Learning of syllable-object relations by preverbal infants: The role of temporal synchrony and syllable distinctiveness

The role of temporal synchrony and syllable distinctiveness in preverbal infants’ learning of word-object relations was investigated. In Experiment 1, 7- and 8-month-olds (N = 64) were habituated under conditions where two similar-sounding syllables, /tah/ and /gah/, were spoken simultaneously with the motions of one of two sets of objects (synchronous) or out of phase with the motions (asynchronous). On test trials, 8-month-olds, but not 7-month-olds, showed learning of the relations in the synchronous condition but not in the asynchronous condition. Furthermore, in Experiment 2, following habituation to one of the synchronous syllable-object pairs, 7-month-olds (n = 8) discriminated the syllables and the objects. In Experiment 3, following habituation to two distinct syllables, /tah/-/gih/ or /gah/-/tih/, paired with identical objects, 7-month-olds (n = 40) showed learning of the relations, again only in the synchronous condition. Thus, synchrony, which mothers naturally provide between words and object motions, facilitated the mapping onto objects of similar-sounding syllables at 8 months of age and distinct syllables at 7 months of age. These findings suggest an interaction between infants’ synchrony and syllable distinctiveness perception during early word mapping development.     

Pushing mom away: Embodied cognition and avoidant attachment

The objective of this research was to examine embodied psychological defense—the way in which defensive processes are manifest in basic motor responses. Forty-one participants were instructed to physically push or pull a lever in response to lexical stimuli presented on a computer display. Participants who were relatively avoidant with respect to attachment were faster to push the lever away from themselves when presented with the word “mom.” These results suggest that basic avoidant motives are automatically primed when attachment-related stimuli are processed, and that these tendencies manifest themselves in basic, motor-specific ways.     

Sexually dimorphic effect of an acute smoking manipulation on skin resistance but not on heart-rate during a cognitive verbal task

In a two-day, two-session experiment where smokers male and female college-student subjects worked on a cognitive verbal task during either the first or second day, and on a cognitive spatial task on the second or first day, smoking was manipulated as an acute independent variable by requiring 10+ hours of pre-experimental abstention, and providing a cigarette during the 15-minute rest period between the two sessions. Non-smoker female and male subjects underwent the same experiment, and hence served as controls for the effects of this acute-smoking manipulation. Overall adaptation (decreased arousal) to the experiment was manifested in a significant increase in skin resistance level (SRL) in all subjects, but when this adaptation effect was statistically controlled, there was a significant smokers by sex interaction during the verbal task only, such that SRL was increased by the cigarette in males, but decreased in females. In contrast, the same analysis indicated only a marked increase in heart-rate (HR) due to smoking, which was unaffected either by sex or by whether the task was the verbal or the (easier) spatial one. We interpret the SRL results as reflecting a sex difference in the direction of transient psychological arousal, and discuss it in relation to evidence in the literature based on self reports, and to evidence (based on HR in this study and on blood pressure in other studies) on physiological (cardiovascular) arousal.     

Individual strategy preferences and decisional fit

The present research introduces the concept of decisional fit. A decision maker experiences decisional fit when the individually preferred decision strategy fits the actually applied strategy. In accordance to other fit‐concepts in psychology (e.g., person–environment fit), we expected positive effects of decisional fit. Five studies examine the effects of a fit between the individual preference for intuition and deliberation (PID) and the actually used decision strategy (intuition or deliberation). A comparison of extreme types (according to participants' values on the PID scale) revealed that decisional fit enhances the perceived value of the chosen or evaluated object (Studies 1–3). In Studies 4 and 5, participants experienced less regret after decisional fit. The findings highlight the importance of considering individual differences when comparing intuitive and deliberate decision making, because strategy preferences interact with applied strategies. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Between morality and repentance: recapturing "sin" for bioethics.

Distinguishing within "sin" the dimensions of anomia, hamartia, and asthenia makes it possible to analyze in greater detail the contrary manners in which traditional and post-traditional Christianities in this issue of Christian Bioethics endeavor to recapture what was lost when secular bioethics reconstructed the specifically spiritual-context-oriented normative commitments of Christianity in one-dimensionally moral terms. Various post-traditional attempts at securing moral orientation and resources for forgiveness, both of which secular bioethics finds increasingly difficult to provide, are critically reviewed. Their engagement of secular moral concepts and concerns, and even their adoption of an academically philosophical posture and language, is presented as responsible for their failure to adequately preserve what in traditional Christianity would count as prohibited vs. permitted, and advisable vs. non-advisable, or what would allow to resolve "tragic conflicts." The deeper reason for this failure lies in post-traditional Christianity's restricting the Christian life (with its central tension between love and the law) to what can be captured by cognitive categories. As the survey of several traditionally Christian accounts of sin in bioethics makes clear, both moral orientation (along with the resolution of "tragic" conflicts) and the sources of forgiveness are available, once that Christian life is framed in terms of persons' spirit-supported practical involvement in ascesis and liturgy, and once bioethical reflections are situated in the experiential context of such involvement.     

Production constraints on learning novel onset phonotactics

Three experiments addressed the hypothesis that production factors constrain phonotactic learning in adult English speakers, and that this constraint gives rise to a markedness effect on learning. In Experiment 1, an acoustic measure was used to assess consonant–consonant coarticulation in naturally produced nonwords, which were then used as stimuli in a phonotactic learning experiment. Results indicated that sonority-rising sequences were more coarticulated than -plateauing sequences, and that listeners learned novel-rising onsets more readily than novel-plateauing onsets. Experiments 2 and 3 addressed the specific questions of whether (1) the acoustic correlates of coarticulation or (2) the coarticulatory patterns of self-productions constrained learning. In Experiment 2, stimuli acoustics were altered to control for coarticulatory differences between sequence type, but a clear markedness effect was still observed. In Experiment 3, listeners’ self-productions were gathered and used to predict their treatment of novel-rising and -plateauing sequences. Results were that listeners’ coarticulatory patterns predicted their treatment of novel sequences. Overall, the findings suggest that the powerful effects of statistical learning are moderated by the perception–production loop in language.     

The influence of depression symptoms on exploratory decision-making

People with symptoms of depression show impairments in decision-making. One explanation is that they have difficulty maintaining rich representations of the task environment. We test this hypothesis in the context of exploratory choice. We analyze depressive and non-depressive participants’ exploration strategies by comparing their choices to two computational models: (1) an “Ideal Actor” model that reflectively updates beliefs and plans ahead, employing a rich representation of the environment and (2) a “Naïve Reinforcement Learning” (RL) model that updates beliefs reflexively utilizing a minimal task representation. Relative to non-depressive participants, we find that depressive participants’ choices are better described by the simple RL model. Further, depressive participants were more exploratory than non-depressives in their decision-making. Depressive symptoms appear to influence basic mechanisms supporting choice behavior by reducing use of rich task representations and hindering performance during exploratory decision-making.     

注意的跨文化研究及意义

Nisbett提出东西方文化差异可能导致了注意的差异,但是并没有对这种现象的原因和机制提出直接的证据.最近几年来,文化对注意过程的影响有了新的研究和发现,证实了Nisbett最初的观点是正确的.文化与注意的行为研究包括在整体与局部加工、场依存与场独立、变化盲等方面的研究.对于注意文化差异的潜在原因和机制,研究者们主要从发展性研究、ERP和FMRI研究等方面进行探讨.未来研究需要进一步探索文化对其它注意指标的影响、文化与注意的脑机制以及文化与注意的应用研究等等.     

The mind reduced to molecules?

According to Bickle, certain empirical results demonstrate that the bottom-up reduction of phychological concepts to the concepts of neuroscience has already been accomplished. I argue that this conclusion is hasty. Bickle claims that all high-level investigations depend on a mistake. I argue that this overstates the explanatory character of neuroscientific findings. Bickle's assessment is highly optimistic, but he is far from making a decisive argument. Those who wait for a full-blown reductionism will have to wait a little longer.     

Linked arguments and the validity requirement

In this paper I demonstrate that most textbook accounts of the linked/convergent distinction fail to conform to the widespread intuition that all valid arguments ought to be classified as linked arguments. I also show that standard textbook accounts of linkage and convergence cannot provide a satisfactory treatment of fallacies of irrelevance and, due to their general insensitivity to the epistemic context in which arguments are offered, must be supplemented by subjective accounts of linkage and convergence which appeal exclusively to authorial beliefs and intentions.Drafts of this paper were read at the Ontario Philosophical Society meeting held at Trent University in October 1990 and the Central Division meeting of the American Philosophical Association held in Chicago in April 1991. I thank Trudy Govier, Hans Hansen and an anonymous referee for helpful and encouraging comments on various drafts.