The Development of Infants' Spatial Categories

ABSTRACT— Early theories of how infants develop spatial concepts focused on the perceptual and cognitive abilities that contribute to this ability. More recent research, however, has centered on whether experience with spatial language might also play a role. The present article reviews how infants learn to form spatial categories, outlining the perceptual and cognitive abilities that drive this learning, and examines the role played by spatial language. I argue that infants' spatial concepts initially are the result of nonlinguistic perceptual and cognitive abilities, but that, as infants build a spatial lexicon, spatial language becomes an important tool in the spatial categories infants learn to form.     

NATURALISTIC METHODOLOGY IN AN EMERGING SCIENTIFIC PSYCHOLOGY: LOTZE AND FECHNER IN THE BALANCE

The development of a methodologically naturalistic approach to physiological and experimental psychology in the nineteenth century was not primarily driven by a naturalistic agenda. The work of R. Hermann Lotze and G. T. Fechner help to illustrate this claim. I examine a selected set of central commitments in each thinkers philosophical outlook, particularly regarding the human soul and the nature of God, that departed strongly from a reductionist materialism. Yet, each contributed significantly to the formation of experimental and physiological psychology. Their work was influenced substantively by their respective philosophical commitments. Nevertheless, the evaluation of the merits of their specific proposals, Fechner's psychophysics and Lotze's local sign hypothesis respectively, did not depend upon sharing their metaphysical views regarding the human soul or the nature of God. A moderate, but significant, distinction between the contexts of discovery and of justification aids in understanding this balancing act.     

对听感觉运动门控自上而下调节的动物模型和神经机制

对惊反射的前脉冲抑制是减少干扰影响、保护脑内信息加工的重要机制。它既是研究感觉运动门控的模型, 也是探究精神分裂症机制的模型。前脉冲抑制可被选择性注意和情绪等高级认知活动所调节。本论文工作围绕着恐惧条件化和知觉空间分离去掩蔽(空间选择性注意)对听觉前脉冲抑制多层次化的自上而下调节, 在大鼠行为模型、神经通路、神经电生理机制等几个层次上开展了系统性研究, 并引入了精神分裂症的神经发育模型, 证实早期社会隔离饲养对前脉冲抑制注意调节的破坏影响。本论文研究成果不仅对认识正常情况下脑在复杂刺激场景中的信息加工机制有重要意义, 以感觉运动门控认知调节功能缺失为基础的动物模型也将推动精神分裂症心理学和神经生物学机制的研究。     

注意瞬脱对视觉空间关系判断的影响

将RSVP范式和视觉空间关系研究范式相结合,以两个实验探讨了注意瞬脱对视觉空间关系判断的影响。结果发现,类别和数量空间关系判断之间出现了实验性分离:类别空间关系判断表现出较大的注意瞬脱效应,数量空间关系判断只有轻度注意瞬脱效应。这说明,类别和数量空间关系加工子系统具有不同信息加工特性:前者依赖实时注意资源,其编码过程更多涉及控制性加工;后者较少依赖实时注意资源,其编码过程更多涉及自动加工。另外,还运用注意瞬脱理论对结果进行了解释。     

Enhanced spatial ability in aged dogs following dietary and behavioural enrichment

We examined the benefits of a broad spectrum antioxidant diet and enrichment comprised of physical exercise, environmental stimulants and cognitive testing, on spatial memory performance in beagle dogs. Both aged (N=48) and young (N=16) beagle dogs (Canus familiaris) were tested yearly on a three-component delayed non-match to position spatial task for three consecutive years. The results showed that young enriched animals acquired the task in fewer sessions, made fewer errors, responded slower and made fewer positional responses, compared to aged enriched animals. An analysis restricted to aged animals revealed that antioxidant administration and enrichment resulted in fewer errors, slower responses and decreased positional responses, particularly in Year 3. Finally, cohort differences emerged, which exemplify the significance of early environmental intervention. Aged dogs that were housed with other animals and exposed to an outdoor environment in early development displayed greater benefits from both interventions. These findings indicate that long-term dietary intervention and enrichment can buffer age-associated cognitive decline.     

Overweight and cognition

There is a growing concern among health authorities that an increasing number of people in the Western world become overweight and even obese. It is well known that obesity is related to several diseases (e.g., diabetes, stroke, and high blood pressure) and that such diseases related to obesity lead to early death. It has also been discussed whether overweight and obesity in themselves or in relation to such diseases lead to cognitive decline. On the basis of data from a large, population‐based, prospective study we examined three cognitive domains: episodic memory, semantic memory, and spatial ability. Two body measures were used to define normal weight and overweight, body‐mass index and waist/hip ratio. Although these two body measures reveal quite different prevalence data of overweight, the associations between overweight and cognition are similar. For episodic memory, overweight interacts with age, but when controlling for hypertension, stroke and diabetes, this interaction disappears. For semantic memory, normal weight participants outperform overweight participants even after controlling for these diseases. For spatial ability, the well‐established advantage for men holds for young‐old and old‐old normal‐weight participants. For overweight participants, this advantage holds for middle‐age participants only. We conclude that there is a weight‐cognition relationship even after controlling for obesity‐related diseases. The results are discussed in terms of possible biological mechanisms.     

Relations between mental verb and false belief understanding in Cantonese-speaking children

Previous research has shown that linguistic forms that codify mental contents bear a specific relation with children’s false belief understanding. These forms include mental verbs and their following complements, yet the two have not been considered separately. The current study examined the roles of mental verb semantics and the complement syntax in children’s false belief understanding. Independent tasks were used to measure verb meaning, complements, and false belief understanding such that the verbs in question were present only in the verb meaning test, and no linguistic devices biased toward false belief were used in the false belief test. We focused on (a) some mental verbs that obligatorily affirm or negate what follows and (b) sentential complements, the content of which is to be evaluated against the mind of another person, not reality. Results showed that only (a) predicted false belief understanding in a group of Cantonese-speaking 4-year-olds, controlling for nonverbal intelligence and general language ability. In particular, children’s understanding of the strong nonfactive semantics of the Cantonese verbs /ji5-wai4/ (“falsely think”) predicted false belief understanding most strongly. The current findings suggest that false belief understanding is specifically related to the comprehension of mental verbs that entail false thought in their semantics.     

时序信息和空间信息在工作记忆中的分离存储

采用相对新近性判断范式（judgments of relative recency）,通过三个实验探讨了工作记忆中时序信息和空间信息的存储方式及其关系。实验一比较了有无空间线索两种条件下时序信息的记忆绩效,结果发现,有无空间线索并不影响对时序信．E-的记忆。实验二和实验三通过控制刺激呈现的视野范围和减少呈现位置的不确定性来利化空间线索,结果表明,时序信息的记忆绩效也不受空间线索的影响。由此推论,工作记忆中的时序信息和空间信息是分离编码存储的,加入空间线索并不能提高时序信息的记忆绩效。     

Environmental enrichment improves behavioral performance and auditory spatial representation of primary auditory cortical neurons in rat

Environmental enrichment (EE) has an important role in brain plasticity. Early research has shown that EE increases the response strength of neurons in the auditory cortex, but it remains unknown whether EE can influence the process of spatial localization in the auditory system. In this study, we raised rats in enriched and standard conditions from postnatal day 10 to day 56. By testing behavioral tasks via auditory cues, we have shown that EE improved the number of correct scores, but decreased the reaction time and azimuth deviation in behavioral performance of sound-azimuth discrimination. By in vivo extracellular recording, we have shown that EE enhanced the directional sensitivity of neurons in the primary auditory cortex. For example, EE rats had a smaller spatial receptive field, sharper frequency tuning curve and directional selective curve of auditory neurons compared with normal rats. Our findings indicate that early exposure to EE increases directional sensitivity. These results provide an insight into developmental plasticity in the auditory system.     

A Bayesian Semiparametric Latent Variable Model for Mixed Responses

In this paper we introduce a latent variable model (LVM) for mixed ordinal and continuous responses, where covariate effects on the continuous latent variables are modelled through a flexible semiparametric Gaussian regression model. We extend existing LVMs with the usual linear covariate effects by including nonparametric components for nonlinear effects of continuous covariates and interactions with other covariates as well as spatial effects. Full Bayesian modelling is based on penalized spline and Markov random field priors and is performed by computationally efficient Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) methods. We apply our approach to a German social science survey which motivated our methodological development. We thank the editor and the referees for their constructive and helpful comments, leading to substantial improvements of a first version, and Sven Steinert for computational assistance. Partial financial support from the SFB 386 “Statistical Analysis of Discrete Structures” is also acknowledged.