Temporal Contiguity and Contingency Judgments: A Pavlovian Analogue

The two experiments reported examine the role of temporal contiguity on judgments of contingency in a human analogue of the Pavlovian task. The data show that the effect of the actual delay on contingency judgment depends on the observer's expectation regarding the delay. For a fixed contingency between the cue and the outcome, ratings of the contingency are higher when the actual delay is congruent with the observer's expectation than when it is incongruent. We argue that our data can be understood within the context of the temporal coding hypothesis.     

The effects of perceptual load on semantic processing under inattention

Inattentional blindness refers to a failure to consciously detect an irrelevant object that appears without any expectation when attention is engaged with another task. The perceptual load theory predicts that task-irrelevant stimuli will reach awareness only when the primary task is of low load, which allows processing resources to spill over to processing task-irrelevant stimuli as well. We studied whether perceptual load has an effect on inattentional blindness for a task-irrelevant stimulus whose meaning is or is not relevant to the attentional goals of the observer. In the critical trial, a word appeared without any expectation in the center of a display of attended pictures. The results showed that, under both high and low load, unexpected words belonging to the attended semantic category were detected more often than semantically unrelated words. These results imply that task-irrelevant stimuli, whose meanings are relevant to the observer’s task, enter awareness irrespective of perceptual load.     

The role of motor simulation in action perception: a neuropsychological case study

Research on embodied cognition stresses that bodily and motor processes constrain how we perceive others. Regarding action perception the most prominent hypothesis is that observed actions are matched to the observer’s own motor representations. Previous findings demonstrate that the motor laws that constrain one’s performance also constrain one’s perception of others’ actions. The present neuropsychological case study asked whether neurological impairments affect a person’s performance and action perception in the same way. The results showed that patient DS, who suffers from a frontal brain lesion, not only ignored target size when performing movements but also when asked to judge whether others can perform the same movements. In other words DS showed the same violation of Fitts’s law when performing and observing actions. These results further support the assumption of close perception action links and the assumption that these links recruit predictive mechanisms residing in the motor system.     

The effect of fearful faces on the attentional blink is task dependent

In a set of three rapid serial visual presentation experiments, we investigated the effect of fearful and neutral face stimuli on the report of trailing scene targets. When the emotional expression of the face stimuli had to be indicated, fearful faces induced a stronger attentional blink (AB) than did neutral faces. However, with identical physical stimulation, the enhancement of the AB by fearful faces disappeared when participants had to judge the faces’ gender. If faces did not have to be reported, no AB was observed. Thus, fearful faces exhibited an effect on the AB that crucially depended on the observer’s attentional set. Hence, the AB can be influenced by an emotional T1 when T1 has to be reported, but this influence is modulated by task context. This result indicates a close connection between temporal attention and emotional processing that is modulated by task context.     

Enhanced corticospinal response to observed pain in pain synesthetes

Observing noxious injury to another’s hand is known to induce corticospinal inhibition that can be measured in the observer’s corresponding muscle. Here, we investigated whether acquired pain synesthetes, individuals who experience actual pain when observing injury to another, demonstrate less corticospinal inhibition than do controls during pain observation, as a potential mechanism for the experience of vicarious pain. We recorded motor-evoked potentials (MEPs) induced at two time points through transcranial magnetic stimulation while participants observed videos of a hand at rest, a hypodermic needle penetrating the skin, a Q-tip touching the skin, and a hypodermic needle penetrating an apple. We compared MEPs in three groups: 7 amputees who experience pain synesthesia, 11 nonsynesthete amputees who experience phantom limb pain, and 10 healthy controls. Results indicated that the pain synesthete group demonstrated significantly enhanced MEP response to the needle penetrating the hand, relative to the needle not having yet penetrated the hand, as compared with controls. This effect was not observed exclusively in the same muscle where noxious stimulation was applied. We speculate that our findings reflect a generalized response to pain observation arising from hyperactivity of motor mirror neurons not involved in direct one-to-one simulation but, rather, in the representation of another’s experience.     

Winch and Wittgenstein on moral harm and absolute safety

This paper examines Wittgenstein’s conception of absolute safety in the light of two potential problems exposed by Winch. These are that, firstly: even if someone’s life has been virtuous so far, the contingency of its remaining so until death vitiates the claim that the virtuous person cannot be harmed; and secondly: when voiced from a first-person standpoint, the claim to be absolutely safe due to one’s virtuousness appears hubristic and self-undermining. I argue that Wittgenstein’s mystical conception of safety, unlike some others, requires no claim about one’s own virtue and hence can be construed as avoiding these problems.     

Effects of free food deliveries and temporal contiguity on choice under concurrent-chain schedules

Eight pigeons responded in a concurrent chain with variable-interval (VI) 10-sec and VI 20-sec terminal links. Free food deliveries were then added to the initial links according to a variable-time (VT) 20-sec schedule in two conditions that differed in terms of whether a differential reinforcement of other (DRO) contingency was also arranged, which ensured that those deliveries could not occur within 2-sec of a response. Preference for the VI 10-sec terminal link increased when VT food was added, but not when the DRO contingency was operative, showing that free food deliveries affected preference only when those deliveries could be temporally contiguous with choice responding. This finding suggests that Mazur’s (2003) report of increased preference with added VT food, replicated here, was due to adventitious reinforcement. Current models for behavioral choice are limited because they are based entirely on temporal relations between stimuli and reinforcers and fail to take into account response-reinforcer contiguity.     

Time-course analysis of temporal preparation on central processes

Participants usually respond faster to a response signal (RS) when this signal is preceded by a warning stimulus than when it is not. A question of theoretical importance is the locus of this facilitating effect within the information processing stream. Recently, Los and Schut (Cogn Psychol 57:20–55, 2008) suggested that temporal preparation acts on central processes while perception of the RS is under way. The present study provides a stochastic model (central preparation model, CPM) based on this hypothesis and presents three experiments testing this model. To track the complete time-course of temporal preparation, the warning signal could either precede or follow the RS. The data show some systematic deviation from the model’s predictions, questioning CPM’s assumption that temporal preparation acts only on central processes. An alternative mechanism of temporal preparation based on the parallel grains model [Miller and Ulrich (Cogn Psychol 46:101–151, 2003)] is discussed.     

Temporal tuning in the acquisition of cognitive skill

Thetemporal tuning hypothesis suggests that individuals adjust the timing of cognitive performances to achieve temporal coordination of mental processes and the data on which they operate, and that this adjustment becomes more precise with practice. Participants in two experiments performed self-paced multiple-step arithmetic tasks in which the information needed for each step was briefly displayed at the participants’ request. Timing constraints were manipulated by varying between subjects the delay between requests and displays of information. In Experiment 1, both operators and operands appeared step by step, and participants achieved a modest degree of temporal adjustment that did not change with practice. In Experiment 2, participants could preview operators while operands appeared step by step. In that experiment, participants achieved more precise temporal adjustment, and the amount of adjustment increased with practice. These results demonstrate the phenomenon of temporal tuning in symbolic cognitive skills and suggest some constraints on the ability to anticipate the time course of one’s mental processes.     

Observer perspective and acentred memory: some puzzles about point of view in personal memory

Sometimes I remember my past experiences from an ‘observer’ perspective, seeing myself in the remembered scene. This paper analyses the distinction in personal memory between such external observer visuospatial perspectives and ‘field’ perspectives, in which I experience the remembered actions and events as from my original point of view. It argues that Richard Wollheim’s related distinction between centred and acentred memory fails to capture the key phenomena, and criticizes Wollheim’s reasons for doubting that observer ‘memories’ are genuine personal memories. Since field perspectives in personal memory are also likely to be the product of constructive processes, we should reject the common assumption that such constructive processes inevitably bring distortion and error. Yet field perspectives tend to be treated as privileged also in the domains of memory for skilled movement, and memory for trauma. In each case, it is argued that visuospatial perspective in personal memory should be distinguished from other kinds of perspective such as kinesthetic perspective and emotional perspective.     

Vertical meridian asymmetry in spatial resolution: Visual and attentional factors

We investigated whether spatial resolution would be the same in the lower and upper halves of thevertical meridian (VM) of our visual field and whether attention would affect them differentially. It has been reported that (1) attending to the target’s location improves performance in a texture segregation task when the observer’s spatial resolution is too low (peripheral locations) but impairs it when resolution is already too high (central locations) for the task. This finding indicates an enhanced spatial resolution at the attended location (Yeshurun & Carrasco, 1998, 2000), (2) observers’ contrast sensitivity is higher in the lower than in the upper VM, a phenomenon known asvertical meridian asymmetry (VMA), an asymmetry determined by visual rather than by attentional factors (Carrasco, Talgar, & Cameron, 2001). In the present texture segregation task, performance was assessed under neutral- and peripheralcue conditions. Transient covert attention was systematically manipulated by using a peripheral cue that indicated the target’s location and its onset. Observers reported the interval containing a target patch appearing at one of a number of eccentricities in a large texture pattern along the VM. We found that (1) performance peaked at farther eccentricities in the lower than in the upper visual VM, indicating that resolution was higher in the lower half, and (2) the peripheral cue affected performance along the VM uniformly, indicating that the degree of enhanced resolution brought about by transient attention was constant along the VM. Thus, we conclude that the VMA for spatial resolution is determined by visual, not transient covert attentional, constraints.     

Does motor interference arise from mirror system activation? The effect of prior visuo-motor practice on automatic imitation

Action perception may involve a mirror-matching system, such that observed actions are mapped onto the observer’s own motor representations. The strength of such mirror system activation should depend on an individual’s experience with the observed action. The motor interference effect, where an observed action interferes with a concurrently executed incongruent action, is thought to arise from mirror system activation. However, this view was recently challenged. If motor interference arises from mirror system activation, this effect should be sensitive to prior sensorimotor experience with the observed action. To test this prediction, we measured motor interference in two groups of participants observing the same incongruent movements. One group had received brief visuo-motor practice with the observed incongruent action, but not the other group. Action observation induced a larger motor interference in participants who had practiced the observed action. This result thus supports a mirror system account of motor interference.     

Effects of a Classwide Interdependent Group Contingency Designed to Improve the Behavior of an At-Risk Student

When students display disruptive behaviors, it interferes with their own, and other students’ learning and with the teacher’s ability to instruct during academic activities. This study investigated the effects of a classwide interdependent group contingency on the on/off-task behaviors of an at-risk student in a first-grade classroom in a private Midwestern school. The student was referred for intervention due to his high rates of off-task behavior and low levels of academic engagement. An ABAB withdrawal design was used to evaluate the effectiveness of the intervention to improve the target student’s behavior as well as that of his classroom peers. Results suggested that the intervention decreased the individual student’s off-task behavior and increased academic engagement while also having positive effects on overall behavior in the classroom.     

The renewal of dewey — trends in the nineties

This article proposes that the ‘renewal’ of Dewey might contribute to filling the gap between the pedagogical commitment to contingency and plurality and the fact that the pedagogical tradition, until now, has neutralized contingency and denied its systematic meaning for education. Therefore, the main traits of the ‘renewal of Dewey’ are shown in the work of some Dewey scholars who, critically and creatively, reconstruct Dewey in the mirror of poststructural, communicational and constructive theory developments. Following Dewey, these researches balance the objective evaluation of Dewey’s work by a deliberate and overt pursuit of their own intentions and (pre-)selections by the scholars. Intersubjectivity and communication are key concepts in this renewal of pragmatism rejecting the subject-centered philosophy of consciousness, the traditional western epistemology and metaphysics. The turn to the philosophical priority of the unforeseeable also leads to an understanding of action as an essential focus. In this context Dewey’s pragmatistic view of radical democracy is received as a non-foundational theory and the concept of consensus is criticized. The scholars clarify that the boundaries of the subject are broadened by communicative destabilization. At the end of the article it is asked what the renewal-dimensions mean for education located in the public sphere.     

Phonological representation of words in working memory during sentence reading

The temporal dynamics of a visual target word’s phonological representation was examined by presentation of an irrelevant spoken companion word when the participant’s eyes reached the target’s location during sentence reading. The spoken word was identical, similar, or dissimilar to the phonological specification of the visual target. All spoken words increased the time spent viewing the target, with larger effects in thesimilar anddissimilar spoken word conditions than in theidentical condition. The reading of posttarget text was disrupted when the spoken word was similar but not when it was identical or dissimilar to the target. Phonological interference indicates that a word’s phonological representation remains active after it has been identified during sentence reading.     

Causal attributions for behaviors consistent or inconsistent with an actor's personality traits: Differences between those offered by actors and observers

The present research was designed to investigate differences in the attributions offered from the actor's perspective and the observer's perspective. It was predicted that causal attributions for behaviors inconsistent with an actor's personality traits would be more situational when offered from the actor's perspective than when offered from the observer's perspective. In contrast, it was predicted that causal attributions for behaviors consistent with an actor's personality traits would be more dispositional when offered from the actor's perspective than when offered from the observer's perspective. Consistent with these hypotheses, extraverts explained introverted behaviors and introverts explained extraverted behaviors more situationally from the actor's perspective than from the observer's perspective. Furthermore, extraverts explained extraverted behaviors and introverts explained introverted behaviors more dispositionally from the actor's perspective than from the observer's perspective. These differences in the attributions offered by actors and observers were attenuated but not eliminated when attributors had access to useful situational information with which to apply the discounting principle.     

Non-Classical Correlations in Bistable Perception?

A violation of Bell’s inequalities is generally considered to be the Holy Grail of experimental proof that a specific natural phenomenon cannot be explained in a classical framework and is based on a non-boolean structure of predications. Generalized quantum theory allows for such non-boolean predications. We formulate temporal Bell’s inequalities for cognitive two-state systems and indicate how these inequalities can be tested. This will introduce the notion of temporally non-local measurements. The Necker-Zeno model for bistable perception predicts a violation of these temporal Bell’s inequalities.     

Effect-based control of facial expressions: evidence from action-effect compatibility

Facial expressions such as smiling or frowning are normally followed by, and often aim at, the observation of corresponding facial expressions in social counterparts. Given this contingency between one’s own and other persons’ facial expressions, the production of such facial actions might be the subject of so-called action–effect compatibility effects. In the present Experiment 1, we confirmed this assumption. Participants were required to smile or frown. The generation of these expressions was harder when participants produced predictable feedback from a virtual counterpart that was incompatible with their own facial expression; for example, smiling produced the presentation of a frowning face. The results of Experiment 2 revealed that this effect vanishes with inverted faces as action feedback, which shows that the phenomenon is bound to the instantaneous emotional interpretation of the feedback. These results comply with the assumption that the generation of facial expressions is controlled by an anticipation of these expressions’ effects in the social environment.