Time-dependent forgetting in visual short-term memory

ABSTRACT

Whether visual short-term memory can be lost over an unfilled delay, in line with time-dependent forgetting, is controversial and prior work has yielded mixed results. The present study explored time-dependent forgetting in visual short-term memory in relation to other factors. In three experiments, participants compared single target and probe objects over a 2 s or 10 s retention interval. The objects across trials were either similar or dissimilar (Experiment 1) and had to be remembered in the presence of an additional distractor (Experiment 2) or under conditions where the amount of time separating trials varied (Experiment 3). In all experiments, the retention interval manipulation made the biggest contribution to performance, with accuracy decreasing as the retention interval was lengthened from 2 s to 10 s. These results pose problems for interference and temporal distinctiveness models of memory but are compatible with temporal forgetting mechanisms such as decay.     

整字和部件的语义关系对汉字认知的影响

等级汉字是指由小汉字组成的大汉字。依据Navon的复合刺激范式,实验1选取“生物和非生物范畴”的汉字构建等级汉字,探索语义范畴是否一致对刺激认知的影响。实验2选取“意义相反或无关”的汉字组成等级汉字,采用真假字判断任务探索语义关系对刺激加工的影响。实验结果发现,等级汉字加工受大小汉字语义范畴关系和语义关系的影响,同时,任务类型影响汉字认知。     

Modeling spread,interlace and interchange of information processes with variable domains

In this paper a semantic metalanguage is developed and designed to study the occurrence, spread and safe interaction of semantic processes in information modeling systems, including cognitive interference. An approach to construe a semantic network is proposed and based on a computational model in which both nodes and arcs are information processes. Concepts are represented by intensional objects within the framework of theories without types, and they, in turn, are considered as special counterparts of typed theories. Similar mixing was used in model studies for lambda calculus. To a contrast with them, in this paper, information processes correspond to parameterized metadata objects, which are variable domain constructs. Transformations of variable domains correspond to the spread of the process. Directional transformation provides the generation of metadata targets in the form of parameterized concepts. This simulates the development of the process, which corresponds to the spread of cognitive interference and allows the interpretation of a hidden time factor. The emerging model is purely process based and provides such a conceptual framework. The possibility of coding this framework with a system of interdependent lambda terms is reflected.     

A case study investigating the role of the anterior temporal lobes in general semantics and semantics specific to persons,emotions and social conceptual knowledge

The role of the anterior temporal lobes (ATLs) in semantic representation remains still much debated. Long thought to support domain-general semantic processing, recent accounts have alternatively suggested that they may be preferentially involved in the processing of person-related semantic knowledge. Several studies have supported such a distinction, but few have either examined both types of semantic processing together, or considered the role of potentially important confounding variables. Here, we address these issues by investigating both domain-general and person-specific semantic processing in a patient with focal ATL damage. The patient presents with dense anterograde and retrograde amnesia. Performance was impaired on tests of general semantic knowledge, but most striking deficits were for person-related semantics, including recognition and identification, knowledge of emotions and social conceptual knowledge. This unique case provides compelling evidence that, in addition to the role in general semantic knowledge, the ATLs are critical for person-related semantics.     

Models that allow us to perceive the world more accurately also allow us to remember past events more accurately via differentiation

Differentiation is a theory that originally emerged from the perception literature and proposes that with experience, the representation of stimuli becomes more distinct from or less similar to the representation of other stimuli. In recent years, the role of differentiation has played a critical role in models of memory. Differentiation mechanisms have been implemented in episodic memory models by assuming that information about new experiences with a stimulus in a particular context accumulates in a single memory trace and these updated memory traces become more distinct from the representations of other stimuli. A key implication of such models is that well encoded events are less confusable with other events. This prediction is particularly relevant for two important phenomena. One is the role of encoding strength on memory. The strength based mirror effect is the finding of higher hit rates and lower false alarm rates for a list composed of all strongly encoded items compared to a list composed of all weakly encoded items. The other is output interference, the finding that accuracy decreases across a series of test trials. Results from four experiments show a tight coupling between these two empirical phenomena such that strongly encoded target items are less prone to interference. By proposing a process model and evaluating the predictions of the model, we show how a single theoretical principle, differentiation, provides a unified explanation for these effects.     

汉字饱和现象:证据、因素与展望

长时间注视某个字后,人们会产生一种这个字变得陌生或者开始解体的感觉,这是一种文字饱和现象。汉字作为表意的方块字,汉字饱和现象以及发生阶段得到了研究者的高度关注。该文首先梳理介绍了汉字饱和现象的证据与发生阶段,其次,总结了汉字饱和现象的影响因素,包括语义加工深度、实验材料的重复次数、实验材料类型等,最后,基于汉字饱和的发生阶段和影响因素,该文认为未来研究可以在汉语二语学习者的汉字饱和现象、语义饱和与字形饱和的进一步分离以及汉字作为实验材料的进一步挖掘等方面做更加深入的探讨。     

The problem with descriptive correctness

In the 1980s and early 1990s, the normativity of meaning was thought to be more-or-less ‘incontestable.’ But in the last 25 years, many philosophers of mind and language have contested it in several seemingly different ways. This, however, is somewhat illusory. There is an unappreciated commonality among most anti-normativist arguments, and this commonality, I argue, poses a problem for anti-normativism. The result, however, is not a wholesale rejection of anti-normativism. Rather, an insight from the anti-normativist position can be harnessed to reveal an unappreciated position in the normativity of meaning debate.