Costs and benefits of representational change: effects of context on age and sex differences in symbolic magnitude estimation

Studies have reported high correlations in accuracy across estimation contexts, robust transfer of estimation training to novel numerical contexts, and adults drawing mistaken analogies between numerical and fractional values. We hypothesized that these disparate findings may reflect the benefits and costs of learning linear representations of numerical magnitude. Specifically, children learn that their default logarithmic representations are inappropriate for many numerical tasks, leading them to adopt more appropriate linear representations despite linear representations being inappropriate for estimating fractional magnitude. In Experiment 1, this hypothesis accurately predicted a developmental shift from logarithmic to linear estimates of numerical magnitude and a negative correlation between accuracy of numerical and fractional magnitude estimates (r = −.80). In Experiment 2, training that improved numerical estimates also led to poorer fractional magnitude estimates. Finally, both before and after training that eliminated age differences in estimation accuracy, complementary sex differences were observed across the two estimation contexts.     

Apprentissage de concepts perceptuels, associationnels et relationnels chez le pigeon

The study of concepts in cognitive psychology has generally been anthropocentric with respect to both content and theory. A broader comparative perspective on the various forms of concept learning would provide a more inclusive view of conceptual behavior. It would also provide a more objective perspective from which to identify underlying processes. Several of the major varieties of conceptual classes claimed for humans alone also appear to be represented in nonhuman animals and young children: perceptual classes involving classification according to the shared attributes of objects, associative classes or functional equivalences in which stimuli form a class based on common associations and relational classes, in which the conceptual relationship between stimuli defines the class.     

不同问题情景对小学生运用乘法运算策略的影响

通过设置不同问题情景引导被试利用乘法运算定律解决数学问题,探讨不同问题情景对小学四、六年级学生运用乘法运算策略的影响。结果表明:(1)被试掌握交换律的情况均好于分配律;即使没有正式学过交换律,四年级被试使用交换律的成绩与六年级被试没有显著差异。(2)六年级被试在同形问题情景中利用分配律线索的成绩好于其它的问题情景,两个年级后进生同形问题的成绩均好于其它问题情景。总体而言,相对于面积问题情景和笛卡尔积问题情景,同形问题表征方式更有利于小学生利用乘法运算策略。     

Spatial and linguistic aspects of visual imagery in sentence comprehension

There is mounting evidence that language comprehension involves the activation of mental imagery of the content of utterances ( Barsalou, 1999 ; Bergen, Chang, & Narayan, 2004 ; Bergen, Narayan, & Feldman, 2003 ; Narayan, Bergen, & Weinberg, 2004 ; Richardson, Spivey, McRae, & Barsalou, 2003 ; Stanfield & Zwaan, 2001 ; Zwaan, Stanfield, & Yaxley, 2002 ). This imagery can have motor or perceptual content. Three main questions about the process remain under‐explored, however. First, are lexical associations with perception or motion sufficient to yield mental simulation, or is the integration of lexical semantics into larger structures, like sentences, necessary? Second, what linguistic elements (e.g., verbs, nouns, etc.) trigger mental simulations? Third, how detailed are the visual simulations that are performed? A series of behavioral experiments address these questions, using a visual object categorization task to investigate whether up‐ or down‐related language selectively interferes with visual processing in the same part of the visual field (following Richardson et al., 2003 ). The results demonstrate that either subject nouns or main verbs can trigger visual imagery, but only when used in literal sentences about real space—metaphorical language does not yield significant effects—which implies that it is the comprehension of the sentence as a whole and not simply lexical associations that yields imagery effects. These studies also show that the evoked imagery contains detail as to the part of the visual field where the described scene would take place.     

中层管理人员结构化面试测评效度的现场研究

通过对某上市公司随机抽取的43位中层管理人员素质测评的现场研究,探讨结构化面试的信度效度问题。研究设计基于岗位分析与关键事件分析,采用3人小组面试的方法,同时实施情景面试与行为描述面试,综合测评被试岗位胜任能力。分析结果表明,评委要素评价内部一致性和评委间内部一致性都比较高,并与面试半年后上级评定的任务绩效和总体绩效显著相关,结构化面试具有较高的信度与预测效度。进一步比较情景面试和行为描述面试发现,这两种结构化面试有类似的信度,但是行为描述面试具有更高的效度。     

The Space–Time Congruency Effect: A Meta‐Analysis

Several reaction time (RT) studies report faster responses when responses to temporal information are arranged in a spatially congruent manner than when this arrangement is incongruent. The resulting space–time congruency effect is commonly attributed to a culturally salient localization of temporal information along a mental timeline (e.g., a mental timeline that runs from left to right). The present study aims to provide a compilation of the published RT studies on this time–space association in order to estimate the size of its effect and the extent of potential publication bias in this field of research. In this meta‐analysis, three types of task are distinguished due to hitherto existing empirical findings. These findings suggest that the extent to which time is made relevant to the experimental task has a systematic impact on whether or not the mental timeline is activated. The results of this meta‐analysis corroborate these considerations: First, experiments that make time a task‐relevant dimension have a mean effect size of d = 0.46. Second, in experiments in which time is task irrelevant, the effect size does not significantly deviate from zero. Third, temporal priming studies have a surprisingly high mean effect size of d = 0.47, which, however, should be adjusted to d = 0.36 due to publication bias.     

On the Question, “What is Law?”

Res Publica - Re-framing discussion of the question, “What is law?“ in terms of the contexts in which the whole question makes sense allows us to see that jurisprudence is about...     

3~5岁幼儿权力概念多重隐喻的认知发展

为考察3~5岁幼儿“权力”概念的大小、垂直空间和重量多重隐喻的认知发展进程, 研究采用了将权力人物和无权力人物图片放置大圆形或小圆形、垂直空间的上方框或下方框和不平衡跷跷板重端或轻端的图片迫选任务。通过3个实验及综合分析发现：3岁幼儿尚不具备权力隐喻理解能力; 4岁是幼儿权力隐喻理解能力的重要发展时期, 具备正极权力概念的隐喻理解能力, 建立起有权力为“大、高、重”的多重隐喻联结; 5岁幼儿的权力隐喻理解能力进一步增强, 已具备较完整的多重隐喻理解能力, 建立起有权力为“大、高、重”、无权力为“小、下、轻”的多重隐喻联结。3~5岁幼儿“权力”概念的大小、垂直空间和重量多重隐喻理解能力同步发展, 不受隐喻靶域习得时间早晚的影响。系列研究表明, 学龄前幼儿的权力隐喻理解能力发展趋势符合隐喻一致性理论, 隐喻表征的产生并非“有或无”的模式, 而是“渐进”呈现发展。     

Choosing normative properties: a reply to Eklund’s Choosing Normative Concepts

ABSTRACT

The literature surrounding Horgan and Timmons’s Moral Twin Earth scenarios has focused on whether such scenarios present a metasemantic problem for naturalist realists. But in Choosing Normative Concepts, Eklund uses a similar scenario to illuminate a novel, distinctly metaphysical problem for normative realists of both naturalist and non-naturalist stripes. The problem is that it is not clear what (if anything) would suffice for the sort of ardent realist view that normative realists have in mind – the view that reality itself favors certain ways of acting and valuing. Eklund then offers a metasemantic view that he thinks can provide the best solution to this problem. In this reply to Eklund, I argue that Eklund’s treatment of the problem and his solution re-entangle metaphysical and metasemantic issues that ought to be kept separate. I also argue that there is a purely metaphysical solution to the problem at hand, which Eklund’s own solution seems to implicitly rely upon. While these criticisms do not suggest that Eklund’s positive view is false, they do undermine some of the broader lessons that Eklund hopes to draw from the view.     

Not quite neo-sentimentalism

The view that some evaluative concepts are identical to some affective concepts naturally falls out of neo-sentimentalism, but it is unstable. This paper argues for a view of evaluative concepts that is neo-sentimentalist in spirit but which eschews the identity claim. If we adopt a Peacockean view of concepts, then we should think of some evaluative concepts as having possession conditions that are affective in some way. I argue that the best version of this thought claims that possessing those concepts requires being rationally compelled to form evaluative beliefs in response to certain emotions.