Refractory effects in picture naming as assessed in a semantic blocking paradigm.

In the cyclic semantic blocking paradigm participants repeatedly name sets of objects with semantically related names (homogeneous sets) or unrelated names (heterogeneous sets). The naming latencies are typically longer in related than in unrelated sets. In Experiment 1 we replicated this semantic blocking effect and demonstrated that the effect only arose after all objects of a set had been shown and named once. In Experiment 2, the objects of a set were presented simultaneously (instead of on successive trials). Evidence for semantic blocking was found in the naming latencies and in the gaze durations for the objects, which were longer in homogeneous than in heterogeneous sets. For the gaze-to-speech lag between the offset of gaze on an object and the onset of the articulation of its name, a repetition priming effect was obtained but no blocking effect. Experiment 3 showed that the blocking effect for speech onset latencies generalized to new, previously unnamed lexical items. We propose that the blocking effect is due to refractory behaviour in the semantic system.     

Exposure to behavioral regularities in everyday life predicts infants’ acquisition of mental state vocabulary

There are two broad views of children's theory of mind. The mentalist view is that it emerges in infancy and is possibly innate. The minimalist view is that it emerges more gradually in childhood and is heavily dependent on learning. According to minimalism, children initially understand behaviors rather than mental states, and they are assisted in doing so by recognizing repeating patterns in behavior. The regularities in behavior allow them to predict future behaviors, succeed on theory-of-mind tasks, acquire mental state words, and eventually, understand the mental states underlying behavior. The present study provided the first clear evidence for the plausibility of this view by fitting head cameras to 54 infants aged 6 to 25 months, and recording their view of the world in their daily lives. At 6 and 12 months, infants viewed an average of 146.5 repeated behaviors per hour, a rate consistent with approximately 560,000 repetitions in their first year, and with repetitions correlating with children's acquisition of mental state words, even after controlling for their general vocabulary and a range of variables indexing social interaction. We also recorded infants’ view of people searching or searching for and retrieving objects. These were 92 times less common and did not correlate with mental state vocabulary. Overall, the findings indicate that repeated behaviors provide a rich source of information for children that would readily allow them to recognize patterns in behavior and help them acquire mental state words, providing the first clear evidence for this claim of minimalism.

Research Highlights

• Six- to 25-month-olds wore head cameras to record home life from infants’ point-of-view and help adjudicate between nativist and minimalist views of theory-of-mind (ToM).
• Nativists say ToM is too early developing to enable learning, whereas minimalists say infants learn to predict behaviors from behavior patterns in environment.
• Consistent with minimalism, infants had an incredibly rich exposure (146.5/h, >560,000 in first year) to repeated behaviors (e.g., drinking from a cup repeatedly).
• Consistent with minimalism, more repeated behaviors correlated with infants’ mental state vocabulary, even after controlling for gender, age, searches witnessed and non-mental state vocabulary.

     

Attentional focus on suprapostural tasks affects balance learning

We examined whether the attentional focus induced by a suprapostural task has an influence on the learning of a dynamic balance task. Participants balanced on a stabilometer and were required to hold a tube horizontal with both hands. In Experiment 1, the tube contained a table tennis ball, whereas it was empty in Experiment 2. Participants were instructed to focus on either their hands (internal focus) or the tube (external focus). We measured balance performance as a function of attentional focus on the suprapostural task. Participants practised for 2 days, and on Day 3 they performed a retention test (with tube) and a transfer test (without tube). In both experiments, the external focus groups demonstrated more effective retention and transfer than the internal focus groups (and than the control group in transfer in Experiment 2). In addition, in Experiment 1 the external group was superior in keeping the tube horizontal. This suggests that the performer's attentional focus regarding the suprapostural task affects performance and learning not only of the suprapostural task itself, but also of the postural task.     

Beyond Single-Mindedness: A Figure-Ground Reversal for the Cognitive Sciences

A fundamental fact about human minds is that they are never truly alone: all minds are steeped in situated interaction. That social interaction matters is recognized by any experimentalist who seeks to exclude its influence by studying individuals in isolation. On this view, interaction complicates cognition. Here, we explore the more radical stance that interaction co-constitutes cognition: that we benefit from looking beyond single minds toward cognition as a process involving interacting minds. All around the cognitive sciences, there are approaches that put interaction center stage. Their diverse and pluralistic origins may obscure the fact that collectively, they harbor insights and methods that can respecify foundational assumptions and fuel novel interdisciplinary work. What might the cognitive sciences gain from stronger interactional foundations? This represents, we believe, one of the key questions for the future. Writing as a transdisciplinary collective assembled from across the classic cognitive science hexagon and beyond, we highlight the opportunity for a figure-ground reversal that puts interaction at the heart of cognition. The interactive stance is a way of seeing that deserves to be a key part of the conceptual toolkit of cognitive scientists.