具身认知研究述评

具身认知是以身体为解释核心的新的研究视角。来自具身认知实证研究的证据表明,身体的生理属性、运动经验和现实环境影响认知的形成与发展。目前的具身认知实证研究主要采用传统认知的实验范式,集中于研究身体的结构属性和静态动作对认知的影响。未来,具身认知与传统认知将会相互吸收和融合,更多关注身体的机能属性和动态属性。     

Cultural effects in emotion and gender recognition

There is evidence for cultural differences in how people respond to basic properties of faces. We examined task switching between two properties of faces, emotion and gender, for individuals drawn from Western (White UK citizens) and Asian (Pakistani) cultures. There were three main results of interest. First, there was a double dissociation between gender and emotion classification across the participant populations – Western participants were faster to make gender than emotion classifications while Asian participants were faster to make emotion than gender classifications. It is argued that the different patterns of results reflect the greater attentional weight given to contrasting face dimensions in the different cultures, and the dependence on using different attributes to make gender discriminations in individuals from varying cultures. Second, Asian participants showed smaller switch costs overall than did White British participants. This result may be attributed to effects of bilingualism in the Asian participants, which results in their having greater executive resources. Third, emotion decisions showed larger switch costs than gender decisions but essentially because emotion decisions benefited from priming on non‐switch trials. It is argued that emotion decisions benefit from the activation of a specific processing module across consecutive trials.     

Looking at the eyes of happiness: Positive emotions mediate the influence of life satisfaction on attention to happy faces

Despite significant advancements in the research of subjective well-being (SWB), little is known about its connection with basic cognitive processes. The present study explores the association between selective attention to emotional stimuli (i.e. emotional faces) and both the emotional and cognitive components of SWB (i.e. emotional well-being and satisfaction in life, respectively). Participants (N?=?83) were asked to freely watch a series of 84 pairs of emotional (happy, angry, or sad) and neutral faces from the Karolinska Directed Emotional Faces database. Eye-tracking methodology measured first fixations, number of fixations, and the time spent looking at emotional faces. Results showed that both the emotional and cognitive components of SWB were related to a general bias to attend to happy faces and avoid sad faces. Yet, bootstrapping analyses showed that positive emotions, rather than life satisfaction, were responsible for the positive information-processing bias. We discuss the potential functionality of these biases and their implications for research on positive emotions.     

A Theory of Blame

We introduce a theory of blame in five parts. Part 1 addresses what blame is: a unique moral judgment that is both cognitive and social, regulates social behavior, fundamentally relies on social cognition, and requires warrant. Using these properties, we distinguish blame from such phenomena as anger, event evaluation, and wrongness judgments. Part 2 offers the heart of the theory: the Path Model of Blame, which identifies the conceptual structure in which blame judgments are embedded and the information processing that generates such judgments. After reviewing evidence for the Path Model, we contrast it with alternative models of blame and moral judgment (Part 3) and use it to account for a number of challenging findings in the literature (Part 4). Part 5 moves from blame as a cognitive judgment to blame as a social act. We situate social blame in the larger family of moral criticism, highlight its communicative nature, and discuss the darker sides of moral criticism. Finally, we show how the Path Model of Blame can bring order to numerous tools of blame management, including denial, justification, and excuse.     

Musical space synesthesia: Automatic,explicit and conceptual connections between musical stimuli and space

In musical–space synesthesia, musical pitches are perceived as having a spatially defined array. Previous studies showed that symbolic inducers (e.g., numbers, months) can modulate response according to the inducer’s relative position on the synesthetic spatial form. In the current study we tested two musical–space synesthetes and a group of matched controls on three different tasks: musical–space mapping, spatial cue detection and a spatial Stroop-like task. In the free mapping task, both synesthetes exhibited a diagonal organization of musical pitch tones rising from bottom left to the top right. This organization was found to be consistent over time. In the subsequent tasks, synesthetes were asked to ignore an auditory or visually presented musical pitch (irrelevant information) and respond to a visual target (i.e., an asterisk) on the screen (relevant information). Compatibility between musical pitch and the target’s spatial location was manipulated to be compatible or incompatible with the synesthetes’ spatial representations. In the spatial cue detection task participants had to press the space key immediately upon detecting the target. In the Stroop-like task, they had to reach the target by using a mouse cursor. In both tasks, synesthetes’ performance was modulated by the compatibility between irrelevant and relevant spatial information. Specifically, the target’s spatial location conflicted with the spatial information triggered by the irrelevant musical stimulus. These results reveal that for musical–space synesthetes, musical information automatically orients attention according to their specific spatial musical-forms. The present study demonstrates the genuineness of musical–space synesthesia by revealing its two hallmarks—automaticity and consistency. In addition, our results challenge previous findings regarding an implicit vertical representation for pitch tones in non-synesthete musicians.     

Eye movements during mental time travel follow a diagonal line

Recent research showed that past events are associated with the back and left side, whereas future events are associated with the front and right side of space. These spatial–temporal associations have an impact on our sensorimotor system: thinking about one’s past and future leads to subtle body sways in the sagittal dimension of space (Miles, Nind, & Macrae, 2010). In this study we investigated whether mental time travel leads to sensorimotor correlates in the horizontal dimension of space. Participants were asked to mentally displace themselves into the past or future while measuring their spontaneous eye movements on a blank screen. Eye gaze was directed more rightward and upward when thinking about the future than when thinking about the past. Our results provide further insight into the spatial nature of temporal thoughts, and show that not only body, but also eye movements follow a (diagonal) “time line” during mental time travel.     

时间知觉的脑机制:时钟模型的困境和新导向

长期以来人们认为神经系统是通过类似于时钟的方式来实现对一段时间的知觉的,并认为多巴胺能系统(基地神经节)和时钟的快慢有关。与多巴胺信号有关的药物的动物实验的结果以及帕金森氏症(parkinson’s disease)患者的行为表现被看作是支持以上看法的证据。然而,最近的大量研究对这个理论提出了挑战,结合行为研究和脑机制研究的新成果,研究者提出了知觉信息可以通过神经活动状态或加工中的能量消耗来表达。     

Attentional Capture in Younger and Older Adults

The present study was designed to examine age-related differences in attentional capture. In the first experiment, participants identified targets defined either by an abrupt onset or by color difference. Prior to the presentation of the targets, onset or color cues were presented. It was found that color cues, but not onset cues, captured attention for color targets for both younger and older adults. It was also found, however, that onset and color cues captured attention for onset targets for both age groups. Moreover, while both types of cues yielded equivalent attentional capture effects with the younger adults, onset cues yielded greater effects for the older adults. The second experiment, using only younger adults, replicated the pattern of results found with the younger adults in the first experiment. The findings from these two experiments provide only partial support for the contingent involuntary orienting hypothesis, which suggests that only cues that share critical features with targets will capture attention. Moreover, the results also indicate that there are age-related differences in attentionalcapture.     

A Longitudinal Investigation of Perceived Control and Cognitive Performance in Young,Midlife and Older Adults

ABSTRACT

Longitudinal associations between generalized control beliefs (one's perceived capacity to influence events) and cognitive test performance were examined in a population-based sample of young, midlife and older adults. Participants provided measures of perceived control, self-assessed health, education and depression and anxiety symptoms, and completed cognitive tests at two assessments, 4 years apart. For each age group, baseline (between-person) control was positively related to performance on tests of memory (immediate recall and digits backwards), speed (Symbol Digit Modalities Test and choice reaction time) and verbal intelligence (Spot-the-Word). Interaction effects indicated stronger associations of between-person control beliefs with indices of speed for the older age group relative to the younger groups. Within-person changes in control were not significantly associated with changes in cognitive test performance over the study interval. Implications of the findings for self-efficacy based interventions designed to promote cognitive functioning are discussed.