熟悉主题说明文阅读推理加工的认知神经机制

采用功能磁共振成像(Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging, fMRI)技术对熟悉主题说明文阅读过程因果推理加工进行研究, 探讨说明文阅读过程中读者是否能够自发进行因果推理加工, 以及阅读焦点的存在是否会对说明文阅读过程中的因果推理加工产生影响。结果表明, 读者在熟悉主题说明文阅读过程中能够自动进行推理加工, 负责推理加工的主要脑区为额叶(尤其是额下回)、顶叶下部及双侧楔前叶等区域。在熟悉主题说明文阅读过程中, 阅读焦点的存在一定程度上使读者的认知加工资源集中在对与焦点相关的推理关系的加工上。     

模态系统的推理规则的强弱虚实

模态系统的推理规则可以用强弱虚实这四种性质进行分类。在一个系统中这几种性质无论在语形上还是语义上都有一定的联系和区别,有些性质在一个系统的变种或扩充中并不一定保持。     

Alternatives to Randomized Experiments

ABSTRACT— Randomized experiments are preferred for making inferences about causality when they can be implemented and their assumptions are met. Yet assumptions can fail (e.g., attrition, treatment noncompliance) or randomization may be unethical or infeasible. I describe alternative design and statistical approaches that permit testing causal hypotheses and present current empirical evidence related to alternative designs. Alternative designs permit a wider range of research questions to be answered and permit more direct generalization of causal effects; however, when using such designs, estimates of the magnitude of the causal effect may be more uncertain.     

Two-year-olds exclude novel objects as potential referents of novel words based on pragmatics

Many studies have established that children tend to exclude objects for which they already have a name as potential referents of novel words. In the current study we asked whether this exclusion can be triggered by social-pragmatic context alone without pre-existing words as blockers. Two-year-old children watched an adult looking at a novel object while saying a novel word with excitement. In one condition the adult had not seen the object beforehand, and so the children interpreted the adult’s utterance as referring to the gazed-at object. In another condition the adult and child had previously played jointly with the gazed-at object. In this case, children less often assumed that the adult was referring to the object but rather they searched for an alternative referent - presumably because they inferred that the gazed-at object was old news in their common ground with the adult and so not worthy of excited labeling. Since this inference based on exclusion is highly similar to that underlying the Principle of Contrast/Mutual Exclusivity, we propose that this principle is not purely lexical but rather is based on children’s understanding of how and why people direct one another’s attention to things either with or without language.     

Culture and visual perception: Does perceptual inference depend on culture?1,2

Abstract: Some perceptual cues carry information about the overall pattern of an object (holistic cues), whereas others carry information about the distinct parts of an object (part cues). Drawing on recent work on culture and cognition, the authors predicted that people with European‐American cultural backgrounds would be more capable of using part cues in perceptual inference than those with Asian backgrounds. No such cross‐cultural difference was expected for the ability to use holistic cues. In two studies, participants were presented with either one of the two types of cues and asked to infer the identity of the original objects. As predicted, in the part‐cue condition European‐American participants performed better than did Japanese (Study 1) and Asian‐American participants (Study 2). Also as predicted, there was no cultural difference in the holistic‐cue condition. The results were interpreted with reference to other related studies documenting reliable cross‐cultural differences in cognition.     

过度自信的研究展望

过度自信是个体高估自身判断精确度的一种认知偏差。过高估计和过高定位作为过度自信的两种主要类型被认为是个体在评价其绝对能力和相对能力时的表现。一般认为信息加工的偏差与判断误差的无偏性是造成过高估计的主要原因。自我提升动机、权重差异与信息的差异被认为是产生过高定位的原因。但是过度自信的这两种类型却在不同难度的任务巾出现了分离现象。最近,研究者提出了贝叶斯过度自信,用贝叶斯推理对不同任务中二者的分离进行了整合。过度自信产生的原因和内在心理机制、过度自信对决策的影响以及过度自信中的个体差异研究将会成为该领域日后研究的趋势。     

阅读理解困难儿童的认知加工

阅读理解困难是阅读障碍的一个主要类型,近年来受到西方研究者的重视。阅读理解认知加工,核心是有层次的语义加工,理解困难儿童在词汇语义加工和篇章推理和整合上都存在落后。理解困难儿童的信息推理水平落后,可能原因来自两个方面：一方面是语音工作记忆缺陷导致推理加工能力缺陷,另一方面是阅读元认知缺陷导致阅读目的和理解监控发展不正常。这些缺陷之间复杂的关系,还需要进一步研究     

类别标签与典型性程度对类别特征推理的影响

本研究采用学习-测试二阶段实验范式,探讨了类别标签及典型性程度对类别特征推理任务的共同影响,结果表明,类别标签及典型性程度都会影响类别特征推理任务,而且,类别标签及典型性程度之间存在交互作用,典型性程度为高条件下类别标签对类别特征推理任务的影响要高于典型性程度为低条件,类别标签匹配条件下,典型性程度对类别特征推理任务的影响要高于类别标签不匹配条件。