Do observers like curvature or do they dislike angularity?

Humans have a preference for curved over angular shapes, an effect noted by artists as well as scientists. It may be that people like smooth curves or that people dislike angles, or both. We investigated this phenomenon in four experiments. Using abstract shapes differing in type of contour (angular vs. curved) and complexity, Experiment 1 confirmed a preference for curvature not linked to perceived complexity. Experiment 2 tested whether the effect was modulated by distance. If angular shapes are associated with a threat, the effect may be stronger when they are presented within peripersonal space. This hypothesis was not supported. Experiment 3 tested whether preference for curves occurs when curved lines are compared to straight lines without angles. Sets of coloured lines (angular vs. curved vs. straight) were seen through a circular or square aperture. Curved lines were liked more than either angular or straight lines. Therefore, angles are not necessary to generate a preference for curved shapes. Finally, Experiment 4 used an implicit measure of preference, the manikin task, to measure approach/avoidance behaviour. Results did not confirm a pattern of avoidance for angularity but only a pattern of approach for curvature. Our experiments suggest that the threat association hypothesis cannot fully explain the curvature effect and that curved shapes are, per se, visually pleasant.     

Attention lapses and behavioural microsleeps during tracking,psychomotor vigilance,and dual tasks

This study examined the incidence of attention lapses and microsleeps under contrasting levels of task complexity during three tasks: PVT, 2-D tracking and a dual task combining the two. More attention lapses per participant (median 15 vs. 3; range 1–74 vs. 0–76, p = 0.001), with the greatest increase with time spent-on-task (p = 0.002), were evident on the more cognitively-demanding dual task than on the PVT. Conversely, fewer microsleeps (median 0 vs. 0; range 0–1 vs. 0–18, p = 0.022) occurred during the more complex task compared to the tracking task. An increase in microsleep rate with time spent-on-task (p = 0.035) was evident during the tracking task but not the dual task. These results indicate that the higher cognitive load, associated with an increase in task complexity, increased the likelihood of attention lapses, while a reduction in task complexity increased the likelihood of microsleeps.     

Are Conservatives Really More Simple‐Minded than Liberals? The Domain Specificity of Complex Thinking

Prior research suggests that liberals are more complex than conservatives. However, it may be that liberals are not more complex in general, but rather only more complex on certain topic domains (while conservatives are more complex in other domains). Four studies (comprised of over 2,500 participants) evaluated this idea. Study 1 involves the domain specificity of a self‐report questionnaire related to complexity (dogmatism). By making only small adjustments to a popularly used dogmatism scale, results show that liberals can be significantly more dogmatic if a liberal domain is made salient. Studies 2–4 involve the domain specificity of integrative complexity. A large number of open‐ended responses from college students (Studies 2 and 3) and candidates in the 2004 Presidential election (Study 4) across an array of topic domains reveals little or no main effect of political ideology on integrative complexity, but rather topic domain by ideology interactions. Liberals are higher in complexity on some topics, but conservatives are higher on others. Overall, this large dataset calls into question the typical interpretation that conservatives are less complex than liberals in a domain‐general way.     

Entitativity and social identity complexity: The relationship between group characteristics and personal characteristics on group identification

The current study extends previous works on group identification by focusing on how social identity complexity and entitativity interact to impact group identification. The purpose of the current study is to test the hypothesis that people with a simple social identity identify more strongly with a highly entitative group and people with complex social identity identify more strongly with a group low in entitativity. Participants’ social identity complexity and entitativity about a group were manipulated, and with that group was measured. Results demonstrated that participants primed with a simple social identity identified more strongly with a more highly entitative group, whereas identification with the high and low entitativity groups did not differ for participants primed with a complex social identity.     

Reasoning about negligibility and proximity in the set of all hyperreals

We consider the binary relations of negligibility, comparability and proximity in the set of all hyperreals. Associating with negligibility, comparability and proximity the binary predicates N, C and P and the connectives $[N]$, $[C]$ and $[P]$, we consider a first-order theory based on these predicates and a modal logic based on these connectives. We investigate the axiomatization/completeness and the decidability/complexity of this first-order theory and this modal logic.     

Risk strategy under task complexity: a multivariate analysis of behaviour in a naturalistic setting

This study complements the existing literature on decision-making processes and outcomes in complex settings by exploring the impact of different types of complexity on risk strategies in a naturalistic setting. The study analyses a large sample of decisions made by individuals in UK offcourse betting markets, a fertile environment for observing both a variety of risk strategies and a range of task complexities. Specifically, the investigation focuses on the comparative impacts of complexity defined in terms, respectively, of alternatives and attributes. The results suggest that the risk strategy employed is affected by task complexity. Complexity does not affect the size of risk accepted but alternative- and attribute-based complexity together influence the propensity to accept greater degrees of risk. In addition, the effect of attribute-based complexity on risk taking appears to be modified by the use of risk-hedging strategies. The results are observed to corroborate some earlier work on decision process and outcome; where differences with earlier findings are identified, some possible explanations are offered. © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Mental rotation of random lined figures

The present study investigated the possible occurrence of mental rotation in judgments of whether pairs of line figures were identical. The feasibility of two discrete cognitive explanations based on holistic transformation and on feature computation was examined with varied levels of complexity controlled by the numbers of lines in a figure. In the experiment, participants were required to judge whether simultaneously presented pairs of figures were the same or different. When the participants' data were collapsed for regression analyses, evidence for mental rotation was not detected at any level of complexity, but reanalysis of the data revealed that some participants employed mental rotation in the cognition of complex figures. A monotonous increase in reaction times as a function of the number of lines was evident in identical pairs of figures but not in nonidentical pairs. It is argued that the feature computation explanation would better account for these results than would the holistic transformation explanation.     

THE CONSEQUENCES OF METAPHYSICS: OR,CAN CHARLES PEIRCE'S CONTINUITY THEORY MODEL STUART KAUFFMAN'S BIOLOGY?

At the heart of the most radical proposals in Stuart Kauffman's Investigations is his attempt to show that we find in evolutionary biology some configuration spaces—the sets of possible developments for any given system—that (unlike those in traditional physics of Newtonian, relativistic, and quantum stripes) cannot be completely described in advance. We bring Charles Peirce's work on the philosophy of continuity to bear on the problem and discover, first, that Kauffman's arguments do not succeed; second, that Peirce's metaphysics provide new and sounder arguments for the same propositions; third, that Peirce's rigorous but nonstandard treatment of mathematical continuity shows great promise for modeling the unpredictability and growth we find in evolutionary biology; fourth, that it also strengthens a development only hinted at by biologists thus far—the inevitable involvement of the observer's mind in constituting the objects of science. We close with a logical argument for the surprising relevance of metaphysical hypotheses in the natural sciences and with suggestions for future work that will connect these questions to what Kauffman terms the “narrative stance” in biology.     

言语工作记忆、句子理解与句法依存关系加工

言语工作记忆在句子理解中作用的机制和性质,是当前认知神经科学研究的一个中心课题。文章首先回顾了与支撑语言理解的工作记忆资源的性质有关的理论争论和实验证据,然后回顾了填充语-空位依存关系加工这一能够揭示言语工作记忆与句子理解之间关系的重要领域,最后简要展望了今后应该进一步研究的几个问题     

The computational complexity of scenario-based agent verification and design

We first advocate that the AUML (Agent Unified Modeling Language) notation, even in its new version, is not precise enough to adequately describe protocols. This problem was long identified by Harel and we propose to follow his solution: extend sequence diagrams with a “prechart”, i.e. single out the initiation sequence of the protocol. This new notation keeps readability and intuition, but is also technically adequate and is given a formal semantics. It actually is a form of simple temporal logics, equipped with a game-based semantics, which is appropriate for modeling agent-based systems. We then go on to study its complexity. Unsurprisingly, the version with protocol roles is undecidable. The main interesting problem is to synthesize agents that follow the protocol described. Surprisingly, it is undecidable even if we remove roles, alternatives, loops, asynchronous communication, conditions, constraints, negations (already removed in AUML). The complexity of checking whether a society of agents obeys a protocol given in this trivial notation is also surprisingly high: it is PSPACE-complete, like temporal logic, while we show that this simple language is strongly less expressive than temporal logic. Notations in-between have the expected increase in expressiveness, but no increase in complexity. This justifies the use of a language including alternatives, asynchronous communication and conditions, since it increases expressiveness with no cost in complexity.