When do ratings implicate perception versus judgment? The “overgeneralization test” for top-down effects

ABSTRACT

When looking at an object—say, a banana—we can both directly perceive its visual qualities (e.g., its size) and also make higher-level judgments about its visual and non-visual properties (e.g., not only its size, but also its cost). Suppose you obtain a rating of a property such as size. Does that rating implicate seeing or merely higher-level judgment? The answer often matters a great deal -- e.g., determining whether such ratings imply “top-down” effects of cognition on perception. Too often, however, this distinction is ignored in empirical investigations of such effects. Here we suggest a simple test for when such ratings can be used to implicate perception: whenever the very same experiment “overgeneralizes” to an unambiguously non-perceptual factor, the results cannot be used to draw implications about perception, per se. As a case study, we investigate an empirical report alleging that conservatives perceive Barack Obama as darker skinned than liberals do. Two simple experiments show that the very same effects, measured via the same “representativeness” ratings, obtain with unambiguously non-perceptual and even silly factors (involving bright red horns vs. halos, rather than brightness differences). We suggest that this renders such methods unable to implicate visual processing and we recommend that “overgeneralization tests” of this type always be conducted in such contexts.     

Infant directed speech and the development of speech perception: Enhancing development or an unintended consequence?

Infant directed speech (IDS) is a speech register characterized by simpler sentences, a slower rate, and more variable prosody. Recent work has implicated it in more subtle aspects of language development. Kuhl et al. (1997) demonstrated that segmental cues for vowels are affected by IDS in a way that may enhance development: the average locations of the extreme “point” vowels (/a/, /i/ and /u/) are further apart in acoustic space. If infants learn speech categories, in part, from the statistical distributions of such cues, these changes may specifically enhance speech category learning. We revisited this by asking (1) if these findings extend to a new cue (Voice Onset Time, a cue for voicing); (2) whether they extend to the interior vowels which are much harder to learn and/or discriminate; and (3) whether these changes may be an unintended phonetic consequence of factors like speaking rate or prosodic changes associated with IDS. Eighteen caregivers were recorded reading a picture book including minimal pairs for voicing (e.g., beach/peach) and a variety of vowels to either an adult or their infant. Acoustic measurements suggested that VOT was different in IDS, but not in a way that necessarily supports better development, and that these changes are almost entirely due to slower rate of speech of IDS. Measurements of the vowel suggested that in addition to changes in the mean, there was also an increase in variance, and statistical modeling suggests that this may counteract the benefit of any expansion of the vowel space. As a whole this suggests that changes in segmental cues associated with IDS may be an unintended by-product of the slower rate of speech and different prosodic structure, and do not necessarily derive from a motivation to enhance development.     

A comparison of the ecclesiological doctrine of Vatican II with Faith and Order's convergence text The Church: Towards a Common Vision

Faith and Order's important new convergence text on ecclesiology was published in 2013, 50 years after the discussions in 1963, at the second session of Vatican II, which produced the council's Dogmatic Constitution on the Church, Lumen gentium, the following year. After acknowledging some of the pitfalls in comparing a conciliar teaching with an ecumenical convergence text, this article summarises the content of the new ecumenical text on ecclesiology, indicates points of agreement with Vatican II's teaching and proposes that The Church: Towards a Common Vision might be seen as reflecting a hierarchy of ecclesiological truths which provides a promising framework for seeking greater agreement about still divisive issues.     

Moving from patches to quilts: developing self-aware,reflective leaders through curriculum innovation based on a Patchwork Text approach

A Patchwork Text is a creative approach to learning and assessment based on short pieces of reflective writing to promote deep, meaningful reflection. A five-year study was undertaken to explore whether this approach supports postgraduate students’ personal and academic development and the factors that influenced student experience, within one UK university. Our adapted approach encompasses patches of reflection, a structured Reflective Journal, formative feedback, and action learning within a constructively aligned curriculum. Between 2010 and 2015, 100 students attended the MSc Leadership Development programme and 71% (n=71) completed a questionnaire at the end of the first module. The questionnaire contained mainly open questions. The overwhelming majority of responses (89%, n=63) reported their experience of action learning was extremely positive. Eighty-five percent (n=58) reported that the Patchwork Text approach supported their academic development. Seventy-five percent (n=52) agreed the approach was helpful in relation to their summative assessment which comprised a reflective integrated portfolio. Thematic framework analysis of the qualitative data suggests the Patchwork Text approach increased self-awareness and insight; deepened and promoted on-going reflection; and facilitated critical thinking, analysis, and synthesis thereby enabling completion of the summative assignment. Findings suggest the adapted Patchwork Text approach increased students’ self-awareness as well as supporting them with both their summative assignment and the development of academic writing skills.     

中文阅读中副中央凹区域文本信息加工时程的眼动研究

副中央凹文本对阅读有非常重要的作用,考察读者在注视何时起对其加工有助于解决阅读中词汇加工方式的理论问题,当前研究结果存在很大争论。本研究采用消失文本范式,操纵词n-1和n+1的呈现时间(0m/40ms),考察读者加工两侧副中央凹信息的时程。结果发现,相比0ms,在注视早期40ms内,词n+1的呈现能够显著促进阅读加工,而词n-1未对阅读产生影响,表明右侧副中央凹信息的加工发生在注视早期,而左侧则未发生在该早期阶段。结果支持阅读眼动控制的并列加工模型。     

Measuring category intuitiveness in unconstrained categorization tasks

What makes a category seem natural or intuitive? In this paper, an unsupervised categorization task was employed to examine observer agreement concerning the categorization of nine different stimulus sets. The stimulus sets were designed to capture different intuitions about classification structure. The main empirical index of category intuitiveness was the frequency of the preferred classification, for different stimulus sets. With 169 participants, and a within participants design, with some stimulus sets the most frequent classification was produced over 50 times and with others not more than two or three times. The main empirical finding was that cluster tightness was more important in determining category intuitiveness, than cluster separation. The results were considered in relation to the following models of unsupervised categorization: DIVA, the rational model, the simplicity model, SUSTAIN, an Unsupervised version of the Generalized Context Model (UGCM), and a simple geometric model based on similarity. DIVA, the geometric approach, SUSTAIN, and the UGCM provided good, though not perfect, fits. Overall, the present work highlights several theoretical and practical issues regarding unsupervised categorization and reveals weaknesses in some of the corresponding formal models.     

The role of problem solving in complex intraverbal repertoires

We examined whether typically developing preschoolers could learn to use a problem-solving strategy that involved self-prompting with intraverbal chains to provide multiple responses to intraverbal categorization questions. Teaching the children to use the problem-solving strategy did not produce significant increases in target responses until problem solving was modeled and prompted. Following the model and prompts, all participants showed immediate significant increases in intraverbal categorization, and all prompts were quickly eliminated. Use of audible self-prompts was evident initially for all participants, but declined over time for 3 of the 4 children. Within-session response patterns remained consistent with use of the problem-solving strategy even when self-prompts were not audible. These findings suggest that teaching and prompting a problem-solving strategy can be an effective way to produce intraverbal categorization responses.     

AN ARCHIMEDEAN POINT FOR PHILOSOPHY

Abstract: According to an orthodox account of meaning and translation, meaning is a property of expressions of a language, and translation is a matching of synonymous expressions across languages. This linguistic account of translation gives rise to well‐known skeptical conclusions about translation, objectivity, meaning, and truth, but it does not conform to our best translational practices. In contrast, I argue for a textual account of meaning based on the concept of a text‐type that does conform to our best translational practices. With their semantic function in view, text‐types are Archimedean points for their respective disciplines. The text‐type of philosophy is no exception. Culture‐transcendent conceptual analysis can proceed on firm footing without having to deny the reality of radical cultural and linguistic difference by treating components of text‐types as the concepts to be analyzed. Analyses of central philosophical concepts are provided as a means of adjudicating philosophical controversy.     

Influence of text cohesion on the persuasive power of expository text

The present study examined how global text cohesion affects persuasion and memory for message arguments presented in expository text. Sixty-nine participants who held a neutral prior attitude towards NATO read a persuasive text about NATO that was either high or low in global cohesion. After reading, participants voted whether Finland should seek NATO membership and filled in an attitude questionnaire. After a 1-week delay they returned for a surprise recall task. The results showed that the high cohesion text was more persuasive than the low cohesion text. Moreover, attitude after reading but not text cohesion predicted later recall of the message arguments. The results show that global text cohesion increases text's persuasive power and that readers who form a positive attitude have better memory of the persuasive arguments after a delay than readers who are less persuaded.