Visual configural processing in adults born at extremely low birth weight

Being born at extremely low birth weight (ELBW; ≤1,000 g) is associated with enduring visual impairments. We tested for long‐term, higher order visual processing problems in the oldest known prospectively followed cohort of ELBW survivors. Configural processing (spacing among features of an object) was examined in 62 adults born at ELBW (M_age = 31.9 years) and 82 adults born at normal birth weight (NBW; ≥2,500 g: M_age = 32.5 years). Pairs of human faces, monkey faces, or houses were presented in a delayed match‐to‐sample task, where non‐matching stimuli differed only in the spacing of their features. Discrimination accuracy for each stimulus type was compared between birth weight groups, adjusting for neurosensory impairment, visual acuity, binocular fusion ability, IQ, and sex. Both groups were better able to discriminate human faces than monkey faces (p < .001). However, the ELBW group discriminated between human faces (p < .001), between monkey faces (p < .001), and to some degree, between houses (p < .06), more poorly than NBW control participants, suggesting a general deficit in perceptual processing. Human face discrimination was related to performance IQ (PIQ) across groups, but especially among ELBW survivors. Coding (a PIQ subtest) also predicted human face discrimination in ELBW survivors, consistent with previously reported links between visuo‐perceptive difficulties and regional slowing of cortical activity in individuals born preterm. Correlations with Coding suggested ELBW survivors may have used a feature‐matching approach to processing human faces. Future studies could examine brain‐based anatomical and functional evidence for altered face processing, as well as the social and memory consequences of face‐processing deficits in ELBW survivors.     

儿童二级错误信念认知与二级情绪理解的发展

以来自两所幼儿园的133名儿童为被试,探讨了3~6岁儿童二级错误信念认知和二级情绪理解的发展分化与联系。结果发现,6岁左右是儿童的二级错误信念认知和二级情绪理解发展的关键期;4岁左右的儿童能够掌握二级未知知识,获得情绪解码能力;儿童的二级未知与二级错误信念认知之间,儿童的情绪解码与二级情绪理解之间,在发展上存在1~2年的差距;二级推理能力是儿童进行二级心理状态认知的关键。     

The Logic and Meaning of Plurals. Part I

Contemporary accounts of logic and language cannot give proper treatments of plural constructions of natural languages. They assume that plural constructions are redundant devices used to abbreviate singular constructions. This paper and its sequel, “The logic and meaning of plurals, II”, aim to develop an account of logic and language that acknowledges limitations of singular constructions and recognizes plural constructions as their peers. To do so, the papers present natural accounts of the logic and meaning of plural constructions that result from the view that plural constructions are, by and large, devices for talking about many things (as such). The account of logic presented in the papers surpasses contemporary Fregean accounts in its scope. This extension of the scope of logic results from extending the range of languages that logic can directly relate to. Underlying the view of language that makes room for this is a perspective on reality that locates in the world what plural constructions can relate to. The papers suggest that reflections on plural constructions point to a broader framework for understanding logic, language, and reality that can replace the contemporary Fregean framework as this has replaced its Aristotelian ancestor.     

Comparison of drug effects on fixed-ratio performance and chain performance maintained under a second-order fixed-ratio schedule.

In one component of a multiple schedule, pigeons were required to complete the same four-response chain each session by responding sequentially on three identically lighted keys in the presence of four successively presented colors (chain performance). Food presentation occurred after five completions of the chain (i.e., after 20 correct responses). Errors, such as responding on the center or right key when the left was designated correct, produced a brief timeout but did not reset the chain. In the other component, responding on a single key (lighted white) was maintained by food presentation under a fixed-ratio 20 schedule. In general, phencyclidine and d-amphetamine produced dose-dependent decreases in the overall response rates in both components. With pentobarbital, overall rate in each component generally increased at intermediate doses and decreased at higher doses. All three drugs produced dose-dependent disruptive effects on chain-performance accuracy. Phencyclidine and pentobarbital increased percent errors at doses that had little or no rate-decreasing effects, whereas d-amphetamine generally increased percent errors only at doses that substantially decreased overall rate. At high doses, all three drugs produced greater disruption of chain performance than of fixed-ratio performance, as indicated by a slower return to control responding, although the effects of d-amphetamine were less selective than those of phencyclidine or pentobarbital.     

Bias of phencyclidine discrimination by the schedule of reinforcement.

Pigeons, trained to discriminate phencyclidine from saline under a procedure requiring the bird to track the location of a color, received cumulative doses of phencyclidine, pentobarbital, or d-amphetamine with a variety of schedules of reinforcement in effect (across phases). When the same second-order schedules were used to reinforce responding after either saline or phencyclidine administration, stimulus control by phencyclidine did not depend on the schedule parameter. When different second-order schedules were used that biased responding toward the phencyclidine-correlated key color, pigeons responded on the phencyclidine-correlated key at lower doses of phencyclidine and pentobarbital than when the second-order schedule biased responding toward the saline key color. A similar but less marked effect was obtained with d-amphetamine. Attempts to produce bias by changing reinforcement magnitude (duration of food availability) were less successful. A signal-detection analysis of dose-effect curves for phencyclidine under two of the second-order schedules employed suggested that at low doses of phencyclidine, response bias is a major determinant of responding. As doses were increased, position preferences occurred and response bias decreased; at higher doses both response bias and position preference decreased and discriminability increased. With low doses of pentobarbital, responding again was biased but increasing doses produced position preference with only small increases in discriminability. At low doses of d-amphetamine responding also was biased, but bias did not decrease consistently with dose nor did discriminability increase. These experiments suggest that the schedule of reinforcement can be used to bias responding toward or away from making the drug-correlated response in drug discrimination experiments, and that signal-detection analysis and analysis of responding at a position can be used to separate the discriminability of the drug state from other effects of the drug on responding.     

Polydipsia induced in rats by second-order schedules of reinforcement.

Three rats were exposed to a second-order schedule in which fixed-interval components ended either with food or with a brief stimulus that was never paired with food. Food and the brief stimulus occurred in a random sequence (variable-ratio 2 overall schedule). Another three rats were exposed to a similar second-order schedule, the only difference being that the food or the stimulus was presented independently of operant behavior (fixed-time components). The three rats exposed to the fixed-interval components licked at a water spout after each food presentation. These rats also licked in the intervals after the brief stimulus. Although the discriminative properties of food and of the brief stimulus were identical in relation to subsequent reinforcement, licking after the stimulus was less than after food. The three rats exposed to the second-order schedules with fixed-time components also licked at the water spout after food, but these rats did not lick consistently after brief stimulus presentations.     

Second-order schedules of token reinforcement: comparisons of performance under fixed-ratio and variable-ratio exchange schedules

Rats' lever pressing produced tokens according to a 20-response fixed-ratio schedule. Sequences of token schedules were reinforced under a second-order schedule by presentation of periods when tokens could be exchanged for food pellets. When the exchange period schedule was a six-response fixed ratio, patterns of completing the component token schedules were bivalued, with relatively long and frequent pauses marking the initiation of each new sequence. Altering the exchange period schedule to a six-response variable ratio resulted in sharp reductions in the frequency and duration of these initial pauses, and increases in overall rates of lever pressing. These results are comparable to those ordinarily obtained under simple fixed-ratio and variable-ratio schedules.     

Monodic Packed Fragment with Equality is Decidable

We prove decidability of satisfiability of sentences of the monodic packed fragment of first-order temporal logic with equality and connectives Until and Since, in models with various flows of time and domains of arbitrary cardinality. We also prove decidability over models with finite domains, over flows of time including the real order.     

3~6岁儿童二级错误信念认知的发展

采用“新故事”对来自两所幼儿园的133名3~6岁儿童的二级错误信念进行了测查,探查了这一阶段儿童二级错误信念认知的发展。研究主要得出以下结论：4岁左右的儿童能够掌握二级未知知识,但是儿童对于二级错误信念的理解要晚1~2年,6岁左右是儿童二级错误信念发展的关键期。儿童对于信念问题的错误回答主要是基于一级推理,相当一部分的6岁儿童能够基于二级推理对信念问题做出合理解释。儿童对于二级错误信念认知的发展不是一个全或无的过程,而是一个逐步发展的过程。