Prereaders’ eye movements during shared storybook reading are language-mediated but not predictive

When viewing a visual scene, eye movements are often language-mediated: people look at objects as those objects are named. Eye movements can even reflect predictive language processing, moving to an object before it is named. Children are also capable of making language-mediated eye movements, even predictive ones, and prediction may be involved in language learning. The present study explored whether eye movements are language-mediated in a more naturalistic task – shared storybook reading. Research has shown that children fixate illustrations during shared storybook reading, ignoring text. The present study used high-precision eye-tracking to replicate this finding. Further, prereader participants showed increased likelihood of fixating relevant storybook illustrations as words were read aloud, indicating that their eye movements were language mediated like the adult participants. Language-mediated eye movements to illustrations were reactive, not predictive, in both participant groups.     

Age-related similarities and differences in monitoring spatial cognition

Spatial cognitive performance is impaired in later adulthood but it is unclear whether the metacognitive processes involved in monitoring spatial cognitive performance are also compromised. Inaccurate monitoring could affect whether people choose to engage in tasks that require spatial thinking and also the strategies they use in spatial domains such as navigation. The current experiment examined potential age differences in monitoring spatial cognitive performance in a variety of spatial domains including visual–spatial working memory, spatial orientation, spatial visualization, navigation, and place learning. Younger and older adults completed a 2D mental rotation test, 3D mental rotation test, paper folding test, spatial memory span test, two virtual navigation tasks, and a cognitive mapping test. Participants also made metacognitive judgments of performance (confidence judgments, judgments of learning, or navigation time estimates) on each trial for all spatial tasks. Preference for allocentric or egocentric navigation strategies was also measured. Overall, performance was poorer and confidence in performance was lower for older adults than younger adults. In most spatial domains, the absolute and relative accuracy of metacognitive judgments was equivalent for both age groups. However, age differences in monitoring accuracy (specifically relative accuracy) emerged in spatial tasks involving navigation. Confidence in navigating for a target location also mediated age differences in allocentric navigation strategy use. These findings suggest that with the possible exception of navigation monitoring, spatial cognition may be spared from age-related decline even though spatial cognition itself is impaired in older age.     

情绪的动机强度与工作记忆任务类型的协调性对自我控制任务的影响

考察趋近动机强度不同的积极情绪和回避动机强度不同的消极情绪与工作记忆的协调性对自我控制任务的影响。结果发现,与高趋近动机的积极情绪、高回避动机的消极情绪以及中性情绪相比,在低趋近动机的积极情绪下完成言语工作记忆以及在低回避动机的消极情绪下完成空间工作记忆,工作记忆成绩提高,而Stroop分数降低,这表明情绪与工作记忆的协调性受到情绪动机强度的影响。     

视觉、听觉情绪设计对多媒体学习的影响

以大学生为被试,特异性免疫工作原理为材料,通过实验法研究视觉、听觉情绪设计对多媒体学习的影响。实验1发现视觉情绪设计诱发了学习者的积极情绪,提高了保持成绩。实验2发现听觉情绪设计可以诱发学习者的积极情绪,提高相关认知负荷、保持和迁移成绩。研究表明视觉、听觉情绪设计都能显著提高多媒体学习效果。听觉情绪设计的发现突破了已有研究仅从视觉角度优化学习材料的方式,拓展了多媒体学习情绪设计的内涵。     

Damasio's error – Prosopagnosia with intact within‐category object recognition

The sudden inability to recognize individual faces following brain damage was first reported in a scientific journal 150 years ago and termed ‘prosopagnosia’ 70 years ago. While the term originally identified a face‐selective neurological condition, it is now obscured by a sequence of imprecisions. First, prosopagnosia is routinely used to define symptoms of individual face recognition (IFR) difficulties in the context of visual object agnosia or other neurological conditions, or even in the normal population. Second, this over‐expansive definition has lent support to a long‐standing within‐category recognition account of prosopagnosia, that is, that the impairment of IFR reflects a general impairment in recognizing within‐category objects. However, stringent experimental studies of classical cases of prosopagnosia following brain damage show that their core impairment is not in recognizing physically similar exemplars within non‐face object categories. Instead, the impairment presents specifically for recognizing exemplars of the category of faces. Moreover, compared to typical observers, the impairment appears even more severe for recognizing individual faces against physically dissimilar than similar distractors. Here, I argue that we need to limit accordingly our definition of prosopagnosia to a clinical (i.e., neurological) condition in which there is no basic‐level object recognition impairment. Other criteria for prosopagnosia are proposed, with the hope that this conservative definition enables the study of human IFR processes in isolation, and supports progress in understanding the nature of these processes.     

Questioning the goal-switching account of the AB: comment on Ferlazzo et al. (2007)

Identification of the second of two targets (T2) is impaired when presented less than about 500?ms after the first (T1; Attentional Blink: AB). Although the AB is known to be remarkably robust across many manipulations, [Ferlazzo, F., Lucido, S., Di Nocera, F., Fagioli, S., &; Sdoia, S. (2007). Switching between goals mediates the attentional blink effect. Experimental Psychology, 54, 89–98; Ferlazzo, F., Faglioli, S., Sdoia, S., &; Di Nocera, F. (2008). Goal-completion processes affect the attentional blink. European Journal of Cognitive Psychology, 20, 697–710] found it to be substantially attenuated when the observers were set to accomplish a single goal (e.g. reporting the sum of the T1 and T2 digits) instead of a dual goal (reporting T1 and T2 separately). The larger AB obtained with the dual-goal set was ascribed to the attentional switch necessitated by the goal-switch between T1 and T2. This conclusion is questionable on three grounds: non-equivalent scoring procedures across conditions, range of inter-target lags, and unreliability of the baseline level. These issues were addressed in the present study. Contrary to Ferlazzo et al.’s conclusions, we found no AB attenuation in the single-goal, relative to the dual-goal condition.     

Spatial offloading in multiple task monitoring

Coordinating multiple tasks requires a high degree of cognitive control, and individuals with limited executive functions often show difficulties in everyday multitasking. We tested the hypothesis that demands on executive control can be alleviated by internally representing the temporal pattern of goals and deadlines as spatial relations. In two experiments, participants completed a multitasking session by monitoring deadlines of four clocks running at different rates, along with separate tasks of executive functioning and spatial ability. In Experiment 1, individual and gender-related differences in spatial ability (mental rotation) predicted multitasking performance, beyond the contributions of both the updating and inhibition components of executive functioning, and even when spatial cues were eliminated from the layout of the monitoring task. Experiment 2 extended these findings by showing that concurrent spatial load impaired task monitoring accuracy, and that these detrimental effects were accentuated when spatial abilities were compromized due to fluctuation in female sex hormones. These findings suggest that multiple task monitoring involves working memory-related functions, but that these cognitive control demands can be offloaded by relying on spatial relation processes.     

中文发展性阅读障碍研究

本文总结了作者有关中文发展性阅读障碍的部分研究成果,探讨了阅读困难儿童词汇加工的特征及其本质,讨论了中文阅读技能与其他认知加工,特别是基本视知觉的关系.文章指出阅读障碍儿童由于词汇识别水平低,他们在汉字识别过程中表现出比同年龄的控制组更大的规则性效应,在语义通达过程中,对语音的依赖较大.阅读障碍儿童不仅在汉字的命名速度上慢于控制组儿童,数字的语音通达速度也慢于控制组儿童.文章还总结了汉字阅读与视知觉的关系,发现视觉加工对字形相似性判断有较大的解释作用.     

不同提示方式的多元图形视觉显示工效学研究

以图形作为实验材料,感觉辨别力和元素权重为实验指标,高可靠性图形的提示方式(没有提示、颜色、亮度、闪烁)为自变量．本文研究了不同提示方式对被试决策绩效的影响,确定图形显示时较优的提示方式。研究结果表明提示能够显著提高被试的决策绩效,在颜色、亮度、闪烁三种提示方式中,较优的提示方式是闪烁。