Is anaphoric reference cooperative?

Two experiments investigated whether the choice of anaphoric expression is affected by the presence of an addressee. Following a context sentence and visual scene, participants described a target scene that required anaphoric reference. They described the scene either to an addressee (Experiment 1) or without an addressee (Experiment 2). When an addressee was present in the task, participants used more pronouns and fewer repeated noun phrases when the referent was the grammatical subject in the context sentence than when it was the grammatical object and they used more pronouns when there was no competitor than when there was. They used fewer pronouns and more repeated noun phrases when a visual competitor was present in the scene than when there was no visual competitor. In the absence of an addressee, linguistic context effects were the same as those when an addressee was present, but the visual effect of the competitor disappeared. We conclude that visual salience effects are due to adjustments that speakers make when they produce reference for an addressee, whereas linguistic salience effects appear whether or not speakers have addressees.     

Negation in context: Evidence from the visual world paradigm

Literature assumes that negation is more difficult to understand than affirmation, but this might depend on the pragmatic context. The goal of this paper is to show that pragmatic knowledge modulates the unfolding processing of negation due to the previous activation of the negated situation. To test this, we used the visual world paradigm. In this task, we presented affirmative (e.g., her dad was rich) and negative sentences (e.g., her dad was not poor) while viewing two images of the affirmed and denied entities. The critical sentence in each item was preceded by one of three types of contexts: an inconsistent context (e.g., She supposed that her dad had little savings) that activates the negated situation (a poor man), a consistent context (e.g., She supposed that her dad had enough savings) that activates the actual situation (a rich man), or a neutral context (e.g., her dad lived on the other side of town) that activates neither of the two models previously suggested. The results corroborated our hypothesis. Pragmatics is implicated in the unfolding processing of negation. We found an increase in fixations on the target compared to the baseline for negative sentences at 800?ms in the neutral context, 600?ms in the inconsistent context, and 1450?ms in the consistent context. Thus, when the negated situation has been previously introduced via an inconsistent context, negation is facilitated.     

Learning and foraging efficiency in German cockroaches, Blattella germanica (L.) (Insecta: Dictyoptera)

We analysed, under laboratory test conditions, how German cockroach larvae oriented their outgoing foraging trip from their shelter. Our results stressed the importance of external factors, like availability and spatial distribution of food sources, in the choice of a foraging strategy within their home range. When food sources were randomly distributed, larvae adopted a random food search strategy. When food distribution was spatially predictable and reliable, cockroaches were able to relate the presence of food with a landmark during a 3-day training period and to develop an oriented search strategy. Cockroaches were able to associate learned spatial information about their home range to the presence of food resources and then to improve their foraging efficiency. However, conflict experiments revealed that detection of food odour overrode learned landmark cues. Received: 16 October 1999 / Accepted after revision: 18 July 2000     

从词频和新旧效应探讨再认测验中的定向遗忘

本文采用字表方式,从高低词频和新旧效应角度,探讨内隐和外显测验中定向遗忘效应的存在性及其机制问题。结果发现:(1)低频词在两种测验中都存在定向遗忘效应,而高频词仅存在于外显测验中。(2)两种测验中都存在指示记住的新旧效应,而外显测验中不存在指示忘记的新旧效应。由此推断,测验间在没有"意识和无意识"相互污染的理想情况下,只有外显测验可获得定向遗忘效应;定向遗忘的机制可能是选择性编码机制。     

Visual categorization of natural stimuli by domestic dogs

One of the fundamental issues in the study of animal cognition concerns categorization. Although domestic dogs (Canis familiaris) are on the brink to become one of the model animals in animal psychology, their categorization abilities are unknown. This is probably largely due to the absence of an adequate method for testing dogs’ ability to discriminate between large sets of pictures in the absence of human cueing. Here we present a computer-automated touch-screen testing procedure, which enabled us to test visual discrimination in dogs while social cueing was ruled out. Using a simultaneous discrimination procedure, we first trained dogs (N = 4) to differentiate between a set of dog pictures (N = 40) and an equally large set of landscape pictures. All subjects learned to discriminate between the two sets and showed successful transfer to novel pictures. Interestingly, presentation of pictures providing contradictive information (novel dog pictures mounted on familiar landscape pictures) did not disrupt performance, which suggests that the dogs made use of a category-based response rule with classification being coupled to category-relevant features (of the dog) rather than to item-specific features (of the background). We conclude that dogs are able to classify photographs of natural stimuli by means of a perceptual response rule using a newly established touch-screen procedure. Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (doi:) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.     

Flexibility over automaticity: Separable representations for colours and words

This study demonstrates that associations between colour words and the colours they denote are not mandatory. Experiments 1–3 used a go/no-go task in which participants responded to one print colour and one word and withheld response from another print colour and another word. In Experiment 1, the content of the words denoted noncolour entities. In Experiment 2 the two words denoted two colours that were different from the target print colours. In Experiment 3, the words denoted the same colours as the target print colours but each response set included incompatible print colour and word (e.g., one response to the print colour blue and the word “green” and another response to the print colour green and the word “blue”). Participants performed equally well in all the experiments. Experiment 4a used Arabic digits and words denoting numbers, two formats that are known to have shared representations. Here, participants had difficulties separating their responses to the digits and words. These results suggest that representations of words are distinct from the content that they represent, supporting the existence of distinct verbal and colour modules.     

Mind-reading without the scanner: Behavioural decoding of working memory content

ABSTRACT

Sophisticated machine learning algorithms have been successfully applied to functional neuroimaging data in order to characterize internal cognitive states. But is it possible to “mind-read” without the scanner? Capitalizing on the robust finding that the contents of working memory guide visual attention toward memory-matching objects, we trained a multivariate pattern classifier on behavioural indices of attentional guidance. Working memory representations were successfully decoded from behaviour alone, both within and between individuals. The current study provides a proof-of-concept for applying machine learning techniques to simple behavioural outputs (e.g., response times) in order to decode information about specific internal cognitive states.     

孕期心理状态自我评估表的效能评价

本文通过实际测评对孕期心理状态自我评估表进行效能评价。经现场调查共得612份有效问卷,通过信效度考评发现:条目鉴别力均较强;可提取5个公因子解释总变异的52.151%;校标效度分别为0.787、0.771;整张表的信度系数达到要求;用一致性检验确定37/38分为分界值。评估表效能考评结果较理想。     

自闭症谱系障碍者面孔识别的神经机制

自闭症谱系障碍（ASD）是一种心理状况的谱系障碍,其症状是社交及沟通上的广泛性异常、异常局限性的兴趣和高度重复性的刻板行为。包括自闭症、亚斯伯格症候群和待分类的广泛性发展障碍3类。研究主要以事件相关电位和功能性磁共振成像两种技术为线索,通过深入分析ASD患者在面孔识别认知过程中脑的异常变化,探讨其面孔识别障碍的神经机制问题。研究表明,ASD患者面孔识别能力的损伤主要与N170、N300、P400和Nc等ERPs成份异常及梭状回面孔区和杏仁核的低激活有关。研究推论ASD患者面孔识别障碍是多个异常脑区联合作用的结果,且主要受异常脑区的数量和损伤程度的影响。     

The egocentric reference for visual exploration and orientation

Clinical signs of damage to the egocentric reference system range from the inability to detect stimuli in the real environment to a defect in recovering items from an internal representation. Despite clinical dissociations, current interpretations consider all symptoms as due to a single perturbation, differentially expressed according to the medium explored (perceptual or representational). We propose an alternative account based on the functional distinction between two separate egocentric mechanisms: one allowing construction of the immediate point of view, the other extracting a required perspective within a mental representation. Support to this claim comes from recent results in the domain of navigation, showing that separate cognitive mechanisms maintain the egocentric reference when actively exploring the visual space as opposed to moving according to an internal map. These mechanisms likely follow separate developmental pathways, seemingly depend on distinct neural pathways and are used independently by healthy adults, reflecting task demands and individual cognitive style. Implications for spatial cognition and social skills are discussed.