Working memory updating and the development of rule-guided behavior

The transition from middle childhood into adolescence is marked by both increasing independence and also extensive change in the daily requirements of familial demands, social pressures, and academic achievement. To manage this increased complexity, children must develop the ability to use abstract rules that guide the choice of behavior across a range of circumstances. Here, we tested children through adults in a task that requires increasing levels of rule abstraction, while separately manipulating competition among alternatives in working memory. We found that age-related differences in rule-guided behavior can be explained in terms of improvement in rule abstraction, which we suggest involves a working memory updating mechanism. Furthermore, family socioeconomic status (SES) predicted change in rule-guided behavior, such that higher SES predicted better performance with development. We discuss these results within a working memory gating framework for abstract rule-guided behavior.     

Social cognition models and health behaviour: A structured review

Abstract

A number of social cognition models have been developed to account for socio-demographic variations in health behaviour. This paper distinguishes between: (a) motivational, (b) behavioural enaction, and (c) multi-stage models of health behaviour. The models are evaluated in terms of advancement of existing knowledge and - where appropriate - predictive utility. Common themes that appear within- and between- these categories are discussed, with consideration of ways in which theory may be advanced by future research. Each approach has associated strengths and weaknesses, suggesting that a “consensus” approach to the study of health behaviour may prove fruitful. Identification of the key constructs across different model types would allow coherent integration and promote further understanding of the psycho-social determinants of health behaviour.     

Social cognition and the human brain

Humans are exceedingly social animals, but the neural underpinnings of social cognition and behavior are not well understood. Studies in humans and other primates have pointed to several structures that play a key role in guiding social behaviors: the amygdala, ventromedial frontal cortices, and right somatosensory-related cortex, among others. These structures appear to mediate between perceptual representations of socially relevant stimuli, such as the sight of conspecifics, and retrieval of knowledge (or elicitation of behaviors) that such stimuli can trigger. Current debates concern the extent to which social cognition draws upon processing specialized for social information, and the relative contributions made to social cognition by innate and acquired knowledge.     

Embodied cognition and skilled health behaviour

The present research examines health persuasion from an embodied cognition perspective by proposing that engaging the motor system during presentation of a health message will lead individuals to become more skilled at performing the prescribed behaviour. Participants watched a video on the importance of flossing while either imaging themselves flossing or imaging themselves flossing while minimally engaging the motor system (i.e. touching a piece of floss). Females (but not males) who touched an individual floss while watching the video demonstrated better flossing skills 1 week later. Over time, participants (both males and females) who engaged the motor system also developed more accessible attitudes and had a stronger relationship between their perceived flossing efficacy and actual flossing skill. Implications for the theories of embodied cognition and health interventions are discussed.     

Social cognition in the first year

Although the study of infancy has answered many important questions about the human capacity for social cognition, the relatively young field of developmental social cognition is far from reaching its adulthood. With the merging of developmental, behavioral and neurocognitive sciences, some growing pains are in store. New work demonstrates that research into early social cognitive development must integrate various research fields and methods in order to achieve a more robust understanding of the nature and parameters of human social cognition.     

表征与认知发展

One of the major divergences between dynamical systems theory and symbolism lies in their views on the role of representation in cognition. From the perspective of development, the cognitive development could be divided into three levels: sensorimotor, imagery representation and linguistic representation. It is claimed that representation is not a sufficient condition though it is necessary for cognition. However, it does not mean that the authors agree with the notion of strong coupling in dynamicism that completely rejects representation. Translated by Wang Xiaolu, Xiao Jiayan and Li Hengwei from Zhongguo Shehui Kexue 中国社会科学 (Social Sciences in China), 2006, (2): 34–44     

Social categorization and intergroup behaviour

The aim of the studies was to assess the effefcs of social categorization on intergroup behaviour when, in the intergroup situation, neither calculations of individual interest nor previously existing attitudes of hostility could have been said to have determined discriminative behaviour against an outgroup. These conditions were satisfied in the experimental design. In the first series of experiments, it was found that the subjects favoured their own group in the distribution of real rewards and penalities in a situation in which nothing but the variable of fairly irrelevant classification distinguished between the ingroup and the outgroup. In the second series of experiments it was found that: 1) maximum joint profit independent of group membership did not affect significantly the manner in which the subjects divided real pecuniary rewards; 2) maximum profit for own group did affect the distribution of rewards; 3) the clearest effect on the distribution of rewards was due to the subjects' attempt to achieve a maximum difference between the ingroup and the outgroup even at the price of sacrificing other ‘objective’ advantages. The design and the results of the study are theoretically discussed within the framework of social norms and expectations and particularly in relation to a ‘generic’ norm of outgroup behaviour prevalent in some societies.     

Social cognition is not reducible to theory of mind: When children use deontic rules to predict the behaviour of others

The objective of this paper is to discuss whether children have a capacity for deontic reasoning that is irreducible to mentalizing. The results of two experiments point to the existence of such non‐mentalistic understanding and prediction of the behaviour of others. In Study 1, young children (3‐ and 4‐year‐olds) were told different versions of classic false‐belief tasks, some of which were modified by the introduction of a rule or a regularity. When the task (a standard change of location task) included a rule, the performance of 3‐year‐olds, who fail traditional false‐belief tasks, significantly improved. In Study 2, 3‐year‐olds proved to be able to infer a rule from a social situation and to use it in order to predict the behaviour of a character involved in a modified version of the false‐belief task. These studies suggest that rules play a central role in the social cognition of young children and that deontic reasoning might not necessarily involve mind reading.     

Social cognition and aggression in delinquent adolescent males

The relationship of aggression to several social cognitive variables in delinquent adolescent males was investigated. Subjects were fifty-eight institutionalized males identified by peers as high-aggressive or low-aggressive. Participants were administered measures of perspective taking, moral judgment, and person perception. The findings indicated that only perspective-taking ability was significantly related to aggressive behavior in delinquents. High-aggressive delinquents were less able to perceive others' viewpoints than were low-aggressive delinquents. These findings are consistent with previous research concerning perspective taking and aggression, but disconfirm research involving other social cognitive variables and aggression. Results further indicate the importance of studying social cognitive variables as they relate to relevant clinical behaviors.     

Reuniting physical and social cognition in development

Book discussed in this article: Cintia Rodríguez, The magic number three: when infants do not yet speak     

The development of implicit intergroup cognition

Challenging the view that implicit social cognition emerges from protracted social learning, research now suggests that intergroup preferences are present at adultlike levels in early childhood. Specifically, the pattern of developmental emergence of implicit attitudes is characterized by (i) rapidly emerging implicit preferences for ingroups and dominant groups and (ii) stability of these preferences across development. Together these findings demonstrate that implicit intergroup preferences follow a developmental course distinct from explicit intergroup preferences. In addition these results cast doubt on 'slow-learning' models of implicit social cognition according to which children should converge on adult forms of social cognition only as statistical regularities are internalized over a lengthy period of development.     

Social cognition and its neural correlates in schizophrenia and autism

The study of social cognition in psychiatric disorders has become increasingly popular in recent years. This is due to the its proposed link to social functioning and the inability of general neurocognitive skills to explain the spectrum of impairments observed in patients. This article reviews research into two of the processes thought to underlie social cognition (emotion perception and theory of mind) in schizophrenia and autism. This is followed by a look at neuroimaging studies and their efforts to localize the neural correlates of emotion perception and theory of mind in the two disorders. We concluded that while a specific impairment in emotion perception and theory of mind skills cannot be generalized to all individuals with autism and schizophrenia, there are subpopulations that have lingering deficits of social cognition tasks. Neuroimaging work consistently points to the involvement of the fusiform gyrus and amygdala in emotion processing, while the medial prefrontal and frontal cortex are implicated in tasks invoking theory of mind. We propose that deficits of social cognition may benefit from cognitive remediation therapy and pharmacological cognitive enhancers.     

Purposive behaviour in cognition and perception: Considerations of awareness in memory

The responses to the original article by Rönnberg (1990a) provoked interesting and thoughtful points of view that are covered by Gärling (1990), Hjelmquist (1990), Montgomery (1991), and Runeson (1990). These articles do not merely present a different outlook but also provide concepts that are certainly worthy of consideration and add more substance to the general topic under discussion. The purpose of this commentary is to seek an understanding of the ideas presented by the above authors within a synthesis of our views of current conceptualizations in cognition and perception. Each of the original criteria (Rönnberg, 1990a) will be treated in turn.     

Aggregation in memory of episodic influences on rule-guided decisions

The authors confirmed E. Z. Rothkopf and M. L. Dashen's (1995) finding that specific problem context, such as thematic surface features, forms associative connections with deep problem features and thus speeds particular decisions (particularization). In 5 experiments, using a 3-bit decision task and pre-memorized decision rules, the authors found that the ability of a situational context to reinstate was decreased by its replacement by another modal surface context. Context reinstatement, as measured by decision speed, depended on both global and recent local densities of specific problem features linked to a particular decision. The authors' results are consistent with J. R. Anderson and L. J. Schooler's (1991) needs/odds analysis and suggest a push-down file model for diverse context influences as a mechanism for responding to changing situational demands.     

Social cognition after head injury: sarcasm and theory of mind

Closed head injury (CHI) is associated with communication difficulties in everyday social interactions. Previous work has reported impaired comprehension of sarcasm, using sarcastic remarks where the intended meaning is the opposite of the sincere or literal meaning. Participants with CHI in the present study were assessed using two types of sarcastic items, those with a directly opposite meaning and those with an indirect, non-literal but not directly opposite meaning. The CHI group was differentially poorer at comprehending sarcastic versus sincere remarks, although type of sarcastic materials did not influence performance. Errors involved not only literal interpretations, but also incorrect non-literal interpretations. Theory of mind (mentalising) was also assessed by comparing comprehension of human actions with control physical events. The CHI group was selectively impaired on the mentalising component of this task, and mentalising scores correlated with sarcasm comprehension. The implications of the findings for our understanding of impaired sarcastic comprehension after acquired brain injury are discussed.     

Social categorization and similarity in intergroup behaviour

The present study is one of a series exploring the role of social categorization in intergroup behaviour. It has been found in our previous studies that in ?minimal' situations, in which the subjects were categorized into groups on the basis of visual judgments they had made or of their esthetic preferences, they clearly discriminated against members of an outgroup although this gave them no personal advantage. However, in these previous studies division into groups was still made on the basis of certain criteria of ?real' similarity between subjects who were assigned to the same category. Therefore, the present study established social categories on an explicitly random basis without any reference to any such real similarity. It was found that, as soon as the notion of ?group' was introduced into the situation, the subjects still discriminated against those assigned to another random category. This discrimination was considerably more marked than the one based on a division of subjects in terms of interindividual similarities in which the notion of ?group' was never explicitly introduced. In addition, it was found that fairness was also a determinant of the subjects' decisions. The results are discussed from the point of view of their relevance to a social-cognitive theory of intergroup behaviour.