A Sat-Based Approach to Unbounded Model Checking for Alternating-Time Temporal Epistemic Logic

This paper deals with the problem of verification of game-like structures by means of symbolic model checking. Alternating-time Temporal Epistemic Logic (ATEL) is used for expressing properties of multi-agent systems represented by alternating epistemic temporal systems as well as concurrent epistemic game structures. Unbounded model checking (a SAT based technique) is applied for the first time to verification of ATEL. An example is given to show an application of the technique.     

Update Semantics of Security Protocols

We present a model-theoretic approach for reasoning about security protocols, applying recent insights from dynamic epistemic logics. This enables us to describe exactly the subsequent epistemic states of the agents participating in the protocol, using Kripke models and transitions between these based on updates of the agents’ beliefs associated with steps in the protocol. As a case study we will consider the SRA Three Pass protocol and discuss the Wide-Mouthed Frog protocol.     

Selective sex differences in declarative memory

Sex invariance of a six-factor, higher order model of declarative memory (two second-order factors: episodic and semantic memory; and four first-order factors: recall, recognition, fluency, and knowledge) was established for 1,796 participants (35-85 years). Metric invariance of first- and second-order factor loadings across sex was demonstrated. At the second-order level, a female advantage was observed for both episodic and semantic memory. At the first-order level, sex differences in episodic memory were apparent for both recall and recognition, whereas the differences in semantic memory were driven by a female superiority in fluency. Additional tests of sex differences in three age groups (35-50, 55-65, and 70-85 years of age) indicated that the female superiority in declarative memory diminished with advancing age. The factor-specific sex differences are discussed in relation to sex differences in hippocampal function.     

Text cohesion and metacomprehension: Immediate and delayed judgments

In three experiments, we examined comprehension judgments made after a piece of text had been read. We propose that such metacognitive judgments are based on the content of working memory at the exact moment of assessment. Generally speaking, this working metacognition hypothesis is in agreement with Koriat's cue utilization approach, which implies that different elements of information will be available (and used) depending on the moment at which a judgment is made. More specifically, our hypothesis focuses on the management of working memory during reading as a cause for cue (un)availability. In support of these views, the results of Experiment 1 showed that a cohesion manipulation affecting the comprehension of specific paragraphs influences judgments only on these paragraphs, and not on judgments on the whole text. In Experiment 2, we showed that an interfering task that takes place just before this paragraph judgment is made wipes out this cohesion effect. Experiment 3 showed, on the other hand, that the whole-text judgment may, nevertheless, be affected by text cohesion, provided that the readers keep an access to the text when the judgment is made. These results support the idea that working memory management makes different cues available for metacognitive ratings at different delays.     

Conditions affecting the revelation effect for autobiographical memory

In four experiments involving 184 participants, people rated their confidence that particular events had happened in their childhood (e.g., "Broke a window playing ball"). If participants had to unscramble a key word in a phrase just before rating it (e.g., "Broke a nwidwo [window] playing ball"), confidence ratings increased-the revelation effect. However, the pattern of revelation effects depended on the particular way in which participants processed key words (e.g., visualizing vs. counting vowels in the word window) approximately 10 min prior to rating life events that contained those words. Prior exposure to key words never in itself directly affected confidence ratings. These results demonstrate that one can manipulate the revelation effect by altering the processing that participants perform on words prior to unscrambling them. These results also pose difficulties for many accounts of the revelation effect. The major puzzle posed by our present findings is that unscrambling key words increases confidence that an event has happened in childhood, whereas prior exposure to these words does not.     

Distractors of low activation can produce negative priming

In two experiments, we examined negative priming produced by distractors of low activation. A hybrid methodology was adopted to incorporate a study phase in which stimuli repetitively served as a target or a distractor, and a test phase in which the relationship in prime-probe couplets was manipulated. A critical manipulation was the presence or absence of novel stimuli in the test phase to alter the list context. The results showed that prime distractors of low activation produced negative priming when the test phase did not include novel items, which provided an optimal retrieval context. Prime distractors of high activation reliably led to negative priming when the list context contained novel items, but the effect varied when the list context did not include novel items. Theoretical implications are discussed.     

Even with a green card,you can be put out to pasture and still have to work: Non-native intuitions of the transparency of common English idioms

Native speakers of English use idioms such as put your foot down and spill the beans to label events that are not described literally by the words that compose the idioms. For many such expressions, the idiomatic meanings are transparent; that is, the connection between the literal expression and its figurative meaning makes sense to native speakers. We tested Keysar and Bly's (1995) hypothesis that this sense of transparency for the meaning of everyday idioms does not necessarily obtain because the idiomatic meanings are derived from motivating literal meanings or conceptual metaphors, but rather (at least in part) because language users construct explanations after the fact for whatever meaning is conventionally assigned to the expression. Non-native speakers of English were exposed to common English idioms and taught either the conventional idiomatic meaning or an alternative meaning. In agreement with Keysar and Bly's suggestion, their subsequent sense of transparency was greater for the meaning that the speakers had learned and used, regardless of which one it was.     

Emotional intensity predicts autobiographical memory experience

College students generated autobiographical memories from distinct emotional categories that varied in valence (positive vs. negative) and intensity (high vs. low). They then rated various perceptual, cognitive, and emotional properties for each memory. The distribution of these emotional memories favored a vector model over a circumplex model. For memories of all specific emotions, intensity accounted for significantly more variance in autobiographical memory characteristics than did valence or age of the memory. In two additional experiments, we examined multiple memories of emotions of high intensity and positive or negative valence and of positive valence and high or low intensity. Intensity was a more consistent predictor of autobiographical memory properties than was valence or the age of the memory in these experiments as well. The general effects of emotion on autobiographical memory properties are due primarily to intensity differences in emotional experience, not to benefits or detriments associated with a specific valence.