This study analyzes cognitive responses to explore a dual processing perspective of ethical judgment formation. Specifically, the study investigates how two factors, judgment task difficulty and moral intensity, influence the extent of deontological and teleological processing and their effects on ethical judgments. A single experiment on 110 undergraduate research participants found that judgment task difficulty affected the extent of deontological and teleological processing. Although moral intensity affected ethical judgments, it did not produce effects on either deontological or (...) teleological cognitive responses. Results did not support the hypotheses that deontological and teleological cognitive responses would mediate the relationships between the experimental factors and ethical judgments. Overall, the results support continued research of factors that affect the nature of information processing in ethical decision situations and the use of cognitive response analysis as a tool for conducting this research. (shrink)

Math difficulties manifest across various domain-specific and domain-general abilities. However, the existing cognitive profile of MD is incomplete and thus not applicable in typical settings such as schools or clinics. So far, no review has applied inclusion criteria according to DSM or ICD, summarized domain-specific abilities or examined the validity of response time scores for MD identification. Based upon stringent clinical criteria, the current meta-analysis included 34 studies which compared cognitive performances of a group with MD and a (...) group without MD. Criteria according to DSM and ICD were applied to identify MD. Effect sizes for 22 abilities were estimated and separated by their level and type of scoring. A cognitive profile of MD was identified, characterized by distinct weaknesses in: computation, number sense, and visual-spatial short-term storage [AC]. No particular strength was found. Severity of MD, group differences in reading performance and IQ did not significantly moderate the results. Further analyses revealed that effects are larger when dealing with numbers or number words than with quantities, MD is not accompanied by any weakness in abilities typically assigned to reading, and weaknesses in visual-spatial short-term storage emphasize the notion that number and space are interlinked. The need for high-quality studies investigating domain-general abilities is discussed. (shrink)

The goal of the present study was to investigate whether children’s cognitive strengths can compensate the accompanied weaknesses related to their specific learning difficulties. A Bayesian multigroup mediation SEM analysis in 281 fourth-grade children identified a cognitive compensatory mechanism in children with mathematical learning difficulties : Children with weak number sense, but strong rapid naming performed slightly better on mathematics compared to peers with weak rapid naming. In contrast, a compensatory mechanism was not identified for children with a (...) comorbid mathematical and reading difficulty. One explanation for the latter finding could relate to the lack of ability to compensate, because of the difficulties these children experience in both academic domains. These findings lead to a new direction in research on learning difficulties in mathematics and/or reading by suggesting that children with a learning disability each have a unique profile of interrelated cognitive strengths and weaknesses. Children might compensate with these strengths for their weaknesses, which could lead to learning gains in the affected domain. (shrink)

Topics in Cognitive Science, Volume 14, Issue 2, Page 295-310, April 2022.

Many studies have attempted to identify measures that predict reading abilities. The results of these studies may be inclined to over-identification of children considered at risk in kindergarten but who achieve parity in reading by the end of first grade. Therefore, the current study sought to analyze the specific cognitive and linguistic predictors of reading accuracy and reading speed separately. Additionally, the study examined if it is possible to use empirically validated measures to distinguish between children who are not (...) ready to learn how to read in kindergarten but manage to acquire reading skills by the end of first grade, and those who continue to exhibit difficulties. The study followed 98 kindergarteners aged 4 years 10 months to six years from three different schools, who were taught how to read in kindergarten. Multiple measures of general cognitive skills, linguistic abilities, and reading abilities were measured at three different points in time: the beginning of kindergarten, the end of kindergarten, and the end of first grade. The study found that most of the children with good literacy and cognitive abilities learned how to read by the end of kindergarten. The analysis revealed a significant difference in cognitive abilities, such as executive functions and memory, which distinguished between the ability to acquire fluent reading and accurate reading. The study was able to successfully distinguish between “children with difficulties” and “un-ready” children. These results have various implications, especially in regard to the identification of and intervention with kindergarten children at risk for reading disabilities. (shrink)

In this chapter I introduce the thesis that perceptual appearances are cognitively penetrable and analyse cases made against phenomenal conservatism hinging on this thesis. In particular, I focus on objections coming from the externalist reliabilist camp and the internalist inferentialist camp. I conclude that cognitive penetrability doesn’t yield lethal or substantive difficulties for phenomenal conservatism.

Training on working memory (WM) improves attention and working memory in children with attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder and memory impairments. However, for children with intellectual disabilities (ID), the results have been less encouraging. In this preliminary study it was hypothesized that children with ID would benefit from an extended amount of training and that the level of difficulty during training would affect the outcome. We included 21 children with mild or moderate intellectual disabilities aged 8–13 years. They went through between (...) 37 and 50 training sessions with an adaptive computerized program on WM and non-verbal reasoning (NVR). The children were divided into two subgroups with different difficulty levels during training. The transfer to untrained cognitive tests was compared to the results of 22 children with intellectual disabilities training only 25 sessions, and to a control group. We found that the training group with the extended training program improved significantly on a block design task measuring NVR and on a WM task compared to the control group. There was also a significantly larger improvement on block design relative to the training group with the shorter training time. The children that received easier training tasks also improved significantly more on a verbal WM task compared to children with more demanding tasks. In conclusion, these preliminary data suggest that children with ID might benefit from cognitive training with longer training periods and less demanding tasks, compared to children without disabilities. (shrink)

Objective: Present research examined children’s behavioural and cognitive functioning by using data from a screening study based on reports given by parents and teachers, and investigated the strongest predictors of children’s fluid intelligence. Method: Scales: Conners Early Childhood Behaviour Scale and Behaviour Rating Inventory of Executive Function-Preschool were filled out by parents and teachers of preschool children. Raven’s Coloured Progressive Matrices was used to measure fluid intelligence among preschool children. Results: Parent-teacher concordance was low to moderate. Working memory in (...) BRIEF-P estimated by teachers and parents mediated the relationship between inattention/hyperactivity in CEC BEH [S] and fluid intelligence among preschoolers. The difficulties with working memory assessed by teachers and parents were significant predictors of Raven scores; however, predictions based on teachers’ assessments were stronger. Conclusion: Clinicians should collect reports from various observers in order to implement prevention programs and optimize clinical diagnoses for children. Information from both parents and teachers give significant and complementary contribution to understanding difficulties with cognitive and behavioural functioning of preschoolers. (shrink)

A line of research within embodied cognition seeks to show that an organism’s body is a determinant of its conceptual capacities. Comparison of this claim of body determinism to linguistic determinism bears interesting results. Just as Slobin’s (1996) idea of thinking for speaking challenges the main thesis of linguistic determinism, so too the possibility of thinking for acting raises difficulties for the proponent of body determinism. However, recent studies suggest that the body may, after all, have a determining role in (...) cognitive processes of sentence comprehension. (shrink)

The cognitive impairments shown by brain-damaged patients emphasize the role of task difficulty as a major determinant for performance. We discuss the proposal of Kurzban et al. in light of our findings on right-hemisphere–damaged patients, who show increasing awareness deficits for the contralesional hemispace when engaged with resource-consuming dual tasks. This phenomenon is readily explained by the assumption of unspecific depletable resources.

Human listeners are assumed to apply different strategies to improve speech recognition in background noise. Young listeners with normal hearing, e.g., have been shown to follow the voice of a particular speaker based on the fundamental and formant frequencies, which are both influenced by the gender, age, and size of the speaker. However, the auditory and cognitive processes that underlie the extraction and discrimination of these voice cues across speakers may be subject to age-related decline. The present study aimed (...) to examine the utilization of F0 and formant cues for voice discrimination in older adults with hearing expected for their age. Difference limens for VD were estimated in 15 healthy older adults and 35 young adults using only F0 cues, only formant frequency cues, and a combination of F0 + formant frequencies. A three-alternative forced-choice paradigm with an adaptive-tracking threshold-seeking procedure was used. Wechsler backward digit span test was used as a measure of auditory working memory. Trail Making Test was used to provide cognitive information reflecting a combined effect of processing speed, mental flexibility, and executive control abilities. The results showed that the mean VD thresholds of the older adults were poorer than those of the young adults for all voice cues, although larger variability was observed among the older listeners; both age groups found the formant cues more beneficial for VD, compared to the F0 cues, and the combined cues resulted in better thresholds, compared to each cue separately; significant associations were found for the older adults in the combined F0 + formant condition between VD and TMT scores, and between VD and hearing sensitivity, supporting the notion that a decline with age in both top-down and bottom-up mechanisms may hamper the ability of older adults to discriminate between voices. The present findings suggest that older listeners may have difficulty following the voice of a specific speaker and thus implementing doing so as a strategy for listening amid noise. This may contribute to understanding their reported difficulty listening in adverse conditions. (shrink)

The strategy of this paper is to throw light on rational cognition and epistemic justification by examining irrationality. Epistemic irrationality is possible because we are reflexive cognizers, able to reason about and redirect some aspects of our own cognition. One consequence of this is that one cannot give a theory of epistemic rationality or epistemic justification without simultaneously giving a theory of practical rationality. A further consequence is that practical irrationality can affect our epistemic cognition. I argue that practical irrationality (...) derives from a general difficulty we have in overriding built-in shortcut modules aimed at making cognition more efficient, and all epistemic irrationality can be traced to this same source. A consequence of this account is that a theory of rationality is a descriptive theory, describing contingent features of a cognitive architecture, and it forms the core of a general theory of “voluntary” cognition — those aspects of cognition that are under voluntary control. It also follows that most of the so-called “rules for rationality” that philosophers have proposed are really just rules describing default (non- reflexive) cognition. It can be perfectly rational for a reflexive cognizer to break these rules. The “normativity” of rationality is a reflection of a built-in feature of reflexive cognition — when we detect violations of rationality, we have a tendency to desire to correct them. This is just another part of the descriptive theory of rationality. Although theories of rationality are descriptive, the structure of reflexive cognition gives philosophers, as human cognizers, privileged access to certain aspects of rational cognition. Philosophical theories of rationality are really scientific theories, based on inference to the best explanation, that take contingent introspective data as the evidence to be explained. (shrink)

Inspired by Smith, Ben-Moshe suggests that we should only accommodate conscientious objections in medicine based on moral beliefs that are true, or which closely approximate to the truth. He suggests that we can identify moral truths by consulting our consciences when our consciences adopt the standpoint of an impartial spectator. He also suggests some changes to our current practices in regard to the management of CO in medicine that would be needed were his proposal to be adopted. Here, I argue (...) that both Smith and Ben-Moshe underestimate the difficulties involved in adopting the standpoint of an impartial spectator. In particular, both authors fail to recognise the extent to which cognitive bias and ideological commitments prevent many of us from identifying the standpoint of an impartial spectator and also prevent us from realising that we are failing to be impartial. I also consider some different changes to current practices that would be needed if we were to take on Ben-Moshe’s approach to CO in medicine while also recognising the difficulties involved in adopting the standpoint of an impartial spectator. (shrink)

We present a synthetic theory of skilled action which proposes that cognitive processes make an important contribution to almost all skilled action, contrary to influential views that many skills are performed largely automatically. Cognitive control is focused on strategic aspects of performance, and plays a greater role as difficulty increases. We offer an analysis of various forms of skill experience and show that the theory provides a better explanation for the full set of these experiences than automatic (...) theories. We further show that the theory can explain experimental evidence for skill automaticity, including evidence that secondary tasks do not interfere with expert performance, and evidence that experts have reduced memory for performance of sensorimotor skills. (shrink)

Theories of collective intentions must distinguish genuinely collective intentions from coincidentally harmonized ones. Two apparently equally apt ways of doing so are the ‘neo-reductionism’ of Bacharach (2006) and Gold and Sugden (2007a) and the ‘non-reductionism’ of Searle (1990, 1995). Here, we present findings from theoretical linguistics that show that we is not a cognitive primitive, but is composed of notions of I and grouphood. The ramifications of this finding on the structure both of grammatical and lexical systems suggests that (...) an understanding of collective intentionality does not require a primitive we-intention, but the notion of grouphood implicit in team reasoning, coupled with the individual concept I. This, we argue, supports neo-reductionism but poses difficulties for non-reductionism. (shrink)

This book provides a range of interdisciplinary and international perspectives on difficulties in literacy development. The high-profile team of contributors provide ethical and policy discussions, as well as contextualizing individual and collective strategies to addressing difficulties in literacy development. The chapters break new ground by encompassing a wide range of perspectives related to critical literacy, socio-cultural, cognitive, and psychological viewpoints, to help inform practice, policy and research into literacy difficulties. This book will be of interest to postgraduate students, teachers, (...) researchers, education professionals and policy makers who are keen to address difficulties in literacy development. (shrink)

Moving from a behavioral definition of intelligence, which describes it as the ability to adapt to the surrounding environment and deal effectively with new situations (Anastasi, 1986), this paper explains to what extent the performance obtained by ChatGPT in the linguistic domain can be considered as intelligent behavior and to what extent they cannot. It also explains in what sense the hypothesis of decoupling between cognitive and problem-solving abilities, proposed by Floridi (2017) and Floridi and Chiriatti (2020) should be (...) interpreted. The problem of symbolic grounding (Harnad, 1990) is then addressed to show the problematic relationship between ChatGPT and the natural environment, and thus the impossibility for it to understand the symbols it manipulates. To explain the reasons why ChatGPT does not succeed in this task, an investigation is carried out and a possible solution to the problem in the artificial domain is proposed by making a comparison with the natural ability of living beings to ground their own meanings from some basic cognitive-sensory aspects, which, it is explained, are directly related to the emergence of self-awareness in humans. Thus, the question is raised whether a possible and concrete solution to the Symbol Grounding Problem would involve in the artificial domain the development of cognitive abilities fully comparable to those of humans. Finally, I explain the difficulties that would have to be overcome before such a level could be reached, since human cognitive capacities are intimately linked to intersubjectivity and intercorporeality. (shrink)

There is ample evidence from literature and clinical practice indicating mathematical difficulties in individuals with ADHD, even when there is no concomitant diagnosis of developmental dyscalculia. What factors underlie these difficulties is still an open question. Research on dyscalculia and neurotypical development suggests visual perception of numerosity (the number sense) as a building block for math learning. Participants with lower numerosity estimation thresholds (higher precision) are often those with higher math capabilities. Strangely, the role of numerosity perception in math skills (...) in ADHD has been neglected, leaving open the question whether math difficulties in ADHD also originate from a deficitary visual number sense. In the current study we psychophysically measured numerosity thresholds and accuracy in a sample of children/adolescents with ADHD, but not concomitant dyscalculia (N = 20, 8–16 years). Math abilities were also measured by tasks indexing different mathematical competences. Numerosity performance and math scores were then compared to those obtained from an age-matched control group (N = 20). Bayesian statistics indicated no difference between ADHD and controls on numerosity perception, despite many of the symbolic math tasks being impaired in participants with ADHD. Moreover, the math deficits showed by the group with ADHD remained substantial even when numerosity thresholds were statistically regressed out. Overall, these results indicate that math difficulties in ADHD are unlikely to originate from an impaired visual number sense. (shrink)

Theories of collective intentions must distinguish genuinely collective intentions from coincidentally harmonized ones. Two apparently equally apt ways of doing so are the ‘neo-reductionism’ of Bacharach (2006) and Gold and Sugden (2007a) and the ‘non-reductionism’ of Searle (1990, 1995). Here, we present findings from theoretical linguistics that show that we is not a cognitive primitive, but is composed of notions of I and grouphood. The ramifications of this finding on the structure both of grammatical and lexical systems suggests that (...) an understanding of collective intentionality does not require a primitive we-intention, but the notion of grouphood implicit in team reasoning, coupled with the individual concept I. This, we argue, supports neo-reductionism but poses difficulties for non-reductionism. (shrink)

A plausible view about the epistemic condition of blameworthiness holds the following. Reasonable Expectation (RE): S's state of ignorance excuses iff S could not have been reasonably expected to have corrected or avoided the ignorance. An important, yet underexplored issue for RE concerns cases where an agent had the capacities and opportunities to have corrected or avoided the state of ignorance yet failed to do because of the difficulty involved. When does the fact that it was difficult for the (...) agent to have corrected or avoided the ignorance make an expectation to have done so an unreasonable expectation? Addressing this question is important for understanding what RE implies for a broad range of interesting cases where non-ideal agents out in the real world are ignorant because of commonplace difficulties (e.g., cognitive biases, complexity of large bodies of evidence, and misinformation). Whether commonplace difficulties excuse is an interesting and important topic that a satisfactory account of the epistemic condition needs to address. This paper proposes and defends an irreducibly normative account of when difficulty precludes a reasonable expectation to know better. The paper then shows how this account can be used alongside empirical research to reveal what RE implies for important cases of ignorance had by real non-ideal agents. (shrink)

"Twin earth" examples have motivated a number of proposals for the lexicography of kind terms in natural languages. It is argued that these proposals create unacceptable difficulties for the analysis of de dicto propositional attitudes. A conservative solution of the twin earth problems is then proposed according to which they reflect pragmatic features of language use rather than semantic features of lexical content.

Critics have argued that behaviorism must necessarily be inadequate to account for complex human behavior whereas cognitive psychology is adequate to account for such behavior. Recently, Fodor has focused this criticism on certain situations in which humans choose among a set of alternatives. We argue that this criticism applies to forms of behaviorism that are reductionistic but not to non-reductionistic behaviorisms like that of Skinner. Non-reductionistic behaviorism can be used to interpret human choice situations of varying degrees of complexity. (...) Such interpretations run into difficulty in accounting for certain aspects of verbal behavior, but so do cognitive theories. Although nothing, in principle, prohibits either type of theory from accounting for complex human behavior, neither current behavioral theory nor current cognitive theory is developed enough at the present time to do so. (shrink)

The frame problem is the difficulty of explaining how non-magical systems think and act in ways that are adaptively sensitive to context-dependent relevance. Influenced centrally by Heideggerian phenomenology, Hubert Dreyfus has argued that the frame problem is, in part, a consequence of the assumption (made by mainstream cognitive science and artificial intelligence) that intelligent behaviour is representation-guided behaviour. Dreyfus' Heideggerian analysis suggests that the frame problem dissolves if we reject representationalism about intelligence and recognize that human agents realize (...) the property of thrownness (the property of being always already embedded in a context). I argue that this positive proposal is incomplete until we understand exactly how the properties in question may be instantiated in machines like us. So, working within a broadly Heideggerian conceptual framework, I pursue the character of a representation-shunning thrown machine. As part of this analysis, I suggest that the frame problem is, in truth, a two-headed beast. The intra-context frame problem challenges us to say how a purely mechanistic system may achieve appropriate, flexible and fluid action within a context. The inter-context frame problem challenges us to say how a purely mechanistic system may achieve appropriate, flexible and fluid action in worlds in which adaptation to new contexts is open-ended and in which the number of potential contexts is indeterminate. Drawing on the field of situated robotics, I suggest that the intra-context frame problem may be neutralized by systems of special-purpose adaptive couplings, while the inter-context frame problem may be neutralized by systems that exhibit the phenomenon of continuous reciprocal causation. I also defend the view that while continuous reciprocal causation is in conflict with representational explanation, special-purpose adaptive coupling, as well as its associated agential phenomenology, may feature representations. My proposal has been criticized recently by Dreyfus, who accuses me of propagating a cognitivist misreading of Heidegger, one that, because it maintains a role for representation, leads me seriously astray in my handling of the frame problem. I close by responding to Dreyfus' concerns. (shrink)

We report on two experiments investigating the effect of an increased cognitive load for speakers on the choice of referring expressions. Speakers produced story continuations to addressees, in which they referred to characters that were either salient or non-salient in the discourse. In Experiment 1, referents that were salient for the speaker were non-salient for the addressee, and vice versa. In Experiment 2, all discourse information was shared between speaker and addressee. Cognitive load was manipulated by the presence (...) or absence of a secondary task for the speaker. The results show that speakers under load are more likely to produce pronouns, at least when referring to less salient referents. We take this finding as evidence that speakers under load have more difficulties taking discourse salience into account, resulting in the use of expressions that are more economical for themselves. (shrink)

Contemporary development of research methods and tools is often conducive to ambitious art studies, in which the research methodology and study protocol are the result of negotiations between creative and research strategies. The article discusses the key sources, possibilities, and threats of interdisciplinary projects often referred to as practice-as-research. The following comparison of the orders of the scientific methodology and the artistic convention allows one to show the similarities and potential points of contact between science and art, which are independent (...) of the different values and methods of evaluation in both of these areas. The research-based practice model by Pil Hansen and Bruce Barton is also presented as a solution that takes these issues into account. It is also used to present the project of Interdisciplinary Center for New Technologies of the Nicolaus Copernicus University in Toruń and the Art & Science Research Foundation om—organisms and machines in culture (FUNom) the project "Neurophysiology of the Artist in Performance", which is a bold example of the transdisciplinary activities of scientists and researchers. Its content is analyzed through the reports of artists, researchers, and participants taking part in public presentations of the project. (shrink)

Social cognition, social skill, and social motivation have been extensively researched and characterized as atypical in autistic people, with the assumption that each mechanistically contributes to the broader social interaction difficulties that diagnostically define the condition. Despite this assumption, research has not directly assessed whether or how these three social domains contribute to actual real-world social interaction outcomes for autistic people. The current study administered standardized measures of social cognition, social skill, and social motivation to 67 autistic and 58 non-autistic (...) adults and assessed whether performance on these measures, both individually and relationally between dyadic partners, predicted outcomes for autistic and NA adults interacting with unfamiliar autistic and NA partners in a 5 minute unstructured “get to know you” conversation. Consistent with previous research, autistic adults scored lower than NA adults on the three social domains and were evaluated less favorably by their conversation partners. However, links between autistic adults' performance on the three social domains and their social interaction outcomes were minimal and, contrary to prediction, only the social abilities of NA adults predicted some interaction outcomes within mixed diagnostic dyads. Collectively, results suggest that reduced performance by autistic adults on standardized measures of social cognition, social skill, and social motivation do not correspond in clear and predictable ways with their real-world social interaction outcomes. They also highlight the need for the development and validation of more ecological assessments of autistic social abilities and the consideration of relational dynamics, not just individual characteristics, when assessing social disability in autism. (shrink)

Foreign-accented speech is generally harder to understand than native-accented speech. This difficulty is reduced for non-native listeners who share their first language with the non-native speaker. It is currently unclear, however, how non-native listeners deal with foreign-accented speech produced by speakers of a different language. We show that the process of language acquisition is associated with an increase in the relative difficulty of processing foreign-accented speech. Therefore, experiencing greater relative difficulty with foreign-accented speech compared with native speech (...) is a marker of language proficiency. These results contribute to our understanding of how phonological categories are acquired during second language learning. (shrink)

Research has shown that adults can engage in cognitive offloading, whereby internal processes are offloaded onto the environment to help task performance. Here, we investigate an application of this approach with children, in particular children with poor working memory. Participants were required to remember and recall sequences of colors by placing colored blocks in the correct serial order. In one condition the blocks were arranged to facilitate cognitive offloading (i.e., grouped by color), whereas in the other condition they (...) were arranged randomly. Across two experiments (total N = 166) the ordered condition improved task performance for children with low working memory ability. In addition, participants in Experiment 2 rated the difficulty of the two arrangements and performed a further condition in which they were given an opportunity to freely arrange the blocks before completing the task. Despite performing better in the ordered condition, children with low working memory ability did not rate the ordered arrangement as easier, nor did they choose an ordered arrangement when given the opportunity to do so. This research shows that cognitive offloading can also be a useful process in populations other than typical adults, and the implications of this work for supporting children with poor working memory are discussed. (shrink)

Certain difficulties pervade the course of moral education and in this essay a broad picture of these shall be sketched. Moral educators need to understand the problems they will face if they intend to enhance their performance; this includes knowing the limits of moral education, and not going beyond their capacities. These difficulties may be put in two groups, one internal, which is within the control of moral educators; the other external, which is beyond the control of moral educators. Internal (...) difficulties concern the gap between moral cognition and moral conduct. Since moral educators are not saints and suffer from vices themselves, students might learn the contrary of what educators mean to convey. External difficulties are more complicated. In this essay the author concentrates on proving how moral education provides an incentive to breach morality itself. The author shall also endeavor to show that a higher standard of morality might cause greater failure in moral education. Under this logic, we need to first deal with the external difficulties in order to tackle internal ones, for they are intertwined. (shrink)

One of the core tenets of cognitive metaphor theory is the claim that metaphors ground abstract knowledge in concrete, first-hand experience. In this paper, I argue that this grounding hypothesis contains some problematic conceptual ambiguities and, under many reasonable interpretations, empirical difficulties. I present evidence that there are foundational obstacles to defining a coherent and cognitively valid concept of “metaphor” and “concrete meaning,” and some general problems with singling out certain domains of experience as more immediate than others. I (...) conclude from these considerations that whatever the facts are about the comprehension of individual metaphors, the available evidence is incompatible with the notion of an underlying conceptual structure organized according to the immediacy of experience. (shrink)

Research on surprise relevant to the cognitive-evolutionary model of surprise proposed by Meyer, Reisenzein, and Schützwohl is reviewed. The majority of the assumptions of the model are found empirically supported. Surprise is evoked by unexpected events and its intensity is determined by the degree if schema-discrepancy, whereas the novelty and the valence of the eliciting events probably do not have an independent effect. Unexpected events cause an automatic interruption of ongoing mental processes that is followed by an attentional shift (...) and attentional binding to the events, which is often followed by causal and other event analysis processes and by schema revision. The facial expression of surprise postulated by evolutionary emotion psychologists has been found to occur rarely in surprise, for as yet unknown reasons. A physiological orienting response marked by skin conductance increase, heart rate deceleration, and pupil dilation has been observed to occur regularly in the standard version of the repetition-change paradigm of surprise induction, but the specificity of these reactions as indicators of surprise is controversial. There is indirect evidence for the assumption that the feeling of surprise consists of the direct awareness of the schema-discrepancy signal, but this feeling, or at least the self-report of surprise, is also influenced by experienced interference. In contrast, facial feedback probably does contribute substantially to the feeling of surprise and the evidence for the hypothesis that surprise is affected by the difficulty of explaining an unexpected event is, in our view, inconclusive. Regardless of how the surprise feeling is constituted, there is evidence that it has both motivational and informational effects. Finally, the prediction failure implied by unexpected events sometimes causes a negative feeling, but there is no convincing evidence that this is always the case, and we argue that even if it were so, this would not be a sufficient reason for regarding this feeling as a component, rather than as an effect of surprise. (shrink)

Reviews the general orientation of cognitive psychology, some contemporary difficulties and problems noted by cognitive psychologists, and apparent commonalities between phenomenological and cognitive psychologies. It is argued that the problems of cognitive psychology are inevitable consequences of its natural scientific orientation, which is far more traditional than it is revolutionary. A phenomenologically based, human science approach to psychology is offered as a solution of fundamental disciplinary problems. 2012 APA, all rights reserved).

We analyze the cognitive strategies underlying performance in the Number task, a Math game that requires both arithmetic fluency and mathematical creativity. In this game all elements in a set of numbers have to be used precisely once to create a target number with basic arithmetic operations. We argue that some instances of this game are NP complete, by showing its relation to the well-known Partition problem. We propose heuristics based on the distinction in forward and backward reasoning. The (...) Number Game is part of Math Garden, a popular online educational platform for practicing and monitoring math skills using innovations in computerized adaptive testing. These educational games generate enormous amounts of rich data on children's cognitive development. We found converging evidence for the use of forward proximity heuristics in the data of Math Garden, consisting of more than 20 million answers to 1,700 items. Item difficulties and the structure of correct answers were analyzed. (shrink)

We welcome Blair's argument that the relationship between fluid cognition and other aspects of intelligence should be an important focus of research, but are less convinced by his arguments that fluid intelligence is dissociable from general intelligence. This is due to confusions between (a) crystallized skills and g, and (b) universal and differential constructs. (Published Online April 5 2006).

We analyze the cognitive strategies underlying performance in the Number task, a Math game that requires both arithmetic fluency and mathematical creativity. In this game all elements in a set of numbers have to be used precisely once to create a target number with basic arithmetic operations. We argue that some instances of this game are NP complete, by showing its relation to the well-known Partition problem. We propose heuristics based on the distinction in forward and backward reasoning. The (...) Number Game is part of Math Garden, a popular online educational platform for practicing and monitoring math skills using innovations in computerized adaptive testing. These educational games generate enormous amounts of rich data on children's cognitive development. We found converging evidence for the use of forward proximity heuristics in the data of Math Garden, consisting of more than 20 million answers to 1,700 items. Item difficulties and the structure of correct answers were analyzed. (shrink)

When should a scientific community be cognitively diverse? This article presents a model for studying how the heterogeneity of learning heuristics used by scientist agents affects the epistemic efficiency of a scientific community. By extending the epistemic landscapes modeling approach introduced by Weisberg and Muldoon, the article casts light on the micro-mechanisms mediating cognitive diversity, coordination, and problem-solving efficiency. The results suggest that social learning and cognitive diversity produce epistemic benefits only when the epistemic community is faced with (...) problems of sufficient difficulty. (shrink)

The article explores the private nature of subjectivity in programs of integration the phenomenology with naturalism. It is considered if their tools are relevant for the phenomenological, rather than naturalistic way of subjectivity’s explaining. Justification of the key ideas is provided with the help of such concepts as “body image”, “body scheme”, (Sh. Gallagher), “ontological significance” (L. Baker), “experience”, “cognitive niches” (F. Varela), “transparent body” (T. Fuchs). Based on the traditional phenomenology of E. Husserl, it is shown that a (...) set of approaches that integrate phenomenology and naturalism within the framework of “first-person philosophy” can be characterized as a phenomenology without a phenomenological subject. It is shown that the phenomenological nature of the self-perspective in integrative programs is more likely to be understood as the qualification and privacy of subjectivity, while the transcendental aspect of the unobservable and biased consciousness is practically not taken into account. The article concludes that the logic of some projects of integration of phenomenology and naturalism overlook this transcendental peculiarity of consciousness, its fundamentally unobserved character. The classical phenomenological approach emphasizes on the extra-natural, biased, and non-empirical nature of consciousness. The role and significance of the phenomenological approach is not limited to the idea of “what-is-likeness” and privacy of subjective states. Phenomenology, which preserves the idea of the subject, means a radical break with the ontology of things and, in general, with the ontology of something objective at all. (shrink)

This paper clarifies Merleau-Ponty’s original account of “higher-order” cognition as fundamentally embodied and enacted. Merleau-Ponty’s philosophy inspired theories that deemphasize overlaps between conceptual knowledge and motor intentionality or, on the contrary, focus exclusively on abstract thought. In contrast, this paper explores the link between Merleau-Ponty’s account of motor intentionality and his interpretations of our capacity to understand and interact productively with cultural symbolic systems. I develop my interpretation based on Merleau-Ponty’s analysis of two neuropathological modifications of motor intentionality, the case (...) of the brain-injured war veteran Schneider, and a neurological disorder known as Gerstmann’s syndrome. Building on my analysis of Schneider’s sensorimotor compensatory performances in relation to his limitations in the domains of algebra, geometry, and language usage, I demonstrate a strong continuity between the sense of embodiment and enaction at all these levels. Based on Merleau-Ponty’s interpretations, I argue that “higher-order” cognition is impaired in Schneider insofar as his injury limits his sensorimotor capacity to dynamically produce comparatively more complex differentiations of any given phenomenal structure. I then show how Merleau-Ponty develops and specifies his interpretation of Schneider’s intellectual difficulties in relation to the ambiguous role of the body, and in particular the hand, in Gerstmann’s syndrome. I explain how Merleau-Ponty defends the idea that sensorimotor and quasi-representational cognition are mutually irreducible, while maintaining that symbol-based cognition is a fundamentally enactive and embodied process. (shrink)