Speech-associated gestures, Broca’s area, and the human mirror system

Speech-associated gestures are hand and arm movements that not only convey semantic information to listeners but are themselves actions. Broca’s area has been assumed to play an important role both in semantic retrieval or selection (as part of a language comprehension system) and in action recognition (as part of a “mirror” or “observation–execution matching” system). We asked whether the role that Broca’s area plays in processing speech-associated gestures is consistent with the semantic retrieval/selection account (predicting relatively weak interactions between Broca’s area and other cortical areas because the meaningful information that speech-associated gestures convey reduces semantic ambiguity and thus reduces the need for semantic retrieval/selection) or the action recognition account (predicting strong interactions between Broca’s area and other cortical areas because speech-associated gestures are goal-direct actions that are “mirrored”). We compared the functional connectivity of Broca’s area with other cortical areas when participants listened to stories while watching meaningful speech-associated gestures, speech-irrelevant self-grooming hand movements, or no hand movements. A network analysis of neuroimaging data showed that interactions involving Broca’s area and other cortical areas were weakest when spoken language was accompanied by meaningful speech-associated gestures, and strongest when spoken language was accompanied by self-grooming hand movements or by no hand movements at all. Results are discussed with respect to the role that the human mirror system plays in processing speech-associated movements.     

Responsibility and obsessive-compulsive disorder: an experimental test

To test the causal status of responsibility in obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), an experiment was executed in which responsibility was experimentally manipulated. OCD patients, non-OCD anxiety controls, and non-patients executed a classification task in either a high or a low responsibility (LoRes) condition. Subjective ratings related to danger and responsibility indicated that the manipulation was successful. Subjective OCD-like experiences and checking behaviors were higher in OCD patients in the high responsibility (HiRes) condition than in all other groups. Although the checking subscale of the Padua Inventory correlated with subjective ratings in the OCD patients in the HiRes condition, it was not associated with checking behaviors. The results confirm the hypothesis that responsibility plays a causal role in OCD.     

From mere coincidences to meaningful discoveries

People's reactions to coincidences are often cited as an illustration of the irrationality of human reasoning about chance. We argue that coincidences may be better understood in terms of rational statistical inference, based on their functional role in processes of causal discovery and theory revision. We present a formal definition of coincidences in the context of a Bayesian framework for causal induction: a coincidence is an event that provides support for an alternative to a currently favored causal theory, but not necessarily enough support to accept that alternative in light of its low prior probability. We test the qualitative and quantitative predictions of this account through a series of experiments that examine the transition from coincidence to evidence, the correspondence between the strength of coincidences and the statistical support for causal structure, and the relationship between causes and coincidences. Our results indicate that people can accurately assess the strength of coincidences, suggesting that irrational conclusions drawn from coincidences are the consequence of overestimation of the plausibility of novel causal forces. We discuss the implications of our account for understanding the role of coincidences in theory change.     

Rapid learning of syllable classes from a perceptually continuous speech stream

To learn a language, speakers must learn its words and rules from fluent speech; in particular, they must learn dependencies among linguistic classes. We show that when familiarized with a short artificial, subliminally bracketed stream, participants can learn relations about the structure of its words, which specify the classes of syllables occurring in first and last word positions. By studying the effect of familiarization length, we compared the general predictions of associative theories of learning and those of models postulating separate mechanisms for quickly extracting the word structure and for tracking the syllable distribution in the stream. As predicted by the dual-mechanism model, the preference for structurally correct items was negatively correlated with the familiarization length. This result is difficult to explain by purely associative schemes; an extensive set of neural network simulations confirmed this difficulty. Still, we show that powerful statistical computations operating on the stream are available to our participants, as they are sensitive to co-occurrence statistics among non-adjacent syllables. We suggest that different learning mechanisms analyze speech on-line: A rapid mechanism extracting structural information about the stream, and a slower mechanism detecting statistical regularities among the items occurring in it.     

Re-thinking stages of cognitive development: an appraisal of connectionist models of the balance scale task

The present paper re-appraises connectionist attempts to explain how human cognitive development appears to progress through a series of sequential stages. Models of performance on the Piagetian balance scale task are the focus of attention. Limitations of these models are discussed and replications and extensions to the work are provided via the Cascade-Correlation algorithm. An application of multi-group latent class analysis for examining performance of the networks is described and these results reveal fundamental functional characteristics of the networks. Evidence is provided that strongly suggests that the networks are unable to acquire a mastery of torque and, although they do recover certain rules of operation that humans do, they also show a propensity to acquire rules never previously seen.     

Linguistic and cognitive prominence in anaphor resolution: topic,contrastive focus and pronouns

This paper examines the role that linguistic and cognitive prominence play in the resolution of anaphor–antecedent relationships. In two experiments, we found that pronouns are immediately sensitive to the cognitive prominence of potential antecedents when other antecedent selection cues are uninformative. In experiment 1, results suggest that despite their theoretical dissimilarities, topic and contrastive focus both serve to enhance cognitive prominence. Results from experiment 2 suggest that the contrastive prosody appropriate for focus constructions may also play an important role in enhancing cognitive prominence. Thus different types of linguistic prominence (topic, contrastive focus) appear to have the common effect of increasing the cognitive prominence of the discourse referent. For pronouns with two possible antecedents, the cognitive prominence of an antecedent aids in anaphor resolution, immediately biasing selection towards the more prominent (and ultimately preferred) antecedent.

Software Tools in Logic Education: Some Examples

Computers are increasingly present in education and make manyresources and activities available to teachers and pupils. Newpedagogical resources development is very interesting for both.Our digital library Summa Logicae is overtly involved in innovationand pedagogical systematization. It includes some software toolsfor teaching logic developed by computer science students, andin this article we present two of these tools. The MAFIA toolis especially attractive for first year students and helps themto understand the basic concepts of logic in an interactiveway using sematic tableaux. It also allows them to solve thecrazy cases in Mafia which their fellow students from previousyears proposed. The Modelos de Kripke tool, oriented to a moreadvanced level, serves for understanding the link between theproperties of the accessibility relation and the modal formulas,which is at the basis of the current developments of modal logic.     

等级反应模型下项目特征曲线等值法在大型考试中的应用

在中国最大的资格考试之一的经济专业资格考试中,为保证不同年度间考试的可比性、进行题库建设和为计算机自适应考试做准备,应用项目反应理论中等级反应模型下的项目特征曲线等值法,采用铆测验等值设计,实现了4个年度考试资料的项目参数和能力参数的等值,并成功地组建了经济专业题库。在此基础上,利用等值技术对不同年份试卷的划界分数进行了比较,为经济考试的合格标准制定、确保考试的公平性提供了实证依据。     

决策中个体差异研究现状述评

决策中个体差异的研究有助于进一步检验和深化传统决策理论。文章回顾了近十年决策个体差异研究的主要变量（人格、认知能力、认知风格和年龄）和研究结果,并简要总结了该类研究的背景、研究范式和理论意义。这些研究一致发现个体差异变量对决策过程、决策表现等具有影响作用,说明个体差异与决策加工中复杂的人-情境间联系有关。文章提出,未来研究应该综合考虑决策情境、情绪和决策主体的理论模型,以期对个体差异在决策中的作用做出更好解释     

Do Health Care Workplaces Affect Treatment Environments?

Previous research has demonstrated that characteristics of the health care workplace influence staff outcomes such as morale and burnout, but the potential effect of health care workplaces on the treatment environment has been little studied. Building on a model proposed by Schaefer and Moos (1993), we propose that the workplace factors of supervisory work environment (e.g. support from supervisors, managerial control) and programme philosophical orientation (e.g. disease model of addiction, psychosocial learning model of addiction) predict four treatment environment elements: patient autonomy, staff control, staff sensitivity, and patient alienation. Multiple regression analysis of data drawn from a survey (response rate = 86%) of 327 staff members at 15 Veterans Affairs (VA) inpatient substance abuse treatment programmes revealed that greater managerial control over staff predicted greater patient alienation, lower staff sensitivity towards patients, and greater staff control over patients. Stronger disease model programme orientations predicted less patient alienation and greater staff sensitivity, whereas stronger psychosocial model programme orientations predicted less staff control. These results suggest that health care workplaces may influence treatment environments. Implications for further research and practice are discussed. © 1997 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.