Using movement and intentions to understand human activity

During perception, people segment continuous activity into discrete events. They do so in part by monitoring changes in features of an ongoing activity. Characterizing these features is important for theories of event perception and may be helpful for designing information systems. The three experiments reported here asked whether the body movements of an actor predict when viewers will perceive event boundaries. Body movements were recorded using a magnetic motion tracking system and compared with viewers’ segmentation of his activity into events. Changes in movement features were strongly associated with segmentation. This was more true for fine-grained than for coarse-grained boundaries, and was strengthened when the stimulus displays were reduced from live-action movies to simplified animations. These results suggest that movement variables play an important role in the process of segmenting activity into meaningful events, and that the influence of movement on segmentation depends on the availability of other information sources.     

The logic of how-questions

Philosophers and scientists are concerned with the why and the how of things. Questions like the following are so much grist for the philosopher’s and scientist’s mill: How can we be free and yet live in a deterministic universe?, How do neural processes give rise to conscious experience?, Why does conscious experience accompany certain physiological events at all?, How is a three-dimensional perception of depth generated by a pair of two-dimensional retinal images?. Since Belnap and Steel’s pioneering work on the logic of questions, Van Fraassen has managed to apply their approach in constructing an account of the logic of why-questions. Comparatively little, by contrast, has been written on the logic of how-questions despite the apparent centrality of questions such as How is it possible for us to be both free and determined? to philosophical enterprise.¹ In what follows I develop a logic for how-questions of various sorts including how-questions of cognitive resolution, how-questions of manner, how-questions of method, of means, and of mechanism.     

不同注意资源水平上核心厌恶和道德厌恶刺激加工分离效应的ERPs研究

厌恶帮助人类避免接触生物病菌、社会道德威胁物。本研究采用“线索—靶”范式考察不同注意资源水平上核心和道德厌恶刺激的认知加工特征。结果发现,核心厌恶刺激诱发的P2波幅显著大于道德厌恶和中性刺激;有效线索下核心厌恶刺激的P3波幅与道德厌恶刺激间差异不显著,而无效线索下核心厌恶刺激的P3波幅显著大于道德厌恶。结果表明两类厌恶刺激在不同注意资源水平上存在加工分离效应,支持了厌恶情绪“异质性”的观点。     

科技侵扰与恋爱关系满意度:有调节的中介效应

采用问卷法对454名处于亲密恋爱关系中的未婚个体进行调查,考察了沟通质量在科技侵扰与亲密关系满意度之间的中介效应,及信任对这一中介过程的调节效应。结果表明：(1)科技侵扰对亲密关系满意度具有显著负向预测作用;(2)沟通质量在科技侵扰与亲密关系满意度之间起中介作用;(3)科技侵扰通过沟通质量对亲密关系满意度的中介受到信任的调节,具体来说,个体对伴侣信任水平较高时,将减弱沟通质量变差对亲密关系满意度的破坏作用。本研究在新的时代背景下探究智能手机使用在亲密互动中的影响及其中的机制和边界条件。研究结果提示,科技侵扰可以通过破坏沟通质量影响恋爱个体的亲密关系满意度,且在此过程中信任可以缓冲沟通质量变差对亲密关系的影响。     

Language knowledge and event knowledge in language use

This paper examines how semantic knowledge is used in language comprehension and in making judgments about events in the world. We contrast knowledge gleaned from prior language experience (“language knowledge”) and knowledge coming from prior experience with the world (“world knowledge”). In two corpus analyses, we show that previous research linking verb aspect and event representations have confounded language and world knowledge. Then, using carefully chosen stimuli that remove this confound, we performed four experiments that manipulated the degree to which language knowledge or world knowledge should be salient and relevant to performing a task, finding in each case that participants use the type of knowledge most appropriate to the task. These results provide evidence for a highly context-sensitive and interactionist perspective on how semantic knowledge is represented and used during language processing.