An amorphous model for morphological processing in visual comprehension based on naive discriminative learning

A 2-layer symbolic network model based on the equilibrium equations of the Rescorla-Wagner model (Danks, 2003) is proposed. The study first presents 2 experiments in Serbian, which reveal for sentential reading the inflectional paradigmatic effects previously observed by Milin, Filipovi? ?ur?evi?, and Moscoso del Prado Martín (2009) for unprimed lexical decision. The empirical results are successfully modeled without having to assume separate representations for inflections or data structures such as inflectional paradigms. In the next step, the same naive discriminative learning approach is pitted against a wide range of effects documented in the morphological processing literature. Frequency effects for complex words as well as for phrases (Arnon & Snider, 2010) emerge in the model without the presence of whole-word or whole-phrase representations. Family size effects (Moscoso del Prado Martín, Bertram, H?iki?, Schreuder, & Baayen, 2004; Schreuder & Baayen, 1997) emerge in the simulations across simple words, derived words, and compounds, without derived words or compounds being represented as such. It is shown that for pseudo-derived words no special morpho-orthographic segmentation mechanism, as posited by Rastle, Davis, and New (2004), is required. The model also replicates the finding of Plag and Baayen (2009) that, on average, words with more productive affixes elicit longer response latencies; at the same time, it predicts that productive affixes afford faster response latencies for new words. English phrasal paradigmatic effects modulating isolated word reading are reported and modeled, showing that the paradigmatic effects characterizing Serbian case inflection have crosslinguistic scope.     

Measuring mindfulness—the Freiburg Mindfulness Inventory (FMI)

Mindfulness, a concept originally derived from Buddhist psychology, is essential for some well-known clinical interventions. Therefore an instrument for measuring mindfulness is useful. We report here on two studies constructing and validating the Freiburg Mindfulness Inventory (FMI) including a short form. A preliminary questionnaire was constructed through expert interviews and extensive literature analysis and tested in 115 subjects attending mindfulness meditation retreats. This psychometrically sound 30-item scale with an internal consistency of Cronbach alpha = .93 was able to significantly demonstrate the increase in mindfulness after the retreat and to discriminate between experienced and novice meditators. In a second study we broadened the scope of the concept to 86 subjects without meditation experience, 117 subjects with clinical problems, and 54 participants from retreats. Reducing the scale to a short form with 14 items resulted in a semantically robust and psychometrically stable (alpha = .86) form. Correlation with other relevant constructs (self-awareness, dissociation, global severity index, meditation experience in years) was significant in the medium to low range of correlations and lends construct validity to the scale. Principal Component Analysis suggests one common factor. This short scale is sensitive to change and can be used also with subjects without previous meditation experience.     

Tense and agreement in German agrammatism

This study presents results from sentence-completion and grammaticality-judgment tasks with 7 German-speaking agrammatic aphasics and 7 age-matched control subjects examining tense and subject-verb agreement marking. For both experimental tasks, we found that the aphasics achieved high correctness scores for agreement, while tense marking was severely impaired. To account for the observed tense-agreement dissociation, we suggest that the functional category T(ense)/INFL(ection) is tense-defective in agrammatic aphasia, i.e., it is specified for [+/-Realis], but not for [+/-Past]. It will also be argued that other accounts, specifically the tree-pruning model, do not explain our findings.     

Do type and token effects reflect different mechanisms? Connectionist modeling of Dutch past-tense formation and final devoicing

In this paper, we show that both token and type-based effects in lexical processing can result from a single, token-based, system, and therefore, do not necessarily reflect different levels of processing. We report three Simple Recurrent Networks modeling Dutch past-tense formation. These networks show token-based frequency effects and type-based analogical effects closely matching the behavior of human participants when producing past-tense forms for both existing verbs and pseudo-verbs. The third network covers the full vocabulary of Dutch, without imposing predefined linguistic structure on the input or output words.     

Effects of practice and transfer in the detection of embedded figures

Gottschaldt's (1926) study on embedded figures serves as the foundation for the claim that Gestalt factors limit the impact of experience on perception. The present experiments studied the effects of practice and transfer on the detection of embedded figures. Experiment 1 showed the clear effects of practice that might have been due to recognition. Moreover, it demonstrated the effects of transfer, thus reducing the potential impact of recognition. Experiment 2 replicated practice effects and extended them to other types of part and whole figures. It was conducted to evaluate the specificity of the transfer in more detail. In Experiments 1 and 2, transfer between old and new items only occurred when either the figures and their basic elements were of the same kind or the same search strategies could be used. Thus, perceptual abilities improve by training even when Gestalt factors are at work. Possible sources of these improvements are discussed with special attention to a distinction between figural and procedural aspects.     

The etiology of specific fears and phobias in children: a critique of the non-associative account

The non-associative account of phobic etiology assumes that a number of specific fears (e.g., fear of heights, water, spiders, strangers, and separation) have an evolutionary background and may occur in the absence of learning experiences (e.g., conditioning). By this view, these specific fears pertain to stimuli that once posed a challenge to the survival of our prehistoric ancestors. Accordingly, they would emerge spontaneously during the course of normal development and only in a minority of individuals, these specific fears would persist into adulthood. While the non-associative approach has generated interesting findings, several critical points can be raised. First, it capitalizes on negative findings, i.e., the failure to document learning experiences (e.g., conditioning, modeling) in the history of phobic children. Second, it largely ignores factors that have been found to be crucial for the acquisition of early childhood fears (e.g., the developmental level of the child, stimulus characteristics such as novelty, aversiveness, and unpredictability, and early experience with uncontrollable events). As an alternative to the non-associative account, we briefly describe a multifactorial model of childhood fears and phobias.     

Word order in sentence processing: an experimental study of verb placement in German

We examine the question of whether the human comprehension device exhibits word-order preferences during on-line sentence comprehension. The focus is on the positioning of finite verbs and auxiliaries relative to subjects and objects in German. Results from three experiments (using self-paced reading and event-related brain potentials) show that native speakers of German prefer to process finite verbs in second position (i.e., immediately after the subject and before the object). We will account for this order preference in terms of the relative processing costs associated with SV_fO and SOV_f. Our finding that word-order preferences play an important role in the on-line comprehension of German sentences is compatible with results from previous studies on English and other languages.     

The Aubert-Foerster phenomenon and its relation to Manifest Anxiety

Summary The narrowing of the visual field with an increase in distance between a person and a pre-set fixation point was investigated with 20 persons under stable background and with 10 persons under moving background conditions. Optical stimuli were introduced from the periphery and readings were taken at the limit of sharp perception of the figure by the subject. The Aubert-Foerster phenomenon, the easier recognition of small, near objects compared with larger, more distant objects subtending the same visual angle, was used as a starting point. The subjects were equally divided into high and low anxiety groups on the basis of Taylor's Manifest Anxiety Scale.The Aubert-Foerster phenomenon does exist in both experimental situations, under conditions of stable and moving background.Differences in visual angles and in amount of Aubert-Foerster phenomenon are found for the high and low anxiety groups under both experimental conditions.Under conditions of moving background with a centrally imposed task both experimental groups show greater narrowing of the visual angle than they did when exposed to stable background; on the contrary, the visual angle becomes increased when the centrally located task becomes simplified.

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Zusammenfassung Der Winkel zwischen der Blickrichtung und der Sehrichtung, bei welchem ein peripher dargebotener Gegenstand eben erkannt wird, nimmt bei gleichbleibender Größe des Netzhautbildes ab, wenn der Beobachtungsabstand vergrößert wird: Aubert-Foerster-Phänomen.Dieses Phänomen stellt den Ausgangspunkt vorliegender Arbeit dar, in der 30 Versuchspersonen herangezogen wurden, um die Frage nach der Gesichtsfeldeinengung mittels peripher vor unbewegtem und bewegtem Hintergrund einwandernder Figuren zu untersuchen. Die Versuchspersonen in den beiden Versuchsklassen wurden nach Taylors Manifest Anxiety Scale in Gruppen von hohem und niedrigem Anxiety-Wert zusammengefaßt.Das Aubert-Foerster-Phänomen tritt in beiden Versuchssituationen auf, d.h. beim Fixieren der Figuren vor dem bewegten als auch dem unbewegten Hintergrund.Für die hohen und niedrigen Anxiety-Gruppen bestehen in beiden Versuchsklassen Unterschiede hinsichtlich der nach dem Aubert-Foerster-Phänomen zu erwartenden Winkelgröße.Bei den Versuchen vor bewegtem Hintergrund wird der experimentell bestimmte Winkel größer als der theoretisch erwartete, wenn die Anzahl der Reize vermindert, d. h. die Aufgabe vereinfacht wird. Es besteht offenbar eine direkte Beziehung zwischen der geforderten Aufmerksamkeit an der Stelle deutlichsten Sehens und der peripheren Sehleistung.

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Dr. Mangans help in the collection of the data and his advice were greatly appreciated.     

Storage and integration in the processing of filler-gap dependencies: an ERP study of topicalization and wh-movement in German

We recorded event-related brain potentials (ERPs) during the processing of unambiguous German sentences containing different types of filler-gap dependency. Both topicalization constructions and wh-questions were found to elicit a left-anterior negativity (LAN) prior to the processing of the subcategorizing verb, relative to a gap-free control condition. At the subcategorizing verb, sentences containing a wh-dependency produced a parietal positivity (P600) relative to topicalization structures. These results support the claim that separable parsing processes are involved in the processing of syntactic dependencies, with working memory based processes being reflected in an LAN, and the relative difficulty of integrating the filler with its subcategorizer reflected in a P600. Integration cost but not memory cost was found to be influenced by the type of filler-gap dependency involved.     

Amnesia,flashbacks, nightmares,and dissociation in aging concentration camp survivors

The current study examined to what extent war memories of Dutch survivors of Japanese/Indonesian concentration camps display characteristics that are often believed to be typical for traumatic memories. Twenty-nine survivors were interviewed about amnesia, flashbacks, nightmares and the sensory quality of their most upsetting war memories. In addition, they completed self-report scales measuring post-traumatic stress symptoms and dissociation. In contrast to prevailing notions, amnesia, flashbacks and nightmares were not typical for this sample. Neither were traumatic memories characterized by a particularly strong sensory loading. Post-traumatic stress symptoms were not related to dissociative experiences. At least for this group of aging survivors, it appears that the pathogenic potential of traumatic memories has more to do with their extremely aversive content than with a qualitatively different type of organization of these memories.