with learning gains on the dyadic as well as the individual level. The scientific topic that was used for this study concerns natural selection, a topic for which students' intuitive conceptions have been shown to be particularly robust. Learning tasks were designed according to the socio-cognitive conflict instructional paradigm. After receiving a short instructional intervention on natural selection, paired students were asked to collaboratively construct explanations for certain evolutionary phenomena while engaging in dialectical argumentation. Two quantitative coding schemes were developed, each with a different granularity. The first assessed discrete dialog moves that pertained to dialectical argumentation and to consensual explanation development. The second scheme characterized the dialog as a whole on a number of socio-cognitive dimensions. Results from analyses on the dyadic as well as the individual level revealed that the engagement in dialectical argumentation predicted conceptual learning gains, whereas consensual explanation development did not. These findings open up new venues for research on the mechanisms of learning in and from peer collaboration.     

Catching the liar as a matter of justice: Effects of belief in a just world on deception detection accuracy and the moderating role of mortality salience

Belief in a just world has been linked to high interpersonal trust and less suspicion of deception. We therefore predicted people with a strong dispositional belief in a just world to have low motivation to accurately detect deception. Accordingly, we hypothesized such a belief to be negatively related to accuracy in deception detection. Furthermore, research on Terror Management Theory has indicated that culturally shared values, such as justice, become more important after mortality salience. Thus, we assumed engaging in justice concerns after a death threat is especially relevant for people with a strong belief in a just world, and further, that accurate deception detection is a matter of justice. Based on this reasoning, we expected people with a strong belief in a just world to have an increased motivation to accurately detect deception after mortality salience. Consequently, we hypothesized dispositional differences in belief in a just world to be unrelated to accuracy in deception detection after mortality salience. In line with these predictions, our study revealed that participants with a strong (vs. weak) belief in a just world were worse in deception detection unless they had first been reminded of their mortality.     

Uphill and Downhill in a Flat World: The Conceptual Topography of the Yupno House

Speakers of many languages around the world rely on body‐based contrasts (e.g., left/right ) for spatial communication and cognition. Speakers of Yupno, a language of Papua New Guinea's mountainous interior, rely instead on an environment‐based uphill/downhill contrast. Body‐based contrasts are as easy to use indoors as outdoors, but environment‐based contrasts may not be. Do Yupno speakers still use uphill/downhill contrasts indoors and, if so, how? We report three studies on spatial communication within the Yupno house. Even in this flat world, uphill/downhill contrasts are pervasive. However, the terms are not used according to the slopes beyond the house's walls, as reported in other groups. Instead, the house is treated as a microworld, with a “conceptual topography” that is strikingly reminiscent of the physical topography of the Yupno valley. The phenomenon illustrates some of the distinctive properties of environment‐based reference systems, as well as the universal power and plasticity of spatial contrasts.     

Evaluating the contribution of different item features to the effect size of the gender difference in three-dimensional mental rotation using automatic item generation

In complex three-dimensional mental rotation tasks males have been reported to score up to one standard deviation higher than females. However, this effect size estimate could be compromised by the presence of gender bias at the item level, which calls the validity of purely quantitative performance comparisons into question. We hypothesized that the effect of gender bias at the level of distinct item design features could lead to either an over- or underestimation of reported effect sizes of the gender difference in three-dimensional mental rotation. Using automatic item generation we conducted a series of psychometric experiments in which we independently manipulated one out of four different item design features that have exhibited a gender bias in the previous studies (study 1). This was done in a between-subjects design. The results indicated that gender bias caused by item design features linked to the perceptual stadium of mental rotation led to an overestimation of the effect size of the gender difference while item design features associated with the encoding and transformational stadium resulted in an underestimation of the effect size of the gender difference. In study 2 we tested the hypothesis that the gender difference still remains while controlling for the item design features causing gender bias. The results suggest that a significant portion of the gender difference may be attributable to perceptual and encoding processes involved in mental rotation.     

论公共管理中不道德手段的生成与控制

公共生活要得到有效而又合理的管理必须运用道德的手段。有的公共管理机构及其人员出于提高管理效率或者实现私人目的的考虑,可能会选择不道德的手段。由于不道德的手段会造成严重的道德后果,因此,就有必要对其予以合理控制。这种控制既需要合理的道德观念的支持,又需要刚性的内部控制与外部控制的配合。     

Temporal and spatial integration of face,object, and scene features in occipito-temporal cortex

In three neuroimaging experiments, face, novel object, and building stimuli were compared under conditions of restricted (aperture) viewing and normal (whole) viewing. Aperture viewing restricted the view to a single face/object feature at a time, with the subjects able to move the aperture continuously though time to reveal different features. An analysis of the proportion of time spent viewing different features showed stereotypical exploration patterns for face, object, and building stimuli, and suggested that subjects constrained their viewing to the features most relevant for recognition. Aperture viewing showed much longer response times than whole viewing, due to sequential exploration of the relevant isolated features. An analysis of BOLD activation revealed face-selective activation with both whole viewing and aperture viewing in the left and right fusiform face areas (FFA). Aperture viewing showed strong and sustained activation throughout exploration, suggesting that aperture viewing recruited similar processes as whole viewing, but for a longer time period. Face-selective recruitment of the FFA with aperture viewing suggests that the FFA is involved in the integration of isolated features for the purpose of recognition.     

Building blocks of idea generation and implementation in teams: A meta-analysis of team design and team creativity and innovation

Although organizations increasingly rely on teams to innovate, little systematic knowledge exists about how to design teams to do so. Building on the model of collaborative creativity and innovation and synthesizing findings from published and unpublished studies, this meta-analysis examines the role of team design on team creativity and innovation. We used random-effects meta-analysis to cumulate the correlations between different features of team design and team creativity or team innovation from 134 field studies representing 11,353 teams and 35 studies representing 2,485 student teams. We found that team tenure is curvilinearly related, autonomy-supportive leadership, task interdependence, and goal interdependence are positively related, and demographic diversity and team size are unrelated to team creativity and innovation. Examining meta-analytic path models, we found that task interdependence and supportive leadership positively relate to team creativity and innovation via team collaboration and team potency. In accounting for the literature, we found a dearth of studies examining team processes, some types of diversity such as racial diversity, and the role of team member turnover. We conclude by providing directions for future research and practical guidance about increasing team creativity and innovation through team design.     

Depression as a mediator of negative cognitive style and hopelessness in stress generation

Over the past 20 years, there has been considerable interest in the role of cognitive factors in the stress generation process. Generally, these studies find that depressed individuals, or individuals at cognitive risk for depression, are more likely to experience stressful life events that are in part influenced by their own characteristics and behaviours (i.e., negative dependent events). However, there is still much to be learnt about the mediators of these effects. For example, does the development of depression symptoms explain why individuals at cognitive risk for depression experience increased negative dependent events? Or, is it that increases in cognitive risk explain why depressed individuals experience increased negative dependent events? To explore these questions, a short‐term prospective study was conducted with 209 college students who were given measures of depression, depressogenic risk factors (i.e., negative cognitive style and hopelessness), and negative dependent events at two time points 6 weeks apart. Support was found for three models: (1) depression symptoms mediated the relationship between negative cognitive style and negative dependent events; (2) depression symptoms mediated the relationship between hopelessness and negative dependent events; and (3) first hopelessness and then depression symptoms mediated the relationship between negative cognitive style and negative dependent events in a multiple‐step model. In contrast, the reverse models were not confirmed, suggesting specificity in the direction of the mediational sequence.