Body-extension versus body-incorporation: Is there a need for a body-model?

This paper investigates the role of a pre-existing body-model that is an enabling constraint for the incorporation of objects into the body. This body-model is also a basis for the distinction between body extensions (e.g., in the case of tool-use) and incorporation (e.g., in the case of successful prosthesis use). It is argued that, in the case of incorporation, changes in the sense of body-ownership involve a reorganization of the body-model, whereas extension of the body with tools does not involve changes in the sense of body-ownership.     

Failure to loose fear: The impact of cognitive load and trait anxiety on extinction

Exposure therapy is an effective technique for fear reduction. However, whether effective exposure requires attentional allocation to the feared situation remains a debated clinical issue. In the present study, the impact of attention allocation in extinction was investigated in an experimental conditioning study. Through a between-subjects manipulation of cognitive load, we created a condition in which participants could allocate their attention to the feared stimulus during extinction (low load condition), and a condition in which attentional allocation was impaired (high load condition). The influence of cognitive load on extinction was examined by comparing electrodermal responses and verbal ratings for the conditioned stimuli in the two extinction load conditions. The results show less successful extinction in the high load condition than in the low load condition. However, this effect was found only in low anxious participants, and it was prominent only on the skin conductance responses. The present results suggest that extinction is not automatic but requires cognitive resources.     

Geometric analogue of holographic reduced representation

Holographic reduced representations (HRRs) are distributed representations of cognitive structures based on superpositions of convolution-bound n-tuples. Restricting HRRs to n-tuples consisting of ±1, one reinterprets the variable binding as a representation of the additive group of binary n-tuples with addition modulo 2. Since convolutions are not defined for vectors, the HRRs cannot be directly associated with geometric structures. Geometric analogues of HRRs are obtained if one considers a projective representation of the same group in the space of blades (geometric products of basis vectors) associated with an arbitrary n-dimensional Euclidean (or pseudo-Euclidean) space. Switching to matrix representations of Clifford algebras, one can always turn a geometric analogue of an HRR into a form of matrix distributed representation. In typical applications the resulting matrices are sparse, so that the matrix representation is less efficient than the representation directly employing the rules of geometric algebra. A yet more efficient procedure is based on ‘projected products’, a hierarchy of geometrically meaningful n-tuple multiplication rules obtained by combining geometric products with projections on relevant multivector subspaces. In terms of dimensionality the geometric analogues of HRRs are in between holographic and tensor-product representations.     

How emotion communication guides reciprocity: Establishing cooperation through disappointment and anger

Emotions fulfill many social functions, but data on their essential function of establishing cooperation are lacking. We investigated how communicating anger and disappointment guides reciprocal cooperative behavior. Although anger may force cooperation by announcing retaliation, we predicted that communicating disappointment was less likely to backfire. A laboratory study in which participants played against the reciprocal strategy of tit-for-tat showed that communicated disappointment established more cooperation than did anger. This effect also carried over to future cooperation decisions. Partners communicating disappointment evoked less anger, were evaluated more positively and as forgiving rather than retaliatory. Communication of disappointment thus appears conducive to establishing mutually beneficial relationships.     

Transfer of avoidance responding to a sensory preconditioned cue: Evidence for the role of S-S and R-S knowledge in avoidance learning

In avoidance learning studies, a warning signal (Sd) is directly paired with an aversive unconditioned stimulus (US) unless a particular response is performed. Research by Augustson and Dougher (1997) demonstrated that not only warning signals but also stimuli that are indirectly paired with the aversive event are capable of affecting the avoidance response. In the present study, we extended these results by incorporating a sensory preconditioning paradigm in an avoidance learning procedure. Sensory preconditioning training influenced the selection of avoidance responses in the presence of warning signals that were never paired directly with the aversive events. Moreover, results suggest that the selection of the avoidance responses was based on an integration of knowledge about the relation between the Sd and the US (S-S knowledge) and knowledge about the relation between the avoidance response and the US (R-S knowledge). As the expectancy-based theory of Lovibond (2006) is the only theory of avoidance that incorporates both knowledge structures, the results provide unique support for this theory.     

Associative theories of goal-directed behaviour: a case for animal–human translational models

Associative accounts of goal-directed action, developed in the fields of human ideomotor action and that of animal learning, can capture cognitive belief-desire psychology of human decision-making. Whereas outcome-response accounts can account for the fact that the thought of a goal can call to mind the action that has previously procured this goal, response-outcome accounts capture decision-making processes that start out with the consideration of possible response alternatives followed only in the second instance by evaluation of their consequences. We argue that while the outcome-response mechanism plays a crucial role in response priming effects, the response-outcome mechanism is particularly important for action selection on the basis of current needs and desires. We therefore develop an integrative account that encapsulates these two routes of action selection within the framework of the associative-cybernetic model. This model has the additional benefit of providing mechanisms for the incentive modulation of goal-directed action and for the development of behavioural autonomy, and therefore provides a promising account of the multi-faceted process of animal as well as human instrumental decision-making.

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Phonotactic regularities in the segmentation of spoken Italian

Five word-spotting experiments explored the role of consonantal and vocalic phonotactic cues in the segmentation of spoken Italian. The first set of experiments tested listeners' sensitivity to phonotactic constraints cueing syllable boundaries. Participants were slower in spotting words in nonsense strings when target onsets were misaligned (e.g., lago in ri.blago) than when they were aligned (e.g., lago in rin.lago) with phonotactically determined syllabic boundaries. This effect held also for sequences that occur only word-medially (e.g., /tl/ in ri.tlago), and competition effects could not account for the disadvantage in the misaligned condition. Similarly, target detections were slower when their offsets were misaligned (e.g., cittá in cittáu.ba) than when they were aligned (e.g., cittá in cittá.oba) with a phonotactic syllabic boundary. The second set of experiments tested listeners' sensitivity to phonotactic cues, which specifically signal lexical (and not just syllable) boundaries. Results corroborate the role of syllabic information in speech segmentation and suggest that Italian listeners make little use of additional phonotactic information that specifically cues word boundaries.     

How do People Evaluate Objects? A Brief Review

Evaluation can be defined either as the process of determining the liking of an object or as responding in an evaluative manner to objects. It can be studied by examining the evaluative responses that objects evoke. After justifying these definitions and this approach to the study of evaluation, I present a brief overview of what is known about the variables that influence evaluative responding. Finally, I describe the Associative-Propositional Evaluation model as an example of a theory about the mental processes that are assumed to underlie evaluative responding.     

Semisupervised category learning: The impact of feedback in learning the information-integration task

In a standard supervised classification paradigm, stimuli are presented sequentially, participants make a classification, and feedback follows immediately. In this article, we use a semisupervised classification paradigm, in which feedback is given after a prespecified percentage of trials only. In Experiment 1, feedback was given in 100%, 0%, 25%, and 50% of the trials. Previous research reported by Ashby, Queller, and Berretty (1999) indicated that in an information-integration task, perfect accuracy was obtained supervised (100%) but not unsupervised (0%). Our results show that in both the 100% and 50% conditions, participants were able to achieve maximum accuracy. However, in the 0% and the 25% conditions, participants failed to learn. To discover the influence of the no-feedback trials on the learning process, the 50% condition was replicated in Experiment 2, substituting unrelated filler trials for the no-feedback trials. The results indicated that accuracy rates were similar, suggesting no impact of the no-feedback trials on the learning process. The possibility of ever learning in a 25% setting was also researched in Experiment 2. Using twice as many trials, the results showed that all but 2 participants succeeded, suggesting that only the total number of feedback trials is important. The impact of the semisupervised learning results for ALCOVE, COVIS, and SPEED models is discussed.