The semantic/episodic distinction: The case for social information processing

The directed-forgetting paradigm was used in order to dissociate episodic from semantic processes in an impression formation task. Results demonstrate that incongruent behaviors are more prone to manipulations that disrupt episodic memory, whereas congruent behaviors are unaffected by such manipulations. The results suggest that the distinction between episodic and semantic memory processes is central for the understanding of social information processing. An explanation is put forward according to which the incongruency effect, a signature effect of impression formation, is due to an episodic encoding advantage for incongruent behaviors because of their semantically isolated nature, and their impoverished semantic encoding.     

不同学习成绩的小学生有意遗忘过程的实验研究

该研究的实验材料为单字和双字词,利用字表方式呈现。被试为小学六年级的30名学生,按学习成绩好和差各选15名。实验结果为,（1）对单字材料,被试既对要记忆的项目进行了有意的复述,又对指示遗忘的材料产生了提取抑制;对双字词材料,被试只有对指示遗忘的材料产生提取抑制,而没有对要记忆的项目进行有意复述;（2）学习成绩好的学生的有意遗忘的抑制能力明显高于学习成绩差的学生。     

Truth-Sensitivity and Folk Epistemology

Several studies have found a robust effect of truth on epistemic evaluation of belief, decision, action and assertion. Thus, truth has a significant effect on normative participant evaluations. Some theorists take this truth effect to motivate factive epistemic norms of belief, action, assertion etc. In contrast, I argue that the truth effect is best understood as an epistemic instance of the familiar and ubiquitous phenomenon of outcome bias. I support this diagnosis from three interrelating perspectives: (1) by epistemological theorizing, (2) by considerations from cognitive psychology and (3) by methodological reflections on the relationship between folk epistemology and epistemological theorizing.     

认知负荷和项目竞争强度对大学生提取诱发遗忘的影响

采用提取练习范式与逐试次刷新任务相结合的双任务对96名大学生进行测试,通过考察认知负荷和项目竞争强度对提取诱发遗忘(RIF)的影响,以澄清RIF的产生机制。结果发现:相对于高、低认知负荷组大学生而言,控制组大学生在高项目竞争强度下诱发出显著的RIF,在低项目竞争强度下则未诱发出显著的RIF。结果表明:控制组大学生在汉语类别-样例词对中产生的RIF是由需要认知资源的控制性抑制加工产生的,这种RIF比拼音类别-样例词对中的RIF需要更多的认知资源,且未受相关代价与效益问题影响。     

Why is loving a thief not the same as loving all men for the Mohists?

The purpose of this article is to explain the Mohists’ perceived inconsistences of the following three propositions in the Mojing since we attribute to them an unconditional love toward human beings: (A) A thief is a man. Killing a thief is not killing men. (B) A thief is a man. Loving a thief is not loving men. (C) Zang is a man. Loving Zang is loving men. The attribution of unconditional love toward human beings is not unusual to the Mohists when we render the Mohist idea of jian’ai as universal love. My interpretation first suggests that we can consistently interpret the Mohist ethical position as intentional utilitarianism. Second, I claim that Mohist universal love includes some generality, though it does not have to mean universality without exception. This Mohist generality will be explained through the generic use of nouns.     

Withdrawal of spatial overt attention following intentional forgetting: evidence from eye movements

Eye movements were measured to examine whether item-method directed forgetting involved a spatial overt attention shift. Experiment 1 showed that participants’ eyes were moved away from the study word following the forget and ignore cues, but not the remember cue. Experiment 2 revealed that the eyes were moved away from the area that covered by the study word even when the study word disappeared upon the presentation of the memory cue. Both the study word and memory cue were presented auditorily in Experiment 3. In all experiments, the to-be-remembered words were recalled better than both to-be-forgotten and to-be-ignored words. More importantly, mental effort, as indexed by the pupil size, increased following the remember, as compared with the forget and ignore cues. These findings are discussed in terms of controlling spatial overt attention after encoding to withdraw attention from irrelevant information and to allocate cognitive resources to relevant information for long-term retention.     

Providing corrective feedback during retrieval practice does not increase retrieval-induced forgetting

Recalling a subset of studied materials can impair subsequent retrieval of related, nontested materials. In two experiments, we examined the influence of providing corrective feedback (no feedback, immediate feedback, delayed feedback) during retrieval practice on this retrieval-induced forgetting effect. Performance was assessed with category cued recall (e.g., recall all exemplars studied under Weather), category-and-stem cued recall (e.g., Weather–B___), and recognition. We report a dissociation between the effects of feedback on memory of the tested materials and the nontested materials. Whereas providing immediate or delayed feedback (compared to no feedback) improved recall and recognition of the tested items, it had no influence on retrieval-induced forgetting. These results are consistent with the inhibition account of retrieval-induced forgetting. From an applied perspective, this finding is encouraging for students and educators who use testing to foster learning.     

Adaptation of Neuromuscular Synergies During Intentional Constraints of Space-Time Relationships in Human Gait

Tight frequency-to-amplitude relationships are observed in spontaneous human steady gait. They can be modified, if required; that flexibility forms a fundamental basis of the intentional adaptive capabilities of locomotion. In the present experiments, the processes underlying that flexibility were investigated at both the level of joint kinematics and the level of neuromuscular synergies. Subjects (N = 4) walked at the same speed either with a preferred or a nonpreferred frequency-to-amplitude relationship (i.e., constrained, short steps at a high frequency [COS condition] or constrained, long steps at a low frequency [COL condition]); their swing and stance phases were separately analyzed. In the COS condition, increases in EMG activity were specifically required during the swing phase. In the COL condition, several muscles required increases in EMG activity during the stance phase, but decreases of the hamstring muscles were needed during the swing phase. Whereas, in preferred walking, modification of the frequency affects the EMG patterns globally (the gain increasing with the frequency in both the stance and swing phases), the present results show that changing the frequency in a constrained manner either affects the swing phase specifically or affects both phases, but in the opposite direction. That finding indicates mat a separate control is needed in both the swing and the stance phases.     

Directed Forgetting of Related Words: Evidence for the Inefficient Inhibition Hypothesis

Fifth-grade children and college students were asked to remember some words and to forget others in an item-cued-directed-forgetting task. Taxonomically related pairs of words and control pairs that were unrelated in meaning were used as stimuli. Children found it more difficult than did adults to ignore forget-cued words that followed asso-ciatively related words that were remember-cued. The results provide support for D. F. Bjorklund and K. K. Harnishfeger's (1990) inefficient inhibition hypothesis (i.e., that the efficiency of inhibitory mechanisms improves as children develop). The results also suggest that the inhibition is occurring primarily in the early stages of processing.     

“Scatter Analysis” Techniques Applied to Anxiety Neurotics from a Restricted Culturo-Educational Environment

Hearing-impaired children were individually administered a task in which possession of accumulating candy rewards was made contingent upon the child's decision to stop any further accumulation of the candy. Hearing-impaired children, who under instruction periodically made American Sign Language (ASL) statements about the goodness of the reward, waited significantly longer before terminating the waiting period than did hearing-impaired children instructed to sign statements about the act of waiting and somewhat longer than did hearing-impaired children instructed to sign a neutral statement. Since the pattern of delay was unlike that reported in earlier investigations when nonhandicapped children verbalized similar statements and since variation in mode of communication did not influence delay in nonhandicapped children in the present investigation, the results were interpreted in terms of differences in cognitive controlling mechanisms between nonhandicapped and hearing-impaired children.