The effects of nodality on the formation of equivalence classes

A four-member equivalence class (A → B → C → D) can be formed by training AB, BC, and CD. The nodal stimuli, B and C, mediate all of the derivative (transitive and equivalence) relations in the class. The derivative relations AC, CA, BD, and DB are separated by one node, whereas AD and DA are separated by two nodes. How do the number of nodes that separate the stimuli in a derivative relation influence the induction of stimulus control exerted by that relation? Seven college students learned two four-member classes made up of nonsense syllables. After training, all derivative relations were presented repeatedly without informative feedback. Stimulus control exerted by each derivative relation was assessed concurrently. For the 7 subjects, control exerted by the derivative relations increased gradually with repeated presentations. With 6 of the 7 subjects, the one-node relations exerted more control than the two-node relations during the process. However, the disparity between the one- and two-node relations decreased with repeated presentations. Eventually, all derivative relations exerted complete control. The control exerted by derivative relations during induction was inversely related to the number of nodes separating the terms in the derivative relations. These results demonstrate that nodal distance is a determinant of the relatedness of stimuli in equivalence classes. The findings are discussed in terms of remote association, semantic memory networks, and the study of transitive inference.     

词汇加工初期语义属性的激活程度:来自ERP的证据

运用事件相关脑电位（ERP）技术,采用快速掩蔽启动范式和Go/Nogo范式,探讨汉语重复启动和语义相关启动中语义激活程度的差异和特点。实验中要求被试执行一个额外的语义判断任务,对关键刺激不做明显的行为反应。结果发现,在重复启动条件下获得了稳定的N400效应,语义相关启动条件下没有N400效应;重复启动和语义相关启动条件均未产生N250效应。在较短的SOA条件下,词频对语义的激活和加工不产生影响。     

Enactment supports unitisation of action components and enhances the contribution of familiarity to associative recognition

Memory for actions is usually better following subject-performed tasks (SPT) than verbal tasks (VT). We hypothesised that enactment unitises the components of actions such that familiarity can support associative recognition following SPT. To examine this hypothesis, participants studied verb–object pairs in a SPT or VT condition. During testing, they discriminated between intact, recombined and new items and made Remember/Know judgments; additionally, their EEGs were recorded. Associative recognition was better following SPT than VT. Early frontal event-related potentials (ERPs) were graded according to the item status following SPT, but no such effects were found after VT. Similarly, the late parietal ERPs were graded following SPT, whereas these effects were smaller and did not differ between intact and recombined items following VT. We conclude that enactment unitised the action and object so that familiarity could contribute to associative recognition and that recollection became sensitive to the amount of the matching associative information.     

Fred Dallmayr’s postmodern vision of Confucian democracy: a critical examination

As an advocate of ‘comparative political theory,’ Fred Dallmayr has long engaged with Confucianism with a new vision for democracy suitable in East Asia but little attention has been paid to his idea of Confucian democracy, which he presents as a specific mode of ethical or relational democracy. This paper investigates Dallmayr’s ethical vision of Confucian democracy, first, by articulating his postmodern reconceptualization of democracy in terms of post-humanism and, second, by examining his post-humanist reevaluation of Confucian virtue ethics as a critical resource for ethical democracy. It argues that the ethical vision of Confucian democracy, though morally appealing, should not dismiss the important instrumental value of democracy as a political system and, rather, find a way to integrate democracy’s instrumental and intrinsic values in a way that can enhance the qualitative relationality between people, political agents, and the common good.     

整合对联结再认和项目再认的促进作用：“只有收益”观点

研究旨在探讨整合如何影响联结再认和项目再认及其加工过程。编码阶段要求被试学习复合词和非复合词, 提取阶段完成联结再认和项目再认测验。结果显示, 复合词比非复合词有更好的联结再认表现, 但在项目再认表现上两者之间没有显著的差异。ERP结果显示, 在联结再认上, 复合词诱发显著的FN400效应(与熟悉性加工有关)和LPC效应(与回想加工有关), 非复合词只诱发显著的LPC效应, 且复合词比非复合词有更大的LPC效应。在项目再认上, 复合词比非复合词诱发更大的FN400效应。总而言之, 整合在促进联结再认的同时并不会损害项目再认的表现, 支持了“只有收益”观点。     

Novel associative processing and aging: effect on creative production

ABSTRACT

Creative production has been reported to decline with age. This study investigated age-related differences in creative verbal production. Participants were 30 younger and 30 older adults. Study testing included language and cognitive assessments and the experimental task wherein participants created short stories incorporating words that are not commonly related, semantically or associatively. The resulting stories were rated by independent blinded judges for originality, cohesion, appropriateness, and organization. Younger adults' stories were rated as being significantly more original and more appropriate. Integrating unrelated words to create original stories requires activating widely distributed lexical-semantic networks to develop novel associations. Potential decreased neural network connectivity due to white matter degradation, commonly seen in normal aging, as well as decrements in front-executive disengagement may have affected older adults' performance on this story creation task. Future research using neuroimaging may elucidate possible neuroanatomic correlates of age-related changes in associative creative production..     

Perceptual Learning in the Rat: Stimulus Differentiation or Latent Inhibition of Common Elements?

Preexposure to an unreinforced stimulus facilitates learning (perceptual learning) under some conditions, but it can have the opposite effect (latent inhibition) under other conditions. Researchers have suggested that perceptual learning depends on a change of context, whereas latent inhibition is usually context specific. The associative theory explains both phenomena within a single framework. The authors report 4 experiments that show that perceptual learning does not depend on a context change. The experiments suggest that latent inhibition, unlike perceptual learning, depends on passive exposure. Thus the results do not support the associative theory. They are more consistent with Gibson's stimulus-differentiation theory.     

Politics and Miracle: Radical Democracy and Non-Interventionist Divine Action

This paper elucidates Nancey Murphy's theology of special divine action in order to show its unique coherence as well as explore some political implications of this theory. Besides showing itself to be a fruitful conceptualization of both “the miraculous” and the natural world, this paper argues that Murphy's insights can be extended to address a pressing question in contemporary political theology: the nature and function of power in increasingly pluralistic societies. The upshot, drawing on the connection between conceptualizations of miracle and sovereignty made by Carl Schmitt, is that Murphy's non-interventionist theory of divine action at the quantum level “fits” with an equally non-interventionist account of political authority from below, at the level of an active, democratically engaged citizenry.     

Introduction to the guest edited section: world government

In this introduction, I first present the general problematic of the special section. Our world faces several existential challenges (climate change, threat of (nuclear) war, and global injustice) and some would argue (with even more disagreeing) that the only adequate answer to these challenges is setting up a world government. I then introduce the contributions that comprise the scholarly body of the special section: Andri? on global democracy; Hahn on global political reconciliation; Pinheiro Walla on Kant and world government; Miklós &; Tanyi on institutional consequentialism and world governance. Lastly, I briefly describe the practical context in which the idea of the special section has arisen and in which the present contributions have taken shape.