我军心理战理论研究热点问题概要

我军心理战研究兴起于20世纪80年代,虽然历时短,但发展迅速。特别是在心理战理论与实践中的一些热点问题上,已经形成了一些较为成熟的理论框架和思想观点。对心理战内涵和外延的界定上虽然有一定的争议,但已形成了较普遍地被认可的观点;对心理战效应和心理战运行机理,也已经形成比较明确的认识;对心理战地位作用普遍持肯定态度;对外军心理战理论与实践研究的剖析和学习借鉴,成为我军心理战发展的基础     

心理定势发生机制的模型建构

心理定势作为个体的一种预备状态,是先前的活动倾向对后来活动的影响,前苏联格鲁吉亚学派围绕它建立了较为完备的传统心理定势理论。而该文则希冀超越传统社会心理学的视角,以信息加工的心理学视角,使用图式理论重新阐释心理定势现象发生的内在作用机制,尝试建构“定势现象的图式激活过程理论模型”。     

Information Processing and Dynamics in Minimally Cognitive Agents

There has been considerable debate in the literature about the relative merits of information processing versus dynamical approaches to understanding cognitive processes. In this article, we explore the relationship between these two styles of explanation using a model agent evolved to solve a relational categorization task. Specifically, we separately analyze the operation of this agent using the mathematical tools of information theory and dynamical systems theory. Information‐theoretic analysis reveals how task‐relevant information flows through the system to be combined into a categorization decision. Dynamical analysis reveals the key geometrical and temporal interrelationships underlying the categorization decision. Finally, we propose a framework for directly relating these two different styles of explanation and discuss the possible implications of our analysis for some of the ongoing debates in cognitive science.     

Information‐Theoretic Properties of Auditory Sequences Dynamically Influence Expectation and Memory

A basic function of cognition is to detect regularities in sensory input to facilitate the prediction and recognition of future events. It has been proposed that these implicit expectations arise from an internal predictive coding model, based on knowledge acquired through processes such as statistical learning, but it is unclear how different types of statistical information affect listeners’ memory for auditory stimuli. We used a combination of behavioral and computational methods to investigate memory for non‐linguistic auditory sequences. Participants repeatedly heard tone sequences varying systematically in their information‐theoretic properties. Expectedness ratings of tones were collected during three listening sessions, and a recognition memory test was given after each session. Information‐theoretic measures of sequential predictability significantly influenced listeners’ expectedness ratings, and variations in these properties had a significant impact on memory performance. Predictable sequences yielded increasingly better memory performance with increasing exposure. Computational simulations using a probabilistic model of auditory expectation suggest that listeners dynamically formed a new, and increasingly accurate, implicit cognitive model of the information‐theoretic structure of the sequences throughout the experimental session.     

Synergistic Information Processing Encrypts Strategic Reasoning in Poker

There is a tendency in decision‐making research to treat uncertainty only as a problem to be overcome. But it is also a feature that can be leveraged, particularly in social interaction. Comparing the behavior of profitable and unprofitable poker players, we reveal a strategic use of information processing that keeps decision makers unpredictable. To win at poker, a player must exploit public signals from others. But using public inputs makes it easier for an observer to reconstruct that player's strategy and predict his or her behavior. How should players trade off between exploiting profitable opportunities and remaining unexploitable themselves? Using a recent multivariate approach to information theoretic data analysis and 1.75 million hands of online two‐player No‐Limit Texas Hold'em, we find that the important difference between winning and losing players is not in the amount of information they process, but how they process it. In particular, winning players are better at integrative information processing—creating new information from the interaction between their cards and their opponents’ signals. We argue that integrative information processing does not just produce better decisions, it makes decision‐making harder for others to reverse engineer, as an expert poker player's cards act like the private key in public‐key cryptography. Poker players encrypt their reasoning with the way they process information. The encryption function of integrative information processing makes it possible for players to exploit others while remaining unexploitable. By recognizing the act of information processing as a strategic behavior in its own right, we offer a detailed account of how experts use endemic uncertainty to conceal their intentions in high‐stakes competitive environments, and we highlight new opportunities between cognitive science, information theory, and game theory.     

Working Hard to Take the Easy Way Out: How the Need for Cognitive Closure Shapes Strategic Effort Investment to Ease Future Decision Making

Consumers make countless decisions each day that force them to determine the amount of effort they are willing to invest into the decision process. Due to their desire for immediate resolution and propensity to seize upon available options, individuals high in the need for cognitive closure make decisions that are traditionally associated with reduced effort investment. Counter to this traditional perspective, this research demonstrates that those seeking closure strategically invest effort into the decision process, so long as the initial effort investment is expected to simplify similar decisions in the future. Three experiments demonstrate that those motivated by closure put forth greater effort when they expect to repeat the decision (Experiment 1) and in contexts where a justifiable choice option is not readily available (Experiment 2). Furthermore, this effort investment is shown to payoff in terms of streamlining subsequent decision making (Experiment 3). These findings detail the strategic use of effort by those seeking closure to ease future decision making and thus provide a conceptual framework for when and why those seeking closure allocate effort in decision making.     

The effects of bilingualism on toddlers' executive functioning

Bilingual children have been shown to outperform monolingual children on tasks measuring executive functioning skills. This advantage is usually attributed to bilinguals’ extensive practice in exercising selective attention and cognitive flexibility during language use because both languages are active when one of them is being used. We examined whether this advantage is observed in 24-month-olds who have had much less experience in language production. A battery of executive functioning tasks and the cognitive scale of the Bayley test were administered to 63 monolingual and bilingual children. Native bilingual children performed significantly better than monolingual children on the Stroop task, with no difference between groups on the other tasks, confirming the specificity of bilingual effects to conflict tasks reported in older children. These results demonstrate that bilingual advantages in executive control emerge at an age not previously shown.     

Information processing efficiency and regulation at five months

Infants with short look durations are generally thought to have better attentional capabilities due to their efficient information processing. Although effortful attention is considered a key component of developing regulatory abilities, little is known about the relation between speed and efficiency of processing and self-regulation. In this study, 5-month-old infants with shorter look duration had greater EEG power values than infants with longer look duration during baseline, as well as during a distressing task and a post-distress attentional processing task. These short looking infants also demonstrated higher heart rate, relative to long looking infants, during post-distress information processing. Behaviorally the two groups differed in the amount of distraction during distress. These data provide evidence for an association between the efficiency of information processing and beginning regulatory abilities in early infancy.     

Scaling the information processing demands of occupations

The purpose of this study was to provide additional validity evidence for a model of person–environment fit based on polychronicity, stimulus load, and information processing capacities. In this line of research the confluence of polychronicity and information processing (e.g., the ability of individuals to process stimuli from the environment along five dimensions of information load, interpersonal load, change load, time structure, and activity structure) is applied to the occupational environment. Using magnitude estimation scaling, college students in the United States and Portugal rated 42 occupations across five information processing demand characteristics. Results indicated that occupations could be differentiated by the information load conditions, thus producing a profile of information processing demand characteristics unique to each of the occupations tested. Additional findings provided evidence for the validity of the scaled occupational values; ratings differed reliably across Holland categories, were fairly consistent across the two cultural groups, and showed expected relationships with salary and educational level.     

Skill differences in visual anticipation of type of throw in team-handball penalties

ObjectivesVisual identification and anticipation of an opponent's action intentions is crucial for successful performance in interactive situations such as team-handball penalties. We conducted two experiments to examine experienced and novice team-handball goalkeepers' ability to predict the type of throw in handball penalties and to identify the observers' reliance on local versus globally distributed spatial cues.Design and methodsIn Experiment 1, following a 2 (Skill) × 5 (Temporal Occlusion Condition) factorial design participants were provided with videos of team-handball penalties where the amount of viewing time was varied. In Experiment 2, another sample of experienced and novice goalkeepers watched videos of spatially manipulated penalties where specific parts of the thrower's body or the ball were either removed or presented in isolation (2 [Skill] × 9 [Display Condition] factorial design).ResultsIn Experiment 1, experienced goalkeepers outperformed novices and both groups similarly improved their performances with later occlusion conditions. In Experiment 2, experienced goalkeepers were again superior to novices, and local cues (e.g., ball and hand) were sufficient for better than chance predictions in both groups. Moreover, experienced in contrast to novice goalkeepers (i) suffered from the removal of and (ii) benefited from the addition of distal (i.e., throwing arm and ball) as well as proximal (i.e., upper body) kinematic features.ConclusionsOur research is in line with previous findings on perceptual-cognitive expertise in sports and suggests that experienced team-handball goalkeepers rely on multiple, globally distributed cues when making anticipatory judgments.