Attention as inference: Selection is probabilistic; responses are all-or-none samples.

Theories of probabilistic cognition postulate that internal representations are made up of multiple simultaneously held hypotheses, each with its own probability of being correct (henceforth, “probability distributions”). However, subjects make discrete responses and report the phenomenal contents of their mind to be all-or-none states rather than graded probabilities. How can these 2 positions be reconciled? Selective attention tasks, such as those used to study crowding, the attentional blink, rapid serial visual presentation, and so forth, were recast as probabilistic inference problems and used to assess how graded, probabilistic representations may produce discrete subjective states. The authors asked subjects to make multiple guesses per trial and used 2nd-order statistics to show that (a) visual selective attention operates in a graded fashion in time and space, selecting multiple targets to varying degrees on any given trial; and (b) responses are generated by a process of sampling from the probabilistic states that result from graded selection. The authors concluded that although people represent probability distributions, their discrete responses and conscious states are products of a process that samples from these probabilistic representations. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Psychological perspectives on acting.

Psychologists know surprisingly little about the cognitive and affective underpinnings of acting, and this stands in sharp in contrast to what has been learned about the psychological skills involved in music and the visual arts. In this article, the author discusses findings on the childhood precursors of acting talent and outlines a program of research she is initiating to test the hypothesis that acting training fosters strength in reading others' mental states, feeling others' feelings, and regulating one's own emotions in an adaptive manner. This research has implications for understanding the malleability of these outcomes and expertise in these abilities. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Playing chess unconsciously.

Expertise in a certain stimulus domain enhances perceptual capabilities. In the present article, the authors investigate whether expertise improves perceptual processing to an extent that allows complex visual stimuli to bias behavior unconsciously. Expert chess players judged whether a target chess configuration entailed a checking configuration. These displays were preceded by masked prime configurations that either represented a checking or a nonchecking configuration. Chess experts, but not novice chess players, revealed a subliminal response priming effect, that is, faster responding when prime and target displays were congruent (both checking or both nonchecking) rather than incongruent. Priming generalized to displays that were not used as targets, ruling out simple repetition priming effects. Thus, chess experts were able to judge unconsciously presented chess configurations as checking or nonchecking. A 2nd experiment demonstrated that experts' priming does not occur for simpler but uncommon chess configurations. The authors conclude that long-term practice prompts the acquisition of visual memories of chess configurations with integrated form-location conjunctions. These perceptual chunks enable complex visual processing outside of conscious awareness. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Transformations in cognitive science: Implications and issues posed.

Cognitive science currently offers models of cognition that depart substantively from those of information processing models and classical artificial intelligence, while it embraces methods of inquiry that include case-based, ethnographic, and philosophical methods. To illustrate, five overlapping approaches that constitute departures from classical representational cognitive science are briefly discussed in this paper: dynamical cognition, situated cognition, embodied cognition, extended mind theory, and integrative cognition. Critical responses to these efforts from members of the self-proclaimed cognitive science orthodoxy are also summarized. The paper then discusses ethical and epistemological implications arising from the “new” cognitive science and from critical responses to it and considers the broader importance of this literature for theoretical and philosophical psychology. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Crossing the divide: Infants discriminate small from large numerosities.

Although young infants have repeatedly demonstrated successful numerosity discrimination across large sets when the number of items in the sets changes twofold (E. M. Brannon, S. Abbott, & D. J. Lutz, 2004; J. N. Wood & E. S. Spelke, 2005; F. Xu & E. S. Spelke, 2000), they consistently fail to discriminate a twofold change in number when one set is large and the other is small (     

Wendell Richard Garner (1921-2008).

Wendell Richard Garner was born on January 21, 1921, in Buffalo, New York, and died quietly on August 14, 2008, in Redding, Connecticut. He was an experimental psychologist who changed the way researchers study human perception and cognition. He provided new knowledge about how people process information and structure and about how to ask scientific questions. Three classes of his contributions are particularly noteworthy. His concept of converging operations, that outcomes of different studies converge on a common concept, paved the way to powerful analytic techniques, such as additive factors modeling. His information and structure ideas shaped research in perception and cognition and pattern recognition. His perceptual independence notions set the stage for hundreds of studies of dimensional independence and interaction, of perceptual integrality and separability, and of dimensional attention that are still actively pursued. Life for Tex was not all science and administration. He collaborated on Earnshaw Cook's Percentage Baseball (1964) and briefly consulted with the Baltimore Orioles baseball club. I asked why he did not similarly analyze football for the Baltimore Colts. He said it might spoil his love for that game. After his death, nonsolicited kudos circulating on the Internet included such comments as "I wish I had known him" and "I didn't know him, but I did know his elegant and insightful work." (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Getting a handle on learning anatomy with interactive three-dimensional graphics.

In 2 experiments, participants learned bone anatomy by using a handheld controller to rotate an on-screen 3-dimensional bone model. The on-screen bone either included orientation references, which consisted of visible lines marking its axes (orientation reference condition), or did not include such references (no–orientation reference condition). The learning task involved rotating the on-screen bone to match target orientations. Learning outcomes were assessed by asking participants to identify anatomical features from different orientations. On the learning task, the orientation reference group performed more accurately, directly, and quickly than did the control group, and high-spatial-ability individuals outperformed low-spatial-ability individuals. Assessments of anatomy learning indicated that under more challenging conditions, orientation references elevated learning by low-spatial-ability individuals to a level near that of high-spatial-ability individuals. The authors propose that orientation references assist this learning process by defining the object’s main axes or providing distinguishable features. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Modulation of the action control system by social intention: Unexpected social requests override preplanned action.

Four experiments investigated the influence of a sudden social request on the kinematics of a preplanned action. In Experiment 1, participants were requested to grasp an object and then locate it within a container (unperturbed trials). On 20% of trials, a human agent seated nearby the participant unexpectedly stretched out her arm and unfolded her hand as if to ask for the object (perturbed trials). In the remaining 3 experiments, similar procedures were adopted except that (a) the human was replaced by a robotic agent, (b) the gesture performed by the human agent did not imply a social request, and (c) the gaze of the human agent was not available. Only when the perturbation was characterized by a social request involving a human agent were there kinematic changes to the action directed toward the target. Conversely, no effects on kinematics were evident when the perturbation was caused by the robotic agent or by a human agent performing a nonsocial gesture. These findings are discussed in the light of current theories proposed to explain the effects of social context on the control of action. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

基于Social Cognition粒子群算法多用户检测

最优多用户检测方法具有最优性能,但复杂度高,利用优化算法求解可以降低实现复杂度。粒子群算法是一种简单有效的新型群智能优化算法,研究了一种Socialcognition模型简化粒子群算法,并应用于大用户量CDMA多用户检测问题,主要考虑降低算法复杂度,提高算法的实现效率。分析及仿真表明该方法在系统用户数量较大时具有较好性能。