视觉特征提取加工中的认知可塑性

本研究采用“加因素法”研究范式,通过两个实验分别检测20名飞行员和lO名老年被试及其相应控制组在视觉特征提取任务上的认知加工水平,旨在探讨视觉特征提取这一高水平视觉表象加工上的认知可塑性水平。研究结果表明,视觉特征提取加工既表现出了随外界系统训练而发生功能增强的练习效应,也表现出了随年老化过程而发生相应功能显著改变的年龄效应。研究提示,由于受大脑神经细胞活动特性改变的影响,视觉特征提取加工更多地表现出了可塑性或易变性相对较高的认知特性。结合相关的工作基础,研究结果还进一步证实高水平视觉认知加工所表现出的练习效应和年龄效应在大脑神经网络上的分布是不平衡的。本研究不仅对于揭示高水平视觉表象加工的认知特性具有重要的理论意义,而且在实践中对于建立飞行员、宇航员等特殊职业人员的选拔模型以及揭示飞行空间定向障碍的认知机制也具有重要的应用价值。     

数学认知模型评介--加法事实存储与提取

本文介绍了国外心理学界近年来提出的有关加法事实存储与提取的筱模型,即小值模型、网络恢复模型、联结强度分布模型、网络干扰模型以及比较模型,并对其进行了简评。     

Self-reported inner speech relates to phonological retrieval ability in people with aphasia

Many individuals with aphasia report the ability to say words in their heads despite spoken naming difficulty. Here, we examined individual differences in the experience of inner speech (IS) in participants with aphasia to test the hypotheses that self-reported IS reflects intact phonological retrieval and that articulatory output processing is not essential to IS. Participants (N = 53) reported their ability to name items correctly internally during a silent picture-naming task. We compared this measure of self-reported IS to spoken picture naming and a battery of tasks measuring the underlying processes required for naming (i.e., phonological retrieval and output processing). Results from three separate analyses of these measures indicate that self-reported IS relates to phonological retrieval and that speech output processes are not a necessary component of IS. We suggest that self-reported IS may be a clinically valuable measure that could assist in clinical decision-making regarding anomia diagnosis and treatment.     

Shape‐ and Trait‐Congruency: Using Appearance‐based Cues as a Basis for Product Recommendations

This research demonstrates that a consumer's physical appearance—and, more specifically, his or her body size—predictably influences the product(s) that the consumer is recommended. Four studies conducted in both field and lab settings show that agents more frequently recommend round (vs. angular) shaped products to heavier targets, notably for products and categories in which body size is irrelevant (e.g., lamps and perfume). We attribute this to a combination of shape‐congruency and trait‐congruency, whereby individuals choose products for others based on shared dimensions of the person and product.     

A Computational Evaluation of Two Models of Retrieval Processes in Sentence Processing in Aphasia

Can sentence comprehension impairments in aphasia be explained by difficulties arising from dependency completion processes in parsing? Two distinct models of dependency completion difficulty are investigated, the Lewis and Vasishth (2005) activation-based model and the direct-access model (DA; McElree, 2000). These models' predictive performance is compared using data from individuals with aphasia (IWAs) and control participants. The data are from a self-paced listening task involving subject and object relative clauses. The relative predictive performance of the models is evaluated using k-fold cross-validation. For both IWAs and controls, the activation-based model furnishes a somewhat better quantitative fit to the data than the DA. Model comparisons using Bayes factors show that, assuming an activation-based model, intermittent deficiencies may be the best explanation for the cause of impairments in IWAs, although slowed syntax and lexical delayed access may also play a role. This is the first computational evaluation of different models of dependency completion using data from impaired and unimpaired individuals. This evaluation develops a systematic approach that can be used to quantitatively compare the predictions of competing models of language processing.     

目标探测对记忆提取的影响

采用经典的"学习–再认"范式,在测验阶段设置了目标探测的干扰任务,通过比较目标探测和分心拒绝是否会对记忆提取产生不同的影响,以进一步探讨提取干扰与再认记忆之间的关系。结果发现,无论对目标进行显性(实验1)还是隐性(实验2)的探测反应,目标探测下旧词的再认反应均要比分心拒绝下更优,表明外显记忆的提取也会受到注意资源的调节。但更为重要的是,在辨别力指数(d′)及判断标准(C)上的差异分析发现,目标探测并没有提高被试的再认水平,而是降低了被试的判断标准,使得被试在目标探测条件下更容易对词做出"旧"反应。这种反应倾向与目标探测的动作反应方式无关,也不受词汇的编码加工水平深浅的调节。由此可见,外显记忆提取并非完全的"自动化加工",仍会受到注意资源的调节。     

The relationship between phonological processing and arithmetic in children with learning disabilities

Phonological processing skills have not only been shown to be important for reading skills, but also for arithmetic skills. Specifically, previous research in typically developing children has suggested that phonological processing skills may be more closely related to arithmetic problems that are solved through fact retrieval (e.g., remembering the solution from memory) than procedural computation (e.g., counting). However, the relationship between phonological processing and arithmetic in children with learning disabilities (LDs) has not been investigated. Yet, understanding these relationships in children with LDs is especially important because it can help elucidate the cognitive underpinnings of math difficulties, explain why reading and math disabilities frequently co-occur, and provide information on which cognitive skills to target for interventions. In 63 children with LDs, we examined the relationship between different phonological processing skills (phonemic awareness, phonological memory, and rapid serial naming) and arithmetic. We distinguished between arithmetic problems that tend to be solved with fact retrieval versus procedural computation to determine whether phonological processing skills are differentially related to these two arithmetic processes. We found that phonemic awareness, but not phonological memory or rapid serial naming, was related to arithmetic fact retrieval. We also found no association between any phonological processing skills and procedural computation. These results converge with prior research in typically developing children and suggest that phonemic awareness is also related to arithmetic fact retrieval in children with LD. These results raise the possibility that phonemic awareness training might improve both reading and arithmetic fact retrieval skills.

Research Highlights

• Relationships between phonological processing and various arithmetic skills were investigated in children with learning disabilities (LDs) for the first time.
• We found phonemic awareness was related to arithmetic involving fact retrieval, but not to arithmetic involving procedural computation in LDs.
• The results suggest that phonemic awareness is not only important to skilled reading, but also to some aspects of arithmetic.
• These results raise the question of whether intervention in phonemic awareness might improve arithmetic fact retrieval skills.

     

Question Design Affects Students' Sense-Making on Mathematics Word Problems

Mathematics word problems provide students with an opportunity to apply what they are learning in their mathematics classes to the world around them. However, students often neglect their knowledge of the world and provide nonsensical responses (e.g., they may answer that a school needs 12.5 buses for a field trip). This study examined if the question design of word problems affects students' mindset in ways that affect subsequent sense-making. The hypothesis was that rewriting standard word problems to introduce inherent uncertainty about the result would be beneficial to student performance and sense-making because it requires students to reason explicitly about the context described in the problem. Middle school students (N = 229) were randomly assigned to one of three conditions. In the standard textbook condition, students solved a set of six word problems taken from current textbooks. In the modified yes/no condition, students solved the same six problems rewritten so the solution helped answer a “yes” or “no” question. In the disfluency control condition, students solved the standard problems each rewritten in a variety of fonts to make them look unusual. After solving the six problems in their assigned condition, all students solved the same three “problematic” problems designed to assess sense-making. Contrary to predictions, results showed that students in the modified yes/no condition solved the fewest problems correctly in their assigned condition problem set. However, consistent with predictions, they subsequently demonstrated more sense-making on the three problematic problems. Results suggest that standard textbook word problems may be able to be rewritten in ways that mitigate a “senseless” mindset.     

THE ART OF RETRIEVAL: Stoicism?

This essay argues that retrieving insights from the ancient Stoic philosophers for Christian ethics is much more difficult than is often assumed and, further, that the “ethics of retrieval” is itself something worth prolonged reflection. The central problem is that in their ancient sense both Christianity and Stoicism are practically dense patterns of reasoning and mutually incompatible forms of life. Coming to see this clearly requires the realization that the encounter between Stoicism and Christianity is a conflict of lived traditions. Precisely because we cannot simply extract Stoic insights from the lives in which they belong, the task of determining how Stoicism is useful for Christianity is exceptionally challenging. Indeed, doing justice to the Stoics has more to do with facing an alternative to Christianity than it does with appropriating insights for our own use. These points are developed in conversation with Elizabeth Agnew Cochran's recent article on the Stoic influence upon Jonathan Edwards.