Clarifying the nature of the distinctiveness by domain interaction in conceptual structure: Comment on Cree, McNorgan, and McRae (2006).

The conceptual structure account of semantic memory (CSA; L. K. Tyler & H. E. Moss, 2001) claims that feature correlation (the degree to which features co-occur) and feature distinctiveness (the number of concepts in which a feature occurs) interact with domains of knowledge (e.g., living vs. nonliving) such that the distinctive features of nonliving things are more highly correlated than the distinctive features of living things. Evidence for (B. Randall, H. E. Moss, J. M. Rodd, M. Greer, & L. K. Tyler, 2004) and against this claim (G. S. Cree, C. McNorgan, & K. McRae, 2006) has been reported. This comment outlines the CSA, discusses Cree et al.'s (2006) critiques of the Randall et al. (2004) experiments and the CSA, and reports new analyses of property norm and behavioral data, which replicate the results reported by Randall et al. (2004). (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Distinctive features hold a privileged status in the computation of word meaning: Implications for theories of semantic memory.

The authors present data from 2 feature verification experiments designed to determine whether distinctive features have a privileged status in the computation of word meaning. They use an attractor-based connectionist model of semantic memory to derive predictions for the experiments. Contrary to central predictions of the conceptual structure account, but consistent with their own model, the authors present empirical evidence that distinctive features of both living and nonliving things do indeed have a privileged role in the computation of word meaning. The authors explain the mechanism through which these effects are produced in their model by presenting an analysis of the weight structure developed in the network during training. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Loss of Distinctive Features and a Broader Pattern of Priming in Alzheimer's Disease.

The results of 2 experiments support the contention that patients with Alzheimer's disease (AD) show a relative loss of the semantic features that distinguish concepts from one another and that the representations of pairs of concepts consequently share a larger proportion of their associated features in AD than in normal aging (A. Martin, 1992). In Experiment 1, AD patients listed fewer features for a set of concepts than did healthy older adults and were more deficient at listing features if the features were distinctive to particular concepts than if they were shared by multiple concepts. In Experiment 2, AD patients showed online priming at levels of relatedness at which healthy older adults did not. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Gold, jade, and emeruby: The value of naturalness for theories of concepts and categories.

Researchers studying the psychology of concepts frequently draw distinctions between artificial and natural concepts. Unfortunately, there is a lack of consensus regarding the foundations and implications of the distinction. This paper provides a review and evaluation of the different ways researchers have approached the question of conceptual naturalness. Accounts may be divided into 2 approaches described as psychologically or externally based. These characterizations motivate distinctive sets of research questions. In addition to the particular implications, the author also considers the general significance of a distinction between natural and artificial concepts. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The role of public exposure in moral and nonmoral shame and guilt.

Although scholarly traditions assume that shame results more from the public exposure of a transgression or incompetence than guilt does, this distinction has little empirical support. Four studies, using either undergraduate participants' responses to hypothetical scenarios, their remembered experiences, or the coding of literary passages, reexamined this issue. Supporting traditional claims, public exposure of both moral (transgressions) and nonmoral (incompetence) experiences was associated more with shame than with guilt. Shame was also more strongly linked with nonmoral experiences of inferiority, suggesting 2 core features of shame: its links with public exposure and with negative self-evaluation. The distinctive features of guilt included remorse, self-blame, and the private feelings associated with a troubled conscience. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

A metaphor-enriched social cognition.

Social cognition is the scientific study of the cognitive events underlying social thought and attitudes. Currently, the field's prevailing theoretical perspectives are the traditional schema view and embodied cognition theories. Despite important differences, these perspectives share the seemingly uncontroversial notion that people interpret and evaluate a given social stimulus using knowledge about similar stimuli. However, research in cognitive linguistics (e.g., Lakoff & Johnson, 1980) suggests that people construe the world in large part through conceptual metaphors, which enable them to understand abstract concepts using knowledge of superficially dissimilar, typically more concrete concepts. Drawing on these perspectives, we propose that social cognition can and should be enriched by an explicit recognition that conceptual metaphor is a unique cognitive mechanism that shapes social thought and attitudes. To advance this metaphor-enriched perspective, we introduce the metaphoric transfer strategy as a means of empirically assessing whether metaphors influence social information processing in ways that are distinct from the operation of schemas alone. We then distinguish conceptual metaphor from embodied simulation—the mechanism posited by embodied cognition theories—and introduce the alternate source strategy as a means of empirically teasing apart these mechanisms. Throughout, we buttress our claims with empirical evidence of the influence of metaphors on a wide range of social psychological phenomena. We outline directions for future research on the strength and direction of metaphor use in social information processing. Finally, we mention specific benefits of a metaphor-enriched perspective for integrating and generating social cognitive research and for bridging social cognition with neighboring fields. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Contact interaction,structure, and properties of W(Mo,Cr)-Cu composites with additives

The results of research on the effect of additives on the adhesive characteristics and phase-boundary formation in W(Mo, Cr)-Cu systems are summarized. The distinctive features of structure formation and the properties of powder composites compacted in the presence of a liquid phase have been studied. Composites with optimal properties (high-temperature hardness, electrical conductivity, high adhesiveness, and stable structure) have been identified.Institute of Problems in Material Science, National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, Kiev. Translated from Poroshkovaya Metallurgiya, Nos. 7–8, pp. 46–57, July–August, 1996.     

Reasoning and conversation.

Informal arguments take place when individuals exchange views on whether it is worthwhile to believe some assertion or take some action. Debates between friends or family members, classroom sparring about an idea, scientific exchanges about empirical results or theories, and critical discussions and responses in many fields can all be instances of arguments. This article describes the structure of these arguments in terms of the conversational moves that participants can make within them—for example, asking for a justification, giving a reason, offering an objection, or conceding a point. The central part of the article proposes a model for the way people determine to which of the argument's claims each participant is committed. According to the model, commitment is the result of rules defined over the sequence of conversational moves. A participant's commitment to claims that occur later in the argument has well-defined implications for commitment to claims that occurred earlier. Predictions from the model compare well with people's judgments of commitment over a range of argument types. The analysis of argument commitment also illuminates concepts such as burden of proof that are difficult to define within current reasoning theories that treat just a single side of an issue. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Perceptual boundedness and perceptual support in conceptual development.

A theoretical framework for describing the role of perceptual information in early conceptual development is presented. In the main section of the article, a general operationalization of perceptual boundedness is introduced, 3 causes of this limitation are identified, the conditions under which infants and children seem to be perceptually bound are formulated, and the mechanisms by which this limitation declines are described. Traditional claims that young children are perceptually bound, as well as contemporary objections to these claims, are often based on the assumption that perceptual information is generally unveridical or insufficient. Recent doubts about this assumption are evaluated in the final section of the article. It is concluded that although realist arguments are untenable, there are limited forms of perceptual support for conceptual development. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Familiarité des concepts vivant et non vivant en fonction de l'age et du genre.

This work presents the rates of subjective familiarity assessed for 120 concepts belonging to the living (animals, fruits, vegetables) and nonliving (vehicles, clothes, tools) domains according to the age and gender. At the same time as the construction of a set of concept norms contributing to the French study of the evolution of the conceptual organization in normal and pathological ageing, we test the assumption of an interaction between gender and category. The results stress the importance to distinguish the concepts according to these factors in the construction of experimental tasks. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Variations on the theme of feature integration: Reply to Navon (1990).

Feature-integration theory is outlined to clarify its claims and assumptions. The concepts of separated vs. integrated and of latent vs. manifest features are then examined. It is argued that quadratic polynomial search functions would be predicted only if the feature and the location were both latent—an unlikely assumption, against which there is considerable evidence from the efficiency of spatial cues to attention. An experiment on iconic memory suggests that attention can address features through their locations both for a physically present stimulus and for briefly stored sensory information. Finally, a comparison of D. Navon's (see record 1990-27540-001) preferred model to feature-integration theory seems to reveal no substantive differences. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Modeling conceptual structure.

Reviews the book, Categories and Concepts by Edward E. Smith and Douglas L. Medin (1981). This book presents a detailed analysis of three types of models of conceptual structure. The main focus is on object concepts, such as bird, animal, chair, etc., and how these concepts are represented in the human mind. The first model considered is the classical view of concepts that goes back to Aristotle and was presupposed by most researchers in the field of concept attainment from 1920 to 1970. Seven criticisms of the classical view are presented. Although this is an excellent book, certain ways in which it might have been even better did occur to this reviewer, two of which will be mentioned here. First, the authors might have defined explicitly and succinctly what they mean by "concept" and "natural concept." Second, the authors rely primarily on categorization studies to draw inferences about concepts. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Traits and social stereotypes: Levels of categorization in person perception.

A theoretical distinction is made between trait categorization in person perception and categorization by means of well-articulated, concrete social stereotypes. Three studies test the prediction that social stereotypes are both more associatively rich and more distinctive than are trait-defined categories. In Study 1, subjects sorted adjectives related to extraversion and introversion. A cluster analysis using similarity measures derived from the sorting indicated that distinct social stereotypes were associated with each trait. This supports and extends earlier findings (Cantor & Mischel, 1979). In Study 2, subjects generated attributes of the trait categories and stereotypes that emerged in Study 1. More nonredundant attributes, especially visible features, were listed for the stereotypes than for the trait categories. Study 3 elicited the explicit associative structure of traits and related stereotypes by having subjects rate the association between a series of attributes (derived from the responses in Study 2) and each category label. Results showed that social stereotypes have distinctive features that are not shared with the related trait category, whereas trait categories share virtually all of their features with related stereotypes. The implications of the trait/stereotype distinction for social information processing are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Perceptual manifestations of an analytic structure: the priority of holistic individuation

Properties that make items perceptually distinctive may not be represented in the dimensional structure used by subjects for analysis. In a classification task, a single dimensional structure, actually used by subjects when analyzing, occurred in several perceptual forms. Two types of perceptual variation were compared: (a) feature individuation, whether a feature occurs in a unique form in different items and (b) holistic individuation, the extent to which an item's features cohere into an individuated whole. These types of individuation had separate effects on exemplar-based classification. However, holistic individuation had priority in that the presence of individuated features did not produce exemplar-based transfer if the item's holistic properties were altered. This priority of holistic individuation occurred whether the subjects had been given the classification rule or had attempted to discover it.     

Are personality factors raters' conceptual factors?

3 separate factor-analytic studies were conducted to compare personality factors with semantic factors using 76 trait-rating scales. In 1 study raters rated real persons using the scales, in another stereotype persons. In the third study raters rated the "meaning" of select trait words on the trait-rating scales. A comparison of factors found in the 3 studies using an index of factor similarity showed that 5 of 11 factors found for ratings of real persons were congruent with 5 of 10 factors found for the ratings of stereotype persons, while the same 5 in these 2 studies were congruent with 4 of 9 factors found for ratings of the meaning of select trait words. These results suggested that "personality factors" based upon trait ratings of persons can be interpreted as distinct concepts implied by trait words rather than internal structural features of persons. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The ontogeny of reading.

Describes the development of reading skill from scribbling to the categorical identification of writing as different from other marks on paper, and learning of unique patterns of distinctive features of individual letter shapes. The decoding process is discussed with emphasis on learning rules for unit formation. 3 levels of rules are suggested: (a) orthographic rules and mapping rules from graphic clusters to phonemic clusters, (b) morphological transformations, and (c) rules of grammar. Experiments exploring these rules are described. An experiment investigating the learning of spelling patterns and emphasizing the reinforcing properties of discovery of structure is included. (16 ref.) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Permanent rescue of lesioned neonatal motoneurons and enhanced axonal regeneration by adenovirus-mediated expression of glial cell-line-derived neurotrophic factor

Studies of patients with brain damage suggest that specific brain regions may be differentially involved in representing/processing certain categories of conceptual knowledge. With regard to the dissociation that has received the most attention--between the domains of living things and artifacts--a debate continues as to whether these category-specific effects reflect neural implementation of categories directly or some more basic properties of brain organization. The present positron emission tomography (PET) study addressed this issue by probing explicitly for differential activation associated with written names of objects from the domains of living things or artifacts during similarity judgments about different attributes of these objects. Subjects viewed triads of written object names and selected one of two response words as more similar to a target word according to a specified perceptual attribute (typical color of the objects) or an associative attribute (typical location of the objects). The control task required a similarity judgment about the number of syllables in the target and response words. All tasks were performed under two different stimulus conditions: names of living things and names of artifacts. Judgments for both domains and both attribute types activated an extensive, distributed, left-hemisphere semantic system, but showed some differential activation-particularly as a function of attribute type. The left temporo-occipito-parietal junction showed enhanced activity for judgments about object location, whereas the left anteromedial temporal cortex and caudate nucleus were differentially activated by color judgments. Smaller differences were seen for living and nonliving domains, the positive findings being largely consistent with previous studies using objects; in particular, words denoting artifacts produced enhanced activation in the left posterior middle temporal gyrus. These results suggest that, within a distributed conceptual system activated by words, the more prominent neural distinction relates to type of attribute.     

Development of visual pattern classification in preschool children: Prototypes and distinctive features.

Studied the use of prototypes and distinctive features in visual pattern classification with 12 Ss at each of 3 age levels: 4, 5, and 6 yrs. All Ss attended day-care centers in middle-class neighborhoods of metropolitan Canadian areas. Two tasks were performed: (a) an oddity task requiring selection of the odd pattern in problems containing 2 patterns generated from 1 prototype and 1 from another, and (b) a sequential task requiring designation from memory of each pattern's class membership. There was a marked improvement in oddity task classification accuracy between the 4- and 5-yr age levels. Performance at each age level could be predicted from measures of deviation from prototype and 2 distinctive features unrelated to pattern class membership. In the more difficult sequential task, the preschoolers did not respond to an entire set of features as subsumed in prototype measures, but a single class-defining feature significantly predicted the classifications of the 4- and 5-yr-olds. It is concluded that the ability to use single features develops prior to the ability to use a feature list or prototype and that both distinctive features and prototypes are important for perceptual learning and development. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Concepts and conceptual structure.

Research and theory on categorization and conceptual structure have recently undergone two major shifts. The first shift is from the assumption that concepts have defining properties (the classical view) to the idea that concept representations may be based on properties that are only characteristic or typical of category examples (the probabilistic view). Both the probabilistic view and the classical view assume that categorization is driven by similarity relations. A major problem with describing category structure in terms of similarity is that the notion of similarity is too unconstrained to give an account of conceptual coherence. The second major shift is from the idea that concepts are organized around theories. In this article, the evidence and rationale associated with these shifts are described, and one means of integrating similarity-based and theory-driven categorization is outlined. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)