Perception and Representation

I oppose the popular view that the phenomenal character of perceptual experience consists in the subject's representing the (putative) perceived object as being so-and-so. The account of perceptual experience I favor instead is a version of the "Theory of Appearing" that takes it to be a matter of the perceived object's appearing to one as so-and-so, where this does not mean that the subject takes or believes it to be so-and-so. This plays no part in my criticisms of Representationalism. I mention it only to be up front as to where I stand. My criticism of the Representationalist position is in sections. (1) There is no sufficient reason for positing a representative function for perceptual experience. It doesn't seem on the face of it to be that, and nothing serves in place of such seeming. (2) Even if it did have such a function, it doesn't have the conceptual resources to represent a state of affairs. (3) Even if it did, it is not suited to represent, e.g., a physical property of color. (4) Finally, even if I am wrong about the first three points, it is still impossible for the phenomenal character of the perceptual experience to consist in it's representing what it does. My central argument for this central claim of the paper is that it is metaphysically, de re possible that one have a certain perceptual experience without it's presenting any state of affairs. And since all identities hold necessarily, this identity claim fails.     

Mellor and Dennett on the Perception of Temporal Order

I discuss theories about the way in which we determine the precedence ofperceived events. I examine Mellor's account, which claims that it is thetiming of our perceptions of events that enables us to determine their order,and Dennett's criticism of this. Dennett cites psychological experimentswhich suggest that it is the content of our perceptions, rather than theirtiming, which allows us to determine the order of the events perceived. Iargue that by distinguishing between two different ways of construing'perception' we can see not only that the two accounts are compatible, but that Dennett's account presupposes Mellor's.     

Egocentric Spatial Representation in Action and Perception*

Neuropsychological findings used to motivate the “two visual systems” hypothesis have been taken to endanger a pair of widely accepted claims about spatial representation in conscious visual experience. The first is the claim that visual experience represents 3‐D space around the perceiver using an egocentric frame of reference. The second is the claim that there is a constitutive link between the spatial contents of visual experience and the perceiver’s bodily actions. In this paper, I review and assess three main sources of evidence for the two visual systems hypothesis. I argue that the best interpretation of the evidence is in fact consistent with both claims. I conclude with some brief remarks on the relation between visual consciousness and rational agency.     

A Distributed Representation of Temporal Context

The principles of recency and contiguity are two cornerstones of the theoretical and empirical analysis of human memory. Recency has been alternatively explained by mechanisms of decay, displacement, and retroactive interference. Another account of recency is based on the idea of variable context (Estes, 1955; Mensink & Raaijmakers, 1989). Such notions are typically cast in terms of a randomly fluctuating population of elements reflective of subtle changes in the environment or in the subjects' mental state. This random context view has recently been incorporated into distributed and neural network memory models (Murdock, 1997; Murdock, Smith, & Bai, 2001). Here we propose an alternative model. Rather than being driven by random fluctuations, this formulation, the temporal context model (TCM), uses retrieval of prior contextual states to drive contextual drift. In TCM, retrieved context is an inherently asymmetric retrieval cue. This allows the model to provide a principled explanation of the widespread advantage for forward recalls in free and serial recall. Modeling data from single-trial free recall, we demonstrate that TCM can simultaneously explain recency and contiguity effects across time scales.     

时序知觉研究方法及其影响因素

时序知觉是个体对直接作用于感觉器官的客观事件顺序性的知觉。时序判断任务和同时性判断任务是研究时序知觉的经典实验范式。时序知觉不仅受机体变量,刺激变量及反应变量的影响,还受注意和通道等中介变量的影响。个体的意识和潜意识在同时性、非同时性和序列性时间知觉中的作用问题有待进一步探索。     

The Problem of Temporal Order in Stimulation and Perception

A nonrandom socioeconomically homogeneous convenience sample of 150 young adolescent mothers, 260 older adolescent mothers, and 242 older mothers was analyzed according to their standing on key determinants of parenting. The results of a discriminant analysis showed that the young teen mothers differed from the older mothers in terms of knowledge of child development, punitive attitudes toward childrearing, and level of depression. Accuracy of classification was improved with the discriminant function for younger and older mothers, but decreased by 20% for older adolescents.     

语言表征在颜色类别知觉中的作用

采用同时和继时实验任务,探讨语言表征在颜色类别知觉中的作用.实验一刺激同时呈现,被试表现出类别知觉效应,但效应不受语言干扰影响.实验二刺激间隔呈现,被试表现出类别知觉效应,效应在语言干扰时消失.实验三采用继时任务,没有语言干扰,在刺激呈现间隔(SOA)小于300ms时效应不显著,大于等于300ms时效应显著.研究提示类别知觉效应的机制取决于任务要求和被试无意识的认知策略.在同时任务中效应来自知觉过程本身,在继时任务中效应来自语言编码.继时任务中效应量随SOA变化,说明语言表征由上至下地影响知觉加工,类别知觉是一个动态过程.     

A Connectionist Model of Phonological Representation in Speech Perception

A number of recent studies have examined the effects of phonological variation on the perception of speech. These studies show that both the lexical representations of words and the mechanisms of lexical access are organized so that natural, systematic variation is tolerated by the perceptual system, while a general intolerance of random deviation is maintained. Lexical abstraction distinguishes between phonetic features that form the invariant core of a word and those that are susceptible to variation. Phonological inference relies on the context of surface changes to retrieve the underlying phonological form. In this article we present a model of these processes in speech perception, based on connectionist learning techniques. A simple recurrent network was trained on the mapping from the variant surface form of speech to the underlying form. Once trained, the network exhibited features of both abstraction and inference in its processing of normal speech, and predicted that similar behavior will be found in the perception of nonsense words. This prediction was confirmed in subsequent research (Gaskell & Marslen-Wilson, 1994).     

时序知觉的启动效应

时序知觉中的启动效应是指被启动的刺激被知觉为先于未启动刺激出现。文章综述了时序知觉启动效应的有关理论解释和影响因素,并对现有研究存在的问题及未来研究的方向进行了讨论。     

时序知觉中词义和位置的stroop效应

本文目的在于探讨时序知觉中是否存在词义与位置Stroop效应。通过时序知觉判断任务,使用中文汉字“先-后”刺激材料,让被试做出时序判断。对反应时的结果显示空间方位、词义位置的匹配关系和时间间隔均存在主效应,空间方位和词义位置匹配关系、空间方位和时间间隔、词义位置匹配关系和时间间隔均存在交互作用。上述结果提示人脑在时序知觉判断过程中存在词义和位置的Stroop效应,该效应可能与时序知觉加工机制有关。     

Reducing the Linear Perception of Nonlinearity: Use of a Physical Representation

Research shows that while judging accumulations of quantities over time (e.g., money in a bank account or CO₂ in Earth's atmosphere), people assume that the shape of the accumulation is similar to the shape of the inflow (i.e., people rely on a correlation heuristic). Relying on the correlation heuristic is particularly worrisome for Earth's climate, as judging the CO₂ accumulation according to its emissions (inflow) would underestimate the actual (nonlinear) increase. This misperception undermines the seriousness of climate problem and results in wait‐and‐see behavior. We report two experiments where the effectiveness of a physical representation is compared with graphical and text representations in reducing people's underestimation of nonlinear accumulation in different contexts and problems. A physical representation presents an accumulation using a picture that works as a metaphor. In the first experiment, participants drew the shape of an accumulation over time relying on physical or graphical representations in one of two contexts: carbon dioxide and marbles. Although the participants underestimated the accumulation in both contexts, underestimations were reduced in the physical representation compared with the graphical representation. In the second experiment, we extended the evaluation of physical representations against both text and graphical representations in two different climate problems (with linearly increasing or decreasing inflow). Again, underestimations of the accumulation were reduced in the physical representation compared with the other two representations, regardless of the nature of the problem. We discuss implications of using the physical representation for improving people's estimates of nonlinear CO₂ accumulation. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

图形大小知觉的动态记忆表征研究

心理世界是外在的物理世界的表征。心理过程的一个有趣的方面就是它们与物理过程有很多相似的特性,如心理旋转实验就揭示了心理旋转和物理旋转的共同特性。Shepard等因此曾推论人类在进化过程中,已经继承和整合了许多经验物理世界的认知一知觉规则。     

Emotion: Sensory Representation,Reinforcement, and the Temporal Lobe

Abstract

In this article emphasis is placed on the reciprocal relationships between reinforcers and the central representations of extrinsic stimuli. It is argued that an understanding of these processes will prove crucial in an understanding of how adaptive stimulus representations can be formed and how such representations can come to elicit emotions. It is proposed that the evolutionary origin of emotions, which are primarily Seen as energising signals of survival value, arose from the need to Sensitise an animal in the absence of appropriate signals of reinforcement. Evidence is provided that many of these functions take place in the primate temporal lobe.     

小学教师课堂信息表征对知觉加工能力影响的研究

对80名20～40岁小学教师进行实验室实验与心理测验,探讨小学教师表征深度对不同类型课堂信息加工速度和判断准确性的影响,并对部分参加实验教师的课堂教学情况进行了访谈。结果表明:表征深度对课堂信息加工速度有显著的影响,对课堂信息判断正确率没有影响;教师课堂教学情况的访谈结果与实验研究结果基本一致。     

重复启动对时序知觉的影响

在时序判断任务中,重复启动导致被试把启动的靶刺激知觉为先出现的。知觉加工增强观和决策反应偏向观都试图解释其机制,但仍存在争议。本研究采用图形材料,通过三个实验系统考察了重复启动对时序知觉的影响。实验结果显示,启动和指导语都具有显著效应。这说明,重复启动对时序知觉的影响涉及知觉加工和决策水平两个方面。实验还首次发现,在启动的靶刺激先出现时发生了重复启动效应的反转。最后,研究提出了双加工表征匹配调节假说,用以综合解释目前的研究结果     

过去时间距离对自我行为表征的影响

建构水平理论认为,人们对心理上远距离(如远期过去)的客体或事件的表征倾向于采用高水平建构,而对心理上近距离(如近期过去)的客体或事件的表征倾向于采用低水平建构。本研究以特质性和行动性行为描述句子为实验材料,通过两个实验考察了过去时间距离对自我正性行为和负性行为的表征特征的影响。实验结果发现:(1)相对于近期过去,被试对远期过去自我的正性行为更倾向于特质性表征,但在负性行为上未获得明确的类似效应;(2)相对于远期过去的自我行为,个体对近期过去的自我行为倾向于负性表征,提示被试对近期过去自我的满意度较低和对未来自我提升的心理期待。     

客体特征统计属性表征机制的特异性

通过两个实验就视觉系统能否像计算平均数那样高效地计算其他统计量的问题进行了探讨。实验—保持—组圆的平均大小不变而改变众数,考察平均数估计是否受众数变化的影响;实验二采用与实验一相同的刺激,直接考察被试估计众数的绩效。结果发现：（1）对平均数的估计不受总体众数变化的影响;（2）对众数的估计往往不如对平均数的估计准确,估计值受平均数变化的影响;（3）在估计众数的任务中,被试成绩受总体极大值的影响。上述结果表明,视觉系统不存在针对众数的自动化加工机制。根据本实验的结果可以进一步推测,视觉系统并非对所有统计量都可做高效加工,而可能存在针对平均数的特异加工机制。