Contrasting Acquisition-Focused and Performance-Focused Models of Acquired Behavior

What is encoded during a learning experience? In a learning situation, a training (acquisition) phase is often followed by a test phase. Acquisition-focused models (most associative models) emphasize information processing that occurs during training and assume that only summary statistics (associative values) are retained to influence behavior during testing. Performance-focused models (a k a "computational" models) emphasize information processing that occurs at test and often assume fairly comprehensive memory of prior experiences. In this article, we contrast these two families of models. We note that neither family can claim unique support from the various learning phenomena commonly cited as favoring one or the other position. Within each family, there are highly diverse models that preclude blanket generalizations. However, the acquisition-focused view that subjects retain only summary statistics suggests unrealistically impoverished memories relative to the fairly veridical memories that clearly are formed. But this oversimplifying assumption of acquisition-focused associative theories is exactly what has made them superior to performance-focused models to date in stimulating research.     

Across-task long-term priming: Interaction of task readiness and automatic retrieval

When humans carry out actions in response to external stimulation, they acquire associations between the stimulus and the action it triggered. When the same stimulus is used in two different tasks, the retrieval of associations compiled in the competing task hampers current performance. Previous research suggests that this across-task priming depends on the task set for the preceding task remaining active across the switch of tasks and, thus, competing with the activations needed for the new task. We present two experiments investigating this notion. Participants switched between two semantic classification tasks. In Experiment 1, participants switched between short runs of the two tasks. Across-task priming was observed on switch and repeat trials. In Experiment 2, participants switched between longer runs of the two tasks. Across-task priming was markedly reduced on repeat trials. The data suggest that whether or not across-task priming affects behaviour after the switch trial depends, amongst others, on whether the task set necessary for the previous task spills into the repeat trials. The implications of these findings for mechanisms of cognitive and mnemonic control are discussed.     

道德概念垂直空间隐喻理解中的映射:双向性及不平衡性

通过4个实验考察道德概念垂直空间隐喻理解中的映射机制和特征。实验1采用空间Stroop范式,发现被试判断完道德词后,对判断随后呈现在屏幕上方或下方字母的反应时的差异不显著,没有发现词汇类型对空间位置的影响。实验2采用有意识迫选法,要求被试出声读出屏幕中央的道德词后,对屏幕上方或下方的希腊语非词进行二择一迫选,发现被试读出道德词后倾向于选择屏幕上方的非词,读出不道德词后倾向于选择屏幕下方的非词。实验3仍采用Stroop范式,发现被试做出空间"上"的判断后,对随后道德词的词义判断反应时显著快于不道德词,做出空间"下"的判断后,对不道德词的反应时显著快于道德词。实验4探讨空间位置是否会对判断人物的道德性产生影响,结果发现被试倾向于认为屏幕上方的人物是道德的,而屏幕下方的人物是不道德的。4个实验的结果表明,在道德概念垂直空间隐喻的理解中,映射的方式是灵活的、双向的,既可以由始源域向目标域映射,也可以由目标域向始源域映射,但两个方向上的映射力量是不平衡的。     

Doing business: an obscure notion of the ethics of public associations in ordinary Chinese

Along with the notion of being a person (zero run 做人), the notion of doing business (zuo shi 做事) in ordinary Chinese is basically an over-all notion of the norms in the practical and associative activities, carrying typically obscure meanings on practice and association affairs in some external world. Ordinary Chinese not only distinguishes these two notions but also defines a dictionary order of them, with the affairs of the internal world prior to those of the external. The fact that the notion of doing business refers to business (shi 事) rather than person (ren 人) makes this order clear at a deeper level. It shows that this notion regards the practical affairs of the external world less important to the person itself than those of the internal. Except for these qualities, the notion of doing business holds some normative meanings, although contains no definite rules. These meanings indirectly relate to the notion of person that people form in their private associations and emerge as some mixture with a tactical attitude out of the need of earning a life. The notion of person gives birth to some obscure requirements, for instance, the requirement of ‘doing business in accordance with your conscience’ and that of ‘doing business seriously’. The core world of family is marginalized in the public transition of associations. There are reasons to anticipate that in this process the notion of doing business will undergo more radical changes than that of being a person. __________ Translated from Zhexue Yanjiu 哲学研究 (Philosophical Studies), 2005 (7)     

序列位置内隐学习产生机制的实验研究

内隐学习是当今认知和学习领域继内隐记忆之后又一重要的研究课题。该研究利用序列反应时研究程式,通过两个实验,对序列位置内隐学习产生的机制进行了探讨。结果表明：（１）在序列反应时任务程式中,随着反应一刺激间隔的延长,序列位置内隐学习的学习量逐渐减少;（２）异形同模式迁移组和异形异模式迁移组被试间内隐学习量无显著差异,被试未能内隐地习得抽象的序列模式。说明序列位置内隐学习产生的基础是水平联结,在该实验条件下没有发现垂直联结存在的证据。     

AMPing Racial Attitudes: Comparing the Power of Explicit and Implicit Racism Measures in 2008

In 2008, ANES included for the first time—along with standard explicit measures of old‐fashioned and symbolic racism—the Affect Misattribution Procedure (AMP), a relatively new implicit measure of racial attitudes. This article examines the extent to which four different measures of racial prejudice (three explicit and one implicit) predict public opinion during and after the 2008 election, including Americans' views towards several racial policy issues, their evaluations of, and feelings toward, Barack Obama, and their attitudes toward a Black president in general. Oversamples of African American and Latino respondents in the 2008 ANES enable us to broaden our tests of these measures beyond traditional White samples. We find that racial prejudice played an important role for all racial/ethnic groups but that the traditional explicit measures of racism are by far the stronger predictors for all of our dependent variables (compared to the new implicit measure) for both White and Black respondents. Surprisingly, the AMP adds clear explanatory power only to models in the Latino sample.     

Thorndike's Puzzle Boxes And The Origins Of The Experimental Analysis Of Behavior

The year of Thorndike's dissertation on animal intelligence, 1898, may mark the beginning of the field that eventually became known as the experimental analysis of behavior. The dissertation began a major shift in thinking about animal and human learning, provided important methodological innovations, and carried the seeds of later research and theory, particularly by B. F. Skinner. Although Thorndike was an associationist in 1898, the dissertation began the systematic search for fundamental behavioral processes, and laid the foundation for an empirical science of behavior.     

Edward L. Thorndike: the selectionist connectionist

From the very outset of his work, Thorndike allied himself with the Darwinian proposition that complex phenomena can arise as the cumulative effects of a selection process, here the process envisioned by the law of effect. Thorndike's selectionist approach, when combined with his connectionism, laid the foundation for a synthesis of behavior analysis and neuroscience.     

SELECTIVE ASSOCIATIONS PRODUCED SOLELY WITH APPETITIVE CONTINGENCIES: THE STIMULUS-REINFORCER INTERACTION REVISITED

In studies reporting stimulus-reinforcer interactions in traditional conditioning paradigms, when a tone-light compound was associated with food the light gained stimulus control, but when the compound was paired with shock avoidance the tone gained control. However, the physical nature of the reinforcerrelated events (food vs. shock) presented in the presence of the tone-light compound was always confounded with the conditioned hedonic value of the compound's presence relative to its absence. When the compound was paired with shock, its presence was negative relative to its absence (which was shock-free). In contrast, when the compound was paired with food, its presence was positive relative to its absence (which was food-free). The present experiment dealt with this confounding effect by conditioning a tone-light compound to be positive or negative, relative to its absence, solely with food reinforcement. One group of rats received food for responding in the presence of the tone-light compound and no food in its absence. The other group also responded in the presence of the compound, but received food only in its absence. These rats were trained on a chained schedule in which responding in the presence of the tone-light compound produced a terminal link signaled by the absence of the compound; responding ceased in the terminal link because it delayed food delivery. In a test session to assess stimulus control by the elements of the compound, tone and light were presented separately under extinction conditions. Rats that had been exposed to a positive correlation between food and the compound emitted almost double the responses in the presence of the light as in the presence of the tone. In comparison, rats that had been exposed to a negative correlation emitted only two thirds as many responses in the presence of the light as in the presence of the tone. Because this selective association was produced using only food, it appears that the contingencies under which a reinforcer is presented, rather than (or as well as) its physical properties, can generate the selective associations previously attributed to “stimulus-reinforcer interactions.” This could mean that regardless of the class of reinforcer that ultimately maintains responding (appetitive or aversive), the contingency-generated hedonic value of the compound stimulus may influence the dominant modality of stimulus control.     

Intergenerational relationships and marriage in China: Within-family longitudinal associations and between-family differences

Marriage is embedded in the web of spouses' broader social ties, and relationship quality with parents and parents-in-law is associated with marital quality. Guided by Family Systems theory and using three waves of dyadic data from 268 Chinese different-sex couples across the first several years of marriage, we first conducted a Random-Intercept Actor-Partner Interdependence Cross-lagged Panel Model (RI-APIM-CLPM) to examine the within-family longitudinal associations among husbands' and wives' relationship quality with parents, parents-in-law, and spouse. Then, husbands' and wives' filial obligations were added as predictors of between-family differences in their own and their partner's relationship quality in the three social ties. Among husbands, increased relationship quality in one social tie (e.g., with parents) predicted reductions in relationship quality in the other social ties (e.g., relationships with parents-in-law and marital quality). Our examination of between-family differences demonstrated that high levels of filial obligations predicted higher intergenerational relationship quality and marital quality. By simultaneously considering the within-family associations of multiple social ties and how filial obligations account for between-family differences in relationship quality, we contribute to a nuanced understanding of how Chinese couples' romantic partnerships are embedded in their broader family system.