Cognitive Processing最新文献

The gradual emergence of syntax has been claimed to be engaged in a feedback loop with Human Self-Domestication (HSD), both processes resulting from, and contributing to, enhanced connectivity in selected cortico-striatal networks, which is the mechanism for attenuating reactive aggression, the hallmark of HSD, but also the mechanism of cross-modality, relevant for syntax. Here, we aim to bridge the gap between these brain changes and further changes facilitated by the gradual complexification of grammars. We propose that increased cross-modality would have enabled and supported, more specifically, a feedback loop between categorization abilities relevant for vocabulary building and the gradual emergence of syntactic structure, including Merge. In brief, an enhanced categorization ability not only brings about more distinct categories, but also a critical number of tokens in each category necessary for Merge to take off in a systematic and productive fashion; in turn, the benefits of expressive capabilities brought about by productive Merge encourage more items to be categorized, and more categories to be formed, thus further potentiating categorization abilities, and with it, syntax again. We support our hypothesis with evidence from the domains of language development and animal communication, but also from biology, neuroscience, paleoanthropology, and clinical linguistics.

The processing of emotional facial expressions helps people to adjust to the physical and social environment. Furthermore, mental disorders such as anxiety have been linked to attentional biases in the processing of this type of information. Nevertheless, there are still contradictory results that might be due to the methodology used and to individual differences in the manifestation of anxiety. Our research goal was to use 24 facial priming sequences to analyse attentional biases in the detection of facial expressions of fear, considering the levels and the ways in which individuals express anxiety. With higher levels of cognitive anxiety and general trait anxiety, those sequences that began in the upper half (vs. lower half) elicited a speedier response in the detection of fear. The results are discussed within the context of other techniques and disorders that prompt a deficit in the processing of facial information.

During the epidemic, online advertising became more important, and several studies have suggested that internet users tend to avoid viewing online ads, such as banner ads. Previous studies have shown that product items that use animation lead to increased visual attention to all items on a webpage at the expense of attention to nonanimated items on the same webpage. However, few studies have compared the impact of the picture and text forms taken by static banners on the effectiveness of banner ads. At the same time, whether semantic factors (theme consistency) moderate the influence of structural factors (picture and text forms) on banner advertising remains unknown. The aim of this paper is to examine the influence of structural factors and semantic factors of ads on participants' visual attention to and memory of banner ads. The participants (twenty-seven males and forty females aged 18-26 years) were divided into two groups, one for consistent ad-web content themes and the other for inconsistent ad-web content themes. Then, the participants were asked to browse 16 complete pages (4 pages each of text-type web content and text-type banner ads, picture-type web content and picture-type banner ads, text-type web content and picture-type banner ads, and picture-type web content and text-type banner ads), and their eye movements were recorded to measure the participants' level of attention to the banner ads. A recognition task was used to measure the participants' memories of the banner ads. The results showed that the text-type banner ad had a lower blindness rate and exerted better attention and memory effects than the picture-type banner ad, and the text-type banner ad had a lower blindness rate and better attention and memory effects when positioned in the background of picture-type web content than when positioned in the background of text-type web content. A significant interaction effect among banner ad type, web content type and theme consistency showed that ad-web content theme consistency moderated the effect of web content type and banner ad type on ad effectiveness. Taken together, the results of these tasks demonstrate that theme consistency moderates the effect of web content type and banner ad type on ad effectiveness in a top-down manner. To reduce the negative effect of banner blindness, placing text-type banner ads in picture-type web content and setting a consistent theme between the banner ad and the web content is the more effective choice. The findings from this study can be used to assist advertising agencies in designing more effective and efficient banner ads from the perspective of basic psychology.

This study aimed to examine whether Japanese participants condition spoken words' meanings to written pseudowords. In Survey 1, we selected spoken words associated with negative (α = .91) and positive (α = .79) features for Experiment 1 and passive (α = .90) and active (α = .80) features for Experiment 2. In Experiment 1, participants evaluated four written pseudowords' emotional valence using a 7-point semantic differential scale (1: negative; 7: positive) before and after conditioning spoken words with negative, neutral, or positive features to each pseudoword. In the conditioning phase, participants read each pseudoword, listened to a spoken word, and verbally repeated each spoken word. The results showed that a pseudoword was conditioned to spoken words with positive and negative features. In Experiment 2, participants evaluated four pseudowords' activeness using a 7-point semantic differential scale (1: passive; 7: active) before and after conditioning spoken words of passive, neutral, and active features to each written pseudoword. In the conditioning phase, the participants read each written pseudoword, listened to a spoken word, and repeated the spoken word. The results showed that the activeness evaluations were more increased for pseudowords conditioned to spoken words of active and neutral features after conditioning than before conditioning but were unchanged for a pseudoword conditioned to those with passive features before and after conditioning. Additonally, Survey 2's results showed that although the positiveness and activeness responses of the words used in Experiments 1 and 2 were controlled well, the lack of significant differences among positiveness responses of words may influence the evaluative conditioning in Experiment 2. That is, when participants condition passive (low arousal) words' activeness (arousal) ratings to those of pseudowords, words' positiveness (valence) ratings would be important in the evaluative conditioning. Our findings suggest that participants can condition spoken word meanings of preference and activeness to those of written pseudowords. It also indicates that linguistically evaluative conditioning's effects are robust in a non-alphabetic language.

Metamemory refers to an individual's awareness and understanding of their memory processes. It affects various aspects of learning, including the effective use of cognitive abilities, memory monitoring, and strategy development. The majority of valid scales for assessing students' metamemory are unidimensional. This study aims to develop and validate a multidimensional metamemory scale specifically for students. A 48-item multidimensional metamemory skills (MDMS) scale was developed with six dimensions: Factual memory knowledge, Memory monitoring, Memory self-efficacy, Memory strategies, Memory-related affect, and Memory-related behavior. The reliability of the scale was established using test-retest and split-half reliability, and internal consistency was determined using Cronbach's alpha. The scale was validated using exploratory factor analysis on 647 college students from India. The confirmatory factor analysis was conducted on 200 college students, which revealed a good fit for the data. Additionally, validity was established through face, content, concurrent and divergent validity. The scale's multidimensional nature enables a thorough assessment of students' metamemory skills. Additionally, the scale can be used in educational and research settings, assisting in planning interventions to improve metamemory skills in students.

Advocates of the science of reading have invoked the simple view of reading (SVR) to justify an approach that foregrounds decoding in early reading instruction. SVR describes reading comprehension as the product of decoding and listening comprehension. The current study examined the complexity of the SVR, focusing on the phonological and orthographic decoding in third-grade readers of Chinese. One hundred and forty-three students participated in this study. The measures included phonological decoding (pinyin invented spelling), orthographic decoding, listening comprehension and reading comprehension. Drawing upon regression analyses and multivariate path models, the study found that phonological decoding at both segmental and suprasegmental processing significantly predicted Chinese reading comprehension, yet a more significant effect of orthographic decoding surfaced. And the best-fitting model suggested listening comprehension was better characterized as a mediator rather than a covariance with decoding component in the decoding-reading relation when orthographic decoding was incorporated into decoding component to evaluate the validity of the SVR in Chinese. The results imply that orthographic decoding is a legitimate decoding component and that the two decoding constructs alone are insufficient for higher-level reading ability (reading comprehension) since the contribution appears to be mediated through the path route of oral language capacity (indexed by listening comprehension). This enriches the current understanding of the SVR in non-alphabetic languages and indicates that decoding training on both phonological and orthographic dimension should be highlighted in early Chinese reading instruction.

The fast development of technology and the popularity and prevalence of social media are constantly changing people's way of living especially their communication patterns. Computer-mediated communication facilitates human contact. Meanwhile, net language becomes widely accepted by computer-mediated communicators. Originating from the text-based form, net language evolves into a multi-modal physical form with a combination of texts, symbols, emojis, pictures and other forms of messages. The multi-modality of net language gives rise to difficulties for hearers or readers of the computer-mediated communication to understand the hidden message due to the ambiguous and polysemic nature of symbols. To clarify hearer's understanding and ensure the smooth conduct of computer-mediated communication, the conceptual blending theory will be useful in processing the multi-modal net language. With a four-space network and three operation mechanism, the emergent meaning will be constructed.

In online language comprehension, the parser incrementally builds hierarchical syntactic structures. The predictive nature of this structure-building process has been the subject of extensive debate. A previous study observed that when a wh-phrase indicates parallelism between the upcoming wh-clause and a preceding clause (e.g., John told some stories, but we couldn't remember which stories…), the parser predictively constructs the wh-clause. This observation demonstrates predictive structure building. However, the study also suggests that the parser does not make a prediction when the wh-phrase indicates that parallelism does not hold (e.g., John told some stories … with which stories…), a potential limit to the prediction of syntactic structures. Crucially, these findings are controversial because the study did not observe processing difficulty when disambiguating input indicated that the predicted continuation was inconsistent with the globally grammatical structure (garden-path effects). The controversial results may be due to a lack of statistical power. Therefore, the present study conducted a large-scale replication study (324 participants and 24 sets of materials). The results revealed that the parser predicts the clausal structure, irrespective of the type of wh-phrase. There was also evidence of garden-path effects, supporting the finding that the parser makes a prediction. These observations suggest that the prediction algorithm inherent in the human parser is more powerful than assumed by the previous study and that the parser attempts to construct globally grammatical structures during revision.

To investigate the mechanism of episodic foresight of different valences on intertemporal decision-making, this study examined the mediating role of future self-continuity in the influence of episodic foresight on intertemporal decision-making and the moderating role of perceived control in two experiments. The results found that (1) future self-continuity mediated the effect of episodic foresight on individuals' intertemporal decision-making; and (2) perceived control moderated the indirect effect of episodic foresight on intertemporal decision-making through future self-continuity. Under low perceived control, individuals with positive episodic foresight had stronger future self-continuity and preferred future options, while individuals with negative episodic foresight had lower future self-continuity. In contrast, under high perceived control, individuals with different episodic foresight potencies did not show significant differences in their future self-continuity levels, but all showed higher levels and tended to choose the delayed option when faced with an intertemporal choice. From the perspective of the self-cognition, this study provided new insights into the relationship between episodic foresight and intertemporal decision-making and the psychological mechanisms of intertemporal decision-making.

Considering the global pandemic we currently experience, face masks have become standard in our daily routine. Even though surgical masks are established as a safety measure against the dissemination of COVID-19, previous research showed that their wearing compromises face recognition. Consequently, the capacity to remember to whom we transmit information-destination memory-could also be compromised. In our study, through a between-participants design (experiment 1) and a within-participants design (experiment 2), undergraduate students have to transmit Portuguese proverbs to masked and unmasked celebrity faces. Following our hypothesis, participants who shared information with masked faces had worse destination memory performance than those who shared information with unmasked faces. Also, we observed lower recognition for masked faces compared to unmasked faces. These results were expected since using a surgical mask affects facial recognition, thus making it harder to recognize a person to whom information was previously transmitted. More importantly, these results also support the idea that variables associated with the recipient's face are important for destination memory performance.