Six-month-old infants discriminate between large sets of objects on the basis of numerosity when other extraneous variables are controlled, provided that the sets to be discriminated differ by a large ratio (8 vs. 16 but not 8 vs. 12). The capacities to represent approximate numerosity found in adult animals and humans evidently develop in human infants prior to language and symbolic counting.

Much research on cognitive development focuses either on early-emerging domain-specific knowledge or domain-general learning mechanisms. However, little research examines how these sources of knowledge interact. Previous research suggests that young infants can make inferences from samples to populations (Xu & Garcia, 2008) and 11- to 12.5-month-old infants can integrate psychological and physical knowledge in probabilistic reasoning (Teglas, Girotto, Gonzalez, & Bonatti, 2007; Xu & Denison, 2009). Here, we ask whether infants can integrate a physical constraint of immobility into a statistical (...) inference mechanism. Results from three experiments suggest that, first, infants were able to use domain-specific knowledge to override statistical information, reasoning that sometimes a physical constraint is more informative than probabilistic information. Second, we provide the first evidence that infants are capable of applying domain-specific knowledge in probabilistic reasoning by using a physical constraint to exclude one set of objects while computing probabilities over the remaining sets. (shrink)

Individual choices are commonly taken to manifest personal preferences. The present study investigated whether social and statistical cues influence young children's inferences about the generalizability of preferences. Preschoolers were exposed to either 1 or 2 demonstrators’ selections of objects. The selected objects constituted 18%, 50%, or 100% of all available objects. We found that children took a single demonstrator's choices as indicative only of his or her personal preference. However, when 2 demonstrators made the same selection, then children inferred that (...) it generalized to other agents of the same kind as the original demonstrator's, but not to agents of a different kind. Lastly, only when both demonstrators blatantly violated random selection (i.e., in the 18% condition) did children generalize the preference even to an agent of a different kind. Thus, from a young age, social and statistical cues inform children's naïve sociology. (shrink)

Rational constructivism is one of the leading theories in developmental psychology. But it is not a purely psychological theory: rational constructivism also makes a number of substantial epistemological claims about both the nature of human rationality and several normative principles that fall squarely into the ambit of epistemology. The aim of this paper is to clarify and defend both theses and several other epistemological claims, as they represent the essential epistemological dimensions of rational constructivism.

Spiking neural P systems are a class of computation models inspired by the biological neural systems, where spikes and spiking rules are in neurons. In this work, we propose a variant of spiking neural P systems, called spiking neural P systems with polarizations and rules on synapses, where spiking rules are placed on synapses and neurons are associated with polarizations used to control the application of such spiking rules. The computation power of PSNRS P systems is investigated. It is proven (...) that PSNRS P systems are Turing universal, both as number generating and accepting devices. Furthermore, a universal PSNRS P system with 151 neurons for computing any Turing computable functions is given. Compared with the case of SN P systems with polarizations but without spiking rules in neurons, less number of neurons are used to construct a universal PSNRS P system. (shrink)

In the current study, late Chinese–English bilinguals performed a facial expression identification task with emotion words in the task-irrelevant dimension, in either their first language or second language. The investigation examined the automatic access of the emotional content in words appearing in more than one language. Significant congruency effects were present for both L1 and L2 emotion word processing. Furthermore, the magnitude of emotional face-word Stroop effect in the L1 task was greater as compared to the L2 task, indicating that (...) in L1 participants could access the emotional information in words in a more reliable manner. In summary, these findings provide more support for the automatic access of emotional information in words in the bilinguals’ two languages as well as attenuated emotionality of L2 processing. (shrink)

I make two points in this commentary on Carey (2009). First, it may be too soon to conclude that core cognition is innate. Recent advances in computational cognitive science and developmental psychology suggest possible mechanisms for developing inductive biases. Second, there is another possible answer to Fodor's challenge – if concepts are merely mental tokens, then cognitive scientists should spend their time on developing a theory of belief fixation instead.

We argue that creative ideas are potentially valuable improbable constructions. We arrive at this formulation of creativity after considering several problems that arise for the theories that suggest that creativity is novelty, originality, or usefulness. Our theory avoids these problems. But since we also derive our theory of creativity from the scientific commitments of a more general theory of cognitive development, a theory called rational constructivism, our theory is unique insofar as it explains creativity in both adults and children through (...) reference to a set of computational mechanisms that have been posited on the basis of independently plausible experimental research. (shrink)

Explanations of how the brain makes successful predictions should refer to abstracta. But, the mind/brain system is for more than prediction alone. Creativity also plays an important role in supply the mind/brain system with abstracta that serve a number of valuable ends over and above prediction.

In this article, we focus on an extended model M ¯ of bounded rationality. Based on a rationality function with lower semicontinuity, we analyze the relationship between structural stability and robustness of Ω ¯. To further demonstrate the applicability of our theory, we introduce a model Ω ¯ 0 containing an abstract rationality function and generalize abstract fuzzy economies. We demonstrate the structural stability of the extended model Ω ¯ 0 at ξ ¯, ɛ. That is to say, Ω ¯ (...) 0 is robust to the ξ ¯, ɛ -equilibria. (shrink)

We applaud Millikan's psychologically plausible version of the causal theory of reference. Her proposal offers a significant clarification of the much-debated relation between concepts and beliefs, and suggests positive directions for future empirical studies of conceptual development. However, Millikan's revision of the causal theory may leave us with no generally satisfying account of concept individuation in the mind.

In this paper, we construct a regional logistics model from a macroperspective. First, based on the gravity model, the index of logistics attraction between cities is established as the weight of the model, and hence the regional logistics weighted model is constructed. Next, we use the social network analysis method to analyze its structure and make specific recommendations for the construction of logistics networks. Finally, we analyze the model’s response to random attacks and deliberate attacks. From our study, it is (...) found that when the failure nodes or edges reach a certain percentage, the regional logistics network will collapse on a large scale. Therefore, it is important to optimization the threshold of the regional logistics network. This clearly provides a new perspective for the study of the regional logistics networks. (shrink)