Sistemas expertos y psicología cognitiva: una visión general

Resumen

El presente trabajo intenta ofrecer una visión sintética del tema de los sistemas expertos que trata de hacer hincapié en aquellos aspectos de este campo que pudieran resultar más relevantes para el psicólogo interesado en la cognición. Se traza un breve esbozo del marco científico-técnico de la inteligencia artificial en general, a partir del cual se intenta caracterizar a los sistemas expertos desde dos puntos de vista principales: en primer lugar, el tipo de problemas y tareas a los que se destinan dichos sistemas y, en segundo lugar, la estructura computacional subyacente que ha permitido abordarlos con éxito. Se discute la relación histórico-científica entre la inteligencia artificial y la psicología cognitiva, observándose que se ha producido un flujo constante y bidireccional de conceptos teóricos, métodos y problemas conceptuales de una a otra, especialmente en el actual marco interdisciplinar de la ciencia cognitiva. Dado este contexto, se argumenta que es muy posible que los sistemas expertos aporten novedades conceptuales y metodológicas significativas para la Psicología. Por último, se especula sobre algunas cuestiones en las que podría tener lugar tal contribución.     

Interacción social y nivel de conflicto sociocognoscitivo en la construcción del esquema de probabilidad

Resumen

En este estudio se analiza la influencia que la interacción social y el conflicto sociocognitivo tienen en la construcción del esquema de probabilidad por medio de un diseño pretest-intervención-postest.

Se muestra cómo las situaciones experimentales de interacción social con conflicto sociocognitivo producen mayores logros durante la fase de intervención, así como mayores avances cognitivos en el postest en el esquema de probabilidad que las condiciones de trabajo individual y las de interacción sin conflicto. Los progresos alcanzados en el postest para el esquema de probabilidad se generalizaron al esquema de proporciones.     

Birds of a feather… Generalization of facial structures following massive familiarization

Three experiments examined the effects of symmetry and complexity, as facial structures, on the aesthetic judgments of faces, and how these effects are modulated by moderate or massive familiarization. Results showed that symmetrical faces were judged as more attractive than nonsymmetrical faces, and simple faces were judged as more attractive than complex faces—with complexity defined as the number of facial elements. Complexity in faces seemed to have overridden the usually positive effects of facial symmetry. Moreover, while moderate familiarization did not modulate the effects, massive familiarization to a specific face type resulted in structural generalization effects: participants provided higher aesthetic judgments to faces that were new, but similarly structured to those which they were familiarized. This latter result contrasts previous studies that have found structural contrast effects following familiarization to meaningless, abstract stimuli. Taken together, these results reflect the greater biological and social significance of faces as compared to other objects in the world. They also show that people are drawn to those with familiar characteristics.     

Hurlbert Index of Sexual Assertiveness: a study of psychometric properties in a Spanish sample

The study analyzed psychometric properties of a Spanish version of the Hurlbert Index of Sexual Assertiveness in a Spanish sample of 400 men and 453 women who had had a partner for the last 6 mo. or longer at the time of the study. Exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses suggested a two-factor solution with the factors Initiation and No shyness/Refusal. Internal consistency values for total scores were .87 and .83 for the factors, respectively. Convergent validity tests were also satisfactory. It is therefore reasonable to conclude that the Spanish version of the scale has appropriate psychometric properties.     

Does<Emphasis Type="SmallCaps">LGHT</Emphasis> prime<Emphasis Type="SmallCaps">DARK</Emphasis>? Masked associative priming with addition neighbors

We present two masked priming lexical decision experiments in which we examined whether a nonword prime word would activate associative/semantic information from its corresponding addition neighbor (e.g.,lght-DARK via the addition neighborlight), producing associative/semantic priming. The rationale was the following: If a nonword prime with a missing letter produced a semantic/associative priming effect, this would clearly indicate that this nonword was activating the lexical/semantic representations of its base word, thereby reinforcing the models of visual-word recognition in which the orthographic representations produced bylght (orligt) andlight are quite similar (e.g., SOLAR, SERIOL, open-bigram, and overlap models). The results showed that the magnitude of the masked associative priming effect with subset primes was remarkably similar to that of the priming effect with the corresponding word prime. Furthermore, the magnitude of the associative priming effect was similar when the deleted letter was a vowel and when the deleted letter was a consonant.     

Memory for objects in canonical and noncanonical viewpoints

This article investigates how the perspective from which we see an object affects memory. Object identification can be affected by the orientation of the object. Palmer, Rosch, and Chase (1981) coined the term canonical to describe perspectives in which identification performance is best. We present two experiments that tested the effects of object perspective on memory. Our results revealed a double dissociation between task (recognition and recall) and type of object perspective. In recognition, items studied in the noncanonical viewpoint produced higher proportions of “old” responses than did items studied in the canonical viewpoint, whereas new objects presented from a noncanonical viewpoint produced fewer “old” responses than did new objects presented from the canonical viewpoint. In free recall, conversely, objects studied from the noncanonical viewpoint produced lower recall rates than did objects studied from the canonical viewpoint. These results, which reveal a pattern similar to word frequency effects, support the psychological reality of canonical viewpoints and the frequencyof-exposure-based accounts of canonical viewpoint effects. 2008 Psychonomic Society, Inc     

The International Affective Digitized Sounds (IADS): Spanish norms

The International Affective Digitized Sounds (IADS): Spanish Norms. The Spanish norms for the International Affective Digitized Sounds (IADS) are reported. The IADS is a standardized set of 110 digitalized sounds which are both reliable and valid for the experimental study of emotional processes. The construction of the IADS is based on Peter J. Lang's dimensional model of emotions. Participants were 1.716 university students (1.136 women) who assessed the sounds using the three scales of the Self-Assessment Manikin: affective valence, arousal, and dominance. The results show a distribution of the sounds, within the bidimensional plot defined by valence and arousal, similar to the North-American student population with a typical boomerang shape. No significant differences were found when comparing men and women nor when comparing the Spanish and North-American samples in the total set of sounds. The results are discussed in relation to the International Affective Picture System (IAPS). The norms for each of the 110 sounds are presented in an annexed table.     

Predicting Outcomes or Modeling Process? Commentary on the Health Action Process Approach

Schwarzer (2008 ) reviews the evidence for two major contributions of the Health Action Process Approach model (HAPA) to current theory and behavioral health research: (1) the differentiation of concepts by both content and process, and (2) clear recognition of the temporal aspect in the assembly of health behavior sequences. This commentary discusses four areas for HAPA to address for a more complete explanation of health behaviors and their determinants. Further, we suggest that incorporating into HAPA the hierarchical structure of the control systems that regulate health behaviors and the importance of concrete experience in initiating and maintaining behavior, elements emphasised in the Commonsense Model of Self‐regulation, will enrich HAPA's theoretical base and increase its utility for the development of interventions for behavioral change. Schwarzer (2008 ) examine les données confirmant deux contributions majeures du modèle de l’Approche du Processus de l’Action en faveur de la Santé (HAPA) à la théorie et aux recherches sur les comportements relatifs à la santé: 1) La différenciation des concepts à la fois par le contenu et le processus, 2) Un repérage précis de la dimension temporelle dans l’articulation des séquences comportementales relevant de la santé. Ce commentaire aborde quatre points qui permettraient à l’HAPA de fournir une explication plus complète des conduites liées à la santé et de leurs antécédents. Il semble en outre que l’introduction dans l’HAPA de la structure hiérarchique des systèmes de contrôle qui régulent les comportements de santé et de l’aspect important qu’est l’expérience concrète dans l’amorce et le maintien du comportement, éléments mis en valeur par le Modèle du Sens Commun de l’Autorégulation, enrichirait les fondements théoriques de l’HAPA et augmenterait son utilité pour l’élaboration d’interventions en faveur du changement comportemental.     

Persuasion: From Single to Multiple to Metacognitive Processes

ABSTRACT— This article provides a brief overview of major developments in the history of contemporary persuasion theory. The first intuitive and empirical approaches to persuasion were guided by main-effect questions (e.g., are experts more persuasive than nonexperts?). Furthermore, researchers focused on only one process by which variables (e.g., emotion, source credibility) would have an impact (e.g., emotion affected attitudes by classical conditioning). As data began to accumulate, so many new theories and effects were uncovered that the discipline faced collapse from the numerous inconsistencies evident. In response to the reigning confusion of the previous era, contemporary multiprocess theories were proposed (e.g., the elaboration likelihood model). According to these more integrative approaches, any one variable could affect attitudes by different processes in different situations and thereby sometimes produce opposite effects. Finally, we describe the role of a recently discovered new contributor to persuasion: self-validation. Unlike previous mechanisms that focus on primary cognition, this new process emphasizes secondary or meta-cognition.