Tipping the scales: Conciliatory behavior and the morality of self-forgiveness

Two studies examined whether conciliatory behavior aids self-forgiveness and whether it does so in part by making it seem more morally appropriate. Participants in Study 1 (n?=?269) completed an offense-recall procedure; participants in Study 2 (n?=?208) imagined a social transgression under conciliatory behavior (yes, no) and receipt of forgiveness (no, ambiguous, yes) conditions. Conciliatory behavior predicted (Study 1) and caused (Study 2) elevated self-forgiveness and increased perceptions of the moral appropriateness of self-forgiveness. Perceived morality consistently mediated the effect of conciliatory behavior on self-forgiveness. Received forgiveness and guilt were considered as additional mechanisms, but received mixed support. Results suggest that conciliatory behavior may influence self-forgiveness in part by satisfying moral prerequisites for self-forgiveness.     

Neural-network models of learning and memory: leading questions and an emerging framework

Real-time neural-network models provide a conceptual framework for formulating questions about the nature of cognition, an architectural framework for mapping cognitive functions to brain regions, a semantic framework for defining terms, and a computational framework for testing hypotheses. This article considers key questions about how a physical system might simultaneously support one-trial learning and lifetime memories, in the context of neural models that test possible solutions to the problems posed. Model properties point to partial answers, and model limitations lead to new questions. Placing individual system components in the context of a unified real-time network allows analysis to move from the level of neural processes, including learning laws and rules of synaptic transmission, to cognitive processes, including attention and consciousness.     

Twelve-month-olds point to share attention and interest

Infants point for various motives. Classically, one such motive is declarative, to share attention and interest with adults to events. Recently, some researchers have questioned whether infants have this motivation. In the current study, an adult reacted to 12-month-olds' pointing in different ways, and infants' responses were observed. Results showed that when the adult shared attention and interest (i.e alternated gaze and emoted), infants pointed more frequently across trials and tended to prolong each point--presumably to prolong the satisfying interaction. However, when the adult emoted to the infant alone or looked only to the event, infants pointed less across trials and repeated points more within trials--presumably in an attempt to establish joint attention. Results suggest that 12-month-olds point declaratively and understand that others have psychological states that can be directed and shared.     

Impoverished cue support enhances subsequent retention: Support for the elaborative retrieval explanation of the testing effect

In three experiments, we investigated the role of transfer-appropriate processing and elaborative processing in the testing effect In Experiment 1, we examined whether the magnitude of the testing effect reflects the match between intervening and final tests by factorially manipulating the type of intervening and final tests. Retention was not enhanced for matching, relative to mismatching, intervening and final tests, contrary to the transfer-appropriate-processing view. In Experiment 2, we examined final retention as a function of the number of cues needed to retrieve items on intervening cued recall tests. In this case, fewer retrieval cues were associated with better memory on the final test. Experiment 3 replicated the findings of Experiment 2 while controlling for individual item difficulty and directly manipulating the number of cues present. These findings suggest that an intervening test may be most beneficial to final retention when it provides more potential for elaborative processing     

What types of learning are enhanced by a cued recall test?

In two experiments, we investigated what types of learning benefit from a cued recall test. After initial exposure to a word pair (A+B), subjects experienced either an intervening cued recall test (A→?) with feedback, or a restudy presentation (A→B). The final test could be cued recall in the same (A→?) or opposite (?→B) direction, or free recall of just the cues (Recall As) or just the targets (Recall Bs). All final tests revealed a benefit for testing as opposed to restudying. Tests produced a direct benefit for information that was retrieved on the intervening test (B). This benefit also “spilled over” to facilitate recall of information that was present on the test but not retrieved (A). Both theoretical and practical implications are discussed.     

Copying results and copying actions in the process of social learning: chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) and human children (Homo sapiens)

There is currently much debate about the nature of social learning in chimpanzees. The main question is whether they can copy others' actions, as opposed to reproducing the environmental effects of these actions using their own preexisting behavioral strategies. In the current study, chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) and human children (Homo sapiens) were shown different demonstrations of how to open a tube-in both cases by a conspecific. In different experimental conditions, demonstrations consisted of (1) action only (the actions necessary to open the tube without actually opening it); (2) end state only (the open tube, without showing any actions); (3) both of these components (in a full demonstration); or (4) neither of these components (in a baseline condition). In the first three conditions subjects saw one of two different ways that the tube could open (break in middle; caps off ends). Subjects' behavior in each condition was assessed for how often they opened the tube, how often they opened it in the same location as the demonstrator, and how often they copied the demonstrator's actions or style of opening the tube. Whereas chimpanzees reproduced mainly the environmental results of the demonstrations (emulation), human children often reproduced the demonstrator's actions (imitation). Because the procedure used was similar in many ways to the procedure that Meltzoff (Dev Psych 31:1, 1995) used to study the understanding of others' unfulfilled intentions, the implications of these findings with regard to chimpanzees' understanding of others' intentions are also discussed.     

Interactions between the dorsal and the ventral pathways in mental rotation: An fMRI study

In this fMRI study, we examined the relationship between activations in the inferotemporal region (ventral pathway) and the parietal region (dorsal pathway), as well as in the prefrontal cortex (associated with working memory), in a modified mental rotation task. We manipulated figural complexity (simple vs. complex) to affect the figure recognition process (associated with the ventral pathway) and the amount of rotation (0° vs. 90°), typically associated with the dorsal pathway. The pattern of activation not only showed that both streams are affected by both manipulations, but also showed an overadditive interaction. The effect of figural complexity was greater for 90° rotation than for 0° in multiple regions, including the ventral, dorsal, and prefrontal regions. In addition, functional connectivity analyses on the correlations across the time courses of activation between regions of interest showed increased synchronization among multiple brain areas as task demand increased. The results indicate that both the dorsal and the ventral pathways show interactive effects of object and spatial processing, and they suggest that multiple regions interact to perform mental rotation.     

Understanding and sharing intentions: the origins of cultural cognition

We propose that the crucial difference between human cognition and that of other species is the ability to participate with others in collaborative activities with shared goals and intentions: shared intentionality. Participation in such activities requires not only especially powerful forms of intention reading and cultural learning, but also a unique motivation to share psychological states with others and unique forms of cognitive representation for doing so. The result of participating in these activities is species-unique forms of cultural cognition and evolution, enabling everything from the creation and use of linguistic symbols to the construction of social norms and individual beliefs to the establishment of social institutions. In support of this proposal we argue and present evidence that great apes (and some children with autism) understand the basics of intentional action, but they still do not participate in activities involving joint intentions and attention (shared intentionality). Human children's skills of shared intentionality develop gradually during the first 14 months of life as two ontogenetic pathways intertwine: (1) the general ape line of understanding others as animate, goal-directed, and intentional agents; and (2) a species-unique motivation to share emotions, experience, and activities with other persons. The developmental outcome is children's ability to construct dialogic cognitive representations, which enable them to participate in earnest in the collectivity that is human cognition.