假言推理的否定词效应

介绍假言推理中的4种否定词效应,以及相关的理论模型。被试在进行假言推理时,对前提或结论所表示的事件加进了否定词, 产生了一系列的心理效应。研究发现,范畴前提含有否定词,被试更难做出正确的推论;如果结论中含有否定词,被试却更容易做出正确的推论。为此,心理模型理论,规则理论,概率模型理论以及我国的学者对该问题都作了研究和阐述。     

现实预期和意愿预期在文本阅读中的激活强度

文本阅读中,读者往往对事件的后续发展进行预期推理。预期推理有两种倾向,要么是倾向于根据客观现实条件进行的现实预期,要么是倾向于根据主观个人意愿进行的意愿预期。两个实验探讨了文本阅读中读者产生的现实预期和意愿预期的激活强度。结果发现,现实预期和意愿预期都可以在阅读中即时产生,意愿预期强于现实预期;把读者分为"情感导向型"和"非情感导向型",发现"情感导向型"的读者,阅读过程中产生的意愿预期强于现实预期,而"非情感导向型"的读者则不是。     

A new framework for modeling decisions about changing information: The Piecewise Linear Ballistic Accumulator model

In the real world, decision making processes must be able to integrate non-stationary information that changes systematically while the decision is in progress. Although theories of decision making have traditionally been applied to paradigms with stationary information, non-stationary stimuli are now of increasing theoretical interest. We use a random-dot motion paradigm along with cognitive modeling to investigate how the decision process is updated when a stimulus changes. Participants viewed a cloud of moving dots, where the motion switched directions midway through some trials, and were asked to determine the direction of motion. Behavioral results revealed a strong delay effect: after presentation of the initial motion direction there is a substantial time delay before the changed motion information is integrated into the decision process. To further investigate the underlying changes in the decision process, we developed a Piecewise Linear Ballistic Accumulator model (PLBA). The PLBA is efficient to simulate, enabling it to be fit to participant choice and response-time distribution data in a hierarchal modeling framework using a non-parametric approximate Bayesian algorithm. Consistent with behavioral results, PLBA fits confirmed the presence of a long delay between presentation and integration of new stimulus information, but did not support increased response caution in reaction to the change. We also found the decision process was not veridical, as symmetric stimulus change had an asymmetric effect on the rate of evidence accumulation. Thus, the perceptual decision process was slow to react to, and underestimated, new contrary motion information.     

Creating Brand Meaning: A Review and Research Agenda

In this paper I review, from the perspective of experimental research, studies that have examined how brands acquire cultural meaning, and suggest future research directions. McCracken's (Journal of Consumer Research, 13 , 1986 and 71) model of the meaning transfer process gained influence about thirty years ago, but experimental studies of the processes it posited have been limited in their scope. The review is organized around three questions. First, what should be the dependent variables: the types of meanings that can adhere to brands? Second, what have we learned from studies on the types of visual, sensory, and human cues that are the sources of particular types of brand meaning—our independent variables? Third, what do we know, and need to know, about the inferential and other processes through which consumers “take possession” of these brand meanings from these cues? The review concludes with a research agenda.     

Metamorphic malicious code behavior detection using probabilistic inference methods

Existing antivirus programs detect malicious code based on fixed signatures; therefore, they have limitations in detecting metamorphic malicious code that lacks signature information or possesses circumventing code inserted into it. Research on the methods for detecting this type of metamorphic malicious code primarily focuses on techniques that can detect code based on behavioral similarity to known malicious code. However, these techniques measure the degree of similarity with existing malicious code using API function call patterns. Therefore, they have certain disadvantages, such as low accuracy and large detection times. In this paper, we propose a method which can overcome the limitations of existing methods by using the FP-Growth algorithm, a data mining technique, and the Markov Logic Networks algorithm, a probabilistic inference method. To perform a comparative evaluation of the proposed method's malicious code behavior detection, we performed inference experiments using malicious code with an inserted code for random malicious behavior. We performed experiments to select optimal weights for each inference rule to improve our malicious code behavior inferences’ accuracy. The results of experiments, in which we performed a comparative evaluation with the General Bayesian Network, showed that the proposed method had an 8% higher classification performance.     

On the blessing of abstraction

The “blessing of abstraction” refers to the observation that acquiring abstract knowledge sometimes proceeds more quickly than acquiring more speci?c knowledge. This observation can be formalized and reproduced by hierarchical Bayesian models. The key notion is that more abstract layers of the hierarchy have a larger “effective” sample size, because they combine information across multiple speci?c instances lower in the hierarchy. This notion relies on speci?c variables being relatively concentrated around the abstract “overhypothesis”. If the variables are highly dispersed, then the effective sample size for the abstract layers will not be appreciably larger than for the speci?c layers. Moreover, the blessing of abstraction is counterbalanced by the fact that data are more informative about lower levels of the hierarchy, because there is necessarily less stochasticity intervening between speci?c variables and the data. Thus, in certain cases abstract knowledge will be acquired more slowly than speci?c knowledge. This paper reports an experiment that shows how manipulating dispersion can produce both fast and slow acquisition of abstract knowledge in the same paradigm.     

Pseudocontingencies in Consumer Choice: Preference for Prevalent Product Categories Decreases with Decreasing Set Quality

Building on theorizing about contingency inferences, the present research deals with the impact of product category prevalence on consumer choice. We argue that a category's prevalence in the choice set can signal high quality, but the validity depends on the aggregate quality of the choice set. With ever more low‐quality products in the set, high prevalence should increasingly signal poor rather than high quality. When choosing from a poor‐quality set, choices should thus favor products from the rare category. In four experiments, we show that poor‐quality sets increase the proportion of consumers choosing products from a rare category. Furthermore, we show that these effects increase when base rates of a category and quality become more extreme. Finally, Experiment 4 shows that contingency inferences partly mediate the effect of set quality on choice. The results extend previous research on contingency inferences, indicating the adaptive use of base‐rate information in consumer decision making. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Reasons and doubt in Dharmottara and his critics

This paper examines the role of doubt in the classification of inferential reasons in Dharmottara’s Nyāyabindu?īkā, and in the works of his Nyāya rivals Ke?avami?ra and Jayantabha??a. As deeply systematic thinkers, larger themes in these philosophers’ metaphysics directly determine the more local issues in epistemology and inferential theory, helping to explain, and show the significance of, the differences in their accounts of inferential reasons. For Ke?ava, an ontology which includes real universals allows for an externalist, reliabilist epistemology, on which the conditions for a genuine inferential reason can be stated in an absolute (as opposed to cogniser-relative) manner. For Dharmottara, on the other hand, an ontology in which mentally constructed universals are imposed upon real particulars leads to greater dependency on the cognising agent, such that the triple conditions for the inferential reason are formulated in a cogniser-relative way. These differences lead to a more restrictive list of acceptable reasons on Dharmottara’s part, which excludes cases involving doubt.