Representing time in language and memory: The role of similarity structure

Every day we read about or watch events in the world and can easily understand or remember how long they last. What aspects of an event are retained in memory? And how do we extract temporal information from our memory representations? These issues are central to human cognition, as they underlie a fundamental aspect of our mental life, namely our representation of time. This paper reviews previous language studies and reports a visual learning study indicating that properties of the events encoded in memory shape the representation of their duration. The evidence indicates that for a given event, the extent to which its associated properties or sub-components differ from one another modulates our representation of its duration. These properties include the similarity between sub-events and the similarity between the situational contexts in which an event occurs. We suggest that the diversity of representations that we associate with events in memory plays an important role in remembering and estimating the duration of experienced or described events.     

Evidence of a role for multiple memory systems in behavioral extinction

The acquisition of learned behavior involves multiple memory systems, and hippocampal system damage impairs cognitive learning while leaving stimulus-response habit learning intact. In view of evidence that extinction also involves new learning, the present experiments examined whether multiple memory systems theory may be applicable to the neural bases of extinction. Adult Long-Evans rats were trained to run in a straight-alley maze for food reward. Twenty-four hours later, rats matched for runway latencies during acquisition received extinction training. In a response extinction condition conducive to habit learning, rats performed a runway approach response to an empty food cup. In a latent extinction condition conducive to cognitive learning, rats were placed at an empty food cup without performing a runway approach response. Prior to daily extinction training, neural activity of the dorsal hippocampus was reversibly inactivated via infusion of bupivacaine (0.75%, 0.5 microl/side). Control rats receiving saline infusions displayed extinction behavior in both the response and latent training conditions. In contrast, rats receiving bupivacaine extinguished normally in the response condition, but did not display latent extinction. The findings (1) confirm that learning underlying extinction of the same overt behavior can occur with or without explicit performance of the previously acquired response, (2) indicate that extinction learning produced by response and latent training procedures can be neuroanatomically dissociated, and (3) suggest that similarly to initial task acquisition, the hippocampus may critically mediate extinction in situations requiring the use of cognitive learning, such as when performance of a previously acquired response habit is prevented.     

With the future behind them: convergent evidence from aymara language and gesture in the crosslinguistic comparison of spatial construals of time

Cognitive research on metaphoric concepts of time has focused on differences between moving Ego and moving time models, but even more basic is the contrast between Ego‐ and temporal‐reference‐point models. Dynamic models appear to be quasi‐universal cross‐culturally, as does the generalization that in Ego‐reference‐point models, FUTURE IS IN FRONT OF EGO and PAST IS IN BACK OF EGO. The Aymara language instead has a major static model of time wherein FUTURE IS BEHIND EGO and PAST IS IN FRONT OF EGO; linguistic and gestural data give strong confirmation of this unusual culture‐specific cognitive pattern. Gestural data provide crucial information unavailable to purely linguistic analysis, suggesting that when investigating conceptual systems both forms of expression should be analyzed complementarily. Important issues in embodied cognition are raised: how fully shared are bodily grounded motivations for universal cognitive patterns, what makes a rare pattern emerge, and what are the cultural entailments of such patterns?     

Did she mean to do it? Acquiring a folk theory of intentionality

The ability to both identify and explain others’ intentional acts is fundamental for successful social interaction. In two cross-sectional studies, we investigated 3- to 9-year-olds’ (n = 148) understanding of the folk concept of intentionality, using three types of intentionality measures. The relationship between this type of reasoning and false belief and interpretive mind understanding was also examined. Judgment of the appropriateness of an explanation was based on adult responses (n = 20). Overall, the results indicated that the ability to both identify and appropriately explain a range of intentional acts does not fully emerge until 7 years of age or later. The pattern of explanations revealed the gradual development of a folk concept of intentionality. Preschool- and early school-age children focused on the protagonists’ desires and actions, whereas 8- and 9-year-olds and adults were more likely to reference the protagonists’ awareness and skills.     

Personal and general belief in a just world as judgement norms

Research on the belief in a just world (BJW) has focused on its intra-individual functions (e.g., psychological well-being) and its inter-individual consequences (e.g., derogation of victims). Recent theorizing, however, has indicated that the BJW may also have more societal functions and consequences, serving as a legitimizing device of the status quo. The studies in the current paper focus on this latter view and are based on Alves and Correia's ( 2008 ) research which found that the expression of high personal and general belief in a just world is injunctively normative. Two experimental studies aimed at ascertaining three issues: (1) the dimension(s) of social value (social utility and/or social desirability) on which the BJW normativity anchors; (2) whether the expression of moderate BJW is also injunctively normative; and (3) whether the injunctive normativity of the BJW is related to perceptions of truth. Results indicate that moderate and high personal and general BJW are normative. Yet, whereas the normativity of personal BJW anchors both on social utility and social desirability, that of general BJW anchors only on social utility. We discuss personal and general BJW as judgement norms, whose normativity may not be personally acknowledged (in the case of general BJW) and does not necessarily derive from being perceived as true, but from the fact that such norms carry social value at least in individualistic societies.     

学前儿童的“心理理论”在不同ToM任务中的发展特点

考察了72名3～5岁儿童在三个改造过的经典错误信念任务中的表现,结果显示,大部分4岁儿童能够正确认识自我错误信念;大部分5岁儿童能够正确认识他人错误信念;大部分3～4岁儿童的自我错误信念认识显著好于他人（真人和玩偶）错误信念认识,5岁时这两种认识才没有显著差异;学前儿童对真人与玩偶错误信念的认识没有显著差异;学前儿童对“意外地点”任务和“意外内容”任务中错误信念问题回答的一致性较高,而对“外表—真实”任务的回答与前两种任务的一致性较低。     

Learning new vocabulary during childhood: Effects of semantic training on lexical consolidation and integration

Research suggests that word learning is an extended process, with offline consolidation crucial for the strengthening of new lexical representations and their integration with existing lexical knowledge (as measured by engagement in lexical competition). This supports a dual memory systems account, in which new information is initially sparsely encoded separately from existing knowledge and integrated with long-term memory over time. However, previous studies of this type exploited unnatural learning contexts, involving fictitious words in the absence of word meaning. In this study, 5- to 9-year-old children learned real science words (e.g., hippocampus) with or without semantic information. Children in both groups were slower to detect pauses in familiar competitor words (e.g., hippopotamus) relative to control words 24 h after training but not immediately, confirming that offline consolidation is required before new words are integrated with the lexicon and engage in lexical competition. Children recalled more new words 24 h after training than immediately (with similar improvements shown for the recall and recognition of new word meanings); however, children who were exposed to the meanings during training showed further improvements in recall after 1 week and outperformed children who were not exposed to meanings. These findings support the dual memory systems account of vocabulary acquisition and suggest that the association of a new phonological form with semantic information is critical for the development of stable lexical representations.     

An Experiment upon Repeated Reproduction

The author presented dwarf hamsters (Phodopus campbelli) and golden hamsters (Mesocricetus auratus) with conspecific and inanimate signals for food. Both species approached a cardboard stimulus that predicted food. The dwarf hamsters engaged in high levels of social contact directed toward a conspecific conditioned stimulus for food, but the golden hamsters did not. The author also presented dwarf hamsters with a conspecific signal that did not indicate food, and the levels of social behaviors that they directed toward it were significantly lower. These results suggest the presence of a social component in the dwarf hamster feeding system and are consistent with previous findings that the social transmission of food preferences occurs more readily in dwarf hamsters than in golden hamsters.