Combining standardized mean differences using the method of maximum likelihood

A maximum likelihood procedure for combining standardized mean differences based on a noncentratt-distribution is proposed. With a proper data augmentation technique, an EM-algorithm is developed. Information and likelihood ratio statistics are discussed in detail for reliable inference. Simulation results favor the proposed procedure over both the existing normal theory maximum likelihood procedure and the commonly used generalized least squares procedure.     

不同阅读水平儿童汉字音形义联结的研究

以小学四年级儿童为被试,通过音义联结、音形联结、形义联结和音形义联结四项测试,对不同阅读水平儿童汉字音形义的相应联结进行了比较研究.结果表明:(1)不同阅读水平儿童在汉字音、形、义联结强度上存在显著差异.(2)低阅读水平儿童汉字字形表征的模糊影响了他们汉字音形、形义的联结强度.     

内隐的可接近信息对FOK判断等级和准确性的影响

该研究使用RJR研究范式,探讨内隐的可接近信息对FOK判断等级和判断准确性的影响。结果发现：FOK判断等级受内隐的可接近信息量的影响,二者呈非单调递增、递减的关系;FOK判断等级随内隐的可接近信息强度的增强而增高;FOK判断准确性随内隐的可接近信息量的增多而降低,并随内隐的可接近信息强度的增强而增高。     

客体特征统计属性表征机制的特异性

通过两个实验就视觉系统能否像计算平均数那样高效地计算其他统计量的问题进行了探讨。实验—保持—组圆的平均大小不变而改变众数,考察平均数估计是否受众数变化的影响;实验二采用与实验一相同的刺激,直接考察被试估计众数的绩效。结果发现：（1）对平均数的估计不受总体众数变化的影响;（2）对众数的估计往往不如对平均数的估计准确,估计值受平均数变化的影响;（3）在估计众数的任务中,被试成绩受总体极大值的影响。上述结果表明,视觉系统不存在针对众数的自动化加工机制。根据本实验的结果可以进一步推测,视觉系统并非对所有统计量都可做高效加工,而可能存在针对平均数的特异加工机制。     

Horses (Equus caballus) select the greater of two quantities in small numerical contrasts

The ability to select the greater numerosity over another in small sets seems to stem from the calculation of which set contains more, and has been taken as evidence of a primordial representation at the roots of the primate numerical system. We tested 56 horses (Equus caballus) in a paradigm previously used with human infants and nonhuman primates. Horses saw two quantities paired in contrasts—2 versus 1, 3 versus 2, 6 versus 4 and a control for volume, 2 versus 1 big—and had to make a choice by snout touching the container holding the numerosity selected. The horses spontaneously selected the greater of the two quantities when the numerosities were small. These results add to evidence showing spontaneous quantity assessment in a variety of species. To my brother Marcelo Uller (1964–2008), for whom the understanding of animals, through biomimetics, was the only way to understand man-made engineering.     

抑郁认知易感性的新解释——双重加工模型

双重加工模型认为人类拥有两种信息加工模式,联想模式是快速、不需努力的加工,以良好学习联想(Well-learned associations)为基础:反思模式是慢速的、需要付出努力的加工,建立在基于规则的符号推理基础上,联想模式的发生是自动化的,当预期被违反时,执行反思模式,并需要足够的认知资源.当反思加工没有校正消极的有偏向的联想加工时,就会表现出抑郁的认知易感性.双重加工模型对抑郁认知易感性的评估、病原学和治疗提出了新的看法.     

Functional role theories of representation and content explanation: with a case study from spatial cognition

The aim of this paper is to show that the widespread opinion, according to which functional role theories of representation fail to account for content explanations of human and animal behaviour, cannot be confirmed with respect to each type of functional role theory. Functional resemblance theories (as referred to by O’Brien and Opie in Representation in mind, Elsevier, 2004) allow for content explanations of successfully performed cognitive abilities as much as for explanations of systematic errors resulting from misrepresentation. How functional roles do their explanatory work in actual scientific research examples is shown by a detailed exploration of model assumptions about homing performances based on path integration mechanisms in humans and animals.

Symmetric frenzy and catastrophic change: A consideration of primitive mental states in the wake of Bion and Matte Blanco

The author explores the connections between Matte Blanco's notion of symmetric frenzy, i.e. the turbulence characteristic of the deepest levels of mental functioning, and Bion's concept of catastrophic change. For Bion, mental links are retrieved from the formless darkness of infinity. With catastrophic change, emotional violence and the confining nature of representation come into conflict, leaving the subject prey to an explosiveness that paralyses mental resources. Matte Blanco identifies indivisibility as the abyss in which all differentiation ceases; he bases his model on the conflict between symmetry and asymmetry. Infinity, he maintains, is where the first forms of mentalization develop. Both Bion and Matte Blanco emphasize the contrast between the immensity of mental space and the spatio-temporal order introduced by the activation of thinking functions. The author presents clinical material from the analysis of a psychotic patient, stressing the need to encourage both working through the defect of thinking (Bion) and 'unfolding' manifestations of symmetry (Matte Blanco) so as to foster the activation of the resources of thought, meanwhile postponing transference interpretation. He concludes with two later sessions, in which recognition of the analyst in the transference allows the analysand to develop his capacity for containment and asymmetric differentiation.     

Regular Minimality and Thurstonian-type modeling

A Thurstonian-type model for pairwise comparisons is any model in which the response (e.g., “they are the same” or “they are different”) to two stimuli being compared depends, deterministically or probabilistically, on the realizations of two randomly varying representations (perceptual images) of these stimuli. The two perceptual images in such a model may be stochastically interdependent but each has to be selectively dependent on its stimulus. It has been previously shown that all possible discrimination probability functions for same–different comparisons can be generated by Thurstonian-type models of the simplest variety, with independent percepts and deterministic decision rules. It has also been shown, however, that a broad class of Thurstonian-type models, called “well-behaved” (and including, e.g., models with multivariate normal perceptual representations whose parameters are smooth functions of stimuli) cannot simultaneously account for two empirically plausible properties of same–different comparisons, Regular Minimality (which essentially says that “being least discriminable from” is a symmetric relation) and nonconstancy of the minima of discrimination probabilities (the fact that different pairs of least discriminable stimuli are discriminated with different probabilities). These results have been obtained for stimulus spaces represented by regions of Euclidean spaces. In this paper, the impossibility for well-behaved Thurstonian-type models to simultaneously account for Regular Minimality and nonconstancy of minima is established for a much broader notion of well-behavedness applied to a much broader class of stimulus spaces (any Hausdorff arc-connected ones). The universality of Thurstonian-type models with independent perceptual images and deterministic decision rules is shown (by a simpler proof than before) to hold for arbitrary stimulus spaces.     

Connectionist semantic systematicity

Fodor and Pylyshyn [Fodor, J. A., & Pylyshyn, Z. W. (1988). Connectionism and cognitive architecture: A critical analysis. Cognition, 28, 3–71] argue that connectionist models are not able to display systematicity other than by implementing a classical symbol system. This claim entails that connectionism cannot compete with the classical approach as an alternative architectural framework for human cognition. We present a connectionist model of sentence comprehension that does not implement a symbol system yet behaves systematically. It consists in a recurrent neural network that maps sentences describing situations in a microworld, onto representations of these situations. After being trained on particular sentence–situation pairs, the model can comprehend new sentences, even if these describe new situations. We argue that this systematicity arises robustly and in a psychologically plausible manner because it depends on structure inherent in the world.