ABSTRACTResearch with children has demonstrated that both positive vicarious learning and positive verbal information can reduce children's acquired fear responses for a particular stimulus. However, this fear reduction appears to be more effective when the intervention pathway matches the initial fear learning pathway. That is, positive verbal information is a more effective intervention than positive modelling when fear is originally acquired via negative verbal information. Research has yet to explore whether fear reduction pathways are also important for fears acquired (...) via vicarious learning. To test this, an experiment compared the effectiveness of positive verbal information and positive vicarious learning interventions for reducing vicariously acquired fears in children. Both vicarious and informational fear reduction interventions were found to be equally effective at reducing vicariously acquired fears, suggesting that acquisition and intervention pathways do not need to m... (shrink)

In order to systematically evaluate perceptual anticipation between experts and non-experts for different kinds of combat sports, we needed to perform a comprehensive assessment. In this systematic review and meta-analysis, we searched four English-language and three Chinese-language databases that used expert/non-expert research paradigms, to explore perceptual anticipation in combat sports. We employed a random effects model for pooled analyses using the inverse variance method. We included 27 eligible studies involving 233 datasets in this meta-analysis. We observed large effect sizes for (...) the differences between experts and non-experts in both response accuracy and reaction time. We also observed substantial differences between experts and non-experts in the mean duration of visual fixations per trial, but not in the visual fixation duration. Taken together, high-level combat athletes have more advantages in perceptual anticipation than lower-level athletes, showing faster and more accurate responses when facing the opponent's attacks, as well as focusing on fewer points of visual fixations than novice athletes. Different types of combat sports and stimulus presentations affect perceptual anticipation abilities to varying extents in relation to outcome measures, with more pronounced expertise in a stimulus that is closer to real-world situations.Systematic review registrationhttps://www.crd.york.ac.uk/prospero/display_record.php?ID=CRD42021226343, PROSPERO CRD42021226343. (shrink)

My paper defends the use of the poverty of stimulus argument (POSA) for linguistic nativism against Cowie's (1999) counter-claim that it leaves empiricism untouched. I first present the linguistic POSA as arising from a reflection on the generality of the child's initial state in comparison with the specific complexity of its final state. I then show that Cowie misconstrues the POSA as a direct argument about the character of the pld. In this light, I first argue that the (...) data Cowie marshals about the pld does not begin to suggest that the POSA is unsound. Second, through a discussion of the so-called `auxiliary inversion rule', I show, by way of diagnosis, that Cowie misunderstands both the methodology of current linguistics and the complexity of the data it is obliged to explain. (shrink)

The fundamental relations that underlie cognitive comparisons—“same” and “different”—can be defined at multiple levels of abstraction, which vary in relational complexity. We compared response times to decide whether or not two sequentially‐presented patterns, each composed of two pairs of colored squares, were the same at three levels of abstraction: perceptual, relational, and system (higher order relations). For both 150 ms and 5 s inter‐stimulus intervals (ISIs), both with and without a masking stimulus, decision time increased with level of (...) abstraction. Sameness at lower complexity levels contributed to decisions based on the higher levels. The pattern of comparison times across levelswas not predictable solely from encoding times. The results indicated that relations at multiple levels of complexity can be abstracted and compared in working memory, with higher complexity levels requiring more processing time. We simulated the impact of relational complexity on response time using Learning and Inference with Schemas and Analogies (LISA), a computational model of relational comparisons based on dynamic binding of elements into roles in a relational working memory. (shrink)

Inattentional blindness is described as the failure to perceive a supra-threshold stimulus when attention is directed away from that stimulus. Based on performance on an explicit recognition memory test and concurrent functional imaging data Rees, Russell, Frith, and Driver [Rees, G., Russell, C., Frith, C. D., & Driver, J. . Inattentional blindness versus inattentional amnesia for fixated but ignored words. Science, 286, 2504–2507] reported inattentional blindness for word stimuli that were fixated but ignored. The present study examined both (...) explicit and implicit memory for fixated but ignored words using a selective-attention task in which overlapping picture/word stimuli were presented at fixation. No explicit awareness of the unattended words was apparent on a recognition memory test. Analysis of an implicit memory task, however, indicated that unattended words were perceived at a perceptual level. Thus, the selective-attention task did not result in perfect filtering as suggested by Rees et al. While there was no evidence of conscious perception, subjects were not blind to the implicit perceptual properties of fixated but ignored words. (shrink)

The fundamental relations that underlie cognitive comparisons—“same” and “different”—can be defined at multiple levels of abstraction, which vary in relational complexity. We compared response times to decide whether or not two sequentially‐presented patterns, each composed of two pairs of colored squares, were the same at three levels of abstraction: perceptual, relational, and system (higher order relations). For both 150 ms and 5 s inter‐stimulus intervals (ISIs), both with and without a masking stimulus, decision time increased with level of (...) abstraction. Sameness at lower complexity levels contributed to decisions based on the higher levels. The pattern of comparison times across levelswas not predictable solely from encoding times. The results indicated that relations at multiple levels of complexity can be abstracted and compared in working memory, with higher complexity levels requiring more processing time. We simulated the impact of relational complexity on response time using Learning and Inference with Schemas and Analogies (LISA), a computational model of relational comparisons based on dynamic binding of elements into roles in a relational working memory. (shrink)

BackgroundDespite severe cognitive dysfunction in Alzheimer's disease, aesthetic preferences in AD patients seem to retain some stability over time, similarly to healthy controls. However, the underlying mechanisms of aesthetic preference stability in AD remain unclear. We therefore aimed to study the role of emotional valence of stimuli for stability of aesthetic preferences in patients with AD compared to cognitively unimpaired elderly adults.MethodsFifteen AD patients score 12–26) without visual impairment and/or psychiatric disorder, as well as 15 healthy controls without cognitive impairment (...) matched in age, sex, art interest and highest level of education were included in this study. All participants were asked to rank-order eight artworks per stimulus category according to their preference twice with a 2-week span in-between. Based on these two rankings a preference change score was calculated. In order to assess explicit recognition memory of the artworks in the second testing session, four artworks of each stimulus category used in the preference ranking task were presented together with a content-matched distractor artwork painted by the same artist. Participants had to indicate which of the stimuli they had seen 2 weeks previously.ResultsAD patients [MMSE = 18.9 ± 3.6; Age = 85.4 ± 6.9; 33.3% male] had no explicit recognition memory of the artworks, whereas healthy controls [MMSE = 27.7 ± 1.4; Age = 84.3 ± 6.7; 33.3% male] correctly recognized 85% of stimuli after 2 weeks. AD patients had equally stable preferences compared to the control group for negative artworks, but less stable preferences for positive and neutral images.ConclusionEven in cognitively impaired AD patients, aesthetic preference for negatively-valenced artworks remains relatively stable. Our study provides novel evidence that AD patients may have a somewhat preserved implicit valence system for negative compared to neutral or positive visual information, especially in the domain of aesthetics. However, more studies need to further uncover the details of the underlying neurocognitive mechanisms of preference stability in pathological aging. (shrink)

Pathological gaming among adolescents has been reported to hamper the achievement of a balanced life and to threaten the development of social competencies. Despite the increasing social concerns on the adolescent users, however, the mechanism of gaming behavior of adolescents has not been sufficiently examined. This study explored the mechanism of pathological gaming among adolescents from 3-year longitudinal data of 778 Korean adolescent gamers, by analyzing the effects of negative affects on the degree of pathological gaming through the mediation variables (...) based on the stimulus-organism-response framework. Latent class analysis was used to uncover potential risk groups, and through partial least squares-structural equation modeling analysis, the mediation pathways to pathological gaming were compared between the risk group and the non-risk group. The results highlighted the key role of academic stress on the degree of pathological gaming. In the entire group, academic stress primarily increased pathological gaming through self-control. The mediation path of self-control was the most influential result in the risk group. Aggression was the key mediator between loneliness and pathological gaming in the non-risk group. The theoretical and practical implications of the results were discussed. (shrink)

Nonsymbolic comparison tasks are commonly used to index the acuity of an individual's Approximate Number System (ANS), a cognitive mechanism believed to be involved in the development of number skills. Here we asked whether the time that an individual spends observing numerical stimuli influences the precision of the resultant ANS representations. Contrary to standard computational models of the ANS, we found that the longer the stimulus was displayed, the more precise was the resultant representation. We propose an adaptation (...) of the standard model, and suggest that this finding has significant methodological implications for numerical cognition research. (shrink)

Recently, an associative learning account of cognitive control has been suggested (Verguts & Notebaert, 2009). In this so-called adaptation by binding theory, Hebbian learning of stimulus–stimulus and stimulus–response associations is assumed to drive the adaptation of human behavior. In this study, we evaluated the validity of the adaptation-by-binding account for the case of implicit learning of regularities within a stimulus set (i.e., the frequency of specific unit digit combinations in a two-digit number magnitude comparison task) (...) and their association with a particular response. Our data indicated that participants indeed learned these regularities and adapted their behavior accordingly. In particular, influences of cognitive control were even able to override the numerical distance effect—one of the most robust effects in numerical cognition research. Thus, the general cognitive processes involved in two-digit number magnitude comparison seem much more complex than previously assumed. Multi-digit number magnitude comparison may not be automatic and inflexible but influenced by processes of cognitive control being highly adaptive to stimulus set properties and task demands on multiple levels. (shrink)

Though individual categorization or decision processes have been studied separately in many previous investigations, few studies have investigated how they interact by using a two-stage task of first categorizing and then deciding. To address this issue, we investigated a categorization-decision task in two experiments. In both, participants were shown six faces varying in width, first asked to categorize the faces, and then decide a course of action for each face. Each experiment was designed to include three groups, and for each (...) group, we manipulated the probabilistic contingencies between stimulus, category assignments, and decision consequences. For each group, each participant received three different sequences of category response, category feedback, decision response, and decision feedback. We found that participants were only partially responsive in the appropriate directions to the contingencies assigned to each group. Comparisons of results from different sequences provided evidence for empirical interference effects of categorization on decisions. The empirical interference effect is defined as the difference between the probability of taking a hostile action in decision-alone conditions and the total probability of taking a hostile action in categorization-decision conditions. To test competing accounts for multiple empirical results, including two-stage choice probabilities and empirical interference effects, we compared a quantum cognition model versus a two-stage exemplar categorization model at both aggregate and individual levels. Using a Bayesian information criterion, we found that the quantum model provided an overall better model fit than the exemplar model. Although both models predicted empirical interference effects, the exemplar model was able to generate probabilistic deviation by incorporating category information of the first stage into the feature representation of the subsequent decision stage, while the quantum model produced interference effect by superposition, measurement, and quantum entanglement. (shrink)

Experiencing a stimulus in one sensory modality is often associated with an experience in another sensory modality. For instance, seeing a lemon might produce a sensation of sourness. This might indicate some kind of cross-modal correspondence between vision and gustation. The aim of the current study was to provide explore whether such cross-modal correspondences influence cross-modal integration during perceptual learning. To that end, we conducted 2 experiments. Using a speeded classification task, Experiment 1 established a cross-modal correspondence between visual (...) lightness and the frequency of an auditory tone. Using a short-term priming procedure, Experiment 2 showed that manipulation of such cross-modal correspondences led to the creation of a crossmodal unit regardless of the nature of the correspondence (i.e., congruent, Experiment 2a or incongruent, Experiment 2b). However, a comparison of priming-effects sizes suggested that cross-modal correspondences modulate cross-modal integration during learning and thus leading to new learned units that have different stability over time. We discuss the implications of our results for the relation between cross-modal correspondence and perceptual learning in the context of a Bayesian explanation of cross-modal correspondences. (shrink)

There are many important methodological decisions that need to be made when examining emotional reactivity in psychopathology. In the present study, we examined the effects of two such decisions in an investigation of emotional reactivity in depression: (1) which (if any) comparison condition to employ; and (2) how to define change. Depressed (N = 69) and control (N = 37) participants viewed emotion-inducing film clips while subjective and facial responses were measured. Emotional reactivity was defined using no comparison (...) condition (i.e., raw scores), baseline comparison condition (i.e., no stimulus presented), and neutral comparison condition (i.e., neutral stimulus presented). Change in emotional reactivity was assessed using four analytic approaches: difference scores, percentage change, residualised change, and ANCOVA. Results differed among the three comparison conditions and among several of the analytic approaches. Overall, our investigation suggests that choosing a comparison condition and the definition of change can significantly influence the presence of group differences in emotional reactivity. Recommendations for studies of emotional reactivity in psychopathology are discussed. (shrink)

We develop a mathematical theory for comparative sorites, considered in terms of a system mapping pairs of stimuli into a binary response characteristic whose values supervene on stimulus pairs and are interpretable as the complementary relations 'are the same' and 'are not the same' (overall or in some respect). Comparative sorites is about hypothetical sequences of stimuli in which every two successive elements are mapped into the relation 'are the same', while the pair comprised of the first and the (...) last elements of the sequence is mapped into 'are not the same'. Although soritical sequences of this kind are logically possible, we argue that their existence is grounded in no empirical evidence and show that it is excluded by a certain psychophysical principle proposed for human comparative judgements in a context unrelated to soritical issues. We generalize this principle to encompass all conceivable situations for which comparative sorites can be formulated. (shrink)

Müller proposes a position-taking theory to account for the manifest image of emotional feelings as “feelings towards”. He reduces the process of position-taking to goal-based construal, which is akin to the stimulus-goal comparison process central in appraisal theories. Although this reduction can account for the heat of emotional feelings and the intuition that non-linguistic organisms can also have feelings, it may fail to keep the position-taking aspect on board. Moreover, the image of emotional feelings as active position-takings may (...) itself be questioned and replaced with a passive image. I end by acknowledging that a passive image is still compatible with an active underlying mechanism as is the case in appraisal theories but even more so in the goal-directed theory. (shrink)

The interocular suppression technique termed continuous flash suppression (CFS) has become an immensely popular tool for investigating visual processing outside of awareness. The emerging picture from studies using CFS is that extensive processing of a visual stimulus, including its semantic and affective content, occurs despite suppression from awareness of that stimulus by CFS. However, the current implementation of CFS in many studies examining processing outside of awareness has several drawbacks that may be improved upon for future studies using (...) CFS. In this paper, we address some of those shortcomings, particularly ones that affect the assessment of unawareness during CFS, and ones to do with the use of ‘visible’ conditions that are often included as a comparison to a CFS condition. We also discuss potential biases in stimulus processing as a result of spatial attention and feature-selective suppression. We suggest practical guidelines that minimize the effects of those limitations in using CFS to study visual processing outside of awareness. (shrink)

Seven studies explored the empirical basis for claims that infants represent cardinal values of small sets of objects. Many studies investigating numerical ability did not properly control for continuous stimulus properties such as surface area, volume, contour length, or dimensions that correlate with these properties. Experiment 1 extended the standard habituation/dishabituation paradigm to a 1 vs 2 comparison with three-dimensional objects and confirmed that when number and total front surface area are confounded, infants discriminate the arrays. Experiment 2 (...) revealed that infants dishabituated to a change in front surface area but not to a change in number when the two variables were pitted against each other. Experiments 3 through 5 revealed no sensitivity to number when front surface area was controlled, and Experiments 6 and 7 extended this pattern of findings to the Wynn (1992) transformation task. Infants’ lack of a response to number, combined with their demonstrated sensitivity to one or more dimensions of continuous extent, supports the hypothesis that the representations subserving object-based attention, rather than those subserving enumeration, underlie performance in the above tasks. (shrink)

Perception of temporal patterns is fundamental to normal hearing, speech, motor control, and music. Certain types of pattern understanding are unique to humans, such as musical rhythm. Although human responses to musical rhythm are universal, there is much we do not understand about how rhythm is processed in the brain. Here, I consider findings from research into basic timing mechanisms and models through to the neuroscience of rhythm and meter. A network of neural areas, including motor regions, is regularly implicated (...) in basic timing as well as processing of musical rhythm. However, fractionating the specific roles of individual areas in this network has remained a challenge. Distinctions in activity patterns appear between "automatic" and "cognitively controlled" timing processes, but the perception of musical rhythm requires features of both automatic and controlled processes. In addition, many experimental manipulations rely on participants directing their attention toward or away from certain stimulus features, and measuring corresponding differences in neural activity. Many temporal features, however, are implicitly processed whether attended to or not, making it difficult to create controlled baseline conditions for experimental comparisons. The variety of stimuli, paradigms, and definitions can further complicate comparisons across domains or methodologies. Despite these challenges, the high level of interest and multitude of methodological approaches from different cognitive domains (including music, language, and motor learning) have yielded new insights and hold promise for future progress. (shrink)

An application of probabilistic, stimulus-response learning theory to game-like small group situations. The theory is axiomatic, precise, and quantitative; and is deductively fruitful. There is a running comparison of the predictive success of the stimulus-response theory and game theory. The authors claim to have demonstrated "in empirical detail and with quantitative accuracy" that "the social situation, qua social, does not require the introduction of new concepts" beyond those of stimulus-response learning theory. --N. D. B. Jr.

Abstract The accumulated case studies in the Sociology of Scientific Knowledge have been taken to establish the Strong Programme's thesis that beliefs have social causes in contradistinction to psychological ones. This externalism is essentially a commitment to the stimulus control of behaviour which was the principal tenet of orthodox Skinnerian Behaviorism. Offered as ?straight forward scientific hypotheses? these claims of social determination are asserted to be ?beyond dispute?. However, the causes of beliefs and especially their contents has also been (...) the subject of intense study in the quite different domain of cognitive science where internal states, images, rules, representations and schemas are postulated as explanatory constructs. Such explanations which postulate mental states are described by Bloor as infected by the ?disease? of ?psychologism? and Bloor has defined his Strong Programme in terms of its diametrical opposition to mentalistic theories. For example, Bloor has explicitly endorsed the Behaviourist rejection of mental representations such as images. Accordingly, a direct comparison of these radically divergent approaches to a common subject matter is of considerable interest. The paper attempts to reveal the unnoticed enormity and recidivism of the sociological programme, and how its vulnerability is betrayed in Bloor's response to criticism on central issues. (shrink)

Background: While religious faith remains one of the most significant features of human life, little is known about its relationship to ordinary belief at the level of the brain. Nor is it known whether religious believers and nonbelievers differ in how they evaluate statements of fact. Our lab previously has used functional neuroimaging to study belief as a general mode of cognition, and others have looked specifically at religious belief. However, no research has compared these two states of mind directly. (...) Methodology/Principal Findings: We used functional magnetic resonance imaging to measure signal changes in the brains of thirty subjects - fifteen committed Christians and fifteen nonbelievers - as they evaluated the truth and falsity of religious and nonreligious propositions. For both groups, and in both categories of stimuli, belief was associated with greater signal in the ventromedial prefrontal cortex, an area important for self-representation, emotional associations, reward, and goal-driven behavior. This region showed greater signal whether subjects believed statements about God, the Virgin Birth, etc. or statements about ordinary facts. A comparison of both stimulus categories suggests that religious thinking is more associated with brain regions that govern emotion, self-representation, and cognitive conflict, while thinking about ordinary facts is more reliant upon memory retrieval networks. Conclusions/Significance: While religious and nonreligious thinking differentially engage broad regions of the frontal, parietal, and medial temporal lobes, the difference between belief and disbelief appears to be content-independent. Our study compares religious thinking with ordinary cognition and, as such, constitutes a step toward developing a neuropsychology of religion. However, these findings may also further our understanding of how the brain accepts statements of all kinds to be valid descriptions of the world. © 2009 Harris et al. (shrink)

We assessed the automaticity of spatial-numerical and spatial-musical associations by testing their intentionality and load sensitivity in a dual-task paradigm. In separate sessions, 16 healthy adults performed magnitude and pitch comparisons on sung numbers with variable pitch. Stimuli and response alternatives were identical, but the relevant stimulus attribute (pitch or number) differed between tasks. Concomitant tasks required retention of either color or location information. Results show that spatial associations of both magnitude and pitch are load sensitive and that the (...) spatial association for pitch is more powerful than that for magnitude. These findings argue against the automaticity of spatial mappings in either stimulus dimension. (shrink)

An important function of emoji as communicative symbols is to convey emotional content from sender to receiver in computer-mediated communication, e. g., WhatsApp. However, compared with real faces, pictures or words, many emoji are ambiguous because they do not symbolize a discrete emotion or feeling state. Thus, their meaning relies on the context of the message in which they are embedded. Previous studies investigated affective judgments of pictures, faces, and words suggesting that these stimuli show a typical distribution along the (...) big two emotion dimensions of valence and arousal. Also, emoji and emoticons have been investigated recently for their affective significance. The present study extends previous research by investigating affective ratings of emoji, emoticons and human faces and by direct comparison between them. In total, 60 stimuli have been rated by 83 participants, using the non-verbal Self-Assessment Manikin Scales for valence and arousal. The emotionality of the stimuli was measured on a 9-point Likert scale. The results show significant main effects of the factors “stimulus category” and “discrete emotion” including emotionality, valence and arousal. Also, the interaction between these two main factors was significant. Emoji elicited highest arousal, whereas stimuli related to happiness were rated highest in valence across stimulus categories. Angry emoji were rated highest in emotionality. Also, the discrete emotion was best recognized in emoji, followed by human face stimuli and lastly emoticons. (shrink)

A series of experiments tested the hypothesis that very brief exposure to feared stimuli can have positive effects on avoidance of the corresponding feared object. Participants identified themselves as fearful of spiders through a widely used questionnaire. A preliminary experiment showed that they were unable to identify the stimuli used in the main experiments. Experiment 2 compared the effects of exposure to masked feared stimuli at short and long stimulus onset asynchronies . Participants were individually administered one of three (...) continuous series of backwards masked or non-masked stimuli: unreportable images of spiders , clearly visible images of spiders , or unreportable images of trees . Immediately thereafter, they engaged in a Behavioral Avoidance Test with a live, caged tarantula. Exposure to unreportable images of spiders resulted in greater approach towards the tarantula than unreportable neutral images. A post-hoc comparison with clearly visible exposure to these same images approached significance. These effects were maintained at a 1-week follow-up . In Experiment 3 , participants engaged in the BAT 1 week prior to the exposure manipulation in order to provide a baseline measurement of their avoidant behavior, and again immediately after the exposure manipulation. Exposure to unreportable images of spiders reduced avoidance of the tarantula. Similar exposure to trees did not. Implications for the non-conscious basis of fear are discussed. (shrink)

Emotion modulates our time perception. So far, the relationship between emotion and time perception has been examined with visible emotional stimuli. The present study investigated whether invisible emotional stimuli affected time perception. Using continuous flash suppression, which is a kind of dynamic interocular masking, supra-threshold emotional pictures were masked or unmasked depending on whether the retinal position of continuous flashes on one eye was consistent with that of the pictures on the other eye. Observers were asked to reproduce the perceived (...) duration of a frame stimulus that was concurrently presented with a masked or unmasked emotional picture. As a result, negative emotional stimuli elongated the perceived duration of the frame stimulus in comparison with positive and neutral emotional stimuli, regardless of the visibility of emotional pictures. These results suggest that negative emotion unconsciously accelerates an internal clock, altering time perception. (shrink)

Psychopathy is a disorder characterized by severe and frequent moral violations in multiple domains of life. Numerous studies have shown psychopathy-related limbic brain abnormalities during moral processing; however, these studies only examined negatively valenced moral stimuli. Here, we aimed to replicate prior psychopathy research on negative moral judgments and to extend this work by examining psychopathy-related abnormalities in the processing of controversial moral stimuli and positive moral processing. Incarcerated adult males (N = 245) completed a functional magnetic resonance imaging protocol (...) on a mobile imaging system stationed at the prison. Psychopathy was assessed using the Hare Psychopathy Checklist–Revised (PCL-R). Participants were then shown words describing three types of moral stimuli: wrong (e.g., stealing), not wrong (e.g., charity), and controversial (e.g., euthanasia). Participants rated each stimulus as either wrong or not wrong. PCL-R total scores were correlated with not wrong behavioral responses to wrong moral stimuli, and were inversely related to hemodynamic activity in the anterior cingulate cortex in the contrast of wrong > not wrong. In the controversial > noncontroversial comparison, psychopathy was inversely associated with activity in the temporal parietal junction and dorsolateral prefrontal cortex. These results indicate that psychopathy-related abnormalities are observed during the processing of complex, negative, and positive moral stimuli. (shrink)

It is sometimes argued that if PDP networks can be trained to make correct judgements of grammaticality we have an existence proof that there is enough information in the stimulus to permit learning grammar by inductive means alone. This seems inconsistent superficially with Gold's theorem and at a deeper level with the fact that networks are designed on the basis of assumptions about the domain of the function to be learned. To clarify the issue I consider what we should (...) learn from Gold's theorem, then go on to inquire into what it means to say that knowledge is domain specific. I first try sharpening the intuitive notion of domain specific knowledge by reviewing the alleged difference between processing limitations due to shortage of resources vs shortages of knowledge. After rejecting different formulations of this idea, I suggest that a model is language specific if it transparently refer to entities and facts about language as opposed to entities and facts of more general mathematical domains. This is a useful but not necessary condition. I then suggest that a theory is domain specific if it belongs to a model family which is attuned in a law-like way to domain regularities. This leads to a comparison of PDP and parameter setting models of language learning. I conclude with a novel version of the poverty of stimulus argument. (shrink)

Modern computer-based applications often require the user to interact with avatars. Depending on the task at hand, spatial dissociation between the orientations of the user and the avatars might arise. As a consequence, the user has to adopt the avatar's perspective and identify herself/himself with the avatar, possibly changing the user's self-representation in the process. The present study aims to identify the conditions that benefit this change of perspective with objective performance measures and subjective self-estimations by integrating the idea of (...) avatar-ownership into the cognitive phenomenon of spatial compatibility. Two different instructions were used to manipulate a user's perceived ownership of an avatar used in otherwise identical situations. Users with the high-ownership instruction reported higher levels of perceived ownership of the avatar and showed larger spatial compatibility effects from the avatar's point of view in comparison to the low ownership instruction. This supports the hypothesis that perceived ownership benefits perspective taking. (shrink)

Neurobiological and cognitive models of unconscious information processing suggest that subconscious threat detection can lead to cognitive misinterpretations and false alarms, while conscious processing is assumed to be perceptually and conceptually accurate and unambiguous. Furthermore, clinical theories suggest that pathological anxiety results from a crude preattentive warning system predominating over more sophisticated and controlled modes of processing. We investigated the hypothesis that subconscious detection of threat in a cognitive task is reflected by enhanced ''false signal'' detection rather than by selectively (...) enhanced discrimination of threat items in 30 patients with panic disorder and 30 healthy controls. We presented a tachistoscopic word-nonword discrimination task and a subsequent recognition task and analyzed the data by means of process-dissociation procedures. In line with our expectations, subjects of both groups showed more false signal detection to threat than to neutral stimuli as indicated by an enhanced response bias, whereas indices of discriminative sensitivity did not show this effect. In addition, patients with panic disorder showed a generally enhanced response bias in comparison to healthy controls. They also seemed to have processed the stimuli less elaborately and less differentially. Results are consistent with the assumption that subconscious threat detection can lead to misrepresentations of stimulus significance and that pathological anxiety is characterized by a hyperactive preattentive alarm system that is insufficiently controlled by higher cognitive processes. (shrink)

Compared to our understanding of positive prediction error signals occurring due to unexpected reward outcomes, less is known about the neural circuitry in humans that drives negative prediction errors during omission of expected rewards. While classical learning theories such as Rescorla–Wagner or temporal difference learning suggest that both types of prediction errors result from a simple subtraction, there has been recent evidence suggesting that different brain regions provide input to dopamine neurons which contributes to specific components of this prediction error (...) computation. Here, we focus on the brain regions responding to negative prediction error signals, which has been well-established in animal studies to involve a distinct pathway through the lateral habenula. We examine the activity of this pathway in humans, using a conditioned inhibition paradigm with high-resolution functional MRI. First, participants learned to associate a sensory stimulus with reward delivery. Then, reward delivery was omitted whenever this stimulus was presented simultaneously with a different sensory stimulus, the conditioned inhibitor. Both reward presentation and the reward-predictive cue activated midbrain dopamine regions, insula and orbitofrontal cortex. While we found significant activity at an uncorrected threshold for the CI in the habenula, consistent with our predictions, it did not survive correction for multiple comparisons and awaits further replication. Additionally, the pallidum and putamen regions of the basal ganglia showed modulations of activity for the inhibitor that did not survive the corrected threshold. (shrink)

Generations of researchers observed a mismatch between headphone and loudspeaker presentation: the sound pressure level at the eardrum generated by a headphone has to be about 6 dB higher compared to the level created by a loudspeaker that elicits the same loudness. While it has been shown that this effect vanishes if the same waveforms are generated at the eardrum in a blind comparison, the origin of the mismatch is still unclear. We present new data on the issue that (...) systematically characterize this mismatch under variation of the stimulus frequency, presentation room, and binaural parameters of the headphone presentation. Subjects adjusted the playback level of a headphone presentation to equal loudness as loudspeaker presentation, and the levels at the eardrum were determined through appropriate transfer function measurements. Identical experiments were conducted at Oldenburg and Aachen with 40 normal-hearing subjects including 14 that passed through both sites. Our data verify a mismatch between loudspeaker and binaural headphone presentation, especially at low frequencies. This mismatch depends on the room acoustics, and on the interaural coherence in both presentation modes. It vanishes for high frequencies and broadband signals if individual differences in the sound transfer to the eardrums are accounted for. Moreover, small acoustic and non-acoustic differences in an anechoic reference environment exert a large effect on the recorded loudness mismatch, whereas not such a large effect of the respective room is observed across moderately reverberant rooms at both sites. Hence, the non-conclusive findings from the literature appear to be related to the experienced disparity between headphone and loudspeaker presentation, where even small differences in room acoustics significantly change the response behavior of the subjects. Moreover, individual factors like loudness summation appear to be only loosely connected to the observed mismatch, i.e., no direct prediction is possible from individual binaural loudness summation to the observed mismatch. These findings – even though not completely explainable by the yet limited amount of parameter variations performed in this study – have consequences for the comparability of experiments using loudspeakers with conditions employing headphones or other ear-level hearing devices. (shrink)