Showing papers in "Psychological Review in 1989"

The Self and Social Behavior in Differing Cultural Contexts

Abstract: Three aspects of the self(private, public, collective) with different probabilities in different kinds of social environments were sampled. Three dimensions of cultural variation (individualism--collectivism, tightness-looseness, cultural complexity) are discussed in relation to the sampling of these three aspects of the self. The more complex the culture, the more frequent the sampling of the public and private self and the less frequent the sampling of the collective self. The more individualistic the culture, the more frequent the sampling of the private self and the less frequent the sampling of the collective self. Collectivism, external threat, competition with outgroups, and common fate increase the sampling of the collective self. Cultural homogeneity results in tightness and in the sampling of the collective self. The article outlines theoretical links among aspects of the environment, childrearing patterns, and cultural patterns, which are linked to differential sampling of aspects of the self. Such sampling has implications for social behavior. Empirical investigations of some of these links are reviewed.

A Distributed, Developmental Model of Word Recognition and Naming.

Abstract: A parallel distributed processing model of visual word recognition and pronunciation is described. The model consists of sets of orthographic and phonological units and an interlevel of hidden units. Weights on connections between units were modified during a training phase using the back-propagation learning algorithm. The model simulates many aspects of human performance, including (a) differences between words in terms of processing difficulty, (b) pronunciation of novel items, (c) differences between readers in terms of word recognition skill, (d) transitions from beginning to skilled reading, and (e) differences in performance on lexical decision and naming tasks. The model's behavior early in the learning phase corresponds to that of children acquiring word recognition skills. Training with a smaller number of hidden units produces output characteristic of many dyslexic readers. Naming is simulated without pronunciation rules, and lexical decisions are simulated without accessing word-level representations. The performance of the model is largely determined by three factors: the nature of the input, a significant fragment of written English; the learning rule, which encodes the implicit structure of the orthography in the weights on connections; and the architecture of the system, which influences the scope of what can be learned.

Visual search and stimulus similarity.

Abstract: A new theory of search and visual attention is presented. Results support neither a distinction between serial and parallel search nor between search for features and conjunctions. For all search materials, instead, difficulty increases with increased similarity of targets to nontargets and decreasedsimilarity between nontargets, producing a continuum of search efficiency. A parallel stage of perceptual grouping and description is followed by competitive interaction between inputs, guiding selective access to awareness and action. An input gains weight to the extent that it matches an internal description of that information needed in current behavior (hence the effect of targetnontarget similarity). Perceptual grouping encourages input weights to change together (allowing "spreading suppression" of similar nontargets). The theory accounts for harmful effects of nontargets resembling any possible target, the importance of local nontarget grouping, and many other findings.

Hopelessness depression: A theory-based subtype of depression.

Abstract: Summary and Future Directions On the basis of the aforementioned studies, the hopelessnesstheory appears promising However, further research is neededFor example, although powerful tests of the attributional diath-esis-stress component have been conducted, no one has exam-ined the cognitive diatheses of inferring negative consequencesor characteristics about the self or whether the cognitive stylediathesis-stress interaction predicts clinically significant de-pression Moreover, it is crucial to determine if this interactionpredicts the development of the hypothesized symptoms ofhopelessness depression More generally, an important short-coming of the prior work is that it has not focused on the symp-toms of hopelessness depression in particular and, instead, sim-ply has examined the symptoms of depression in general Fu-ture investigators need to test more fine-grained predictionsabout the hypothesized symptoms of hopelessness depressionThe issue of the stability of the cognitive diatheses has not beenresolved satisfactorily We have only begun, in a preliminaryway, to investigate the issues of specific vulnerability and media-tional processes Finally, further tests of the predictions aboutcourse, cure, and prevention are needed We eagerly await thisresearchDifficult methodological issues may arise in the search forhopelessness depression, however For example, the hopeless-ness theory is silent about the time lag between formation ofhopelessness and onset of the symptoms of hopelessness depres-sion If it is very short, then a major challenge will be to developmethods with sufficient temporal resolving power to determineif hopelessness indeed precedes the occurrence of the hypothe-sized symptoms of hopelessness depression (see Alloy, Hartlage,et al, 1988, for proposed methods for testing the hopelessnesstheory) The results of work to test the hopelessness theory willdetermine if the concept of hopelessness depression needs tobe revised For example, perhaps the statement of the causalpathway is correc t bu culminate n a differen se f symp-toms than those currently hypothesized to compose hopeless-ness depression In this case, the symptom—but not thecause—component of the hopelessness theory would need to bemodifiedIn discussing how to search for hopelessness depression, wenote the possibility that future work may not corroborate theexistence of hopelessness depression as a bona fide subtype withcharacteristic cause, symptoms, course, treatment, and preven-tion Instead, the etiological chain featured in the hopelessnesstheory may be one of many pathways to a final common out-come of depression In this case, it would be more compellingto speak of a hopelessness cause, as opposed to a hopelessnesssubtype, of depression

Social stigma and self-esteem: The self-protective properties of stigma.

Abstract: Although several psychological theories predict that members of stigmatized groups should have low global self-esteem, empirical research typically does not support this prediction. It is proposed here that this discrepancy may be explained by considering the ways in which membership in a stigmatized group may protect the self-concept It is proposed that members of stigmatized groups may (a) attribute negative feedback to prejudice against their group, (b) compare their outcomes with those of the ingroup, rather than with the relatively advantaged outgroup, and (c) selectively devalue those dimensions on which their group fares poorly and value those dimensions on which their group excels. Evidence for each of these processes and their consequences for self-esteem and motivation is reviewed. Factors that moderate the use of these strategies and implications of this analysis for treatment of stigmas are also discussed. For more than three decades, social psychological research on prejudice, stereotyping, and discrimination has examined both the content of stereotypes about a variety of social groups

Health complaints, stress, and distress: exploring the central role of negative affectivity.

Abstract: Most current models in health psychology assume that stress adversely affects physical health. We re-examined this assumption by reviewing extensive data from the literature and from six samples of our own, in which we collected measures of personality, health and fitness, stress, and current emotional functioning. Results indicate that self-report health measures reflect a pervasive mood disposition of negative affectivity (NA); self-report stress scales also contain a substantial NA component. However, although NA is correlated with health compliant scales, it is not strongly or consistently related to actual, long-term health status, and thus will act as a general nuisance factor in health research. Because self-report measures of stress and health both contain a significant NA component, correlations between such measures likely overestimate the true association between stress and health. Results demonstrate the importance of including different types of health measures in health psychology research.

How Do Self-Attributed and Implicit Motives Differ?.

Abstract: From the beginning of the work on the achievement motive (McClelland, Atkinson, Clark, & Lowell, 1953), it has been apparent that motive dispositions as coded in imaginative thought from stories written to pictures differ from motive dispositions with the same name as measured in self-reported desires or interests. The authors of the studies on achievement motivation wanted to demonstrate that the variable they had identified in fantasy functioned like an animal drive in the sense that it energized, directed, and selected behavior. In this tradition (cf. Melton, 1952) it was particularly important to show that a motivational disposition that these authors labeled n Achievement (for the need to achieve) would select behavior or facilitate learning just as hunger would facilitate a rat's learning a maze. When McClelland et al. examined a self-reported desire for achievement, they observed that it did not facilitate learning in the same way that n Achievement did and so concluded that self-reported desires do not function like motives. An early study (deCharms, Morrison, Reitman, & McClelland, 1955) showed that the two measures of achievement motivation were uncorrelated and that their behavioral correlates were different. For these reasons deCharms et al. urged that the two measures be distinguished in future research by referring to the variable identified in fantasy as n Achievement (for the need to achieve) and the self-reported desire for achievement as v Achievement (for valuing achievement).

Relation of Implicit Theories to the Construction of Personal Histories

Abstract: It is hypothesized that people possess implicit theories regarding the inherent consistency of their attributes, as well as a set of principles concerning the conditions that are likely to promote personal change or stability. The nature of these theories is discussed in the context of a study of beliefs about life-span development. It is then suggested that people use their implicit theories of self to construct their personal histories. This formulation is used to interpret the results of a wide-ranging set of studies of memory of personal attributes. It is concluded that implicit theories of stability and change can lead to biases in recall. The extent and practical implications of these biases are discussed. Personal memories play an important role in people's everyday lives. Individuals dwell on their pasts for a variety of reasons including entertainment (for others' amusement, people fashion stories out of their lives), curiosity (gazing at their teenage children, parents might wonder what they, themselves, were like as teenagers), and the need to achieve self-understanding. People can study the past to learn about their preferences, abilities, and so forth. Personal recollections are also used to control and manipulate public images. Published autobiographies have served this function for hundreds of years (Korda, 1987). In short, people's personal memories are relevant to some of the traditional concerns of social psychologists, including selfunderstanding and self-presentation. Furthermore, much psychological research depends on personal recall. For example, not so long ago, psychologists formulated theories of development on the basis of parents' retrospective descriptions of their child-rearing practices. We now know that such descriptions may be invalid, and seek more direct evidence (Yarrow, Campbell, & Burton, 1970). Nonetheless, researchers and practitioners continue to make considerable use of retrospective self-reports. These include reports of voting, medical care, purchases, and finances. On the basis of such self-reports, social scientists evaluate theories of human behavior and offer advice on public policy. For a number of reasons, then, it is important to know how personal memories are formed and how accurate they maybe. In 1972, Tulving proposed what has become a widely accepted distinction between episodic and semantic memory. Episodic memory contains information that is coded both temporally and with reference to the rememberer, semantic memory stores general world knowledge that carries neither temporal nor autobiographical codes. In the present article, I examine a

Social comparison activity under threat: Downward evaluation and upward contacts.

Abstract: Social comparison processes include the desire to affiliate with others, the desire for information about others, and explicit self-evaluation against others. Previously these types of comparison activity and their corresponding measures have been treated as interchangeable. We present evidence that in certain groups under threat, these comparison activities diverge, with explicit self-evaluation made against a less fortunate target (downward evaluation), but information and affiliation sought out from more fortunate others (upward contacts). These effects occur because downward evaluation and upward contacts appear to serve different needs, the former ameliorating self-esteem and the latter enabling a person to improve his or her situation and simultaneously increase motivation and hope. Implications for the concept, measurement, and theory of social comparison are discussed. For almost 30 years, social comparison theory has held the dubious distinction of being social psychology's "second favorite theory" (Arrowood, 1978). Nonetheless, as a consequence, it has spawned several hundred empirical investigations (see Suls, 1977, for a review). In recent years, the influence of the theory has extended into clinical and personality psychology, as the importance of social comparisons in coping processes has been identified (Wills, 1981). In part as a result of these extensions to coping, it has become increasingly apparent that social comparisons are not purely social, but can also be cognitively manufactured to meet particular motives or goals (S. E. Taylor, Wood, & Lichtman, 1983). As a result, researchers have become interested in the cognitive underpinnings of social comparisons. With this expanding influence has come the need for theoretical, conceptual, and empirical refinements to the original theory, one of which constitutes the concern of the present article. Festinger's (1954) original conceptualization of comparison activity was relatively broad and included the processes of gathering information from and about other people for the purpose of implicit or explicit self-evaluation. As a consequence, operational definitions adopted by social comparison researchers have been varied and have included choice of others with whom to affiliate, requests for information about others, and more explicit self-evaluations of one's attributes, emotions, opinions, and outcomes in comparison with those of a target. The present analysis suggests that there is now reason to distinguish among

Dynamic attending and responses to time.

Abstract: A temporally based theory of attending is proposed that assumes that the structure of world events affords different attending modes. Future-oriented attending supports anticipatory behaviors and occurs with highly coherent temporal events. Time judgments, given this attending mode, axe influenced by the way an event's ending confirms or violates temporal expectancies. Analytic attending supports other activities (e.g., grouping, counting), and if it occurs with events of low temporal coherence, then time judgments depend on the attending levels involved. A weighted contrast model describes over- and underestimations of event durations. The model applies to comparative duration judgments of equal and unequal time intervals; its rationale extends to temporal productions/extrapolations. Two experiments compare predictions of the contrast model with those derived from other traditional approaches. One characteristic of modern society is a preoccupation with fixed time schedules and standardized timekeepers. We maintain appointments at hourly intervals, rush to meet the 5:00 p.m. bus, and dine at predetermined hours. Yet our natural ability to judge time remains poorly understood. How often do we estimate the time elapsed since last glancing at a clock and discover with surprise that we were fairly accurate? Surprise is understandable because at least as often we lose track of time and err. The validity of these impressions is confirmed by laboratory research showing that duration judgments depend not only on actual physical duration but also on a variety of non

Person memory and judgment.

Abstract: Two general types of information about a person are considered in this article: One pertains to specific behaviors a person has manifested, and the other refers to more abstract personality dispositions or behavioral tendencies. A theoretical model of person memory that incorporates both types of information is developed. The model accounts for a large number of factors that are known to affect the recall of social information, the making of interpersonal judgments, and the relation between what is recalled and the judgments that are made. A major strength of the model is its applicability to a wide range of person memory and judgment phenomena that are observed in several different experimental paradigms.

Arousal and physiological toughness: Implications for mental and physical health.

Abstract: From W.B. Cannon's identification of adrenaline with "fight or flight" to modern views of stress, negative views of peripheral physiological arousal predominate. Sympathetic nervous system (SNS) arousal is associated with anxiety, neuroticism, the Type A personality, cardiovascular disease, and immune system suppression; illness susceptibility is associated with life events requiring adjustments. "Stress control" has become almost synonymous with arousal reduction. A contrary positive view of peripheral arousal follows from studies of subjects exposed to intermittent stressors. Such exposure leads to low SNS arousal base rates, but to strong and responsive challenge- or stress-induced SNS-adrenal-medullary arousal, with resistance to brain catecholamine depletion and with suppression of pituitary adrenal-cortical responses. That pattern of arousal defines physiological toughness and, in interaction with psychological coping, corresponds with positive performance in even complex tasks, with emotional stability, and with immune system enhancement. The toughness concept suggests an opposition between effective short- and long-term coping, with implications for effective therapies and stress-inoculating life-styles.

Children and adults as intuitive scientists.

Abstract: The metaphor of children and lay adults as intuitive scientists has gained wide acceptance. Although useful in one sense, pertaining to scientific understanding, in another, pertaining to the process of scientific thinking, the metaphor may be fundamentally misleading. Research is reviewed indicating that processes of scientific thinking differ significantly in children, lay adults, and scientists. Hence, it is the instruments of scientific thinking, not just the products, that undergo "strong restructuring" (Carey, 1986). A framework for conceptualizing development of scientific thinking processes is proposed, centering on progressive differentiation and coordination of theory and evidence. This development is metacognitive, as well as strategic. It requires thinking about theories, rather than merely with them, and thinking about evidence, rather than merely being influenced by it, and, hence, reflects the attainment of control over the interaction of theories and evidence in one's own thinking. The metaphor of the lay adult—or the child—as an intuitive scientist has gained wide acceptance in the last decade. As the scientist explores the environment, constructs models as a basis for understanding it, and revises those models as new evidence is generated, so do lay people endeavor to make sense of their environments by processing data and constructing mental models based on these data. The highly influential volume by Nisbett and Ross (1980) and seminal research by Tversky and Kahneman that is highlighted in the Nisbett and Ross book have done much to promote the metaphor. More recently, it has been promoted as well by the literature on scientific understanding and conceptual change, discussed later, and to an extent by the general theory of induction proposed by Holland, Holyoak, Nisbett, and Thagard (1986), a theory whose principles are intended to apply to all forms of induction from the very simplest forms of concept formation to the thinking of scientists. As the research summarized by Nisbett and Ross documents, the particular inference rules that the intuitive scientist uses to interpret evidence and make inductive inferences are likely to be faulty. The intuitive scientist, for example, makes inferences based on insufficient sample size and overlooks base rates. Nevertheless, the process and goal of this intuitive scientific activity are thought to be analogous in the layperson and the professional scientist. In this article, I have a particular concern with the thinking of children and the ways in which it may or may not resemble that of scientists. I therefore focus on the metaphor of child as scientist, although I consider as well the thinking of lay adults and its resemblance to that of scientists. I explore two quite different senses in which this metaphor might be taken and conclude that, although it may be useful and productive in one sense, the child-as-scientist metaphor in another sense may be fundamentally misleading.

Theory of attentional operations in shape identification.

Abstract: This article presents a theory of selective attention that is intended to account for the identification of a visual shape in a cluttered display. The selected area of attention is assumed to be controlled by a filter that operates on the location information in a display. The location information selected by the filter in turn determines the feature information that is to be identified. Changes in location of the selected area are assumed to be governed by a gradient of processing resources. Data from three new experiments are fit more parsimoniously by a gradient model than by a moving-spotlight model. The theory is applied to experiments in the recent literature concerned with precuing locations in the visual field, and to the issue of attentional and automatic processing in the identification of words. Finally, data from neuroanatomical experiments are reviewed to suggest ways that the theory might be realized in the primate brain.

A Neural Theory of Binocular Rivalry

Abstract: When the two eyes view discrepant monocular stimuli, stable single vision gives way to alternating periods of monocular dominance; this is the well-known but little understood phenomenon of binocular rivalry. This article develops a neural theory of binocular rivalry that treats the phenomenon as the default outcome when binocular correspondence cannot be established. The theory posits the existence of monocular and binocular neurons arrayed within a functional processing module, with monocular neurons playing a crucial role in signaling the stimulus conditions instigating rivalry and generating inhibitory signals to implement suppression. Suppression is conceived as a local process happening in parallel over the entire cortical representation of the binocular visual field. The strength of inhibition causing suppression is related to the size of the pool of monocular neurons innervated by the suppressed eye, and the duration of a suppression phase is attributed to the strength of excitation generated by the suppressed stimulus. The theory is compared with three other contemporary theories of binocular rivalry. The article closes with a discussion of some of the unresolved problems related to the theory.

Feeling and facial efference: implications of the vascular theory of emotion.

Abstract: Is facial muscular movement capable of alterning emotional state? Facial feedback theories answer this question in the affirmative but do not specify the intervening process. Cognitive appraisal theories do not address this question at all. The vascular theory of emotional efference (VTEE) holds that facial muscular movement, by its action on the cavernous sinus, may restrict venous flow and thereby influence cooling of the arterial blood supply to the brain

Sequential ideal-observer analysis of visual discriminations.

Abstract: Visual stimuli contain a limited amount of information that could potentially be used to perform a given visual task. At successive stages of visual processing, some of this information is lost and some is transmitted to higher stages. This article describes a new analysis, based on the concept of the ideal observer in signal detection theory, that allows one to trace the flow of discrimination information through the initial physiological stages of visual processing, for arbitrary spatio-chromatic stimuli. This ideal-observer analysis provides a rigorous means of measuring the information content of visual stimuli and of assessing the contribution of specific physiological mechanisms to discrimination performance. Here, the analysis is developed for the physiological mechanisms up to the level of the photoreceptor. It is shown that many psychophysical phenomena previously attributed to neural mechanisms may be explained by variations in the information content of the stimuli and by preneural mechanisms.

Laterality and human evolution.

Abstract: The question of whether there is a fundamental discontinuity between humans and other primates is discussed in relation to the predominantly human pattern of right-handedness and the left-cerebral representation of language. Both phenomena may go back at least to Homo habilis, 2-3 million years ago. However, a distinctively human mode of cognitive representation may not have emerged until later, beginning with H. erectus and the Acheulean tool culture about 1.5 million years ago and culminating with H. sapiens sapiens and rapid, flexible speech in the last 200,000 years. It is suggested that this mode is characterized by generativity, with multipart representations formed from elementary canonical parts (e.g., phonemes in speech, geons in visual perception). Generativity may be uniquely human and associated with the left-cerebral hemisphere. An alternative, analogue mode of representation, shared with other species, is associated with the right hemisphere in humans.

Gesture, speech, and computational stages: a reply to McNeill.

Abstract: McNeill (1985) claimed that speech and its accompanying gestures "share a common computational stage" that is located early in the speech production process. This position depends on two crucial arguments that we believe are unsound: first, that gestures "are synchronized with linguistic units in speech" and, second, that gestures "have semantic and pragmatic functions that parallel those of speech." Careful analysis of the relevant data indicated that although the processes underlying gestural production are globally autonomous, they are linked to speech production at more than just one computational stage. An account is offered that explicates these links.

Cognitive change processes in psychotherapy.

Abstract: Several types of cognitive-behavioral therapy are now practiced that use different sets of theoretical concepts and propose different kinds of change mechanisms. None, however, is directly grounded in experimental research in cognitive and social psychology, and few address basic issues such as the relevance of conscious versus nonconscious cognitive processes and the validity of the self-report data on which therapy depends. Put forward in this article is a model that describes the conscious and nonconscious processing of emotional stimuli and distinguishes between knowledge that is verbally accessible and knowledge that can only be recovered by exposure to situational cues. Also proposed are three mechanisms of cognitive change that involve altering verbally accessible knowledge, the accessibility of nonconscious situational memories, and self-regulatory strategies. These mechanisms are related to the current practices of behavioral and cognitive-behavioral therapists.

A model of perceptual classification in children and adults.

Abstract: The developmental trend from overall! similarity to dimensional! identity classifications is explained by a quantitative model. I begin with the assumption that objects are represented in terms of constit! uent dimensions and that the representation of objects changes little with development. Given this assumption, the model has three major parts. First, the similarity between objects is a function of the combination of the constituent dimensional differences. 1 propose developmental change in the likelihood that dimensions are differentially weighted in the calculation of similarity. Second, the perceived similarities between objects are valued for the purpose of constructing classifications. I propose that similarities are valued more dichotomously with age, such that identity becomes in! creasingly special. Third, the valued similarities are used to choose the best classification of those possible. The model provides good qualitative fits to the extant data. Three experiments examining classifications in 2! to 8! year! olds and in adults support specific new claims of the model. The data and the model provide new insights about development, classification, and similarity. A classic controversy in the perception of multidimensional objects concerns the relation of the whole object to its constitu! ent parts. When we perceive an object, say a cup, we perceive it both as a whole and as composed of constituent attributes—as being a unitary entity that is a particular color, size, and shape. By one classic view, it is the whole as a unit that is perceptually primary and the constituent attributes are only secondarily de! rived. By an alternative view, the attributes and parts are pri! mary and the whole is built from them. Both characterizations can be argued to be right. The empirical evidence suggests that the primacy of the whole or parts depends on the particular level of processing, the particular task, and the particular stimu! lus parts (see, e.g., Kemler! Nelson, in press; Navon, 1977; Pomerantz, in press; Treisman, 1987). The primacy of wholes and parts also depends on the developmental level of the per! ceiver(see, e.g., E. J. Gibson, 1969; Werner, 1957). The tradi! tional view is that objects are perceived as undifferentiated wholes early in development and are perceived as conjunctions of attributes, features, or dimensions later in development. The implications of this developmental trend for a theory of the per! ception of objects and their constituent attributes is unclear be! cause exactly what changes with development and underlies the trend has not been specified. In this article, 1 propose a quanti!

Theoretical analysis of the cognitive processing of lexical and pictorial stimuli: reading, naming, and visual and conceptual comparisons.

Abstract: This article reviews the research literature on the differences between word reading and picture naming. A theory for the visual and cognitive processing of pictures and words is then introduced. The theory accounts for slower naming of pictures than reading of words. Reading aloud involves a fast, grapheme-to-phoneme transformation process, whereas picture naming involves two additional processes: (a) determining the meaning of the pictorial stimulus and (b) finding a name for the pictorial stimulus. We conducted a reading-naming experiment, and the time to achieve (a) and (b) was determined to be approximately 160 ms. On the basis of data from a second experiment, we demonstrated that there is no significant difference in time to visually compare two pictures or two words when size of the stimuli is equated. There is no difference in time to make the two types of cross-modality conceptual comparisons (picture first, then word, or word first, then picture). The symmetry of the visual and conceptual comparison results supports the hypothesis that the coding of the mind is neither intrinsically linguistic nor imagistic, but rather it is abstract. There is a potent stimulus size effect, equal for both pictorial and lexical stimuli. Small stimuli take longer to be visually processed than do larger stimuli. For optimal processing, stimuli should not only be equated for size, but should subtend a visual angle of at least 3 degrees. The article ends with the presentation of a mathematical theory that jointly accounts for the data from word-reading, picture-naming visual comparison, and conceptual-comparison experiments.

Reasoning by model: The case of multiple quantification.

Abstract: A theory of deductive reasoning is presented fora major class of inferences that has not been investigated by psychologists: inferences that depend on multiply-quantified premises (e.g., "None of the Princeton letters is in the same place as any of the Dublin letters"). It is argued that reasoneis construct mental models based on their knowledge of the meanings of quantifiers (and other terms, including relational expressions). Three experiments corroborate the model theory's prediction that inferences that require the construction of only 1 model will be easier than those that require more than 1 model. The model theory assumes that the logical properties of quantifiers emerge from their meanings and are not mentally represented in rules of inference. How such a semantic process can occur compositionally (i.e., guided by the syntactic analysis of sentences) is described. Deductive reasoning is a process of thought that yields new information from old and aims to establish valid conclusions, that is, conclusions that are necessarily true given the truth of the initial premises or observations. The study of its underlying mental mechanisms is almost as old as experimental psychology, but remains a matter of controversy. There are three main views that have been proposed in both cognitive psychology and artificial intelligence. First, the reasoning mechanism depends on formal rules of inference; second, it depends on content-specific rules of inference; and, third, it depends on semantic procedures that search for interpretations (or models) of the premises that are counterexamples to conclusions. The principal goal of this article is to establish a theory of deductive reasoning for a major class of inferences that has not been investigated before by psychologists: those that depend on multiply-quantified premises. There are theories of relational reasoning and of syllogistic reasoning (i.e., from singly quantified premises), but multiple quantification is more powerful, and its logical analysis calls for the full resources of that branch of logic known as the first-order predicate calculus. In this article we develop a theory based on the manipulation of models and report experimental evidence that confirms this theory. An example of a multiply-quantified assertion is as follows: None of the artists is taller than any of the beekeepers. Such assertions contain a relational expression—here, a two-place relation, "taller than"; its arguments are quantified by such expressions as "all," "some," "none," and "any." These quantifiers behave in ways that are similar to the quantifiers of the firstorder predicate calculus, but there are other "nonstandard"

Ordinal structure in the visual perception and cognition of smoothly curved surfaces.

Abstract: In theoretical analyses of visual form perception, it is often assumed that the 3-dimensional structures of smoothly curved surfaces are perceptually represented as point-by-point mappings of metric depth and/or orientation relative to the observer. This article describes an alternative theory in which it is argued that our visual knowledge of smoothly curved surfaces can also be defined in terms of local, nonmetric order relations. A fundamental prediction of this analysis is that relative depth judgments between any two surface regions should be dramatically influenced by monotonicity of depth change (or lack of it) along the intervening portions of the surface through which they are separated. This prediction is confirmed in a series of experiments using surfaces depicted with either shading or texture. Additional experiments are reported, moreover, that demonstrate that smooth occlusion contours are a primary source of information about the ordinal structure of a surface and that the depth extrema in between contours can be optically specified by differences in luminance at the points of occlusion.

Folk Psychology of Mental Activities

Abstract: A central aspect of people's beliefs about the mind is that mental activities--for example, thinking, reasoning, and problem solving-- are interrelated, with some activities being kinds or parts of others. In common-sense psychology, reasoning is a kind of thinking and reasoning is part of problem solving. People's conceptions of these mental kinds and parts can furnish clues to the ordinary meaning of these terms and to the differences between folk and scientific psychology. In this article, we use a new technique for deriving partial orders to analyze subjects' decisions about whether one mental activity is a kind or part of another. The resulting taxonomies and partonomies differ from those of common object categories in exhibiting a converse relation in this domain: One mental activity is a part of another if the second is a kind of the first. The derived taxonomies and partonomies also allow us to predict results from further experiments that examine subjects' memory for these activities, their ratings of the activities' importance, and their judgements about whether there could be "possible minds" that possess some of the activities but not others.

A Theory of Conditioning: Inductive Learning within Rule-Based Default Hierarchies.

Abstract: We present a theory of classical conditioning based on a parallel, rule-based performance system integrated with mechanisms for inductive learning. Inferential heuristics are used to add new rules to the system in response to the relation between the system's predictions and environmental input. A major heuristic is based on "unusuamess": Novel cues are favored as candidates to predict events that are important or unexpected. Rules have strength values that are revised on the basis of feedback. The performance system allows rules to operate in parallel, competing to control behavior and obtain reward for successful prediction of important events. Sets of rules can form default hierarchies: Exception rules censor useful but imperfect default rules, protecting them from loss of strength. The theory is implemented as a computer simulation, which is used to model a broad range of conditioning phenomena, including blocking and overshadowing, the impact of statistical predictability on conditioning, and conditioned inhibition. The theory accounts for a variety of phenomena that previous theories have not dealt with successfully.