多模态信息认知加工的研究进展

现实世界中,信息是以各种各样的模态存在的。随着科学技术的发展,结合视、听、图不同形式而呈现的多模态(Multimode)信息逐渐成为信息加工的一种重要形式。多模态信息的认知加工也已成为认知心理学与工程心理学研究中的一个热点问题。本文概述了有关多模态信息加工过程中的促进效应、干扰效应及抑制机制的主要研究,并加以评论。     

A Property Level Analysis of Lexical Semantic Representation in Alzheimer′s Disease

In order to assess the hypotheses that Alzheimer′s disease (AD) results in a property level restructuring, loss, or degradation of lexical-semantic knowledge, Alzheimer′s patients and normal elderly subjects were presented with a property verification task in which they were asked to judge the truth value of telegraphic statements which paired objects with their properties (e.g., "Apple is red"). Objects with either high- or low-typical exemplars of categories (e.g., "oak" is a high typical exemplar of the category "tree," while "palm" is a less typical item). Properties were varied with respect to normatively determined dominance (e.g, "fins" is a high dominant property of "trout," while "slimy" is a less dominant property) and whether they were distinctive (i.e., served to distinguish between subsets of exemplars within a category) or shared among most or all category members (e.g., "stem" for the category "fruit"). Analyses of accuracy and reaction time data suggested that AD results in neither a loss per se of representation of properties, nor a reorganization of relations between objects′ properties. However, results were consistent with a property level degradation of AD patients′ object concepts. While there was no evidence for a differential degradation of distinctive vs shared properties, results suggested that AD patients have degraded representations of lower dominant properties and properties of low-typical category exemplars.     

Theodor Meynert′s Contribution to Classical 19th Century Aphasia Studies

Carl Wernicke (1848-1905) is traditionally considered the first to have described the features of, and the brain pathology underlying, impaired auditory comprehension and related symptoms. Although Wernicke (1874) clearly and repeatedly indicates his indebtedness to Theodor von Meynert (1833-1892). this is usually understood as an acknowledgment that Meynert taught Wernicke neuroanatomy (Eggert, 1977); Wernicke′s own words in part support this interpretation. A more sophisticated historical analysis notes that, prior to Wernicke, both Johann Schmidt in 1871 and Charlton Bastian in 1869 had described the concept of receptive aphasia, but neither had supported their analyses with autopsy evidence as did Wernicke, thus not dislodging Wernicke′s claim of priority. However, a virtually unknown work by Theodor von Meynert, published in 1866, has recently been rediscovered by us ["Ein Fall von Sprachstörung, anatomisch begründet." Medizinische Jahrbücher. XII Band der Zeitschrift der K. K. Gesellleschaft der Ärzte in Wien, 22.Jahr. Pp. 152-189]. In this paper Meynert analyzes the anatomical basis for localizing the comprehension of language in the superior temporal gyros, he argues that lesions in this area should (by analogy to Broca′s earlier observations on language expression) cause impairments in language comprehension, and he presents a case of receptive aphasia with autopsy evidence of destruction of the superior temporal gyros in the left hemisphere. The patient′s aphasia was classic: impaired auditory comprehension, and fluent speech with paraphasias. It is clear that Meynert should be given historical credit for his work.     

Inconsistency and rank preservation

Conditions for rank preservation in a positive reciprocal matrix that is inconsistent are provided. Three methods of deriving ratio estimates are examined: the eigenvalue, the logarithmic least squares, and the least squares methods. It is shown that only the principal eigenvector directly deals with the question of inconsistency and captures the rank order inherent in the inconsistent data.     

Inconsistency in spatial knowledge

Two experiments examined whether spatial information judged from cognitive maps contains the functional euclidean properties of real maps. In Experiment 1, the six directions between sets of threetriad locations in a town were judged from memory. The angle formed by the two judged directions from a location to the other two locations in a triad was derived. The three derived angles of a triad were then summed. The derived angles were found to be biased toward 90 deg. The sum of the three derived angles of a triad also exceeded 180 deg, which violates the euclidean properties of real maps. In Experiment 2, subjects judged the direction between pairs of American cities in both directions. The judged directions were found to be consistently nonreversible, which is contrary to the properties of euclidean geometry. The study suggests that information judged from cognitive maps can contain internally inconsistent spatial properties, and the results are discussed in terms of current theories of spatial representation.     

Pragmatic Inconsistency and Credibility

A critic may attack an arguer personally by pointing out that the arguer’s position is pragmatically inconsistent: the arguer does not practice what he preaches. A number of authors hold that such attacks can be part of a good argumentative discussion. However, there is a difficulty in accepting this kind of contribution as potentially legitimate, for the reason that there is nothing wrong for a protagonist to have an inconsistent position, in the sense of committing himself to mutually inconsistent propositions. If so, any such charge seems to be irrelevant. The questions to be answered in this essay are: what, if any, is the dialectical rationale for this type of criticism, and in what situations, if any, is this kind of charge dialectically legitimate? It will be shown that these attacks can be dialectically legitimate, in special circumstances, and that they can be seen as strategic?manoeuvres where a party attempts to reconcile his dialectical and his rhetorical objectives.     

Inconsistency in the A-Theory

This paper presents a new argument against A-theories of time. A-theorists hold that there is an objective now (present moment) and an objective flow of time, the latter constituted by the movement of the objective now through time. A-theorists therefore want to draw different pictures of reality—showing the objective now in different positions—depending upon the time at which the picture is drawn. In this paper it is argued that the times at which the different pictures are drawn may be taken to be normal times or hypertimes. If they are normal times then the A-theory is inconsistent, or else collapses to the B-theory—and appealing to primitive tense operators will not help A-theorists avoid this conclusion. If the times are hypertimes then the A-theory is consistent, but deeply problematic none the less.     

Inconsistency in natural languages

An argument for Trivialism, the view that natural languages are logically inconsistent, is provided that does not rely on contentious empirical assumptions about natural language terms such as “and” or “or.” Further, the view is defended against an important objection recently mounted against it by Thomas Hofweber.     

Inconsistency and scientific realism

I erect a framework within the semantic view of theories for explaining the empirical success of internally inconsistent models and theories, with scientific realism in mind. The framework is an instance of the ‘content-driven’ approach to inconsistency, advocated by both Norton (Philos Sci 54:327–350, 1987) and Smith (Stud Hist Philos Sci 19:429–445, 1988a, In: Fine A, Leplin J (eds) PSA1988, 1988b), whose ideas my analysis aims to clarify and substantiate.     

The Sum and Substance of It: The Appreciation of Mass and Count Quantifiers in Parkinson′s Disease

We performed three experiments in order to determine whether patients with Parkinson′s disease (PD) have a sentence comprehension impairment. In the first experiment, we found that nondemented PD patients were impaired at matching a short sentence containing a mass or count quantifier (e.g., "Point to the jar with many") with one of four pictures. Patients erred by pointing to the incorrect mass or count type of substance, but pointed correctly to the large or small amount of a substance in the picture. In the second experiment, we asked the same PD patients to judge short sentences containing mass or count nouns modified by mass or count adjectives (e.g., *"The glass contains many milk"). PD patients were significantly impaired at detecting errors in the agreement between a noun and a quantifying adjective and errors in the appropriate use of the plural associated with a noun. A sentence completion task was performed in order to determine whether patients impaired on both sentence-picture matching and sentence judgment tasks are also compromised in their expression of quantifiers. Some patients impaired on both tasks also had difficulty expressing quantifiers, and it is these patients who may have difficulty performing grammatical computations. Other patients were selectively impaired in their sentence-picture matching or their sentence judgments, suggesting a performance deficit concerned with a particular task. We conclude that sentence comprehension impairments in PD are multifactorial in nature.     

Dynamic Inconsistency and Performable Plans

An agent may abandon an initiated action plan, although he doesnot acquire new information or encounter unforeseen obstacles.Such dynamic inconsistency can be to the agent';s guaranteeddisadvantage, and there is a debate on how it should rationallybe avoided. The main contenders are the sophisticated andthe resolute approaches. I argue that this debate is misconceived,since both approaches rely on false assumptions about theperformability of action plans. The debate can be reformulated,so as to avoid these mistaken assumptions. I try to show that sucha reformulation must rely on certain implausible claims.     

On-line Sensitivity to Subject-Verb Agreement Violations in Broca′s Aphasics: The Role of Syntactic Complexity and Time

This study examined on-line sensitivity to subject-verb agreement violations in patients with Broca′s aphasia and age-matched controls using a word monitoring paradigm. The agreement violations were couched in either simple or complex syntactic frames. In a first experiment, these syntactic frames were immediately followed by the noun phrase containing the target, whereas in the second experiment a 750-msec separation was introduced. The main finding of the first experiment was that patients with Broca′s aphasia showed an agreement effect only for simple (i.e., conjoined) sentences but not for complex (i.e., embedded) ones, while controls showed the expected agreement effect for both. The results of the second experiment demonstrated further that the 750-msec delay in target presentation abolished the agreement effect in Broca′s aphasics but not in normal controls. The findings are interpreted to suggest that Broca′s suffer from a pathological limitation in parsing capacity, giving rise to a faster than normal decay of syntactic information.     

Ambiguity and rationality

Recently, several theories of decision making and probability judgment have been proposed that take into account ambiguity (Einhorn and Hogarth, 1985; Gardenfors and Sahlin, 1982). However, none of these theories explains exactly what the psychological causes of ambiguity are or addresses the issue of whether ambiguity effects are rational. In this paper, we define ambiguity as the subjective experience of missing information relevant to a prediction. We show how this definition can explain why ambiguity affects decisions in the ways it does. We argue that there are a variety of rational reasons ambiguity affects probability judgments and choices in the ways it does. However, we argue that the ambiguity effect does not cast doubt on the claim that utility theory is a standard of rational choice. Rather, we suggest that the effect of ambiguity on decisions highlights the fact that utility theory, like any normative model of decision making only prescribes the optimal decision, given what one knows.     

Language Function in Delirium: A Comparison of Single Word Processing in Acute Confusional States and Probable Alzheimer′s Disease

Thirteen patients suffering from transient acute confusional states (ACS) and 11 patients with probable Alzheimer′s disease (AD) who were comparable for age and Mini-Mental State score were investigated with a naming and a comprehension task. The latter included both words that were previously included in the naming task and unfamiliar items. With five patients of each group, the assessment was repeated 1 to 3 days later. The number of misnamings was comparable for both groups. An effect of word frequency upon naming success was found only with the AD group. Unrelated misnamings were significantly more frequent in the ACS group. Closer analysis suggested that part of the unrelated misnamings in the ACS patients were caused by visual misperceptions. Behavioral strategies aiming at the target were more frequently exhibited by AD patients. Perseverations, especially of the intrusion type, were characteristic for ACS patients and only occasionally found with AD. There was an item consistency over time with naming failure in the AD, but not in the ACS group. Cross-modal performance consistency seemed greater in the ACS than in the AD group.     

Ambiguity in perception and experimentation

Bruno and Cutting (1988) varied four monocular cues to perceived depth in a factorial design. Subjects judged the distance between test objects. Given main effects in the analysis of variance, the authors concluded that the perceivers integrated the four different sources of information, as opposed to simply selecting a single source. Given no interactions in the analysis of variance, the authors concluded that the integration process was additive rather than multiplicative. The ambiguity inherent in Bruno and Cutting's experiments and analyses is discussed. As presented, their results did not provide evidence for integration of depth cues or evidence for additivity, independence, and parallel processing of the cues. An additional analysis of the distribution of the rating judgments given by their subjects, however, provides some evidence for integration of the cues. The fuzzy logical model of perception (FLMP) is extended to describe perceptual recognition of depth. The model assumes independence of the cues during feature evaluation and a nonadditive integration process in which the least ambiguous cues have the greatest impact on the judgment. The FLMP is contrasted with a model assuming additivity of the cues. Because both models describe the results equally well, it remains for future researchers to provide definitive tests between the models.