小学生表征数学应用题策略的实验研究

通过一个2(成功与否)×2(提示与否)×2(题型)的混合实验设计,对小学五年级学生解决和差应用题的表征策略进行了研究.结果表明:(1)与比较应用题的表征相类似,小学生对和差应用题的表征也存在着直译策略和问题模型策略;(2)不成功组解题者在表征和差应用题时倾向于运用直译策略,而成功组的解题者更倾向于运用问题模型策略,这导致了成功者与不成功者在列式上的差异,特别是在不一致题型上表现得更明显;(3)在读题前给以“请注意理解这道题的意思”这样简单的提示,对不成功的解题者对和差问题的正确表征并不能起到作用;(4)成功的和差应用题解题者和不成功的解题者在列式正确性的自我评价上存在显著差异.     

Short-term visual memory for contour curvature in a delayed discrimination task

Abstract: A two-interval forced-choice of constant stimuli was used to measure the point of subjective equality (PSE) and discrimination threshold for standard contour curvature (1.91, 3.24 deg⁻¹) held in short-term visual memory (STVM). At both standard curvatures, the PSE for remembered curvature was nearly constant for standard curvature from 2 s to 16 s retention intervals, while the discrimination threshold increased as a linear function of retention interval. These results show that the decay in STVM for contour curvature is due to the noisy representation of curvature, neither to fading of the represented curvature nor to converging to the constant curvature. Furthermore, the Weber fraction was nearly constant for both standard curvatures at any delay from 2 to 16 s.     

PEIRCEAN APPROACHES TO EMERGENT SYSTEMS IN COGNITIVE SCIENCE AND RELIGION

Cognitive science and religion provides perspectives on human cognition and spirituality. Emergent systems theory captures the subatomic, physical, biological, psychological, cultural, and transcendent relationships that constitute the human person. C. S. Peirce's metaphysical categories and existential graphs enrich traditional cognitive science modeling tools to capture emergent phenomena. From this richer perspective, one can reinterpret the traditional doctrine of soul as form of the body in terms of information as the constellation of constitutive relationships that enables real possibility.     

双耳分听和补笔对立即回忆延迟回忆影响的实验研究

通过两个实验探讨集中注意和补笔练习对立即回忆、延迟回忆的影响。实验一以英语单词为学习材料,使用组间设计方法,实验组采用附加追随程序和补笔练习;控制组为自定学习方式。学习结果表明：在自由回忆英文单词、听写英文单词和中译英三个方面,实验组的学习成绩明显高于控制组;实验组的学习方式更有利于低分组学生的学习。实验二的学习方式与实验一相同,通过４次测试的回归分析发现,实验组的学习发展水平明显高于控制组。     

Peak shift following simultaneous discriminations

Pigeons were exposed to stimuli presented on two keys. For some birds, the stimuli varied in a dimension of visual flicker-rate, and for others they varied in visual intensity. During differential training, concurrent schedules operated, with one stimulus correlated with one schedule and another stimulus correlated with a second schedule that arranged a lower, or zero, rate of reinforcement. The stimuli were alternated randomly on the two keys. Generalization tests were given in which the original two, and seven other stimuli lying in the same dimension, were presented in pairs on the two keys in various combinations. In the generalization test given after differential training, each bird showed peak shift. The data did not support explanation for peak shift that gave critical emphasis to whether stimuli were presented simultaneously or successively during differential training.     

The flip side of the other‐race coin: They all look different to me

Poorer recognition of other‐race faces than own‐races faces has been attributed to a problem of discrimination (i.e., telling faces apart). The conclusion that ‘they all look the same to me' is based on studies measuring the perception/memory of highly controlled stimuli, typically involving only one or two images of each identity. We hypothesized that such studies underestimate the challenge involved in recognizing other‐race faces because in the real world, an individual's appearance varies in a number of ways (e.g., lighting, expression, hairstyle), reducing the utility of relying on pictorial cues to identity. In two experiments, Caucasian and East Asian participants completed a perceptual sorting task in which they were asked to sort 40 photographs of two unfamiliar identities into piles such that each pile contained all photographs of a single identity. Participants perceived more identities when sorting other‐race faces than own‐race faces, both when sorting celebrity (Experiment 1) and non‐celebrity (Experiment 2) faces, suggesting that in the real world, ‘they all look different to me'. We discuss these results in the light of models in which each identity is represented as a region in a multidimensional face space; we argue that this region is smaller for other‐race than own‐race faces.     

Visual analysis of data in a multielement design

Ninety Board Certified Behavior Analysts (BCBAs) and 19 editorial board members evaluated hypothetical data presented in a multielement design. We manipulated the variability, trend, and mean shift of the data and asked the participants to determine if the data demonstrated experimental control. The results showed that variability, trend, and mean shift interacted to affect the participants’ ratings of experimental control. The level of agreement between participants was variable, but was generally lower than in previous research.     

The modality effect of ego depletion: Auditory task modality reduces ego depletion

An initial act of self‐control that impairs subsequent acts of self‐control is called ego depletion. The ego depletion phenomenon has been observed consistently. The modality effect refers to the effect of the presentation modality on the processing of stimuli. The modality effect was also robustly found in a large body of research. However, no study to date has examined the modality effects of ego depletion. This issue was addressed in the current study. In Experiment 1, after all participants completed a handgrip task, one group's participants completed a visual attention regulation task and the other group's participants completed an auditory attention regulation task, and then all participants again completed a handgrip task. The ego depletion phenomenon was observed in both the visual and the auditory attention regulation task. Moreover, participants who completed the visual task performed worse on the handgrip task than participants who completed the auditory task, which indicated that there was high ego depletion in the visual task condition. In Experiment 2, participants completed an initial task that either did or did not deplete self‐control resources, and then they completed a second visual or auditory attention control task. The results indicated that depleted participants performed better on the auditory attention control task than the visual attention control task. These findings suggest that altering task modality may reduce ego depletion.     

Simple actions influence pop-out search

Recent research has revealed that a simple action (pressing a computer key) produced in response to a visual object prioritizes features of that object in subsequent visual search. The effects of simple action, however, have only been studied with search displays that required serial search. Here we explored whether simple actions have an effect when the target in visual search is always a salient singleton. Participants viewed a coloured shape at the beginning of each trial, and sometimes they acted (pressed the space bar) in response to it. In the subsequent search task, after acting (but not after viewing), the previously-seen colour affected search performance even though the target was always a salient singleton and the colour was uninformative. The results reveal that prior action can interact with bottom-up salience during search. Implications for our understanding of both visual search and repetition priming are discussed.     

Modelling individual difference in visual categorization

Recent years has seen growing interest in understanding, characterizing, and explaining individual differences in visual cognition. We focus here on individual differences in visual categorization. Categorization is the fundamental visual ability to group different objects together as the same kind of thing. Research on visual categorization and category learning has been significantly informed by computational modelling, so our review will focus both on how formal models of visual categorization have captured individual differences and how individual difference have informed the development of formal models. We first examine the potential sources of individual differences in leading models of visual categorization, providing a brief review of a range of different models. We then describe several examples of how computational models have captured individual differences in visual categorization. This review also provides a bit of an historical perspective, starting with models that predicted no individual differences, to those that captured group differences, to those that predict true individual differences, and to more recent hierarchical approaches that can simultaneously capture both group and individual differences in visual categorization. Via this selective review, we see how considerations of individual differences can lead to important theoretical insights into how people visually categorize objects in the world around them. We also consider new directions for work examining individual differences in visual categorization.