Load Perturbation Facilitates Interpersonal Error Compensation in a Dyadic Force Production Task

The present study tested the hypothesis that a load perturbation facilitates interpersonal compensation for force error. Ten groups performed both control and perturbation conditions. In the control condition, a target discrete peak force was the sum of 10% of the maximum voluntary contraction produced by two participants. In the perturbation condition, two cooperative participants a and b produced the same target force as the control condition, and the force produced by a non-cooperative participant c increased or decreased the total forces produced by participants a and b. The load perturbation facilitated interpersonal compensation for force error but negatively affected performance during joint action. The participants further learned to improve the error compensation over experimental blocks in the perturbation condition.     

Four Covariance Structure Models for Canonical Correlation Analysis: A COSAN Modeling Approach

The mathematical connection between canonical correlation analysis (CCA) and covariance structure analysis was first discussed through the Multiple Indicators and Multiple Causes (MIMIC) approach. However, the MIMIC approach has several technical and practical challenges. To address these challenges, a comprehensive COSAN modeling approach is proposed. Specifically, we define four COSAN-CCA models to correspond with four possible combinations of the data to be analyzed and the unique parameters to be estimated. In terms of the data, one can analyze either the unstandardized or standardized variables. In terms of the unique parameters, one can estimate either the weights or loadings. Besides the unique parameters of each COSAN-CCA model, all four COSAN-CCA models also estimate the canonical correlations as their common parameters. Taken together, the four COSAN-CCA models provide the correct point estimates and standard error estimates for all commonly used CCA parameters. Two numeric examples are used to compare the standard error estimates obtained from the MIMIC approach and the COSAN modeling approach. Moreover, the standard error estimates from the COSAN modeling approach are validated by a simulation study and the asymptotic theory. Finally, software implementation and future extensions are discussed.     

Effects of auditory rhythm on movement accuracy in dance performance

The present study addresses the impact of the rhythmic complexity of music on the accuracy of dance performance. This study examined the effects of different levels of auditory syncopation on the execution of a dance sequence by trained dancers and exercisers (i.e., nondancers). It was hypothesized that nondancers would make more errors in synchronizing movements with moderately and highly syncopated rhythms while no performance degradation would manifest among trained dancers. Participants performed a dance sequence synchronized with three different rhythm tracks that were regular, moderately syncopated, and highly syncopated. We found significant performance degradation when comparing conditions of no syncopation vs. high syncopation for both trained dancers (p = .002) and nondancers (p = .001). Dancers and nondancers did not differ in how they managed to execute the task with increasing levels of syncopation (p = .384). The pattern of difference between trained dancers and nondancers was similar across the No Syncop and Highly Syncop conditions. The present findings may have marked implications for practitioners given that the tasks employed were analogous to those frequently observed in real-life dance settings.     

Specific effects of the Trier Social Stress Test on speech fluency in young and older adults

The notion that speech becomes less fluent during stressful speaking conditions has received little empirical test, and no research has tested this relationship in older adult participants. We analyzed speeches produced during the Trier Social Stress Test (TSST) or during a less stressful placebo (pTSST) version of the task. We measured young and older adults’ speech fillers (e.g., um), unfilled pauses (at least 1 s in duration), and other disfluencies (e.g., repetitions, repairs). Neither young nor older adult participants rated themselves as having greater stress in the TSST than pTSST condition, but behavioral effects were obtained. Participants in the TSST condition produced more mid-phrase speech fillers and unfilled pauses than participants in the pTSST condition. Young adults produced more unfilled pauses than older adults overall, and older adults produced more mid-phrase fillers than young adults. Critically, age group interacted with experimental condition, such that older speakers produced disproportionately more mid-phrase fillers than young adults in the TSST compared to the pTSST condition. In sum, the negative effects of the TSST on fluency were generally similar across age, but this specific age-related increase in mid-phrase fillers indicates that older adults’ word retrieval may have been particularly negatively affected. Findings are generally consistent with previous research and add to understanding of how factors internal to the speaker (i.e., demographic, personality, and cognitive variables) and factors external to the speaker (i.e., variables regarding the situation, context, or content of speech) combine to affect speech fluency.     

听觉预测编码：对声音重复和变化的神经反应

预测编码被认为是脑与复杂环境交互的重要机制之一, 有效感知外界环境并对未来事件做出预测, 对个体生存有着至关重要的意义。人类大脑会基于感觉输入以迭代的方式持续优化表征外部环境的内部模型, 并不断预测接下来的感觉输入。以听觉模态为例, 人类及动物对声音重复和听觉变化的神经反应(如失匹配负波和刺激特异性适应)是大脑预测编码的重要体现, 表现为重复抑制和预测误差。结合人类和动物模型在此理论框架下开展跨物种研究将有助于加深我们对听觉加工, 甚至是大脑工作机制的认识。     

The influence of speech rate and accent on access and use of semantic information

Circumstances in which the speech input is presented in sub-optimal conditions generally lead to processing costs affecting spoken word recognition. The current study indicates that some processing demands imposed by listening to difficult speech can be mitigated by feedback from semantic knowledge. A set of lexical decision experiments examined how foreign accented speech and word duration impact access to semantic knowledge in spoken word recognition. Results indicate that when listeners process accented speech, the reliance on semantic information increases. Speech rate was not observed to influence semantic access, except in the setting in which unusually slow accented speech was presented. These findings support interactive activation models of spoken word recognition in which attention is modulated based on speech demands.     

Priors in perception: Top-down modulation,Bayesian perceptual learning rate,and prediction error minimization

I discuss top-down modulation of perception in terms of a variable Bayesian learning rate, revealing a wide range of prior hierarchical expectations that can modulate perception. I then switch to the prediction error minimization framework and seek to conceive cognitive penetration specifically as prediction error minimization deviations from a variable Bayesian learning rate. This approach retains cognitive penetration as a category somewhat distinct from other top-down effects, and carves a reasonable route between penetrability and impenetrability. It prevents rampant, relativistic cognitive penetration of perception and yet is consistent with the continuity of cognition and perception.     

Predictions,precision, and agentive attention

Ransom, Fazelpour, and Mole (this journal - 2017) raise an important puzzle for the ‘prediction error minimization’ account of cognitive processing. That account depicts all cognitive processing as fundamentally in the business of minimizing prediction errors concerning the evolving flow of sensory information. One of the cornerstones of these highly ambitious, would-be unifying accounts is their depiction of attention as nothing other than the process of optimizing the precision (inverse variance) of critical prediction error signals. But that story, Ransom et al. suggest, cannot accommodate voluntary shifts of attention. In this paper, I show why this challenge to the grand unifying project fails. It fails because it locates the origins of voluntary attention in complexes of unanalyzed desire rather than in changing complexes of beliefs.     

研究生科研角色认同对科研创造力的影响:导师包容性领导、师门差错管理氛围的作用

以来自62个师门的411名全日制在校研究生为被试,采用问卷调查法探讨研究生科研角色认同对科研创造力的影响,并构建多层线性模型,分析导师包容性领导、师门差错管理氛围的调节作用。结果发现：（1）科研角色认同对科研创造力产生显著正向影响;（2）导师包容性领导、师门差错管理氛围在科研角色认同与科研创造力关系中均具有正向调节作用;（3）导师包容性领导对师门差错管理氛围具有显著正向影响,导师包容性领导的调节作用通过师门差错管理氛围的调节作用对研究生科研创造力产生影响。