Episodic future thinking

Thinking about the future is an integral component of human cognition – one that has been claimed to distinguish us from other species. Building on the construct of episodic memory, we introduce the concept of ‘episodic future thinking’: a projection of the self into the future to pre-experience an event. We argue that episodic future thinking has explanatory value when considering recent work in many areas of psychology: cognitive, social and personality, developmental, clinical and neuropsychology. Episodic future thinking can serve as a unifying concept, connecting aspects of diverse research findings and identifying key questions requiring further reflection and study.     

工作记忆和长时记忆共享信息表征的ERP证据

工作记忆和长时记忆共享记忆系统的信息表征网络, 关系密切。实验采用事件相关电位技术记录长时记忆信息对工作记忆的长时语义启动和工作记忆对相关长时记忆信息的长时语义启动。结果显示：与新项目相比, 学习项(即长时记忆信息)对工作记忆的目标信息产生了明显的行为启动效应, N2潜伏期、波幅和P3潜伏期也表现出明显的神经启动效应, 即, 学习项比新项目的反应时更短、N2和P3的潜伏期更短、N2更正, 但学习对非记忆项的影响不大; 工作记忆对相关的长时记忆信息也产生了神经启动, 表现在类别比较任务中记忆类信息比其他信息(即, 与工作记忆任务中的信息无关的内容)的N400更正。而且, 这种神经启动也会因刺激重复次数的增多而降低：与新项目相比, 学习项会使与之语义类似信息的N400更负。上述两种长时语义启动的存在及其ERPs的神经启动均为长时记忆和工作记忆使用共同信息表征的观点提供了证据支持。证据还表明, 在工作记忆和长时记忆的相互作用中注意是关键的调节因素。     

Toward the Unification of Molecular and Molar Analyses

Three categories of behavior analysis may be called molecular, molar, and unified. Molecular analyses focus on how manual shaping segments moment-to-moment behaving into new, unified, hierarchically organized patterns. Manual shaping is largely atheoretical, qualitative, and practical. Molar analyses aggregate behaviors and then compute a numerical average for the aggregate. Typical molar analyses involve average rate of, or average time allocated to, the aggregated behaviors. Some molar analyses have no known relation to any behavior stream. Molar analyses are usually quantitative and often theoretical. Unified analyses combine automated shaping of moment-to-moment behaving and molar aggregates of the shaped patterns. Unified controlling relations suggest that molar controlling relations like matching confound shaping and strengthening effects of reinforcement. If a molecular analysis is about how reinforcement organizes individual behavior moment by moment, and a molar analysis is about how reinforcement encourages more or less of an activity aggregated over time, then a unified analysis handles both kinds of analyses. Only theories engendered by computer simulation appear to be able to unify all three categories of behavior analysis.     

Tracing the size,reach, impact,and breadth of positive psychology

This study quantitatively assessed the size, disciplinary reach, impact, and topic breadth of positive psychology (PP), in order to provide a comprehensive evaluation of the growth and significance of the field. Over 1.7?million documents in 700 PsycINFO ^® journals covering the fields of psychology, psychiatry, neuroscience, management, business, public health, and sport science were analyzed using semantic and bibliographic methods. Results indicate that PP covers many different research topics from a diverse range of disciplines, and that PP literature has been growing rapidly in significance. Over 18,000 documents were identified as belonging to PP, with 2300 published in 2011. These documents represent over 4% of PsycINFO ^® documents within the data-set published that year, and make PP close to the median size of all disciplines listed in the Thomson Reuters Journal Citation Reports ^®, Social Sciences Edition. The aggregate impact factor for PP in 2011 was 2.64.     

The role of textual semantic constraints in knowledge-based inference generation during reading comprehension: A computational approach

The present research adopted a computational approach to explore the extent to which the semantic content of texts constrains the activation of knowledge-based inferences. Specifically, we examined whether textual semantic constraints (TSC) can explain (1) the activation of predictive inferences, (2) the activation of bridging inferences and (3) the higher prevalence of the activation of bridging inferences compared to predictive inferences. To examine these hypotheses, we computed the strength of semantic associations between texts and probe items as presented to human readers in previous behavioural studies, using the Latent Semantic Analysis (LSA) algorithm. We tested whether stronger semantic associations are observed for inferred items compared to control items. Our results show that in 15 out of 17 planned comparisons, the computed strength of semantic associations successfully simulated the activation of inferences. These findings suggest that TSC play a central role in the activation of knowledge-based inferences.     

负相容效应中启动项-目标项关系对阈下信息加工的影响

采用掩蔽启动范式考察了负相容效应中启动项与目标项关系对阈下信息加工的影响,以及是否存在语义水平的负相容效应.两个实验分别以双箭头和汉字为掩蔽启动项,考察启动项和目标项重复、加工水平相同及加工水平不同三种条件下的启动效应.结果发现,两个实验的重复及加工水平相同条件下都出现负相容效应,且重复条件下启动量最大,加工水平不同条件下则无启动.这表明:(1)启动项与目标项的知觉重复影响启动量,但不是负相容效应的必要条件,只有当启动项和目标项加工水平相同时,才出现负相容效应;(2)存在语义水平上的负相容效应,阈下语义信息可得到加工并表现为对后继同类反应的抑制.     

Limitations in Verbal Fluency Following Heavy Burdens of Early Childhood Diarrhea in Brazilian Shantytown Children

The effects of heavy burdens of diarrhea in the first 2 years of life on specific executive control function like verbal fluency are not well understood. In previous studies, we have shown associations of early childhood diarrhea (ECD) with nonverbal intelligence and school functioning. Therefore, we postulated that ECD might affect early neuropsychological development leading to long-term deficits in normal cognitive development. Based on our extensive 14-year prospective cohort studies of early childhood diarrheal illnesses in a Brazilian shantytown community, we examined ECD correlations between specific impairments of higher mental function and executive skills in shantytown children 5–10 years later (now at 6–12) years of age. Specifically we examined whether heavy diarrheal illnesses correlate with reduced performance on selected tests of executive function. Our study, for the first time, suggests a disproportional impairment in semantic but not phonetic fluency in a subset of children with heavy burdens of diarrhea in their first 2 years of life even when controlling for maternal education, breastfeeding, and child schooling. Similar semantic decrements have been associated with impaired recovery from brain injury. These exploratory studies suggest the importance of verbal fluency tests to assess executive functioning in children challenged by poor nutrition and diarrhea in early life. In addition, our unique findings show the potential influences of early childhood diarrhea on language development that is so critical to productive adulthood and potentially set a foundation for new neuropsychological approaches, which assess early burdens of enteric illnesses on childhood development.     

Epistemic Contextualism,Semantic Blindness and Content Unawareness

It is held by many philosophers that it is a consequence of epistemic contextualism that speakers are typically semantically blind, that is, typically unaware of the propositions semantically expressed by knowledge attributions. In his ‘Contextualism, Invariantism and Semantic Blindness’ (this journal, 2009), Martin Montminy argues that semantic blindness is widespread in language, and not restricted to knowledge attributions, so it should not be considered problematic. I will argue that Montminy might be right about this, but that contextualists still face a serious and related problem: that it is a consequence of epistemic contextualism that subjects are typically unaware of contents conveyed by knowledge attributions, independently of whether these are semantic or non-semantic contents. Even if semantic blindness is widespread in language, it does not seem that content unawareness of this sort is.     

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.     

语义整合的早期加工:来自ERPs的证据

本研究借助ERPs技术,通过操纵关键词与当前语境的语义合理性关系,考察在严格限定关键词词频变异性的情况下,语义整合过程能否反映在P2效应上。ERPs结果发现关键词呈现后,语义合理相比违背条件在右侧脑区诱发了更大的P2成分。该结果支持如果关键词低水平的变量信息(词频等)得到适当控制,ERPs技术可以检测到发生在250ms以前的语义整合过程。