The Interdisciplinarity of Collaborations in Cognitive Science

We introduce a new metric for interdisciplinarity, based on co‐author publication history. A published article that has co‐authors with quite different publication histories can be deemed relatively “interdisciplinary,” in that the article reflects a convergence of previous research in distinct sets of publication outlets. In recent work, we have shown that this interdisciplinarity metric can predict citations. Here, we show that the journal Cognitive Science tends to contain collaborations that are relatively high on this interdisciplinarity metric, at about the 80th percentile of all journals across both social and natural sciences. Following on Goldstone and Leydesdorff (2006), we describe how scientometric tools provide a valuable means of assessing the role of cognitive science in broader scientific work, and also as a tool to investigate teamwork and distributed cognition. We describe how data‐driven metrics of this kind may facilitate this exploration without relying upon rapidly changing discipline and topic keywords associated with publications.     

Skilled German Migrants and Their Motives for Migration Within Europe

German migration within Europe has so far received little attention from researchers. This is especially true of migrants with intermediate qualifications (vocational training, technical school, master craftsman’s certificate). The present contribution is devoted to this phenomenon and examines the reasons why people belonging to this particular group migrate. To do this we pick up on central theoretical arguments in migration research, on the basis of which we examine the relevance of economic and social factors for Germans who migrate within Europe. It emerges that, empirically, for Germans with intermediate qualifications, economic factors are crucial. In particular, unemployment, low or falling wages, as well as poor working conditions in Germany constitute important push factors, while job offers, higher wages and better working conditions in the destination countries constitute the main pull factors. In comparison, social networks are less important factors in migration, since only in a few cases did the interviewees have solid contacts abroad. The empirical results of the study are based on the analysis of available population statistics and 40 problem-centred, biographical interviews carried out between October 2006 and April 2007 in various regions of Germany (Schleswig-Holstein, Hamburg, Bremen, Lower Saxony, Berlin).     

The explanatory potential of artificial societies

It is often claimed that artificial society simulations contribute to the explanation of social phenomena. At the hand of a particular example, this paper argues that artificial societies often cannot provide full explanations, because their models are not or cannot be validated. Despite that, many feel that such simulations somehow contribute to our understanding. This paper tries to clarify this intuition by investigating whether artificial societies provide potential explanations. It is shown that these potential explanations, if they contribute to our understanding, considerably differ from potential causal explanations. Instead of possible causal histories, simulations offer possible functional analyses of the explanandum. The paper discusses how these two kinds explanatory strategies differ, and how potential functional explanations can be appraised.     

Electrophysiological evidence for cognitive control during conflict processing in visual spatial attention

Event-related potentials were measured to investigate the role of visual spatial attention mechanisms in conflict processing. We suggested that a more difficult target selection leads to stronger attentional top-down control, thereby reducing the effects of arising conflicts. This hypothesis was tested by varying the selection difficulty in a location negative priming (NP) paradigm. The difficult task resulted in prolonged responses as compared to the easy task. A behavioral NP effect was only evident in the easy task. Psychophysiologically the easy task was associated with reduced parietal N1, enhanced frontocentral N2 and N2pc components and a prolonged P3 latency for the conflict as compared to the control condition. The N2pc effect was also obvious in the difficult task. Additionally frontocentral N2 amplitudes increased and latencies of N2pc and P3 were delayed compared to the easy task. The differences at frontocentral and parietal electrodes are consistent with previous studies ascribing activity in the prefrontal and parietal cortex as the source of top-down attentional control. Thus, we propose that stronger cognitive control is involved in the difficult task, resulting in a reduced behavioral NP conflict.     

Learning from Minimal Economic Models

It is argued that one can learn from minimal economic models. Minimal models are models that are not similar to the real world, do not resemble some of its features, and do not adhere to accepted regularities. One learns from a model if constructing and analysing the model affects one’s confidence in hypotheses about the world. Economic models, I argue, are often assessed for their credibility. If a model is judged credible, it is considered to be a relevant possibility. Considering such relevant possibilities may affect one’s confidence in necessity or impossibility hypotheses. Thus, one can learn from minimal economic models.

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Variability, covariation, and invariance with respect to coordinate systems in motor control: reply to Smeets and Louw (2007)

In their comment on the tolerance-noise covariation (TNC) method for decomposing variability by H. Müller and D. Sternad (2003, 2004b), J. B. J. Smeets and S. Louw show that covariation (C), as defined within the TNC method, is not invariant with respect to coordinate transformations and contend that it is, therefore, meaningless. Although the observation is correct, their interpretation is misleading in the following ways: (a) They equate covariation C with the known statistical quantity covariance and noise (N) with standard deviations. The two quantities C and N are conceptually different statistical measures. (b) Dependency on the reference frame is not only a feature of C but of all 3 components. However, such dependency is ubiquitous in motor control. (c) As the frame of reference in biological systems is poorly understood, the TNC method may afford evaluation of different coordinates for control.     

Effects of semantic and nonsemantic cued orienting tasks on associative clustering in free recall

Memory & Cognition - During presentation of a randomized list of nonadjacent associative pairs, Ss heard a cue after each word designating the task to be performed. All Ss performed two tasks....     

Is there really very rapid forgetting from primary memory? The role of expectancy and item importance in short-term recall

In two experiments, subjects recalled one of two letter segments following a digit-filled retention interval. In Experiment 1, recall expectancy was manipulated by using precues that correctly informed or misinformed subjects concerning which letter segment wou;d be tested for recall. In Experiment 2, item importance was varied by precuing one segment as important but requiring that the uncued segment be recalled first. Recall performance was very low under conditions of low expectancy and low segment importance, but the slopes of the retention-functions did not demonstrate more rapid forgetting than under standard -conditions. The previous observations of very rapid forgetting from primary memory may be a function of an elevated initial recall level in the earlier studies. Our retention functions were compared with predictions of the Estes perturbation model. The findings suggested that when secondary memory processes were reduced, forgetting order information from primary memory occurred at the same rate as that estimated on the basis of previous studies using the standard distractor task.     

Uncertainty is associated with increased selective attention and sustained stimulus processing

Uncertainty about future threat has been found to be associated with an overestimation of threat probability and is hypothesized to elicit additional allocation of attention. We used event-related potentials to examine uncertainty-related dynamics in attentional allocation, exploiting brain potentials’ high temporal resolution and sensitivity to attention. Thirty participants performed a picture-viewing task in which cues indicated the subsequent picture valence. A certain-neutral and a certain-aversive cue accurately predicted subsequent picture valence, whereas an uncertain cue did not. Participants overestimated the effective frequency of aversive pictures following the uncertain cue, both during and after the task, signifying expectancy and covariation biases, and they tended to express lower subjective valences for aversive pictures presented after the uncertain cue. Pictures elicited increased P2 and LPP amplitudes when their valence could not be predicted from the cue. For the LPP, this effect was more pronounced in response to neutral pictures. Uncertainty appears to enhance the engagement of early phasic and sustained attention for uncertainly cued targets. Thus, defensive motivation related to uncertainty about future threat elicits specific attentional dynamics implicating prioritization at various processing stages, especially for nonthreatening stimuli that tend to violate expectations.