Studies In Cognitive Psychology Research Articles

Perception of Fiction for the Development of Personal Meaning at Senior Preschool Age

Fiction encourages the development of a personality if children have grasped the author’s idea and the value system on the level of personal meaning. The article presents a theoretical model for encouraging the development of personal meaning related to ction at preschool age. It is based on conclusions from the areas of phenomenology, hermeneutics, social genetics, social constructivism and art pedagogy as well as studies in cognitive psychology – research in the “theories of mind” about understanding other individuals’ mental states at preschool age. The structure of the model is composed of successive stages requiring an interactive introduction of a piece of ction in a situation topical for children, with the participation of their peers and the teacher. In discussion after the perception of a piece of ction various experiences meet, associations form, analogies in one’s own experiences and those of others are discovered. The processing of the perceived data continues in productive children’s activities and they become personied in narrative interconnections: in children’s stories about a piece of ction. The aim of the study is to create a theoretic model for the development of personal meaning in the perception of a fairy tale and prove its productivity by revealing the manifestation of the criteria related to personal meaning in children’s stories determining their levels. The study described in the article has been carried out in two stages: the aim of Stage 1 is to create a model for the development of personal meanings in perceiving fairy tales; the aim of Stage 2 is to investigate the productivity of the model for the development of personal meanings and work out criteria for the manifestation of personal meanings in children’s stories generalizing them in levels of personal meaning development. Materials and methods include content analysis of stories narrated by children aged 5–6. After analysing the acquired data it is possible to single out several criteria and indicators for the manifestation of personal meaning as well as the levels of personal meaning in perceiving fairy tales. When summarizing the results, it can be concluded that the involvement of a fairy tale into a context topical for children, its interactive perception and social interaction with peers and an adult in a discussion, as well as the portrayal of the perceived information in a productive activity, encourages the development of personal meaning. This proves that ction may encourage selfregulation of senior preschool children in their relationships with peers that are based on the intentions, experience and understanding of the situation as well as empathy of the other peers. 10.2478/v10196-011-0019-9 Unauthenticated Download Date | 12/1/16 5:33 AM 63

Processing bimodal stimulus information under alcohol: Is there a risk to being redundant?

The impairing effects of alcohol are especially pronounced in environments that involve dividing attention across two or more stimuli. However, studies in cognitive psychology have identified circumstances in which the presentation of multiple stimuli can actually facilitate performance. The "redundant signal effect" (RSE) refers to the observation that individuals respond more quickly when information is presented as redundant, bimodal stimuli (e.g., aurally and visually), rather than as a single stimulus presented to either modality alone. The present study tested the hypothesis that the response facilitation attributed to RSE could reduce the degree to which alcohol slows information processing. Two experiments are reported. Experiment 1 demonstrated the validity of a reaction time model of RSE by showing that adults (N = 15) responded more quickly to redundant, bimodal stimuli (visual + aural) versus either stimuli presented individually. Experiment 2 used the RSE model to test the reaction time performance of 20 adults following three alcohol doses (0.0 g/kg, 0.45 g/kg, and 0.65 g/kg). Results showed that alcohol slowed reaction time in a general dose-dependent manner in all three stimulus conditions with the reaction time (RT) speed-advantage of the redundant signal being maintained, even under the highest dose of alcohol. Evidence for an RT advantage to bimodal stimuli under alcohol challenges the general assumption that alcohol impairment is intensified in multistimulus environments. The current study provides a useful model to investigate how drug effects on behavior might be altered in contexts that involve redundant response signals.

Measuring the spatial distribution of the metaattentional spotlight

Studies in cognitive psychology have shown that the deployment of visual attention operates under spatial limitations, rendering its assignment to multiple locations difficult or costly. This study explored whether this conventional understanding applies to human metaattention as well. I measured the spatial distribution of metaattention during viewing of natural scenes and found that participants believed they could attend to multiple locations simultaneously. Study 2 tested whether this tendency could be modified by information about the tendency to overestimation. After participants were informed of this tendency toward overestimation with both verbal instruction and demonstrations of attentional blindness and blindness to these phenomena, the selectivity of metaattention increased. Study 3 demonstrated that participants overestimated their attentional abilities by comparing the metaattentional drawings and the actual behavioral performances of the same participants. These results were consistent with recent findings of metaattentional overestimation in change detection and suggested human insensitivity in monitoring attentional limitations.

The puzzle of joking: Disentangling the cognitive and affective components of humorous distraction

AbstractStudies in cognitive psychology, marketing, and education indicate that humor distracts attention from non‐humorous information presented at the same time. Two experiments investigated why humor distracts attention. The two basic components of humor comprise (1) incongruency resolution, which poses cognitive demands and (2) positive affect. We disentangled the contributions of cognitive demands and positive affect on distraction based on the notions that (a) both components are possible sources of distraction, and (b) the components were always confounded in previous research. In an evaluative conditioning paradigm, novel products were consistently paired with humorous stimuli, whereas other products were paired with stimuli that were either (1) equally demanding but neutral, (2) equally positive but undemanding, and (3) undemanding and neutral. The results showed that cognitively demanding stimuli distracted attention, irrespective of stimulus positivity. These findings suggest that the cognitive demands of humor, not the positive affect it evokes, underlie the distraction effect. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Repeated testing improves long-term retention relative to repeated study: a randomised controlled trial

Laboratory studies in cognitive psychology with relatively brief final recall intervals suggest that repeated retrieval in the form of tests may result in better retention of information compared with repeated study. Our study evaluates if repeated testing of material taught in a real-life educational setting (a didactic conference for paediatric and emergency medicine residents) replicates these findings when measured at a more educationally relevant final recall interval of 6 months. Residents participated in an interactive teaching session on two topics: (i) status epilepticus, and (ii) myasthenia gravis. Residents were randomised to two counter-balanced groups which either took tests on status epilepticus and studied a review sheet on myasthenia gravis (SE-T/MG-S group) or took tests on myasthenia gravis and studied a review sheet on status epilepticus (MG-T/SE-S group). Testing and studying occurred immediately after teaching and then at two additional times at intervals of about 2 weeks. Residents received feedback after each test. Tests consisted of short-answer questions and the review sheets consisted of information identical to that on the answer sheets for the tests. At about 6 months residents took a final test on both topics. Nineteen residents in the SE-T/MG-S group and 21 residents in the MG-T/SE-S group completed the study. Collapsing across groups, repeated testing produced final test scores that were an average of 13% higher than those produced by repeated study (39% versus 26%) at > 6 months after the initial teaching session (t[78] = 3.93, standard error of the difference = 0.03, P < 0.001, d = 0.91). Repeated testing with feedback appears to result in significantly greater long-term retention of information taught in a didactic conference than repeated, spaced study. Testing should be considered for its potential impact on learning and not only as an assessment device.

The world after Charles R. Darwin: continuity, unity in diversity, contingency

The core of the Darwinian cultural challenge is connected to three basic ideas, with experimental evidences and philosophical wide consequences: (1) the natural continuity between all living beings and their properties and behaviors, humans included; (2) the mix of historical unity and the production of diversity at level of both individuals and species; (3) the historical contingency and unpredictability of evolutionary paths. Darwin was aware of these consequences when writing, not yet 30 years old, his first Notebooks on transmutation of species (1836–1844). Though not involved in public debates after 1859, he understood that his ideas were going to challenge a whole set of beliefs deeply rooted in Western traditional thought and probably, according to recent experimental studies in cognitive psychology and ethology, settled in the evolution of our mind itself. Two centuries after his birth, not only does Darwin’s heritage concern the content of his scientific research program, widely corroborated and usefully updated today, but also his innovative method of inquiry, and the emancipated “grandeur” of “this view of life” where from a simple beginning “endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved”.

Strange Concepts and the Stories They Make Possible (review)

Reviewed by: Strange Concepts and the Stories They Make Possible Tony E. Jackson Zunshine, Lisa. 2008. Strange Concepts and the Stories They Make Possible. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2008. $65.00 hc. $25.00 sc. 232 pp. Lisa Zunshine’s Strange Concepts and the Stories They Make Possible is a new entry in the field of cognitive poetics, a field that draws on theories from cognitive psychology to assess how literature affects readers. Her book is divided into three sections, each considering in detail a specific interplay of “strange concepts” and stories. The strange concepts are recurring cultural representations whose nature and significance can be linked to specific ‘cognitive universals’ that have been established in the fields of cognitive psychology and cognitive anthropology. Zunshine taps into these fields in order to study the ways in which “a given cultural representation…engages our evolved cognitive capacities” (2). Cognitive psychological studies across various cultures have concluded that humans come into the world with certain built-in concepts of the nature of living beings, or what may more generally be called ‘natural kinds’ of things (as opposed to manufactured or what may be called ‘artifactual kinds’ of things). In one set of experiments, as Zunshine explains, a child is [End Page 237] presented with a toy animal, say a skunk, that is altered in various ways: limbs are taken away, the fur removed, etc. “When asked to comment on the species of a hybrid animal such as a skunk altered to look like a zebra, even three-year-old children judge a skunk to be a skunk” (8). The skunk is taken for granted to have some “underlying ‘skunkness’” that continues to determine its identity. Only by changing some invisible “essence-conferring innards” of the skunk will a child understand it as having become a different animal. In a broad way the same holds true of many adult understandings of natural kinds of objects. By contrast, from a very young age we understand artifacts—that is, non-natural objects—in an entirely different way. Rather than being constituted by some invisible, more or less mysterious core, an artifact’s entire being is visible for all to see. Its use determines its nature. Even four-year olds think of “artifacts primarily in terms of their functions” (7). The “strange concepts” will have to do with the way stories play with these cognitive universals. It is commonly accepted that everyday essentialist notions always depend on a final, unexplainable, more or less mysterious…well, essence, that cannot itself be further explained in terms of sensible qualities. This means that there is always a potential conflict between our intuitive sense of an essence and our inability to capture that essence in language. “But,” Zunshine explains, “because we (cannot help but) assume that some essence is there, our failure to capture it…does not invalidate our implicit belief in it” (30, emphasis in original). The establishment of this irresolvable, self-perpetuating conflict between our built-in intuitive certainty and our linguistic uncertainty is an outcome of cognitive research, but is not typically in itself the kind of thing upon which cognitive research would focus. But of course it is just the kind of enigmatic conflict that both literature and literary study would find most interesting, and it underlies all the other strange concepts that Zunshine will consider. In the first section this conflict is explained through close-readings of a variety of kinds of texts, but especially in relation to the traditional comic plot that turns on the identity confusions caused by identical twins. Zunshine shows how these stories depend on both the humor and the anxiety of calling into question our intuitive sense of “individual essentialism,” our basic sense that an individual human being is constituted ultimately by “an ineffable special something” that can never quite be captured in language (24). By explaining the similarities and differences between Plautus’s play, Amphitryon, Dryden’s seventeenth-century version of the same story, and different versions of Shakespeare’s Comedy of Errors, Zunshine both gives us interesting and new interpretations, and shows us in general how cognitive universals can be related to cultural specificities. As she says, she...

Visual and Spatial Modes in Science Learning

This paper surveys some major trends from research on visual and spatial thinking coming from cognitive science, developmental psychology, science literacy, and science studies. It explores the role of visualisation in creativity, in building mental models, and in the communication of scientific ideas, in order to place these findings in the context of science education research and practice.

Collaborative recall and collective memory: What happens when we remember together?

Studies of collective memory have traditionally been the domain of philosophers and sociologists, while cognitive psychologists have largely investigated memory at the level of the individual. However, within cognitive psychology there is a variety of psychological theories and experimental paradigms that have been used to study the process and outcomes of remembering in groups. In this paper we review the research on group remembering and draw together findings from different traditions. In doing so, we aim to answer a series of questions about the outcomes and consequences of recalling in groups, and the particular features of groups and of memories that may be conducive to the formation of a collective memory. In clarifying what we know and what is yet to be studied about group memory, we point the way forward for a cognitive psychological study of collective memory.

Does like attract like? Exploring the relationship between errors and representational structure in connectionist networks

Many cognitive psychological studies assume that error probabilities reflect the structure of cognitive representations (e.g., if the representations of two lexical items overlap, they are more likely to interact in a word exchange error than are two lexical items with nonoverlapping representations). However, since errors directly reflect the properties of neurobiological structures and processes, this assumption rests on the correspondence between cognitive and neurobiological elements. Analytical and simulation studies of connectionist networks are used to examine the consequences of different cognitive-neurobiological relationships (e.g., localist vs. distributed representations) for effects of representational structure on error probabilities. The results reveal that such effects are influenced by the nature of the relationship between network and cognitive representations. While errors on localist network representations always reflect the degree to which cognitive representations overlap, distributed representations only do so under specific conditions. Furthermore, the effects of cognitive representational structure on error probabilities are shown to be stronger under localist than under distributed representations.

Scientific ability and creativity

Following an introductory definition of ‘scientific ability and creativity’, product‐oriented, personality and social psychological approaches to studying scientific ability are examined with reference to competence and performance. Studies in the psychometric versus cognitive psychological paradigms are dealt with in more detail. These two research strategies complement each other in describing and explaining scientific ability and creativity in the field of science and technology. Whereas psychometric studies seem to be essential for diagnostic and prognostic purposes, cognitive psychological studies help to explain the development of individual competencies and excellent performances. In the last two decades, another research paradigm has arisen that has been characterized as ‘giftedness as developing expertise’. The so‐called ‘expert‐novice paradigm’ is based on a dynamic concept of giftedness in which creativity and motivation play an indispensable role. As an example of this approach, the Munich Dynamic Ability Achievement Model (MDAAM)—an extended version of the Munich Model of Giftedness (MMG)—will be discussed in greater detail. Furthermore, empirical data from the author's studies of scientific ability and technical creativity will be presented and their theoretical context described. Finally, various possibilities for nurturing scientifically and creatively talented adolescents and adults are discussed, with sex‐related problems being touched upon. Generally, the hypothetical construct ‘scientific ability’ can be defined as scientific thinking potential or as a special talent for excellence in (natural) sciences. Similar to this definition, ‘scientific creativity’ or ‘technical creativity’ can be conceptualized as individual and social capacities for solving complex scientific and technical problems in an innovative and productive way. Both descriptive and explanatory terms are necessary for a theoretically and practically efficient definition. This further necessitates different research strategies, which will be demonstrated with respect to several study examples.

Scientific ability.

Following an introductory definition of scientific ability, product-oriented, personality and social psychological approaches to studying scientific ability are examined with reference to competence and performance. Studies in the psychometric versus cognitive psychological paradigms are dealt with in more detail. These two research strategies complement each other excellently in describing and explaining scientific ability and achievement or expertise in the field of science and technology. Whereas psychometric studies seem to be essential for diagnostic and prognostic purposes, cognitive psychological studies help to explain excellent performance. Finally, various possibilities for nurturing scientifically gifted adolescents are discussed, with sex-related problems being touched upon.

Jesus and the eyewitnesses: the Gospels as eyewitness testimony

This new book argues that the four Gospels are closely based on eyewitness testimony of those who knew Jesus. Noted New Testament scholar Richard Bauckham challenges the prevailing assumption that the accounts of circulated as anonymous community traditions, asserting instead that they were transmitted in the name of the original eyewitnesses. To drive home this controversial point, Bauckham draws on internal literary evidence, study of personal names in the first century, and recent developments in the understanding of oral traditions. and the Eyewitnesses also taps into the rich resources of modern study of memory and cognitive psychology, refuting the conclusions of the form critics and calling New Testament scholarship to make a clean break with this long-dominant tradition. Finally, Bauckham challenges readers to end the classic division between the historical Jesus and the Christ of faith, proposing instead the of testimony. Sure to ignite heated debate on the precise character of the testimony about Jesus, and the Eyewitnesses will be valued by scholars, students, and all who seek to understand the origins of the Gospels.

Determinants of Follower Perceptions of a Leader’s Authenticity and Integrity

This study proceeds from the perspective that a leader’s authenticity and integrity must be recognizable to the members of a work unit in order for these qualities to make a difference in the degree or nature of the leader’s influence. The study builds from previous studies in cognitive and social psychology to develop and apply a model of person perception. The study examines how actions and attributes of a leader and aspects of the situation in which leaders and followers interact may affect the agreement among followers concerning the authenticity and integrity of a leader. Propositions are developed for empirical testing in future research.

Hope and Despair: How Perceptions of the Future Shape Human Behaviorby Anthony Reading; Baltimore, Johns Hopkins University Press, 2004, 248 pages, $45

Back to table of contents Previous article Next article Book ReviewFull AccessHope and Despair: How Perceptions of the Future Shape Human BehaviorTimothy B. Sullivan M.D.Timothy B. Sullivan M.D.Search for more papers by this authorPublished Online:1 Mar 2007https://doi.org/10.1176/ps.2007.58.3.421AboutSectionsPDF/EPUB ToolsAdd to favoritesDownload CitationsTrack Citations ShareShare onFacebookTwitterLinked InEmail This book made me think of My Dinner With Andre , Louis Malle's 1981 film in which the viewer observes an extended and idiosyncratic conversation between Wallace Shawn, actor and playwright, and Andre Gregory, noted theater director. Shawn portrays the bemused, slightly impatient, pragmatic, but curiously unsettled Everyman, who tries to reassure himself that he understands his life and is reasonably comfortable with it. Gregory recounts his own eccentric quest for meaning and significance, prompted by his fear that he is being extinguished by modernity's banal indifference to matters of the soul. Where the film is subtle, allusive, experiential, ultimately mysterious, affirming of fundamental humanistic principles, and above all hopeful, Anthony Reading's book, a record of his lifetime interest in the psychology of hope, manages to say quite a lot about the state of our understanding of how the brain perceives and organizes its response to its environment. In doing so the brain generates constructs about the self and about the future, without conveying any unique insight into why and how hope is such a unique and powerful emotion. In Hope and Despair , the tone is academic, polemical, and ultimately reductive, despite its eminent scholarship. The book offers little to enliven a topic that is so important to us as persons, not only as clinicians. It is not the best review of cognitive psychology that I have seen, though it is comprehensive. There are curious nonsequiturs and quote piled on quote to seemingly address questions, or points of view, that remind me of other books I have read that appear to be constructed, like a literature review, through consultation with a file of index cards. When it comes to discussing how we can use hope as a means to help others, encompassing all our differences, Reading appears not to have a point of view or dives behind opinions of others, as if he is reluctant to take this issue on. This is most clear when he devotes a scant eight pages to a discussion of "Science and Religion as Ways of Knowing." To be fair, Reading says his aim is to describe the state of the art in our understanding of the mind with respect to what cognitive psychology, neurophysiology, and related empirical studies can tell us about how the brain creates hope as a cognitive construct, a type of future perception. He laments the lack of serious study of hope in the experimental psychological literature, though he presents a number of studies addressing issues related to it. Reading's own pragmatism—and excitement about our increasing understanding of the brain—blinds him to why the study he envisions is unlikely to proceed from the type of research he illustrates. Given his stated depth of interest in the subject, I think he could have written a more interesting and evocative book.This brings me back to the film. As I was reading, I imagined that I was listening to Dr. Reading as I would a dinner companion discoursing at sometimes tiring length on a topic of interest, about which he was extremely well informed. But instead of being in the presence of a mind that is provocative, curious, or engaging, I felt like I was sitting through a didactic exercise, meant to convince me that hope could be explained through a better understanding of cognitive systems. And I found myself longing to know what Andre Gregory, in all his credulous, outlandish, and whimsical eccentricity, would have to say about why we have hope, and why we need it so.Dr. Sullivan is chief of services for the seriously mentally ill at Saint Vincent's Catholic Medical Center, Westchester, New York, and assistant professor of psychiatry at New York Medical College, Valhalla. FiguresReferencesCited byDetailsCited ByNone Volume 58Issue 3 March, 2007Pages 421-421PSYCHIATRIC SERVICES March 2007 Volume 58 Number 3 Metrics PDF download History Published online 1 March 2007 Published in print 1 March 2007

The average consumer, the unfair commercial practices directive, and the cognitive revolution

This article examines the merit of the test of the average consumer as a basis for judicial and regulatory action. In the first part, we describe the origin of the test, its application in the Unfair Commercial Practices Directive and its possible developments. In the second part, we discuss the theoretical grounds of the average consumer test (i.e., information and rationality), drawing upon the studies of cognitive psychology and behavioural economics concerning consumers' behaviour. The result of our analysis is that we call into serious question the practical workability of the test of the average consumer, which requires consumers an overly demanding standard of rationality and information without dedicating much attention to the real functioning of consumer behaviour. The average consumer may be described as an interesting, anti-paternalistic and, to some extent, useful notion. It is, however, an overly simplistic concept with little correspondence with the real world of individual consumer behaviour and should be reinterpreted more flexibly, or even abandoned to mirror consumer behaviour more effectively.

Efficient Penalty Clauses with Debiasing: Lessons from Cognitive Psychology

Efficient Penalty Clauses with Debiasing: Lessons from Cognitive Psychology

Review Essay

Heinz Werner's (1890–1964) book Comparative Psychology of Mental Developmentis reviewed in the context of the dynamics of values and types of scientific rationality, sciences of complexity, cognitive psychology and cultural studies. The reviewer describes developmental tasks of the orthogenetic law applied to dynamical systems that are far from equilibrium between integration and differentiation, to the role of uncertainty, and to paradoxes of systems thinking, and compares epistemic, social and ethical problems raised by Werner and modern researchers.

Recall and Reasoning—an information theoretical model of cognitive processes

Cognitive Psychology studies humans’ capabilities to memorize and recall knowledge and images, among others. Connectionistic, propositional and conceptual models are a means to survey these phenomenons. This paper proposes an information theoretical network for simulating stimulus and response in categorical structures. A stimulus triggers an information flow throughout the whole network and generates for all ideas representing vertices an impact in the information theoretical unit [bit], thus measuring the recall intensity and producing a response. The method is shown to yield results of high performance even for complex taxonomies and connectionistic models. Reasoning is the logical counterpart of recall. Once an idea is associated with a stimulus, logical dependencies between both must be established, if required. Information theoretical networks allow to switch between a recall mode and a reasoning mode, also permitting logical reasoning within the same framework. Both capabilities are demonstrated by suitable examples.

The information-processing approach to the human mind: Basics and beyond.

Cognitive psychology attempts to understand the nature of the human mind by using the information-processing approach. In this article, the fundamentals of the cognitive approach will be presented. It will be argued that the human mind can be described at three levels-computational, algorithmic-representational, and implementational-and that the cognitive approach has both important theoretical and practical/clinical implications. Finally, it will be suggested that the study of cognitive psychology can provide a foundation for other fields of social science, including the field of clinical psychology.