What is adaptive about adaptive decision making? A parallel constraint satisfaction account

There is broad consensus that human cognition is adaptive. However, the vital question of how exactly this adaptivity is achieved has remained largely open. Herein, we contrast two frameworks which account for adaptive decision making, namely broad and general single-mechanism accounts vs. multi-strategy accounts. We propose and fully specify a single-mechanism model for decision making based on parallel constraint satisfaction processes (PCS-DM) and contrast it theoretically and empirically against a multi-strategy account. To achieve sufficiently sensitive tests, we rely on a multiple-measure methodology including choice, reaction time, and confidence data as well as eye-tracking. Results show that manipulating the environmental structure produces clear adaptive shifts in choice patterns – as both frameworks would predict. However, results on the process level (reaction time, confidence), in information acquisition (eye-tracking), and from cross-predicting choice consistently corroborate single-mechanisms accounts in general, and the proposed parallel constraint satisfaction model for decision making in particular.     

Modules in spatial vision: intrinsic reasons of their functional attributes

Visual modules can be viewed as expressions of a marked analytic attitude in the study of vision. In vision psychology, this attitude is accompanied by hypotheses that characterize how visual modules are thought to operate in perceptual processes. Our thesis here is that there are what we call “intrinsic reasons” for the presence of such hypotheses in a vision theory, that is, reasons of a deductive kind, which are imposed by the partiality of the basic terms (input and output) in the definition of a module, and by peculiar characteristics of those terms. Specifically, we discuss three hypotheses of functional attributes: successive stages in the action of modules, residual indeterminacy of their effects, and the role of prior constraints. For each of the three, we indicate its occurrence in perceptual psychology, explain corresponding intrinsic reasons, and illustrate such reasons with examples.     

The dynamics of bidirectional thought

High-level judgement and decision-making tasks display dynamic bidirectional relationships in which salient cues determine how responses are evaluated by decision-makers, and these responses in turn determine the cues that are considered. In this paper, we propose Kosko's bidirectional associative memory (BAM) network, a minimal two-layer recurrent neural network, as a mathematically tractable toy model with which the properties of existing bidirectional models, and the behavioural implications of these properties, can be studied. We first derive results regarding the dynamics of the BAM network, and then show how these results can be used to provide an analytically sound explanation for a number of important findings, including coherence shifts in judgement and choice, anchoring effects, and reference point effects.     

从信任违背到信任修复:道德情绪的作用机制

早期学者已经从认知的角度分析信任违背的原因及修复方式。近年来,情绪对信任修复的影响引起了重点关注,但是情绪在其中的作用机制并未得到解答。当前的研究主要从情绪影响信任的线索依赖效应和离散情绪(内疚、羞愧、愤怒、悲伤等)对信任修复的影响这两个角度着手研究情绪对信任修复的影响。通过文献梳理发现内疚和共情两种道德情绪是影响信任修复最重要的情绪因素:内疚能够促进受信方做出补偿行为,共情能够促进信任方宽恕他人。基于此构建了道德情绪的信任修复模型,并考虑了目标线索和信任方的特质性宽恕的调节作用。同时建议未来的研究进一步探讨其他离散情绪尤其是道德情绪对信任修复的作用,并关注情境与情绪的交互作用。     

Distorting Face Representations in Newborn Brains

What role does experience play in the development of face recognition? A growing body of evidence indicates that newborn brains need slowly changing visual experiences to develop accurate visual recognition abilities. All of the work supporting this “slowness constraint” on visual development comes from studies testing basic-level object recognition. Here, we present the results of controlled-rearing experiments that provide evidence for a slowness constraint on the development of face recognition, a prototypical subordinate-level object recognition task. We found that (1) newborn chicks can rapidly develop view-invariant face recognition and (2) the development of this ability relies on experience with slowly moving faces. When chicks were reared with quickly moving faces, they built distorted face representations that largely lacked invariance to viewpoint changes, effectively “breaking” their face recognition abilities. These results provide causal evidence that slowly changing visual experiences play a critical role in the development of face recognition, akin to basic-level object recognition. Thus, face recognition is not a hardwired property of vision but is learned rapidly as the visual system adapts to the temporal structure of the animal's visual environment.     

A personal commentary on J.W. Perry,M.D., and introduction to ‘Reconstitutive process in the psychopathology of the Self’

John Weir Perry’s influence on the understanding of the psychotic process through his research in San Francisco between 1950 and 1981 was groundbreaking, because it both verified and expanded upon C.G. Jung’s research at the Burghölzli Hospital in Switzerland in the early 1900’s. The author explores both the brilliance of Perry’s contribution as a psychiatrist and Jungian analyst and also shows the flawed human, who, with his rare sensitivity to the psychotic process, devoted his life work to the schizophrenic population and their often ill-fated search for meaning. She tells how his creative engagement with the analytic processes of Self discovery eventually led to analytic boundary violations, which ultimately resulted in his indefinite suspension from membership in his local Jungian community. Further, this paper describes her reflections on the innovative work that influenced both the treatment of this population, as well as educating candidates in analytical training to be receptive to and cognizant of psychotic affects and imagery. The archetypal field of the psychotic process, its influence on the development of analytical psychology relative to the psychotic process, and one man’s impact on the analytic community are considered.     

The Devil's Tabernacle: The Pagan Oracles in Early Modern Thought,by Anthony Ossa-Richardson,Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2013, 342 pp. ISBN 978 0 691 15711 5, US$35.00 (hardback); ISBN 978 1 400 84659 7 (e-book)

In this article, I juxtapose Pentecostal churches with youth gangs, two popular barrio institutions that at first glance appear to be irreconcilable but when considered together evince organic parallels that reveal important insights into contemporary life in urban poverty. Reflecting on ethnographic data from the Dominican Republic and elsewhere, I argue that due to an analogous ritualization of everyday life – through rigorous rules and clearly defined consequences for breaking them – both Pentecostal churches and youth gangs, despite their ostensible differences, afford a unique kind of freedom in constraint, and by providing reliable spaces of predictability, control, and mastery, have become popular stages for managing the precariousness of barrio life in late modernity.     

工作记忆、语境限制强度和句子长度对二语词汇学习的影响

本研究选取初二、高二、大三三个年龄段的被试,考察在句子阅读过程中,工作记忆容量、语境限制强度和句子长度对第二语言词汇学习的影响。研究结果发现,在句子阅读条件下,工作记忆容量是影响第二语言词汇学习的重要因素,高工作记忆容量促进了第二语言词汇的学习;在中等和长句子的条件下,语境的限制性越强,词汇学习的成绩越好;相比初二年龄组被试,高二和大三年龄组被试,在低语境限制性的情况下,阅读的句子越长,第二语言词汇学习效果越差。研究结果说明,个体工作记忆的容量,以及阅读材料等变量,都是影响自然阅读条件下二语词汇学习的重要因素。     

Impact of contextual constraint on vocabulary acquisition in reading*

The current study investigated the influence of contextual constraint (strong versus moderate) on incidental vocabulary acquisition in reading, as eye movements of adult skilled readers were monitored. Surprise post-tests followed the reading session, and eye movement behaviour was directly connected to retention data. Longer and more frequent reading/rereading was associated with trials containing a novel target (rather than a known control), and unique patterns of connective rereading between constraint conditions were observed. For reading measures reflecting target word processing and connecting target with context, fixations were generally longer and more frequent for moderate constraint than for strong. The exception was in rereading of informative context, which was generally longer for strong constraint. More and longer fixations while connecting novel targets with informative context proved critical for novel word retention, significantly so for moderate constraint but not for strong, based on eye movement data associated with memory for novel word stimuli.