Evidence of recursion in tool use

We discuss the discovery of technologies involving knotted netting, such as textiles, basketry, and cordage, in the Upper Paleolithic. This evidence, in our view, suggests a new way of connecting toolmaking and syntactic structure in human evolution, because these technologies already exhibit an "infinite use of finite means," which we take to constitute the key transition to human cognition.     

The redundancy of recursion and infinity for natural language

An influential line of thought claims that natural language and arithmetic processing require recursion, a putative hallmark of human cognitive processing (Chomsky in Evolution of human language: biolinguistic perspectives. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, pp 45–61, 2010; Fitch et al. in Cognition 97(2):179–210, 2005; Hauser et al. in Science 298(5598):1569–1579, 2002). First, we question the need for recursion in human cognitive processing by arguing that a generally simpler and less resource demanding process—iteration—is sufficient to account for human natural language and arithmetic performance. We argue that the only motivation for recursion, the infinity in natural language and arithmetic competence, is equally approachable by iteration and recursion. Second, we submit that the infinity in natural language and arithmetic competence reduces to imagining infinite embedding or concatenation, which is completely independent from the ability to implement infinite processing, and thus, independent from both recursion and iteration. Furthermore, we claim that a property of natural language is physically uncountable finity and not discrete infinity.     

Semantics boosts syntax in artificial grammar learning tasks with recursion

Center-embedded recursion (CER) in natural language is exemplified by sentences such as "The malt that the rat ate lay in the house." Parsing center-embedded structures is in the focus of attention because this could be one of the cognitive capacities that make humans distinct from all other animals. The ability to parse CER is usually tested by means of artificial grammar learning (AGL) tasks, during which participants have to infer the rule from a set of artificial sentences. One of the surprising results of previous AGL experiments is that learning CER is not as easy as had been thought. We hypothesized that because artificial sentences lack semantic content, semantics could help humans learn the syntax of center-embedded sentences. To test this, we composed sentences from 4 vocabularies of different degrees of semantic content due to 3 factors (familiarity, meaning of words, and semantic relationship between words). According to our results, these factors have no effect one by one but they make learning significantly faster when combined. This leads to the assumption that there were different mechanisms at work when CER was parsed in natural and in artificial languages. This finding questions the suitability of AGL tasks with artificial vocabularies for studying the learning and processing of linguistic CER.     

Representing visual recursion does not require verbal or motor resources

The ability to form and use recursive representations while processing hierarchical structures has been hypothesized to rely on language abilities. If so, linguistic resources should inevitably be activated while representing recursion in non-linguistic domains. In this study we use a dual-task paradigm to assess whether verbal resources are required to perform a visual recursion task. We tested participants across 4 conditions: (1) Visual recursion only, (2) Visual recursion with motor interference (sequential finger tapping), (3) Visual recursion with verbal interference – low load, and (4) Visual recursion with verbal interference – high load. Our results show that the ability to acquire and use visual recursive representations is not affected by the presence of verbal and motor interference tasks. Our finding that visual recursion can be represented without access to verbal resources suggests that recursion is available independently of language processing abilities.     

Probing the Fundamentalist Worldview

The following is a response to Calvin Mercer’s (2009) Slaves to Faith, A Therapist Looks Inside the Fundamentalist Mind from a multicultural pastoral perspective.     

Probing attentional modulation of contextual cueing

The repetition of spatial layout implicitly facilitates visual search (contextual cueing effect; Chun & Jiang, 1998). Although a substantial number of studies have explored the mechanism underlying the contextual cueing effect, the manner in which contextual information guides spatial attention to a target location during a visual search remains unclear. We investigated the nature of attentional modulation by contextual cueing, using a hybrid paradigm of a visual search task and a probe dot detection task. In the case of a repeated spatial layout, detection of a probe dot was facilitated at a search target location and was inhibited at distractor locations relative to nonrepeated spatial layouts. Furthermore, these facilitatory and inhibitory effects possessed different learning properties across epochs (Experiment 1) and different time courses within a trial (Experiment 2). These results suggest that contextual cueing modulates attentional processing via both facilitation to the location of “to-be-attended” stimuli and inhibition to the locations of “to-be-ignored” stimuli.     

张伯端内丹学思想探微

道教内丹学致力于为其宗教实践提供具体范式的指导,围绕着这个历史使命,内丹学对实证形上道体的方法、形上道体与形下经验世界的关系等诸多宗教哲学问题进行了思考.北宋张伯端及其内丹学思想是其中的杰出代表,他提出"大丹妙用法乾坤",认为宇宙生成的本原、轨则与丹道之理相契合;"逆行归元"是丹法的重要原理,人只要"返根复命"即可以"长存";又提出"先命后性"、"以命取性"的性命之学;而其宗教理想则重视"见末而悟本,舍妄以从真",以证得无上至真妙觉之道为目标.这些宗教哲理对宋以后道教内丹学的发展有着重要的启发和奠基作用.     

上博简《慎子曰恭俭》管窥

本文从分析上海博物馆藏战国楚竹书<慎子曰恭俭>的内容出发,认为简文属于慎子弟子后学的作品.并将简文和传世文献进行比较,认为简文中的"慎子"就是慎到.然后分析了有关慎子的一些问题,认为<战国策·楚策二>所记楚襄王为太子时的老师"慎子"就是慎到,慎到的生卒年可能是359BC-275 BC.     

Probing hemispheric processes in an on-line reading task

Coney (1998) used a priming procedure to obtain evidence that the left and right hemispheres contributed equally to lexical processing of concrete nouns in a continuous reading task. In that study, however, there was no direct validation of the involvement of the right hemisphere in the task, and the possibility of left hemisphere processing of left visual field target stimuli could not be ruled out. The present study was designed to obtain validating evidence by using abstract and concrete noun primes in a similar reading task on the assumption that if the right hemisphere was contributing to the task there would be demonstrable differences between the visual fields in processing targets primed by abstract nouns. The results supported this expectation. While concrete targets projected to each visual field were primed by concrete nouns, there was significant priming by abstract nouns only in respect of targets presented to the right visual field. It is argued that this finding supports the involvement of the right hemisphere in continuous reading and further delimits the scope of its contribution to this process. Somewhat unexpectedly, the results also revealed that absolute response times were faster to left visual field targets when they were preceded by abstract nouns, even when there was no semantic relationship between the two words. It was suggested that this effect derives from the inability of the right hemisphere to process abstract nouns in that the failure of abstract nouns to engage lexical processing mechanisms leaves the right hemisphere relatively unencumbered when required to process a subsequent target.     

Probing Canadian Prejudices: A Preliminary Objective Survey

Personality correlates of S s indicating suicidal intent have been found to be different from those of normals in a direction indicative of possible psychopathology. To test the cross-cultural relevance of this hypothesis, three samples of male and female students were administered Eysenck's extraversion, neuroticism, and psychoticism inventory: 209 Iranian and 128 Turkish university students and 101 Iranian high school students. S s were classified into “suicidal” and “normal” groups in each sample by means of a self-rating scale of suicideintent. Comparison of scores showed that irrespective of nationality and age, suicidals scored higher on neuroticism and psychoticism but lower on extraversion than their normal counterparts. Results suggest that personality correlates of suicidal tendency are rather similar despite differences in age and cultural background.     

Probing the Will of God: Bonhoeffer and Discernment

Like the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius, the spiritual discernment of Dietrich Bonhoeffer seeks to bring one's life into conformity (Gleichgestaltung) with Christ. Such conformation makes discipleship costly, but it also overflows with the fullness of life.     

Probing spatial working memory with the Corsi Blocks task

The Corsi Blocks task (CBT) measures spatial memory span, but methodological differences across previous studies prevent a clear appreciation of perceptual, memory, and motor contributions to spatial span. CBT performance in a standard condition was compared to performance with longer encoding intervals (3 vs 1 s), longer memory intervals (9 vs 1 s), or fewer response alternatives (all nine vs only the relevant positions). All experiments also contrasted ascending vs descending order of item difficulty and recorded response-initiation times. Performance improved with longer encoding and maintenance intervals and with fewer response alternatives. Item order had no reliable effects. Response-initiation times were a useful additional measure of spatial span. Implications of these findings for research using the CBT are discussed.