Serial pattern learning by event observation.

Serial pattern learning was investigated in a variation of the task introduced by Nissen and Bullemer (1987). We presented an asterisk at 1 of 4 spatial locations on each trial, and Ss either responded with a keypress or observed the event. The first 4 blocks contained 10 repetitions of a 10- or 16-element pattern, and the 5th block contained a random sequence. The difference in response time on the 5th random block and the previous patterned block served as an indirect measure of pattern learning. A direct measure was obtained in a final test block in which Ss predicted the next asterisk position. Equivalent learning occurred for responding and observing with indirect measures, but observation was superior with direct measures. These findings indicate that knowledge of serial order can develop through simple perceptual experience, and this is more available to deliberate recall than is knowledge acquired while responding.     

Can We Hear Silence?

Philosophia - We can hear silence because silence, an absence of sound, causes our hearing of it. Advocating this position, Roy Sorensen puts to use his own theory of the direct perception of...     

‘He's got his father's bias’: Parental influence on weight bias in young children

Our aim was to explore the role of parents in the transmission of stereotypical body size attitudes and awareness of weight loss strategies to preschool children. Participants were 279 3‐year‐old children and their parents, who provided data at baseline and 1 year later. Parents completed self‐report body size attitude and dieting measures. Child weight bias and awareness of weight loss strategies were assessed through interview. Over time, negative associations with large bodies and awareness of weight loss strategies increased. Fathers’ attitudes prospectively predicted boys’ weight bias and awareness of weight loss strategies. Among girls, parental attitudes were less predictive. Findings confirm the importance of fathers in the development of boys’ body attitudes and inform prevention programmes.     

The Embodied Penman: Effector‐Specific Motor–Language Integration During Handwriting

Several studies have illuminated how processing manual action verbs (MaVs) affects the programming or execution of concurrent hand movements. Here, to circumvent key confounds in extant designs, we conducted the first assessment of motor–language integration during handwriting—a task in which linguistic and motoric processes are co‐substantiated. Participants copied MaVs, non‐manual action verbs, and non‐action verbs as we collected measures of motor programming and motor execution. Programming latencies were similar across conditions, but execution was faster for MaVs than for the other categories, regardless of whether word meanings were accessed implicitly or explicitly. In line with the Hand‐Action‐Network Dynamic Language Embodiment (HANDLE) model, such findings suggest that effector‐congruent verbs can prime manual movements even during highly automatized tasks in which motoric and verbal processes are naturally intertwined. Our paradigm opens new avenues for fine‐grained explorations of embodied language processes.     

Two ways of learning associations

How people learn chunks or associations between adjacent items in sequences was modelled. Two previously successful models of how people learn artificial grammars were contrasted: the CCN, a network version of the competitive chunker of Servan‐Schreiber and Anderson [J. Exp. Psychol.: Learn. Mem. Cogn. 16 (1990) 592], which produces local and compositionally‐structured chunk representations acquired incrementally; and the simple recurrent network (SRN) of Elman [Cogn. Sci. 14 (1990) 179], which acquires distributed representations through error correction. The models' susceptibility to two types of interference was determined: prediction conflicts, in which a given letter can predict two other letters that appear next with an unequal frequency; and retroactive interference, in which the prediction made by a letter changes in the second half of training. The predictions of the models were determined by exploring parameter space and seeing howdensely different regions of the space of possible experimental outcomes were populated by model outcomes. For both types of interference, human data fell squarely in regions characteristic of CCN performance but not characteristic of SRN performance.