Individual differences in face memory and eye fixation patterns during face learning

This study examined the relationship between individual differences in face memory and eye fixation patterns during face learning. Participants watched short movies of 20 faces and were divided into high and low face memory groups based on their performance in a recognition memory test. No qualitative difference was observed in the eye fixation distribution between high and low groups. Both groups mostly fixed on the internal region of faces, especially the eyes. A difference in the eye fixation pattern by groups was observed in the number of fixations and total fixation time on the eyes, which reflected high face memory participants moving their eyes between the left and right eyes more frequently than low face memory participants. These findings suggest that fixation on the eyes has a functional role in face memory and is related to individual differences in face memory.     

Mind-wandering: phenomenology and function as assessed with a novel experience sampling method

Mind-wandering refers to the occurrence of thoughts whose content is both decoupled from stimuli present in the current environment and unrelated to the task being carried out at the moment of their occurrence. The core of this phenomenon is therefore stimulus-independent and task-unrelated thoughts (SITUTs). In the present study, we designed a novel experience sampling method which permitted to isolate SITUTs from other kinds of distractions (i.e., irrelevant interoceptive/exteroceptive sensory perceptions and interfering thoughts related to the appraisal of the current task). In Experiment 1, we examined the impact of SITUTs on the performance of the Sustained Attention to Response Task (SART; a Go/No-Go task). Analyses demonstrated that SITUTs impair SART performance to the same extent as irrelevant sensory perceptions. In Experiment 2, we further examined SITUTs in order to assess the possible functions of mind-wandering. We observed that the content of most of reported SITUTs refers to the anticipation and planning of future events. Furthermore, this “prospective bias” was increased when participants' attention had been oriented toward their personal goals before performing the SART. These data support the view that an important function of mind-wandering relates to the anticipation and planning of the future.     

The Role of Moral Beliefs,Memories, and Preferences in Representations of Identity

People perceive that if their memories and moral beliefs changed, they would change. We investigated why individuals respond this way. In Study 1, participants judged that identity would change more after changes to memories and widely shared moral beliefs (e.g., about murder) versus preferences and controversial moral beliefs (e.g., about abortion). The extent to which participants judged that changes would affect their relationships predicted identity change (Study 2) and mediated the relationship between type of moral belief and perceived identity change (Study 3). We discuss the role that social relationships play in judgments of identity and highlight implications for psychology and philosophy.     

An experimental study of the correlates and consequences of perceiving oneself to be the target of gender discrimination

An experimental methodology was used to test hypotheses concerning the effects of contextual, cognitive-developmental, and individual difference factors on children’s views of whether they have been the target of gender discrimination and the possible consequent effect of such views on two forms of state self-esteem: performance and social acceptance. Children (N = 108, 5-11 years of age) completed theory of mind and gender attitude measures and a drawing task. Next, children received feedback that was designed to appear either gender biased (discrimination condition) or nonbiased (control condition). Children’s attributions for the feedback and state self-esteem were assessed. As expected, children reported having been the target of gender discrimination more often in the discrimination condition than in the control condition. Older and more cognitively advanced children made fewer attributions to discrimination than their peers. Perceptions of discrimination were associated with higher performance state self-esteem and, among egalitarian children, lower social state self-esteem.     

Questioning Chase and Simon's (1973) “Perception in Chess”: The “experience recognition” hypothesis

Pattern recognition lies at the heart of the cognitive science endeavor. In this paper, we provide some criticism of this notion, using studies of chess as an example. The game of chess is, as significant evidence shows, a game of abstractions: pressures; force; open files and ranks; time; tightness of defense; old strategies rapidly adapted to new situations. These ideas do not arise on current computational models, which apply brute force by rote-memorization. In this paper we assess the computational models of CHREST and CHUMP, and argue that chess chunks must contain semantic information. This argument leads to a new and contrasting claim, as we propose that key conclusions of Chase and Simon's (1973) influential study stemmed from a non-sequitur. In the concluding section, we propose a shift in philosophy, from “pattern recognition” to a framework of “experience recognition”.     

Language access and language selection in professional translators

Two experiments were conducted measuring self-paced reading to study language access and language selection in professional translators and bilinguals when they understood sentences randomly presented in their first language (L1, Spanish) and second language (L2, English). These sentences contained a critical cognate word or a control matched word. The effect of cognate words was considered an index of between-language activation while the inhibition of the non-target language was examined with the asymmetrical switching cost. In Experiment 1, participants read and repeated sentences while in Experiment 2 participants read sentences without repeating them after reading. The results indicated that lexical processing depended on the experience of participants in professional translation and the demands imposed by the understanding task (reading and repeating or only reading).     

What part of an action interferes with ongoing perception?

Recent studies have demonstrated specific interference effects between concurrent perception and action. In the following we address the possible causes of such effects by employing a continuous paradigm in which participants were asked to produce movements in a specified direction and to judge the direction of a concurrently presented stimulus motion. In such paradigms, a repulsion of the perceived by the produced movement direction is typically observed. The first question addressed in the current study was whether passive displacements of the hand would be sufficient for inducing the repulsion effect. This was done by sometimes moving the participants' hands with a robot. No repulsion effect was found for these passive movements, which shows that the integration of visual and proprioceptive information is not sufficient for repulsion to arise. However, repulsion was present for active movements, that is when participants intended to move. In a second experiment, participants' movements were sometimes unexpectedly blocked by a robot. No repulsion was observed in the blocked condition. We conclude that the intention to move (Experiment 1) and actual movement execution (Experiment 2) are both necessary preconditions for this type of specific interference to arise in continuous and concurrent perception-action tasks.     

What is to be done in the history of philosophy

Because the History of Philosophy is a branch of both History and Philosophy, it faces tasks which are Historical, tasks which are Philosophical, and tasks which overlap both. As Philosophy typically flourishes by incorporating and assimilating ideas and bodies of text which have either not previously been part of its stock in trade or have been forgotten, the main task facing the History of Philosophy today is that of developing serious scholarship in areas that have been largely neglected, such as Philosophy in Arabic and Persian as well as in Sanskrit and Chinese.     

维特根斯坦的哲学观

该文介绍了后期维特根斯坦对哲学的看法。其要点是:哲学的核心工作是概念考察;所考察的是自然概念,用以考察的也是自然概念;因此,哲学工作和实证科学是在两个层面上展开的;哲学的目标不是建构理论;哲学的任务是治疗由误解哲学语法所造成的智性扭曲。文章最后粗略讨论了观念和概念的关系。     

两汉经学的式微与魏晋玄学的孕育--论王符《潜夫论》治道思想的历史地位

王符《潜夫论》治道思想的历史地位在两汉经学的式微与魏晋玄学的孕育中得以显现出来,其表现有三：一是其治道思想作为社会批判思潮的代表性;二是其所关注时代问题的转变,围绕本末、名实、才性诸问题而展开;三是王符治道思想中所彰显出的人本理性精神。