Reciprocal relations between cognitive neuroscience and formal cognitive models: opposites attract?

Cognitive neuroscientists study how the brain implements particular cognitive processes such as perception, learning, and decision-making. Traditional approaches in which experiments are designed to target a specific cognitive process have been supplemented by two recent innovations. First, formal cognitive models can decompose observed behavioral data into multiple latent cognitive processes, allowing brain measurements to be associated with a particular cognitive process more precisely and more confidently. Second, cognitive neuroscience can provide additional data to inform the development of formal cognitive models, providing greater constraint than behavioral data alone. We argue that these fields are mutually dependent; not only can models guide neuroscientific endeavors, but understanding neural mechanisms can provide key insights into formal models of cognition.     

Schedule control, supervisor support and work engagement: A winning combination for workers in hourly jobs?

The changing natures of both work and the lives of the U.S. workforce have created an array of challenges for organizations attempting to foster work engagement. To accommodate the work and family needs of an increasingly diverse workforce, many firms are offering flexible work solutions to employees. However, the distribution of these types of organizational resources is unequal, with workers in lower-wage hourly jobs having the least access to any form of flexibility. The purpose of this paper is to examine the relationship of schedule control, as a form of flexible work practice, and work engagement among workers employed in hourly retail jobs. Authors tested a model whereby the relationship between schedule control and work engagement is mediated by schedule satisfaction and perceived supervisor support. A sample of 1343 full-time hourly retail workers was used to address the study's purpose. Hypothesized relationships were fully or partially supported. Implications for research and practice are discussed.     

Public understanding of climate change in the United States

This article considers scientific and public understandings of climate change and addresses the following question: Why is it that while scientific evidence has accumulated to document global climate change and scientific opinion has solidified about its existence and causes, U.S. public opinion has not and has instead become more polarized? Our review supports a constructivist account of human judgment. Public understanding is affected by the inherent difficulty of understanding climate change, the mismatch between people's usual modes of understanding and the task, and, particularly in the United States, a continuing societal struggle to shape the frames and mental models people use to understand the phenomena. We conclude by discussing ways in which psychology can help to improve public understanding of climate change and link a better understanding to action. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved).     

Metatheoretical Structuralism: a General Program for Analyzing Science

In spite of the ‘experimental turn’ now fashionable in the philosophy of science, the question of the structure and identity criteria of scientific theories continues to be a central issue for the philosophical analysis of empirical science. We need a precise metatheory of empirical theories to deal with this issue. Metatheoretical structuralism appears to offer the most adequate approach in this sense so far. First, some basic intuitions about what empirical theories are, and how they are structured, are laid out. Then, the main notions used by metatheoretical structuralism to analyze theories are explained, and they are illustrated by applying them to an example of a simple physical theory. Finally, it is argued that the picture of the structure and identity of empirical theories coming out of structuralistic analysis adequately corresponds to the basic intuitions stated at the beginning.     

Nonword repetition in children and adults: effects on movement coordination

Hearing and repeating novel phonetic sequences, or novel nonwords, is a task that taps many levels of processing, including auditory decoding, phonological processing, working memory, speech motor planning and execution. Investigations of nonword repetition abilities have been framed within models of psycholinguistic processing, while the motor aspects, which also are critical for task performance, have been largely ignored. We focused our investigation on both the behavioral and speech motor performance characteristics of this task as performed in a learning paradigm by 9‐ and 10‐year‐old children and young adults. Behavioral (percent correct productions) and kinematic (movement duration, lip aperture variability – an index of the consistency of inter‐articulator coordination on repeated trials) measures were obtained in order to investigate the short‐term (Day 1, first five vs. next five trials) and longer‐term (Day 1 vs. Day 2, first five vs. next five trials) changes associated with practice within and between sessions. Overall, as expected, young adults showed higher levels of behavioral accuracy and greater levels of coordinative consistency than the children. Both groups, however, showed a learning effect, such that in general, later Day 1 trials and Day 2 trials were shorter in duration and more consistent in coordination patterns than Day 1 early trials. Phonemic complexity of the nonwords had a profound effect on both the behavioral and speech motor aspects of performance. The children showed marked learning effects on all nonwords that they could produce accurately, while adults’ performance improved only when challenged by the more complex nonword stimuli in the set. The findings point to a critical role for speech motor processes within models of nonword repetition and suggest that young adults, similar to children, show short‐ and longer‐term improvements in coordinative consistency with repeated production of complex nonwords. There is also a clear developmental change in nonword production performance, such that less complex novel sequences elicit changes in speech motor performance in children, but not in adults.     

Postidentification feedback affects subsequent eyewitness identification performance

Eyewitnesses sometimes view more than one lineup during an investigation. We investigated the effects of postidentification feedback following one lineup on responses to a second lineup. Witnesses (N=621) viewed a mock crime and, later, attempted to identify the culprit from an initial (target-absent) lineup and a second (target-present or target-absent) lineup. Prior to viewing the second lineup, some witnesses received accurate feedback stating that the initial lineup did not contain the culprit. A compound-decision, signal detection approach allowed the effects of feedback on identification responses to be described in terms of differences in discriminability and response bias. For witnesses who made an incorrect foil identification from the initial lineup, feedback (vs. no feedback) was associated with poorer discriminability on the second test. For witnesses who correctly rejected the initial lineup, feedback (vs. no feedback) was associated with greater discriminability on the second test. Only witnesses who received feedback after an initial correct rejection performed at a level comparable with a single-lineup control group, suggesting that an initial identification test can impair, but not enhance, performance on a second test involving the same culprit. From a theoretical perspective, the results are consistent with the idea that the way people use memorial information when making memory decisions is flexible. Analyses of preidentification confidence ratings, obtained in a follow-up study (N=133), suggested that the effects of feedback on identification performance may have operated via differences in witnesses' metacognitive beliefs.     

Enhanced learning by posttrial injection of H1-but not H2-histaminergic antagonists into the nucleus basalis magnocellularis region

The aim of this study was to examine the effects of histaminergic antagonists on memory upon injection into the region of the nucleus basalis magnocellularis (NBM). In experiment 1, rats with chronically implanted cannulae were trained on the uphill avoidance task, which involves a punishment of a high-probability turning response on a tilted platform (negative geotaxis). Immediately after the training trial, that is, after a tail shock was administered upon performing the response, rats received one microinjection (0.5 microliter) of H1-receptor blocker chlorpheniramine (dose range 0.1 to 20 microgram) or the H2-receptor blocker ranitidine (same dose range) or saline into the NBM region. When tested 24 h later, rats treated with chlorpheniramine (20 micrograms) had significantly longer uphill latencies than vehicle controls and ranitidine-treated animals, indicative of superior learning of the avoidance response. In experiment 2, a test for possible proactive effects of posttrial chlorpheniramine on performance during the retention trial was performed. Animals were injected with either 20 micrograms chlorpheniramine or saline immediately after the training trial of the uphill task. One chlorpheniramine control group was treated with a delay of 5 h. Additional groups which received chlorpheniramine or vehicle after the training trial but no trail shock were included. When tested 24 h later, rats injected with 20 micrograms chlorpheniramine again exhibited significantly longer uphill latencies than did vehicle-injected rats. Retention latencies for the rats of the chlorpheniramine 5-h delayed group did not differ from those of the vehicle-injected rats, ruling out proactive effects of chlorpheniramine on performance. In summary, the histaminergic H1-blocker chlorpheniramine can enhance mnemonic functioning in addition to its reinforcing effects upon NBM injection as reported previously.