Testing hypotheses about other people: The use of historical knowledge

Three experiments were conducted to examine the use of historical knowledge to test contemporary hypotheses about the personal attributes of other people. In the first and second experiments, participants read an extensive account of events in one week of the life of a woman named Jane. Two days later, they used this previously learned information to test hypotheses about Jane's suitability for one of two jobs: either the rather extraverted job of real estate salesperson, or the rather introverted job of research librarian. In their hypothesis-testing activities, participants first reported all those previously learned facts that they regarded as relevant to assessing Jane's suitability for the job under consideration, and then reported their judgments of her job suitability. Participants reported greater amounts of hypothesis-confirming than hypothesis-disconfirming factual material. Moreover, having tested hypotheses about Jane's suitability for one job, participants judged her to be better suited for that job than for the other job. In the third experiment, participants framed hypotheses for assessing job suitability and defined the task of testing these hypotheses. Participants framed hypotheses in terms of those attributes whose presence would confirm the hypotheses and defined the hypothesis-testing task as one of preferentially collecting hypothesis-confirming evidence. The nature and consequences of confirmatory hypothesis-testing strategies are discussed.     

Challenging assumptions about habit: A response to Hagger (2019)

Widely cited literature assumes habits to be: (1) specific and rigid behavioral responses; (2) in response to location- and timing-stable, external contexts, (3) goal-independent, and (4) enacted without conscious awareness. Hagger (2019) recently reviewed this literature as it applies to the physical activity domain. The purpose of this article is to challenge these assumptions in favor of a habit conceptualization that is more applicable to physical activity: (1) behavioral instigation and/or execution can be habitual, allowing for variable responses to cues; (2) stable contexts can be internal or functional (cued by a preceding action) but may vary in timing and physical location; (3) a shift from external to internal goal dependence may characterize habit development; and (4) types of automaticity other than purely nonconscious enactment may characterize habitual action. I present theory and research that supports these alternative characterizations and discuss their ramifications for physical activity adoption and maintenance via habit.     

On tools and toys: how children learn to act on and pretend with 'virgin objects'

The focus of the present study was the role of cultural learning in infants' acquisition of pretense actions with objects. In three studies, 18- and 24-month-olds (n = 64) were presented with novel objects, and either pretense or instrumental actions were demonstrated with these. When children were then allowed to act upon the objects themselves, qualitatively similar patterns of cultural (imitative) learning both of pretend and of instrumental actions were observed, suggesting that both types of actions can be acquired in similar ways through processes of cultural learning involving one or another form of collective intentionality. However, both absolute imitation rates and creativity were lower in pretense compared to instrumental actions, suggesting that the collective intentionality that constitutes pretense is especially difficult for children to comprehend. An additional analysis of children's gazes to the experimenter during their actions revealed that 24-month-olds looked more often to the experimenter during pretense actions than during instrumental actions - suggesting that pretense is culturally learned in a similar fashion as practical actions, but that young children understand pretense as a more inherently social, intersubjective activity.     

不同经验群体的学习观比较

通过对361名具有不同的学科经验和实践经验的被试进行学习观的测查,发现不同经验群体在学习的可控性、学习的速度、知识的组织性以及知识的稳定性等学习观的四个维度上表现出不同程度的差异。     

Educating parents about youth suicide: knowledge, response to suicidal statements, attitudes, and intention to help

This study evaluated the video Youth Suicide: Recognising the Signs as a parent educational medium. Before and after viewing the video, parents (N = 112) of young people answered questionnaires measuring their (1) knowledge of suicidal signs, (2) responses to a young person showing suicidal signs, (3) attitude to suicide, and (4) intentionalitv toward suicidal people. After the video, parents' knowledge of suicidal signs, responses toward a suicidal person, and intention to help improved. Their attitude was more rejecting of suicide. Knowledge and intentionality predicted response to suicidal statements, but no relationships existed between attitude and the other variables. Implications for youth suicide education programs are discussed.     

Watching people talk about their emotions: Inferences in response to full-face vs. profile expressions

Young adults talked to an experimenter about their emotional reactions to video episodes intended to evoke either negative or positive affect. Facial behavior was simultaneously videotaped from three perspectives (full-face, a 90° right profile, and a 90° left profile) without their awareness. Judges viewed a subset of dynamic expressions in one of the three facial perspectives in either normal or mirror-reversed orientation. While subjects talked about a negative affect elicitor, the left hemiface and the full-face were perceived as more expressive than the right hemiface. The left hemiface, in reversed orientation, was perceived to display more emotion than the same expression in original orientation for positive or negative affect. These results are discussed in the context of the literature exploring hemifacial differences in emotional expression and mouth asymmetry during propositional speech.     

On the importance of critical thinking: A response to Wulf's (2015) commentary

In a recent paper (Toner & Moran, 2015), we argued that continued improvement among elite athletes requires alternation between external and internal foci of attention. In her commentary on this paper, Wulf (2015) claims that we have misunderstood the ‘attentional focus’ effect. Our rejoinder has three objectives. Firstly, we critically evaluate Wulf's arguments and counter her false allegations and spurious reasoning. Secondly, we explain our concerns about certain aspects of attentional focusing research. Finally, we propose that in order to explore the dynamic nature of attentional focusing, we need to go beyond restrictive theoretical dichotomies (e.g., “internal” versus “external” processes) using new approaches.     

On the assessment of procedural knowledge: From problem spaces to knowledge spaces

By generalizing and completing the work initiated by Stefanutti and Albert (2003, Journal of Universal Computer Science, 9, 1455), this article provides the mathematical foundations of a theoretical approach whose primary goal is to construct a bridge between problem solving, as initially conceived by Newell and Simon (1972, Human problem solving. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.), and knowledge assessment (Doignon and Falmagne, 1985, International Journal of Man-Machine Studies, 23, 175; Doignon and Falmagne, 1999, Knowledge spaces. Berlin, Germany: Springer-Verlag.; Falmagne et al., 2013, Knowledge spaces: Applications in education. New York, NY: Springer-Verlag; Falmagne and Doignon, 2011, Learning spaces: Interdisciplinary applied mathematics. Berlin, Germany: Springer-Verlag.). It is shown that the collection of all possible knowledge states for a given problem space is a learning space. An algorithm for deriving a learning space from a problem space is illustrated. As an example, the algorithm is used to derive the learning space of a neuropsychological test whose problem space is well known: the Tower of London (TOL; Shallice, 1982, Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London B: Biological Sciences, 298, 199). The derived learning space could then be used for adaptively assessing individual planning skills with the TOL.     

Children's capacity to agree to psychological research: knowledge of risks and benefits and voluntariness

A series of studies investigated the capacity of children between the ages of 7 and 12 to give free and informed consent to participation in psychological research. Children were reasonably accurate in describing the purpose of studies, but many did not understand the possible benefits or especially the possible risks of participating. In several studies children's consent was not affected by the knowledge that their parents had given their permission or by the parents saying that they would not be upset if the children refused. In contrast, other studies found that children were much more likely to stop their participation if the experimenter said explicitly that she would not be upset if they stopped. We suggest that experimenters should pay more attention to describing the possible risks and benefits of participation in research, and that they should also make it clearer to children that they are free to stop once they have begun.     

Clarity about concessive knowledge attributions: reply to Dodd

Recently, Dylan Dodd (this Journal) has tried to clear up what he takes to be some of the many confusions surrounding concessive knowledge attributions (CKAs)??i.e., utterances of the form ??S knows that p, but it??s possible that q?? (where q entails not-p) (Rysiew, Noûs 35(4): 477?C514, 2001). Here, we respond to the criticisms Dodd offers of the account of the semantics and the sometime-infelicity of CKAs we have given (Dougherty and Rysiew, Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 78(1): 121?C132, 2009), showing both how Dodd misunderstands certain central features of that view and how the latter can, pace Dodd, be naturally extended to explain the oddity of those ??For all I know?? statements to which Dodd draws attention.     

Cross-modal, auditory-visual Stroop interference: a reply to Cowan and Barron (1987)

This series of experiments was performed to verify Cowan and Barron's (1987) reported effect of auditory color-word interference on a visual Stroop task. Extant theory predicts effects of irrelevant speech on visual memory tasks involving immediate, ordered recall of the items. Interference between the two sources of information (visual and auditory) is assumed to be located at the phonological store component of the articulatory loop. Perceptual tasks such as the Stroop task, which do not require use of the articulatory loop for rehearsal purposes, should not be similarly susceptible. The present data fail to replicate Cowan and Barron's findings, and are thus consistent with contemporary theory.     

Older (but not younger) preschoolers understand that knowledge differs between people and across time

We examined 3‐ to 5‐year‐olds' understanding of general knowledge (e.g., knowing that clocks tell time) by investigating whether (1) they recognize that their own general knowledge has changed over time (i.e., they knew less as babies than they know now), and (2) such intraindividual knowledge differences are easier/harder to understand than interindividual differences (i.e., Do preschoolers understand that a baby knows less than they do?). Forty‐eight 3‐ to 5‐year‐olds answered questions about their current general knowledge (‘self‐now’), the general knowledge of a 6‐month‐old (‘baby‐now’), and their own general knowledge at 6 months (‘self‐past’). All age groups were significantly above chance on the self‐now questions, but only 5‐year‐olds were significantly above chance on the self‐past and baby‐now questions. Moreover, children's performance on the baby‐now and self‐past questions did not differ. Our findings suggest that younger preschoolers do not fully appreciate that their past knowledge differs from their current knowledge, and that others may have less knowledge than they do. We situate these findings within the research on knowledge understanding, more specifically, and cognitive development, more broadly.     

Analyzing the analysis: a response to Wollert (2000)

In a thoughtful critique in the article preceding this one, many arguments are presented about the veracity of assumptions and conclusions I made in my 1998 publication concerning the sexual recidivism base rates for certain incarcerated sex offenders. This article responds to some of the issues raised. First, the ultimate conclusion of the preceding critique is assessed. Even when assuming the accuracy of all points made in the preceding article, an analysis described herein still demonstrates that the current U.S.A. civil commitment referral procedures "under-predict" sexual recidivism rates. Second, an inference made in the preceding critique, read as a possible implication from my article, is strongly contested. Finally, the remaining discussion responds to various other concerns that were raised. While scientific exploration of issues is typically expected to lead to occasional professional differences, a significant lack of agreement with the preceding critique is found.     

The categorical structure of knowledge for famous people (and a novel application of Centre-Surround theory)

Knowledge of familiar people is essential to guide social interaction, yet there is uncertainty about whether semantic knowledge for people is stored in a categorical structure as for objects. Four priming experiments using hard-to-perceive primes investigated whether occupation forms a category connecting famous persons in semantic memory. Primes were famous faces exposed for 17ms with masking, resulting in severely restricted awareness and thus precluding expectancy-based priming effects. Targets were consciously perceptible famous faces (Experiments 1-3), famous names (Experiment 3), or occupations (Experiment 4) representing either the same or different occupation to the prime. Significant priming demonstrated the operation of automatic processes, including spreading activation, among persons sharing a common occupation; this supports the categorical view. The direction of priming (faster/slower responses to same-occupation than different-occupation targets) was dependent on prime-target stimulus onset asynchrony (Experiments 1-3) and type of target (Experiment 4). This pattern of results is attributed to the Centre-Surround mechanism proposed by Carr and Dagenbach [Carr, T. H., & Dagenbach, D. (1990). Semantic priming and repetition priming from masked words: evidence for a centre-surround attentional mechanism in perceptual recognition. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory and Cognition, 16, 341-350]. These results support (a) the categorical structure of semantic knowledge for famous people and (b) the application of the Centre-Surround mechanism to the domain of person recognition.     

Famous people knowledge and the right and left temporal lobes

It is generally accepted that the anterior temporal lobes support knowledge of famous people. The specific roles of the right and left temporal lobe remain a subject of debate, with some studies suggesting differential roles based on modality (visual versus verbal information) and others category (person knowledge versus general semantics). The present study re-examined performance of semantic dementia patients with predominantly right and predominantly left temporal lobe atrophy on famous face, famous name and general semantic tasks, with the specific aim of testing the hypothesis that the right temporal lobe has a privileged role for person knowledge and the left temporal lobe for general semantic knowledge. Comparisons of performance rankings across tasks showed no evidence to support this hypothesis. By contrast, there was robust evidence from naming, identification and familiarity measures for modality effects: right-sided atrophy being associated with relatively greater impairment for faces and visual tasks and left-sided atrophy for names and verbal tasks. A double dissociation in test scores in two patients reinforced these findings. The data present a challenge for the influential `semantic hub' model, which views the anterior temporal lobes as an area of convergence in which semantic information is represented in amodal form.     

Working memory capacity and spontaneous emotion regulation: high capacity predicts self-enhancement in response to negative feedback

Although previous evidence suggests that working memory capacity (WMC) is important for success at emotion regulation, that evidence may reveal simply that people with higher WMC follow instructions better than those with lower WMC. The present study tested the hypothesis that people with higher WMC more effectively engage in spontaneous emotion regulation following negative feedback, relative to those with lower WMC. Participants were randomly assigned to receive either no feedback or negative feedback about their emotional intelligence. They then completed a disguised measure of self-enhancement and a self-report measure of affect. Experimental condition and WMC interacted such that higher WMC predicted more self-enhancement and less negative affect following negative feedback. This research provides novel insight into the consequences of individual differences in WMC and illustrates that cognitive capacity may facilitate the spontaneous self-regulation of emotion.