A dyadic model of consciousness

The proposed model for consciousness, called a dyadic model, is based upon reexamination of traditional thought structures in the light of modern experimental evidence from a number of scientific fields. It is an evolutionary cosmological model using energy and information as fundamental concepts. It proposes that the antecedent attributes of anthropic consciousness find their roots in the field of zero point quantum potential which gave rise to the Big Bang. In this model consciousness has both a fundamental aspect and an evolutionary aspect in the same sense that quantized energy manifests fundamentally as wave/particles and is observed in more complex form as molecular matter. Physical existence evolved through natural process into ever more complex organizations of matter; so also must anthropic consciousness have evolved from more fundamental antecedent characteristics. The dyadic model proposes a scenario for this evolution that corresponds to the appearance of the universe we seem to inhabit.     

A gestural repertoire of 1- to 2-year-old human children: in search of the ape gestures

Animal Cognition - When we compare human gestures to those of other apes, it looks at first like there is nothing much to compare at all. In adult humans, gestures are thought to be a window into...     

A model of exact small-number representation

To account for the size effect in numerical comparison, three assumptions about the internal structure of the mental number line (e.g., Dehaene, 1992) have been proposed. These are magnitude coding (e.g., Zorzi & Butterworth, 1999), compressed scaling (e.g., Dehaene, 1992), and increasing variability (e.g., Gallistel & Gelman, 1992). However, there are other tasks besides numerical comparison for which there is clear evidence that the mental number line is accessed, and no size effect has been observed in these tasks. This is contrary to the predictions of these three assumptions. Moreover, all three assumptions have difficulties explaining certain symmetries in priming studies of number naming and parity judgment. We propose a neural network model that avoids these three assumptions but, instead, uses place coding, linear scaling, and constant variability on the mental number line. We train the model on naming, parity judgment, and comparison and show that the size effect appears in comparison, but not in naming or parity judgment. Moreover, no asymmetries appear in primed naming or primed parity judgment with this model, in line with empirical data. Implications of our findings are discussed. This work was supported by Grant P5/04 from the Interuniversity Attraction Poles Program—Belgian Science Policy and by a GOA grant from the Ghent University Research Council to W.F.     

Visual feedback,movement learning and the representation of movement

Two experiments on movement learning are reported where the orientation of a visual curve on a graphics terminal, defining a relatively complex arm movement, was either orthogonal to or compatible with the direction of the required movement. In addition, individual differences in spatial orientation and visualization abilities were correlated with motor performance. Results in both experiments showed that equivalent amounts of learning occurred in the two visual conditions. However, during transfer trials to the opposite condition, virtually no transfer occurred for the compatible group when they performed in the orthogonal condition whereas there was tranfer when the orthogonal group performed in the compatible condition. The results supported the idea that very early in learning the orthogonal orientation of visual curve promoted the development of an orientation processing stage which facilitated transrer performance of the orthogonal group. Integrating these results with the past literature on movement learning led to the notion that the orientation information processing stage can be considered a cognitive system that interacts with the image of the act. Finally, contrary to expectations, spatial orientation ability failed to account for any performance while spatial visualization ability moderately correlated with performance.     

The production and understanding of utterances in dyadic communication

Verbal communication in four dyads was analyzed with respect to syntactic form and cognitive and affective functions. Quantitative and qualitative methods were proposed to study these aspects of language behaviour. Utterances which conveyed a negative affective evaluation tended to be syntactically and cognitively complex. The cognitive and affective functions of a speaker's utterance tended to influence the syntactic quality of the listener's following utterance more than what the listener said in his own previous utterance. An investigation of the relationships between the personality characteristics flexibility, intelligence and verbal competence, and language variables suggested that flexible subjects often used utterances which expressed a positive evaluation. Furthermore, flexible subjects tended to influence the listener more by what they said than intelligent and verbally competent subjects did. It was concluded that this kind of functional analysis of language should be more adequate for psychological inquiry than in particular that of the transformational generative theory of language.     

A prelinguistic gestural universal of human communication

Several cognitive accounts of human communication argue for a language-independent, prelinguistic basis of human communication and language. The current study provides evidence for the universality of a prelinguistic gestural basis for human communication. We used a standardized, semi-natural elicitation procedure in seven very different cultures around the world to test for the existence of preverbal pointing in infants and their caregivers. Results were that by 10-14 months of age, infants and their caregivers pointed in all cultures in the same basic situation with similar frequencies and the same proto-typical morphology of the extended index finger. Infants' pointing was best predicted by age and caregiver pointing, but not by cultural group. Further analyses revealed a strong relation between the temporal unfolding of caregivers' and infants' pointing events, uncovering a structure of early prelinguistic gestural conversation. Findings support the existence of a gestural, language-independent universal of human communication that forms a culturally shared, prelinguistic basis for diversified linguistic communication.     

A neuronal model of vowel normalization and representation

A speculative neuronal model for vowel normalization and representation is offered. The neurophysiological basis for the premise is the "combination-sensitive" neuron recently documented in the auditory cortex of the mustached bat (N. Suga, W. E. O'Neill, K. Kujirai, and T. Manabe, 1983, Journal of Neurophysiology, 49, 1573-1627). These neurons are specialized to respond to either precise frequency, amplitude, or time differentials between specific harmonic components of the pulse-echo pair comprising the biosonar signal of the bat. Such multiple frequency comparisons lie at the heart of human vowel perception and categorization. A representative vowel normalization algorithm is used to illustrate the operational principles of the neuronal model in accomplishing both normalization and categorization in early infancy. The neurological precursors to a phonemic vocalic system is described based on the neurobiological events characterizing regressive neurogenesis.     

Mindfulness,learning and the brain

I have tried to sketch an approach to the complex phenomena that go by the name of ‘mindfulness’ that both does justice to this complexity and depth, and also offers a way of thinking about mindfulness in evolutionary, ecosocial and neural terms: terms that enable us to ask questions like: where did mindfulness come from? What kind of consciousness is it? What was it for, before it was co-opted by spiritual and therapeutic kinds of discourse and practice? And how do brains do it? In essence, I am suggesting that human brains seem to have developed, for good evolutionary reasons, a degree of facility with imaginative empathy and as-if identification; and that mindfulness capitalises on this to create what is probably a uniquely human form of learning—or rather unlearning.     

A neuronal model for syllable representation

A speculative neuronal template, equivalent to canonical syllable forms and independent of segmental representations, is offered to help account for (1) the inviolate nature of phonotactic constraints in aphasic speech output, and (2) left hemisphere specialization for speech sound access and output. The model, which attempts to relate plausible neuronal systems to linguistic function, is based on cell assemblies that are thought to develop by way of genetic predisposition and ontogenetic language experience, into configurations that can represent canonical slot positions for the consonants and vowel comprising a syllable. The syllable is assumed to be the basic organizational rhythmic unit for serial concatenation of sublexical segments. A scheme for neurological differentiation of vowels and consonants is offered. Phonotactic constraints can become "hard-wired" to help create the automaticity underlying phonological sound organization. Testable predictions are offered to substantiate the claims of the model.     

Associative learning and representation: Introduction

The papers published in this Special Issue are based upon presentations at a workshop on “Associative Learning and Representation”, which was sponsored by the Experimental Psychology Society and hosted by Emmanuel College, Cambridge. The workshop celebrated the contribution of Professor Nicholas Mackintosh to animal learning and conditioning in particular and experimental psychology in general in the year of his retirement from the Chair of Psychology at the University of Cambridge after 21 years in post. The date of the workshop, 9 July 2002, was particularly auspicious as it was the day of Professor Mackintosh's birth 67 years ago. Moreover, it is particularly fitting that this tribute is published in the Comparative and Physiological Psychology Section (B) of Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, which he founded in 1981 during his editorship of the Journal between 1977 and 1984.     

Feature-processing deficits following brain injury. II. Classification learning, categorical decision making, and feature production

The claim that overselectivity in feature processing underlies the disorders that aphasics display in processing both visual and verbal material was directly tested by exploring the relationships between the behavior of brain-injured subjects on three experimental tasks: classification learning, categorical decision making, and feature production. From each of these tests a score selected as being indicative of overselective responding was entered into a principal components analysis, together with measures of visual recognition and memory, visual reasoning, naming skills, and severity of aphasia. This analysis supported the assumption that feature-processing disability is a specific and separable deficit, although related both to naming ability and to severity of aphasia. The relevance of the overselectivity hypothesis to naming difficulties following brain injury is discussed.     

Recoding and representation in artificial grammar learning

We apply an exemplar model of memory to explain performance in the artificial grammar task. The model blends the convolution-based method for representation developed in Jones and Mewhort’s BEAGLE model of semantic memory (Psychological Review 114:1–37, 2007) with the storage and retrieval assumptions in Hintzman’s MINERVA 2 model of episodic memory (Behavior Research Methods, Instruments, and Computers, 16:96–101, 1984). The model captures differences in encoding to fit data from two experiments that document the influence of encoding on implicit learning. We provide code so that researchers can adapt the model and techniques to their own experiments.     

Historical change, cultural learning, and cognitive representation in Zinacantec Maya children

Against the background of an unchanging sequence of representational development, we demonstrate that implicit processes of learning and cognition can change from one historical period to another. One generation of Zinacantec Maya children was studied in 1969 and 1970, the next generation in 1991 and 1993. In the intervening two decades, the community, located in Chiapas, Mexico, was involved in a transition from an economy based primarily on subsistence and agriculture to an economy based primarily on money and commerce. A naturalistic study of weaving apprenticeship and an experimental study of visual representation showed that the ecological transition was linked to greater emphasis on independent cultural learning, abstract representation, and innovation, and, correlatively, a movement away from scaffolded guidance, detail-oriented representation, and imitative representational strategies. These changes constituted automatic adaptations with an implicit nature. In addition, historical variability in implicit modes of cultural apprenticeship predicted shifts in implicit processes of child and adolescent cognition. In sum, socialization and development are not fixed but adapt, in a coordinated way, to changing ecological conditions.     

Decision theory,reinforcement learning,and the brain

Decision making is a core competence for animals and humans acting and surviving in environments they only partially comprehend, gaining rewards and punishments for their troubles. Decision-theoretic concepts permeate experiments and computational models in ethology, psychology, and neuroscience. Here, we review a well-known, coherent Bayesian approach to decision making, showing how it unifies issues in Markovian decision problems, signal detection psychophysics, sequential sampling, and optimal exploration and discuss paradigmatic psychological and neural examples of each problem. We discuss computational issues concerning what subjects know about their task and how ambitious they are in seeking optimal solutions; we address algorithmic topics concerning model-based and model-free methods for making choices; and we highlight key aspects of the neural implementation of decision making.     

Enriched learning: behavior,brain, and computation

The presence of complementary information across multiple sensory or motor modalities during learning, referred to as multimodal enrichment, can markedly benefit learning outcomes. Why is this? Here, we integrate cognitive, neuroscientific, and computational approaches to understanding the effectiveness of enrichment and discuss recent neuroscience findings indicating that crossmodal responses in sensory and motor brain regions causally contribute to the behavioral benefits of enrichment. The findings provide novel evidence for multimodal theories of enriched learning, challenge assumptions of longstanding cognitive theories, and provide counterevidence to unimodal neurobiologically inspired theories. Enriched educational methods are likely effective not only because they may engage greater levels of attention or deeper levels of processing, but also because multimodal interactions in the brain can enhance learning and memory.     

Spoken and gestural production in a naming task by young children with Down syndrome

Lexical production in children with Down syndrome (DS) was investigated by examining spoken naming accuracy and the use of spontaneous gestures in a picture naming task. Fifteen children with DS (range 3.8-8.3 years) were compared to typically developing children (TD), matched for chronological age and developmental age (range 2.6-4.3 years). Relative to TD children, children with DS were less accurate in speech (producing a greater number of unintelligible answers), yet they produced more gestures overall and of these a significantly higher percentage of iconic gestures. Furthermore, the iconic gestures produced by children with DS accompanied by incorrect or no speech often expressed a concept similar to that of the target word, suggesting deeper conceptual knowledge relative to that expressed only in speech.     

Love styles,coping, and relationship satisfaction: A dyadic approach

Romantic partners have different attitudes on what love is and what it means to be in a romantic relationship. These attitudes are conceptualized as love styles that relate to relationship‐maintenance behaviors and relationship satisfaction. Specifically, love styles could be associated with how partners cope with stress (dyadic coping), which in turn may be associated with relationship satisfaction. Using self‐report data from 92 heterosexual couples, findings showed that: (a) eros and agape love styles have positive direct effects on dyadic coping and relationship satisfaction, whereas ludus has a negative direct effect on dyadic coping and relationship satisfaction and (b) dyadic coping partially mediated the association between love styles and relationship satisfaction. Overall, associations were stronger for women than for men.