Proof-Theoretic Functional Completeness for the Hybrid Logics of Everywhere and Elsewhere

A hybrid logic is obtained by adding to an ordinary modal logic further expressive power in the form of a second sort of propositional symbols called nominals and by adding so-called satisfaction operators. In this paper we consider hybridized versions of S5 (“the logic of everywhere”) and the modal logic of inequality (“the logic of elsewhere”). We give natural deduction systems for the logics and we prove functional completeness results.     

Effects of finger and mouse pointing on learning from online split-attention examples

Background

Self-management of cognitive load is a recent development in cognitive load theory. Finger pointing has been shown to be a potential self-management strategy to support learning from spatially separated, but mutually referring text and pictures (i.e., split-attention examples).

Aims

The present study aimed to extend the prior research on the pointing strategy and investigated the effects of finger pointing on learning from online split-attention examples. Moreover, we examined an alternative pointing strategy using the computer mouse, and a combination of finger pointing and computer-mouse pointing.

Sample

One-hundred and forty-five university students participated in the present study.

Method

All participants studied an online split-attention example about the human nervous system and were randomly allocated to one of four conditions: (1) pointing with the index finger, (2) pointing with the computer mouse, (3) pointing with the index finger and the computer mouse and (4) no pointing.

Results

Results confirmed our main hypothesis, indicating that finger pointing led to higher retention performance than no pointing. However, the mouse pointing strategy and the combined finger and mouse pointing strategy did not show supportive effects.

Conclusions

Finger pointing can be used as a simple and convenient self-management strategy in online learning environments. Mouse pointing may not be as effective as finger pointing.     

Who remembers best? Individual differences in memory for events that occurred in a science museum

Individual differences in memory and suggestibility were assessed in an experiment involving 1989 people who attended the Exploratorium, a science museum located in San Francisco. Subjects watched a brief film clip of an assault and later answered questions about it. Approximately half received misinformation about some critical items. Four demographic variables (gender, educational level, age, and occupation) were examined to determine their impact on memory performance. The principle of discrepancy detection predicts that, compared to individuals with a good memory, people who have poor memory to begin with will be relatively suggestible (that is susceptible to misinformation). Some of our findings were consistent with this principle. For example, children (5–10 years) and elderly (over 65) were relatively inaccurate and also relatively suggestible. Other findings were not consistent with the principle, for example the finding that artists and architects were relatively accurate, but they were also highly suggestible.     

NIGHT VISION AS CHROMATIC VISION

Assuming that night vision is an exclusive function of the rods, and that it is colorless, the duplicity theory states that rod vision is achromatic vision. Studies relevant to color in night vision are reviewed. It is concluded that color may be observed well below the breakpoint of the dark adaptation curve, and that the duplicity theory therefore needs revision.     

Silent Speech Activates Prefrontal Cortical Regions Asymmetrically, as Well as Speech-Related Areas in the Dominant Hemisphere

Regional cerebral blood flow (rCBF) was measured simultaneously over the right and left hemispheres by 2 × 32 detectors in 30 healthy volunteers with a two-dimensional iv xenon-133 technique, during (1) rest and during (2) audible and (3) silent counting (101, 102, . . .). Mean hemisphere CBF increased significantly in both hemispheres during the activations.Audible speechactivated rolandic and temporo-parietal regions mainly on the right side. This pattern covers auditory and para-auditory as well as motor (tongue/larynx) regions. Most likely those regions are involved in auditory feedback and voice control.Silent speech(internal speech) gave a clearly different activation pattern involving (1) left-sided regions related to speech perception and speech motor control (including the SMA) and (2) a right dorsolateral prefrontal area that may be related to attention mechanisms. The silent speech pattern appears to demonstrate aspects of internal (cognitive) feedback activity in which prefrontal cortical regions are activated significantly.Audibleandsilentcounting may represent two principally different types of cerebral feedback systems, one for overt sensory–motor activity and one for a pure internal cognitive feedback.     

Social comparison and the drive upward revisited: Affiliation as a response to marital stress

To test theoretical ideas derived from classic and recent social comparison theory, two studies examined affiliative tendencies as a response to marital problems among individuals varying in marital dissatisfaction. Study 1 (n. = 632) showed that the higher the degree of marital dissatisfaction and the higher the uncertainty about how things are going in one's marriage, the stronger was the desire for affiliation (operationalized as the desire to talk with others about one's marriage). Moreover, among individuals high in marital dissatisfaction, a preference for upward affiliation was found, i.e. for contact with others having better marriages. Individuals with lower levels of dissatisfaction preferred affiliation with similar others. Women experienced more uncertainty and a stronger affiliative tendency than men. In Study 2 (n = 233), these findings were largely replicated. Moreover, it was shown that the desire to affiliate when facing marital stress was particularly strong among individuals high in interpersonal orientation.     

Brain asymmetry and human electrodermal conditioning

Two experiments are reviewed that demonstrate effects of brain laterality on human classical conditioning. Pictures of facial emotional expressions were used as conditioned stimuli (CSs) together with shock as unconditioned stimlus (UCS). Bilateral electrodermal responses were recorded as dependent measures. In the first experiment, one group was conditioned to an angry face, and one group to a happy face. During extinction, the face-CSs were presented to the right hemisphere on half of the trials and to the left hemisphere on the other half of the trials. Results showed that the right hemisphere was superior in showing persisting effects of learning, and especially to the angry CS+. In the second experiment, lateralized presentations of the angry and happy faces were made during acquisition, with foveal presentations during extinction. Once again, the angry face elicited greater skin conductance responses (SCRs) during extinction in the group that had this stimulus presented to the right hemisphere during acquisition. It is concluded that emotional conditioning is differentially regulated by the two hemispheres of the brain.     

Consciousness without a cerebral cortex: a challenge for neuroscience and medicine

A broad range of evidence regarding the functional organization of the vertebrate brain - spanning from comparative neurology to experimental psychology and neurophysiology to clinical data - is reviewed for its bearing on conceptions of the neural organization of consciousness. A novel principle relating target selection, action selection, and motivation to one another, as a means to optimize integration for action in real time, is introduced. With its help, the principal macrosystems of the vertebrate brain can be seen to form a centralized functional design in which an upper brain stem system organized for conscious function performs a penultimate step in action control. This upper brain stem system retained a key role throughout the evolutionary process by which an expanding forebrain - culminating in the cerebral cortex of mammals - came to serve as a medium for the elaboration of conscious contents. This highly conserved upper brainstem system, which extends from the roof of the midbrain to the basal diencephalon, integrates the massively parallel and distributed information capacity of the cerebral hemispheres into the limited-capacity, sequential mode of operation required for coherent behavior. It maintains special connective relations with cortical territories implicated in attentional and conscious functions, but is not rendered nonfunctional in the absence of cortical input. This helps explain the purposive, goal-directed behavior exhibited by mammals after experimental decortication, as well as the evidence that children born without a cortex are conscious. Taken together these circumstances suggest that brainstem mechanisms are integral to the constitution of the conscious state, and that an adequate account of neural mechanisms of conscious function cannot be confined to the thalamocortical complex alone.     

Allocentric and egocentric updating of spatial memories

In 4 experiments, the authors investigated spatial updating in a familiar environment. Participants learned locations of objects in a room, walked to the center, and turned to appropriate facing directions before making judgments of relative direction (e.g., "Imagine you are standing at X and facing Y. Point to Z.") or egocentric pointing judgments (e.g., "You are facing Y. Point to Z."). Experiments manipulated the angular difference between the learning heading and the imagined heading and the angular difference between the actual heading and the imagined heading. Pointing performance was best when the imagined heading was parallel to the learning view, even when participants were facing in other directions, and when actual and imagined headings were the same. Room geometry did not affect these results. These findings indicated that spatial reference directions in memory were not updated during locomotion.     

Relationship between heart rate variability and cognitive function during threat of shock

Abstract

The aim of the present study was to investigate the relationship between resting heart rate variability (HRV) and cognitive functions during threat of shock. A Continuous Performance Task and a Working Memory Task were used to measure cognitive functions. Sixty-five male participants from the Royal Norwegian Navy participated. HRV was measured during baseline, test conditions and recovery. Participants were randomly assigned into non-threat and threat groups. Based on the median split of the high frequency (HF) spectral power, groups were divided into two additional groups. Overall, the high HRV participants showed superior performance on cognitive tasks independent of non-threat or threat conditions. During threat condition the low HRV group showed improved performance. Thus, individuals with high HRV were more stress tolerant and resilient in the face of environmental changes. The results from the study might have implications with regard to performance in operational settings, but also for other fields of psychological research such as individual differences, anxiety and coping.