Activating Semantic Knowledge During Spoken Words and Environmental Sounds: Evidence From the Visual World Paradigm

Two visual world experiments investigated the activation of semantically related concepts during the processing of environmental sounds and spoken words. Participants heard environmental sounds such as barking or spoken words such as “puppy” while viewing visual arrays with objects such as a bone (semantically related competitor) and candle (unrelated distractor). In Experiment 1, a puppy (target) was also included in the visual array; in Experiment 2, it was not. During both types of auditory stimuli, competitors were fixated significantly more than distractors, supporting the coactivation of semantically related concepts in both cases; comparisons of the two types of auditory stimuli also revealed significantly larger effects with environmental sounds than spoken words. We discuss implications of these results for theories of semantic knowledge.     

Assessing planning ability with the Tower of London task: psychometric properties of a structurally balanced problem set

In clinical and experimental settings, planning ability is typically assessed using the Tower of London (ToL) or one of its variants. For enhancing the comparability across studies, a common ToL problem set was recently suggested comprising a collection of 4- to 7-move problems. Based on previous theoretical and empirical analyses of problem space and task structure, development of the problem set accounted particularly for the influence of structural problem parameters on the detection of individual differences in planning ability. To assess its adequacy as a clinical and research instrument, the present study evaluated the psychometric properties of the suggested problem set. Results showed a clear and nearly perfect linear increase of task difficulty across minimum moves. Given a broad range of item difficulty, high- and low-achieving subjects could be well discriminated. The test scores' split-half reliability (r = .72) and internal consistency (α = .69) were satisfactory. Taken together, the ToL problem set evaluated here proved to have good psychometric qualities and constitutes a conceptually sound basis for diagnostic and research purposes.     

The Multi-Stimulus Box: An innovative learning device for the comparative study of object perception and recognition with various types of stimuli

In this article, we report the construction of a novel type of automated learning device for exploring a broad range of issues in animal visual cognition. The testing box (Multi-Stimulus Box, or MSB) we describe is an experimental chamber that enables the flexible presentation of various stimulus types while providing control over incidental cues to the greatest possible extent. Among the stimuli that can be presented are photographs, real objects, and even holograms. The MSB allows for comparative research across different stimulus qualities and species, and is thus a promising tool for advancing our understanding of the role of stimulus qualities for animals' perception, discrimination, and categorization of objects.     

Further Evidence for Nonspecificity of Theory of Mind in Preschoolers: Training and Transferability in the Understanding of False Beliefs and False Signs

In a training study, the authors addressed whether or not preschoolers' difficulty with false belief is due to a domain-specific problem with mental states. Following Slaughter's (1998 Slaughter , V. ( 1998 ). Children's understanding of pictorial and mental representations . Child Development , 69 , 321 – 332 .[Crossref], [PubMed], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]) design, 57 children who failed a false-belief (FB) pretest received two sessions of training on either an FB, false sign (FS), or control task. All children were then posttested on theory-of-mind, FS, and control tasks. Results showed the FB and FS tasks were not only empirically tested as equivalent but also potentially transferable (i.e., FB training enhanced FS posttest performance, and FS training contributed to the understanding of one's own false belief), suggesting that understanding of false beliefs is an ability of representational understanding that is not restricted to mental states.     

Rationality in Action: A Symposium

Abstract

John Searle's forthcoming book ‘Rationality in Action’ presents a sophisticated and innovative account of the rationality of action. In the book Searle argues against what he calls the classical model of rationality. In the debate that follows Barry Smith challenges some implications of Searle's account. In particular, Smith suggests that Searle's distinction between observer-relative and observer–independent facts of the world is ill suited to accommodate moral concepts. Leo Zaibert takes on Searle's notion of the gap. The gap exists between the reasons that we have for acting and our actions. According to Searle, whenever there is no gap, our actions exhibit irrationality. Zaibert points out a certain obscurity in Searle's treatment of the gap, particularly in connection with Searle's notion of ‘recognitional rationality’. Finally, Josef Moural examines the interactions between Searle's theory of institutions and his theory of rationality, with emphasis on the connections between intentionality and Searle's notion of the ‘background’.     

The interaction between alerting and executive control: Dissociating phasic arousal and temporal expectancy

In recent years, studies have revealed an interaction between two systems of attention—alerting and executive control. Specifically, warning cues increase the influence of cognitive conflict under certain conditions. One of the problems of interpreting this effect is that warning cues can trigger two processes simultaneously—a high arousal state and strategic temporal expectancy. The goal of the present study was to clarify which process underlies the increased congruency effects following a warning event. In two experiments, the influence of warning cues on flanker congruency was examined while controlling for the effects of temporal expectancy and arousal. Experiment 1 revealed a strong effect of warning cues on congruency, even when the warning cues were not temporally predictive. This effect was evident at two short cue-to-target intervals of 100 and 500 ms, but not following a 900-ms interval. Experiment 2 revealed that this effect was not altered even when the warning cues predicted with high certainty that the target would appear at long cue-to-target intervals (e.g., 900 ms). We suggest that the interaction between alerting and executive control reflects the involvement of a subcortical mechanism responsible for increasing arousal.