A note on the natural basis of action categories: the catching distance of mantids

What is the basis for the categorical distinctions evident in action? For some visually-guided activities it can be shown that categories of action are specified by criterial values of optical properties. In the more general case, the criterial optical properties should be scaled relative to dimensions of the acting animal. The analysis of the prey-catching behavior of praying mantids is used to exemplify the strategy for determining naturally defined boundaries on actions.     

Information integration and the identification of stimulus noise and criterial noise in absolute judgment

Two main classes of theories have been proposed regarding range effects in unidimensional absolute-identification tasks. One class posits that as range is increased, criterial noise increases but stimulus noise remains constant. Another class posits increasing stimulus noise but constant criterial noise. In this study, an effort is made to help decide this issue. Multiple observations are used in several absolute-identification tasks of varying range. A stimulus integration model is proposed in which averaging takes place over stimulus internal representations, thereby reducing stimulus variance; on the other hand, it is assumed that criterial variance is unaffected by the number of observations. The model allows one to identify the relative amounts of stimulus noise and criterial noise inherent in observers' recognition judgments. The model yields good fits to data in several experiments, and it is concluded that both stimulus noise and criterial noise increase as range in the absolute-identification task is increased.     

Criterial problems in creative cognition research

In creative cognition research, the Romantic view about creative cognition is traditionally rejected in favor of the modern view. The modern view about creative cognition maintains that creativity is neither mysterious nor unintelligible and that it is indeed susceptible to analysis. The paradigmatic objects of analysis in creative cognition research have been creative output and the creative process. The degree of creativity of an output is assessed in accordance with certain criterial definitions. The degree of creativity of a cognitive process is assessed in accordance with certain models of creative cognition, psychometric test measures, and neuroimaging studies that are grounded in certain criteria for assessment. The reliance on criterial definitions and criteria for assessment in analyzing either the creative output or the creative process suggests that creative cognition researchers remain under the sway of the classical, bundles-of-criteria theory of meaning. In this paper, I will critically evaluate the criterial problems that confront both criterial definitions and criteria for assessment before proposing an alternative theory of meaning.     

EFFECTS OF STRESSING ORAL READING ACCURACY ON COMPREHENSION

Abstract

Recently, authorities have argued that the traditional demand for accuracy in oral reading may in fact retard comprehension. This study investigates the validity of that argument. Thirty third‐grade students of average ability individually read aloud a 109‐word passage and immediately retold as much of it as they could remember. Half of the students (the high criterial group) were instructed to be very careful to pronounce individual words accurately, and half (the low criterial group) were instructed not to worry unduly about accurate pronunciation of individual words. Students’ readings and retellings were tape recorded. The dependent measures were comprehension (total propositions recalled), reading time, misses (hesitations of two or more seconds), and false alarms (words mispronounced). Results indicated significantly better comprehension (p < .05) and significantly faster reading times (p < .l) for the lower criterial group. The major implication for teaching is that overemphasizing accuracy in oral reading can actually retard comprehension. This implication and suggestions for further research are discussed.     

The Separation of Action and Perception and the Issue of Affordances

Michaels's (2000) reassessment of the relation between action and perception is endorsed. In alignment with Milner and Goodale (1995), she proposed a separation between action (i.e., control of movement) and perception (i.e., the explicit knowledge of environmental properties, including animal-referential ones), the separation being based on the reliance on different optical variables. However, how should the concept of affordances be incorporated into this scheme? We present data showing that affordances, both when perceived and acted on, are not susceptible to optical illusions. Because action and perception are distinguished on the basis of information used, but are also proposed to interact, it is hypothesized that, dependent on the task goal, "information for action" may be used in perception, and "information for perception" may be used in action. Participants may become more attuned to information for action when perception serves to acquire explicit knowledge about what the environment affords for action.     

Position,direction, and their perceptual integrality

Subjects were shown an arrow inside a rectangle and were asked to decide on either its vertical direction (up vs. downl or its height (high vs. low) as quickly as possible. Whenever vertical direction was criterial, height was irrelevant, and vice versa. In four conditions, the irrelevant dimension (1) did not vary, (2) covaried positively with the criterial dimension, up with high and down with low, (3) covaried negatively with the criterial dimension, up with low and down with high, or (4) varied orthogonally with the criterial dimension. Height and vertical direction satisfied one of W. R. Garner’s prerequisites for “integral” dimensions in that Condition 4 took longer than Condition 1. But Condition 2 was faster than 1, and 3 was slower than 1, a pattern unlike those of other known integral dimensions. The positive correlation in Condition 2 facilitates, and the negative correlation in 3 interferes, it is argued, because height and vertical direction have interpretations with components in common or in conflict. This research was supported in part by Grant MH 20021 from the National lnstitute of Mental Health.     

ON THE VERY IDEA OF CRITERIA FOR PERSONHOOD

I examine the familiar criterial view of personhood, according to which the possession of personal properties such as self‐consciousness, emotionality, sentience, and so forth is necessary and sufficient for the status of a person. I argue that this view confuses criteria for personhood with parts of an ideal of personhood. In normal cases, we have already identified a creature as a person before we start looking for it to manifest the personal properties, indeed this pre‐identification is part of what makes it possible for us to see and interpret the creature as a person in the first place. This pre‐identification is typically based on biological features. Except in some interesting special or science‐fiction cases, some of which I discuss, it is human animals that we identify as persons.     

A constraint on comparisons: Equally detailed alternatives

Children's errors in collective comparison tasks are atributed to the comparison of the wrong classes. It is specifically hypothesized that alternative classes are erroneously formed subject to the constrain that the same kinds of properties are criterial for each alternative. This hypothesis, called the equally detailed alternatives hypothesis, is tested in three experiments with hierarchically organized stimuli and requests to compare a superordinate class and a nonincluded subclass, for example, dogs and yellow cats. In all three experiments 4-year-old children's comparisons were found to be in accord with the hypothesis. In the first experiment both perceptual and linguistic factors determine which classes are compared. In the second experiment, as predicted, erroneous subclass comparisons were more common when all subclasses were distinguished by the same kinds of properties. In the third experiment, the children were asked to partition the stimulus objects into the classes to be compared. The vast majority of partitions were erroneous and in accord with the hypothesis. Potential benefits of the constrain are considered.     

Remaining a Pole or Becoming a Canadian: National Self-Identity among Polish Immigrants to Canada1

The construct of national self-identity has been theoretically elaborated, following Tajfel's (1981) distinction between criterial and correlated (dimensional) attributes. A third identity component, affects for country, was included with these two aspects. The research program built on these distinctions was designed to compare the national self-identities of Polish immigrants to Canada. Men and women who were new (recent), old (WWII veterans) or second generation immigrants participated in the study. Polish criterial identity (knowledge and personal relevance of national symbols) exhibited a gradual decline from new to second generation immigrants, and a similar but sharper rise in Canadian criterial identity occurred. Correlated aspect of identity was measured as the similarity between self and Canadian/Polish prototypes. Unlike in the criterial sense, Self/Polish was stronger than Self/Canadian correlated identity. Self/Polish identity showed stability across gender and generation. Self/Canadian showed an increase, but only in women. Rating the prototypes high in materialism and low in the family/social concern factor resulted in a low Self/Canadian identity. Four factors were found in the affects for country test: healthy, neurotic, psychotic, and involvement. The first was predominantly a Canadian factor, and the second was a Polish factor. With a succession of new, old, and second generation groups, results showed a shift from less to more positive, from less to more concerned, and from more to less psychotic affects toward Canada. Affects toward Poland were fixed across the categories of subjects. Finally, a syndrome of positive identity with Canada was found, consisting of its criterial, correlated, and healthy affect components.     

Programmable calculator as timer,storer, and decision maker in psychology experiments

This paper describes how a portable programmable calculator can be used to time behavior, to store time values from successive trials, and to perform criterial calculations on a trial-by-trial basis. A specific application for visual habituation studies in infants is described and an exemplary program, currently in use, is listed.     

Modeling the emergence of informational content by adaptive networks for temporal factorisation and criterial causation

Propagated activation of neurons through their network is an important process in the brain. Another crucial part of neural processing concerns adaptation over time of characteristics of this network such as connection strengths or excitability thresholds. This adaptation can be slow, as in learning from a multiple experiences, or it can be fast, as in memory formation. These adaptive network characteristics can be considered informational criteria for activation of a neuron. This then is viewed as a form of emergent information formation. Activation of neurons is determined by such information via a process termed criterial causation. In the current paper, the relationship of criterial causation with the principle of temporal factorisation for the dynamics of the world in general is explored. Temporal factorisation describes how the world represents information about its past in its present state, which then in turn determines the world’s future. In the paper, it is shown how these processes are analysed in more detail and modeled by (adaptive) network models.     

Contrasting rule-based and similarity-based category learning: The effects of mood and prior knowledge on ambiguous categorization

This study adopts a dual-system view of category learning. The findings suggest that consumers who learn a dominant feature as a verbal rule for a product category will classify a new ambiguous product according to that feature even if it more closely resembles a different product category. The findings also demonstrate that dominant features can bias categorization toward a less prototypical category in the event that the new product breaks the rule. We refer to this phenomenon as criterial inferencing. Lastly, we offer unique empirical evidence to suggest that mood influences category learning and thus attenuates the criterial inferencing bias.     

Why believe what people say?

The basic alternatives seem to be either a Humean reductionist view that any particular assertion needs backing with inductive evidence for its reliability before it can retionally be believed, or a Reidian criterial view that testimony is intrinscially, though defeasibly, credible, in the absence of evidence against its reliability.Some recent arguments from the constraints on interpreting any linguistic performances as assertions with propositional content have some force against the reductionist view. We thus have reason to accept the criterial view, at least as applied to eyewitness reports. But these considerations do not establish that any rational enquirer must have the concept of other minds or testimony. The logical possibility of the lone enquirer, who uses symbols and thereby expresses some knowledge of his world, remains open — but it is a question we have no need to pronounce upon.The practice of accepting observation-statements is in fact extended to chains of testimonies believed to start in perception or in some other kind of justification, but the arguments for doing this are not so clear.I am indebted for helpful discussions of earlier versions of this paper to audiences at Macquarie University (where I was kindly given research facilities), at the conference of the Australasian Association for Philosophy in Sydney in 1990, at St. Andrews, and also to a referee for this journal.     

Decision processes in visual discrimination of line orientation

The contribution of decision factors to the meridional variations in line orientation discrimination was determined for two-alternative forced-choice experimental designs. Using Johnson's (1980) formalization of decision processes in discrimination tasks, we identified three decision factors: the decision rule, memory variance, and criterial noise. In a first experiment, we showed the effect of experimental design on orientation discrimination to be similar at horizontal and oblique standard orientations, indicating that the meridional variations in orientation discrimination were not due to a decision rule anisotropy. In a second experiment, the effect of the interstimulus interval was also found to be similar at both standard orientations, suggesting that the memory variance is isotropic in the orientation domain. The results of two other experiments supported the hypothesis that the meridional variations in orientation discrimination are not due to a criterial noise anisotropy. These different results strongly suggested that the oblique effect in line orientation discrimination is due to sensorial factors rather than to decision factors. Therefore, they further support the hypothesis linking the anisotropy of the preferred orientation distribution of Area 17-S cells (a single physiologically defined class of cells in the primary visual cortex) and the meridional variations in line orientation discrimination.     

Adorno,Interpretation, and the Body

Abstract

Adorno sees experience as intrinsically interpretative. As interpretation requires normative constraints, in order to guide and channel this interpretative engagement, this opens the question of how experience acquires its motivating criteria. If experience is from the first criterially structured, how are these criteria acquired? Moreover, as these criteria are acquired in isolation from experience – as they are the precondition of that experience – are these criteria sensitive to the particularity of the experiences they produce? In order to address these questions, and the problems they threaten to create for Adorno’s epistemology, I look at Adorno’s theory of impulse and cognition. I argue that Adorno grounds the criterial structure of experience and reason in self-preservation. This provides both a motivation and a determining constraint on the criterial structure of experience. It is also a determining influence which is epistemically flexible and compatible with Adorno’s project of tracing the ‘non-identical’.     

反馈延迟与掩蔽类型对知觉类别学习的影响

通过两个实验探讨反馈延迟与掩蔽类型对知觉类别学习的影响。实验1光栅掩蔽条件下,采用2（类别结构：基于规则vs.信息整合）×2（延迟反馈：500vs.3000ms）被试间实验设计,实验2采用同样的实验设计,保持延迟反馈时间不变,但改掩蔽类型为黑屏掩蔽。结果发现：（1）光栅掩蔽条件下,反馈延迟削弱信息整合类别结构的成绩,不影响基于规则类别学习,内隐外显类别结构之间存在分离效应。（2）黑屏掩蔽条件下,信息整合与基于规则类别结构的成绩均不受到延迟反馈的影响,分离效应消失。实验说明“无关因素”掩蔽影响知觉类别学习,知觉噪音与标准噪音在反馈延迟影响知觉类别学习中起到重要作用,COVIS模型理论关于延迟反馈时间影响知觉类别学习的解释具有局限性。     

Critrial noise effects on rule-based category learning: The impact of delayed feedback

Variability in the representation of the decision criterion is assumed in many category-learning models, yet few studies have directly examined its impact. On each trial, criterial noise should result in drift in the criterion and will negatively impact categorization accuracy, particularly in rule-based categorization tasks, where learning depends on the maintenance and manipulation of decision criteria. In three experiments, we tested this hypothesis and examined the impact of working memory on slowing the drift rate. In Experiment 1, we examined the effect of drift by inserting a 5-sec delay between the categorization response and the delivery of corrective feedback, and working memory demand was manipulated by varying the number of decision criteria to be learned. Delayed feedback adversely affected performance, but only when working memory demand was high. In Experiment 2, we built on a classic finding in the absolute identification literature and demonstrated that distributing the criteria across multiple dimensions decreases the impact of drift during the delay. In Experiment 3, we confirmed that the effect of drift during the delay is moderated by working memory. These results provide important insights into the interplay between criterial noise and working memory, as well as providing important constraints for models of rule-based category learning.     

Classification in well-defined and ill-defined categories: evidence for common processing strategies

Early work in perceptual and conceptual categorization assumed that categories had criterial features and that category membership could be determined by logical rules for the combination of features. More recent theories have assumed that categories have an ill-defined structure and have prosposed probabilistic or global similarity models for the verification of category membership. In the experiments reported here, several models of categorization were compared, using one set of categories having criterial features and another set having an ill-defined structure. Schematic faces were used as exemplars in both cases. Because many models depend on distance in a multidimensional space for their predictions, in Experiment 1 a multidimensional scaling study was performed using the faces of both sets as stimuli, In Experiment 2, subjects learned the category membership of faces for the categories having criterial features. After learning, reaction times for category verification and typicality judgments were obtained. Subjects also judged the similarity of pairs of faces. Since these categories had characteristic as well as defining features, it was possible to test the predictions of the feature comparison model (Smith et al.), which asserts that reaction times and typicalities are affected by characteristic features. Only weak support for this model was obtained. Instead, it appeared that subjects developed logical rules for the classification of faces. A characteristic feature affected reaction times only when it was part of the rule system devised by the subject. The procedure for Experiment 3 was like that for Experiment 2, but with ill-defined rather than well-defined categories. The obtained reaction times had high correlations with some of the models for ill-defined categories. However, subjects' performance could best be described as one of feature testing based on a logical rule system for classification. These experiments indicate that whether or not categories have criterial features, subjects attempt to develop a set of feature tests that allow for exemplar classification. Previous evidence supporting probabilistic or similarity models may be interpreted as resulting from subjects' use of the most efficient rules for classification and the averaging of responses for subjects using different sets of rules.     

Interpersonal attraction,social identification and psychological group formation

Two perspectives on the nature of the social group and psychological group formation are discussed. The traditional social cohesion approach traces group formation to processes of interpersonal attraction, while the social identity approach defines the group in cognitive terms and considers identification, or self-categorization, to be the mechanism of psychological group formation. On the basis of an experiment by Turner, Sachdev and Hogg (1983) it is hypothesized that interpersonal attraction (positive or negative) is related to group formation only in so far as it enhances intergroup distinctiveness. This hypothesis is experimentally tested in a 2 × 3 (interpersonal liking/disliking per se versus no explicit categorization/random categorization/criterial categorization on the basis of affect) factorial design employing the ‘minimal group’ paradigm. People who like each other and were not explicitly categorized formed a group. This effect was enhanced by criterial categorization but disappeared when categorization was random. Although the results do not support the hypothesis, they are not explicable in social cohesion terms. A social identity explanation is furnished—attraction influences group formation by acting, under certain specifiable conditions, as a cognitive criterion for common category membership. This explanation is located in current theorizing and is proposed as part of a reconceptualization of the relationship between interpersonal attraction and group formation.