Centering on figurative features during the comprehension of sentences describing scenes

Summary Subjects were asked to read sentences which described scenes containing objects. In the scene described in each sentence, a specific part of a particular object was necessarily implied as having an important role. The object was named but none of its parts were. The assumption was that the subjects, while processing the sentence and immediately afterward, would cognitively center on the important part, as a function of the context created by the sentence. Immediately after reading the sentence, the subjects were probed with a picture of either the important part, or of an unimportant part of the object. Judgments of the compatibility of this picture probe with the sentence were faster for pictures of important parts than for pictures of other parts. This was taken as supporting the hypothesis of cognitive centration. In a second experiment, in which words were used as probes instead of pictures, a purely verbal process to account for the results was ruled out. In a third experiment, subjects were given instructions to intentionally form visual images of the scenes described by the sentences. In this case, overall response times to the picture probes were shorter than in the absence of such instructions, but this decrease was greater for pictures of unimportant parts. This finding was interpreted as showing that imagery instructions increase the rate of activation of features to varying degrees as a function of the previous level of activation.     

Paired associate learning of action verbs with visual-or motor-imaginal encoding instructions

Summary It is suggested that visual-imaginal encoding of actions, i.e., imagining seeing somebody else performing a described action, should be distinguished from motor-imaginal encoding, i.e., imagining how one performs the action oneself. While both kinds of encoding should provide good item-specific information, only visual-imaginal encoding should also lead to good relational encoding of word pairs. In three experiments in which subjects had to learn verb pairs, we obtained supporting data for this assumption. Although CR performance was equal to FR performance under visual-imaginal encoding, under motorimaginal encoding CR performance was worse than FR performance. In principle, this finding parallels results obtained with imagined noun pairs and with performed verb pairs.The research reported here was supported by a grant from the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft to J. Engelkamp and Hubert D. Zimmer. The paper was prepared during a stay of these authors at the Centre d'Études de Psychologie Cognitive, enabled by a grant of PROCOPE 311 pro     

Word‐to‐picture recognition is a function of motor components mappings at the stage of retrieval

Embodied approaches of cognition argue that retrieval involves the re‐enactment of both sensory and motor components of the desired remembering. In this study, we investigated the effect of motor action performed to produce the response in a recognition task when this action is compatible with the affordance of the objects that have to be recognised. In our experiment, participants were first asked to learn a list of words referring to graspable objects, and then told to make recognition judgements on pictures. The pictures represented objects where the graspable part was either pointing to the same or to the opposite side of the “Yes” response key. Results show a robust effect of compatibility between objects affordance and response hand. Moreover, this compatibility improves participants' ability of discrimination, suggesting that motor components are relevant cue for memory judgement at the stage of retrieval in a recognition task. More broadly, our data highlight that memory judgements are a function of motor components mappings at the stage of retrieval.     

Reasoning about rights and duties: mental models,world knowledge and pragmatic interpretation

We address the way verb-based and rule-content knowledge are combined in understanding institutional deontics. Study 1 showed that the institutional regulations used in our studies were readily categorised into one of two content groups: rights or duties. Participants perceived rights as benefiting the addressees identified by the rule, whereas they perceived duties as benefiting the collective that imposed the rule. Studies 2, 3, and 4 showed that rule content (rights vs. duties) had clear effects on perceptions of violations and relevance of cases for explaining the rule, even when controlling for deontic verb, phrasing of the action permitted by a right, or the formality of the deontic verb. These effects are incompatible with a simple pragmatic disambiguation approach to pragmatic modulation, as they often induce permissibility judgments that contradict the core semantic meanings of the deontic verbs. Other ways of reconciling verb meaning with rule content should be considered in a fuller theory of the interpretation of institutional rules.     

Effects of linear and angular velocity on 2-, 4-, and 6-month-olds'' visual pursuit behaviors

We report on a study with 12 infants at each of 2, 4, and 6 months of age which examines the effects on infant visual pursuit of varying the target linear velocity (m/s) and the target angular velocity (deg/s) independently. Tracking performance is described in terms of five behaviors which characterize infant performance as a tracking trial unfolds: time to initial capture, duration of initial tracking, duration of initial break in tracking, frequency of interruptions in tracking, and mean duration of all tracking intervals. Interruptions in tracking become more frequent as linear velocity increases but less frequent as angular velocity increases. The mean duration of later tracking intervals is diminished relative to the duration of earlier tracking intervals in 4- and 6-month-olds, but not in the 2-month-olds. Differences in angular velocity may account for the conflicting reports of disruptions in object permanence studies relying on a visual tracking paradigm.     

Effects of high-pass and low-pass spatial filtering on face identification

If face images are degraded by block averaging, there is a nonlinear decline in recognition accuracy as block size increases, suggesting that identification requires a critical minimum range of object spatial frequencies. The identification of faces was measured with equivalent Fourier low-pass filtering and block averaging preserving the same information and with high-pass transformations. In Experiment 1, accuracy declined and response time increased in a significant nonlinear manner in all cases as the spatial-frequency range was reduced. However, it did so at a faster rate for the quantized and high-passed images. A second experiment controlled for the differences in the contrast of the high-pass faces and found a reduced but significant and nonlinear decline in performance as the spatial-frequency range was reduced. These data suggest that face identification is preferentially supported by a band of spatial frequencies of approximately 8-16 cycles per face; contrast or line-based explanations were found to be inadequate. The data are discussed in terms of current models of face identification.     

The Effect of Facial Disfigurement on the Proxemic Behavior of the General Public1

The personal space afforded to a disfigured or nondisfigured confederate by 450 pedestrians in a busy street was measured. In Condition 1, the confederate had a birthmark under the right eye (permanent disfigurement). In Condition 2, this was replaced by trauma scarring and bruising (temporary disfigurement). In the third condition, the confederate was “normal” (i.e., no disfigurement). It was found that subjects stood further away from the confederate in the disfigured conditions than in the no disfigurement condition. More specifically, pedestrians arriving first in each trial stood an average distance of 100 cms from the confederate in the birthmark condition, 78 cms in the trauma condition, and 56 cms when the confederate was not disfigured. In addition, subjects chose significantly more often to stand to the left (nondisfigured) side of the confederate in the birthmark and trauma conditions than they did in the normal condition. Those subjects who chose to stand on the right (disfigured) side of the confederate, stood further away from those subjects standing on the nondisfigured side. The implications of the results are discussed in terms of the possible psychological problems associated with facial disfigurement.     

Champ et effets de la négation argumentative: contre-argumentation et mise en cause

An argument can be taken as an operation of justification or as the product of this operation. But what about a counter-argument? This article is based on the hypothesis that there exists an operation of argumentative negation, which is both the argumentative and the negative equivalent of the operation of justification. Justification and argumentative negation necessarily act on assertions, for they are active at the level of the epistemic modalities of statements. As an operation, a counter-argument can thus be described, as the application of an argumentative negation; as a product, it can be described as an argument the conclusion of which shows traces of negative modality. Two uses of argumentative negation are distinguished here: counter-argumentation and calling into question. The former can lead only to assertive conclusive statements, but the latter can also lead to directives or commissives. This leads the authors to introduce the notion of pseudo-argument, besides those of argument and counter-argument. It is shown in particular that when a pseudo-argument is rejected, argumentative negation has the effect of making evident an underlying argument. With respect to the latterit functions as a counter-argumentation, whereas with respect to the illocutionary act accomplished by the conclusive statement, it functions as a calling into question of a condition of satisfaction for this act. This article also defines certain characteristics of argument, proposes criteria for identifying argumentative negation in polemical conversations, and distinguishes four modes of counter-argumentation.     

Siblings of children with mental retardation: Family characteristics and adjustment

Siblings of children with mental retardation may be at greater risk for adjustment problems because of family stress related to the needs of the child with mental retardation. Family dimensions were investigated to determine their relationship to sibling adjustment. Adjustment of 12 siblings of children with mental retardation was examined in relationship to family dimensions. These relationships were compared to those for children from families without a disabled child. For both groups, self concept was positively associated with family cohesion, and social competence was positively associated with family promotion of independence. For only the siblings of the mentally retarded children, family conflict was inversely related to social competence, and family organization was positively related to sibling self concept. Our results suggest that family conflict and disorganization appear to have a more negative effect in families with a child with mental retardation.