Where do hypotheses come from?

Why are human inferences sometimes remarkably close to the Bayesian ideal and other times systematically biased? In particular, why do humans make near-rational inferences in some natural domains where the candidate hypotheses are explicitly available, whereas tasks in similar domains requiring the self-generation of hypotheses produce systematic deviations from rational inference. We propose that these deviations arise from algorithmic processes approximating Bayes’ rule. Specifically in our account, hypotheses are generated stochastically from a sampling process, such that the sampled hypotheses form a Monte Carlo approximation of the posterior. While this approximation will converge to the true posterior in the limit of infinite samples, we take a small number of samples as we expect that the number of samples humans take is limited. We show that this model recreates several well-documented experimental findings such as anchoring and adjustment, subadditivity, superadditivity, the crowd within as well as the self-generation effect, the weak evidence, and the dud alternative effects. We confirm the model’s prediction that superadditivity and subadditivity can be induced within the same paradigm by manipulating the unpacking and typicality of hypotheses. We also partially confirm our model’s prediction about the effect of time pressure and cognitive load on these effects.     

Developmental differences in working memory: Where do they come from?

Several models assume that working memory development depends on age-related increases in efficiency and speed of processing. However, age-related increases in the efficiency of the mechanisms that counteract forgetting and restore memory traces may also be important. This hypothesis was tested in three experiments by manipulating both the processing duration within a working memory task and the time available to restore memory traces. Third- and sixth-grade children performed a complex span task in which they maintained series of letters while adding numbers to series of digits. When we equated processing and restoration times between ages, the developmental difference in working memory span was reduced but remained significant. However, this residual difference was eliminated when the time available to reactivate memory traces was tailored to the processing speed of each age group. This indicates that children employ active mechanisms for maintenance and restoration of memory traces that develop with age.     

Where do dialectal effects on speech processing come from? Evidence from a cross-dialect investigation

Accented speech has been seen as an additional impediment for speech processing; it usually adds linguistic and cognitive load to the listener's task. In the current study we analyse where the processing costs of regional dialects come from, a question that has not been answered yet. We quantify the proficiency of Basque–Spanish bilinguals who have different native dialects of Basque on many dimensions and test for costs at each of three levels of processing–phonemic discrimination, word recognition, and semantic processing. The ability to discriminate a dialect-specific contrast is affected by a bilingual's linguistic background less than lexical access is, and an individual's difficulty in lexical access is correlated with basic discrimination problems. Once lexical access is achieved, dialectal variation has little impact on semantic processing. The results are discussed in terms of the presence or absence of correlations between different processing levels. The implications of the results are considered for how models of spoken word recognition handle dialectal variation.     

Three approaches to the psychology of culture: Where do they come from? Where can they go?

Cultural psychology, cross-cultural psychology, and indigenous psychology are three approaches to the psychology of culture. The author begins by comparing the three approaches – conceptually, methodologically; and historically. She concludes that each approach has contributed knowledge of the "deep structure" of culture to the field of psychology. This "deep structure" consists of the framework of individualism and collectivism; particular cultures are therefore surface forms of one or the other of these basic cultural frameworks. Rather than being universal, classical social and developmental psychology are seen as reflecting a particular indigenous psychology. For the future, a truly universal psychology must offer a theoretical framework that encompasses alternative indigenous psychologies.     

Where do desires come from? Positivity offset and negativity bias predict implicit attitude toward temptations

Temptations elicit both appetitive and aversive responses because they offer hedonic gratification on the one hand and impede long-term goal pursuit on the other hand (Fujita, Personality and Social Psychology Review 15(4):352–366, 2011). In this paper, we investigate how people’s affective responses toward temptations are regulated by the appetitive and aversive motivational systems. We employ the mini Motivated Action Measure (miniMAM; Lang et al., Communication Methods and Measures 5(2):146–162, 2011) to measure the signature patterns with which the two systems regulate affective activation: positivity offset and negativity bias. We found that positivity offset and negativity bias predict unique variance (5.5%) of dieters’ (N?=?312) implicit attitude toward tempting foods, over and above predictors related to behavioral regulation (BIS/BAS: Carver, White, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 67:319–333, 1994; BSC: Tangney et al., Journal of Personality 72(2):271–324, 2004). By contrast, positivity offset and negativity bias did not predict dieters’ behavioral intentions for tempting foods. Investigating how the appetitive and aversive systems regulate affective activation apart from behavioral responses offers unique insights into people’s desires towards temptations.     

Inhibitory phonetic priming: Where does the effect come from?

Both phonological and phonetic priming studies reveal inhibitory effects that have been interpreted as resulting from lexical competition between the prime and the target. We present a series of phonetic priming experiments that contrasted this lexical locus explanation with that of a prelexical locus by manipulating the lexical status of the prime and the target and the task used. In the related condition of all experiments, spoken targets were preceded by spoken primes that were phonetically similar but shared no phonemes with the target (/bak/–/dεt/). In Experiments 1 and 2, word and nonword primes produced an inhibitory effect of equal size in shadowing and same–different tasks respectively. Experiments 3 and 4 showed robust inhibitory phonetic priming on both word and nonword targets in the shadowing task, but no effect at all in a lexical decision task. Together, these findings show that the inhibitory phonetic priming effect occurs independently of the lexical status of both the prime and the target, and only in tasks that do not necessarily require the activation of lexical representations. Our study thus argues in favour of a prelexical locus for this effect.     

Where did the ventricular localization of mental faculties come from?

During the Middle Ages it was widely believed that the various mental faculties-sensation, cognition, memory, and so forth-were each located in a specific part of the three ventricles that were thought to be housed in the brain. The origin of this scheme was commonly attributed to the ancient scholars, but it was rare for a specific individual to be identified as the originator. Modern researchers sometimes attribute it to Galen, but Galen was clear in his contention that the mental faculties were located in the substance of the brain rather than in the ventricles. It was only later scholars who, using Galen's anatomy as their basis, placed the mental faculties in the ventricles themselves. The system came together piece by piece over a period of centuries, probably not appearing fully in the form known to the Medieval world until the Middle Ages themselves. This article traces the development of the theory of ventricular localization of the mental faculties from the Ancient world to the early part of the Middle Ages.     

Where do "constraints" come from? A comparison between inferences in biology and in word learning

In this paper, as a commentary on the papers in this special issue, the nature of constraints is discussed in terms of the comparison between inferences in biology and in word learning. Young children's inferences in biology could be constrained by three sources of information: factual knowledge, expectations based on a theory, and ontological knowledge. For example, young children's inference about the length of noses could be constrained by the facts the children know about the animals, the similarity between the animals and humans, and the ontological distinction between living things and nonliving things. In the same way, young children might figure out word meanings by linguistic and pragmatic knowledge, expectations of word meanings (e.g., the whole-object assumption), and ontological knowledge. Interactions among these sources of knowledge are documented by the papers in this special issue and related studies. It is argued that learning biases such as the whole-object assumption could not be induced only by linguistic and pragmatic cues in a social context, but should be regarded as a product of the interaction between a social context and children's theories.     

Where does it come from? Collaborative emergence in creative work practices

This article presents a case in which analytical tools coming from the tradition of distributed cognition are able to account for what has been defined collaborative emergence (Sawyer & DeZutter, 2009; Sawyer 2012) in creative practices. With this article, we aim to contribute to the debate of distributed creativity by discussing an empirical case of collaborative emergence and providing the analytical tools able to account for its analysis. Introducing the concept of a creative network of interactions, we stress the importance of selecting, describing, and analysing the interactions that give rise to the collaborative emergence in creative work. Introducing the concept of collective creative imagination, we account for the collective emergence of the scene. We suggest that collaborative emergence is the result of a process of collective coordination and improvisation, emerging from moment-to-moment contingency in collective cognition and imagination. The new unpredictable outcome does not emerge from a sudden singular intuition avulsed from the environment, but it is the result of several coordinated steps made by the participants.     

The cortex in multidimensional space: where do cortical areas come from?

The concept of a cortical ‘area’ as a discrete phylogenetic, developmental and computational unit is evaluated. Evidence including the comparative organization of the forebrain in vertebrates, the organization of cortex in different mammals, the scaling of the areas of the isocortex in mammals, and the early molecular differentiation of the cortex all suggest a special status for the primary sensory cortical areas, particularly the visual cortex. Furthermore, the overlapping gradients of early molecular expression and the patterning of cortical structure and connectivity by thalamic input suggest a new view of cortical organization that is different from the traditional view of a developmentally mosaic cortex; this view proposes that distinct cortical areas arise combinatorily from the multiple overlapping processes imposed upon the developing cortex.     

Twin-singleton differences in verbal ability: Where do they stem from?

In a follow-up investigation at age 9, the cognitive and social characteristics of 35 pairs of twins, studied previously at age 2, were compared with those of matched singletons at school. At age 2, twins' lower verbal ability compared with singletons' was attributed to lesser amount of speech by parents—seen as an outcome of the “twoness” of the “twin situation”—rather than to biological handicap or mother's education. At age 9, twins were equal to singletons in physical development and nonverbal ability, but the monozygotic (MZ)—not the dizygotic (DZ)—twins showed lower verbal ability. However, far more variance in verbal ability was accounted for by mother's education and birthweight than by twinship. In the long run, therefore, mothers' educational differences are more influential than the “twoness” of the “twin situation.”     

Behavior-analytic repertoires: Where will they come from and how can they be maintained?

The field of behavior analysis faces a number of issues concerning its existence as a discipline and as a profession, including (a) identification of the knowledge and skills comprising the repertoire of competent behavior analysts, (b) the nature of the curricula that will produce the scientists and practitioners needed by the discipline, (c) identification of the generic professional and social skills required for any successful professional career, (d) academic employment opportunities for behavior analysts, and (e) the maintenance of behavior-analytic repertoires. Recommendations are offered as possible solutions to problems raised with respect to each of these issues.     

Where does work stress come from? A generalizability analysis of stress in police officers

Differences among workers and workplace stressors both contribute to perceiving work as stressful. However, the relative importance of these sources to work stress is not well delineated. Moreover, the extent to which work stress additionally reflects unique matches between specific workers and particular job stressors is also unclear. In this study, we use generalizability theory to specify and compare sources of variance in stress associated with police work. US police officers (N?=?115) provided ratings of 60 stressors commonly associated with policing duties. Primary and secondary stress appraisal ratings reflected differences among officers in tendencies to generally perceive work stressors as stressful (14–15% officer effect), and also agreement among officers in viewing some stressors as more stressful than others (18–19% stressor effect). However, ratings especially reflected distinct pairings of officers and stressors (38–41% interaction effect). Additional analyses revealed individual differences and stressor characteristics associated with each variance component, including an officer?×?stressor interaction – compared to officers low in neuroticism, highly neurotic officers provided lower primary appraisal ratings of stressors generally seen as not serious, and also higher primary appraisal ratings of stressors that were seen as serious. We discuss implications of the current approach for the continued study of stress at work.     

Animal models of drug addiction: Where do we go from here?

Compulsion and impulsivity are both primary features of drug addiction. Based on decades of animal research, we have a detailed understanding of the factors (both environmental and physiological) that influence compulsive drug use, but still know relatively little about the impulsive aspects of drug addiction. This review outlines our current knowledge of the relationship between impulsivity and drug addiction, focusing on cognitive and motor impulsivity, which are particularly relevant to this disorder. Topics to be discussed include the influence of chronic drug administration on impulsivity, the mechanisms that may explain drug-induced impulsivity, and the role of individual differences in the development of impulsive drug use. In addition, the manner in which contemporary theories of drug addiction conceptualize the relationship between impulsivity and compulsion is examined. Most importantly, this review emphasizes a critical role for animal research in understanding the role of impulsivity in the development and maintenance of drug addiction.