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PubMed2002

The human first hypothesis: identification of conspecifics and individuation of objects in the young infant.

How do infants individuate and track objects, and among them objects belonging to their species, when they can only rely on information about the properties of those objects? We propose the Human First Hypothesis (HFH), which posits that infants possess information about their conspecifics and use it to identify and count objects. F. Xu and S. Carey [Cognitive Psychology, 30(2), 111-153, 1996] argued that before the age of 1 year, infants fail to use property information. To explain their results, Xu and Carey proposed the Object First Hypothesis (OFH), according to which infants under 1 year of age have only the general concept of physical object to identify and count objects. We show that infants have a more extensive knowledge of sortals than that claimed by the OFH. When 10-month-olds see one humanlike and one non-humanlike object, they successfully identify and count them by using the contrast in their properties, as predicted by the HFH. We also show that infants succeed even when they make a decision based on differences between two close basic-level categories such as humanlike objects and doglike objects, but fail when they have to use differences within the human category. Thus, infants treat "human" as a basic sortal, as predicted by the HFH. We argue that our results cannot be accounted for by general purpose mechanisms. Neither the strong version of the OFH and its explanation in terms of object indexing mechanisms [A. M. Leslie, F. Xu, P. Tremoulet, & B. J. Scholl, Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 2(1), 10-18, 1998] nor explanations in terms of task demands [T. Wilcox & R. Baillargeon, Cognitive Psychology, 37(2), 97-155, 1998] are sufficient to explain our results.

Child Development↗
PubMed2004

Social norms and human cooperation.

The existence of social norms is one of the big unsolved problems in social cognitive science. Although no other concept is invoked more frequently in the social sciences, we still know little about how social norms are formed, the forces determining their content, and the cognitive and emotional requirements that enable a species to establish and enforce social norms. In recent years, there has been substantial progress, however, on how cooperation norms are enforced. Here we review evidence showing that sanctions are decisive for norm enforcement, and that they are largely driven by non-selfish motives. Moreover, the explicit study of sanctioning behavior provides instruments for measuring social norms and has also led to deeper insights into the proximate and ultimate forces behind human cooperation.

Cooperative Behavior↗
PubMed1997

Electrophysiological measures of cognition in biological psychiatry: some cautionary notes.

Research into the electrophysiological correlates of mental illness is currently expanding, largely because of the availability of relatively inexpensive and powerful computers. However, improvements in technology do not always lead to enhanced methodological procedures; thus, there are concerns over the proper interpretation of the results of these investigations. Our argument is that electroencephalographic (EEG) research into psychopathology of psychiatric diseases should adopt a cognitivist model of mental dysfunction rather than a neurologist model of brain disease. Cognitive science has significant potential as an integrative framework for theorizing and researching psychiatric disorders and their treatment. Models of human cognitive functioning have rather special and unique features; these will make their impact upon the nature of both the analysis and interpretation of EEG data. The adoption of a sound model of brain function has implications for the methods to be used at different successive stages of the research process. We address a number of methodological requirements pertaining to: the recording and analysis of EEG signals, the laboratory context, the nature of the tasks, and the attribution of obtained effects. However, there are grounds for great caution. Even if the mapping of electrical changes in brain activity leads to a good approximation of the temporal and spatial dynamics of higher brain function, exploitation of such information presupposes a deeper understanding of both human cognition and the physiological basis of the EEG than is often displayed in the literature. To demonstrate this fundamental point, we draw a number of comparisons between traditional neurological approaches to brain assessment and contemporary cognitive psychophysiology.

Cognition↗
PubMed1994

[Advances in the experimental analysis of behavior: issues of choice behavior, comparative cognition, and human language].

As the opportunity to contact with related areas has increased, the study of of the experimental analysis of behavior has experienced revolutionary changes. Some of the most active and important areas-studies of choice, comparative cognition, and human language--are reviewed to acquaint readers. Studies of CHOICE have linked to the molar theories of behavioral economics and behavioral ecology, which promoted research of choice by animals under uncertainty conditions. Further approach has been made to integrate the molar and molecular analyses on the basis of the ideas of behavior dynamics. COMPARATIVE COGNITION is a part of a larger field including cognitive science, behavioral neuroscience, and biological science. Recent developments, aided with a comparative perspective, made significant contributions to our understanding of the phylogeny and ontogeny of cognition. Advances in analysis of human behavior provided tools to study behavioral aspects of semantics, syntax, and pragmatics of HUMAN LANGUAGE. Using the paradigm of stimulus equivalence, the emergence of stimulus relations, stimulus-stimulus networks, hierarchical structure of verbal behavior, and other language-related behaviors have been investigated.

Choice Behavior↗
PubMed2001

Educating the next generation of dentists.

A new vision for dental education is being shaped by (1) future dentists' need to keep pace with rapid developments in medicine and biomedical science, and changing health-care delivery mechanisms that will transform dentistry; (2) dissatisfaction with unintended, undesirable consequences of traditional approaches to dental education that do not integrate biomedical/clinical, behavioral, ethical, and population perspectives in clinical practice, and fail to cultivate the skills and values which support lifelong learning; (3) new developments in cognitive science demonstrating learning environments' need to be more student-centered, to emphasize active learning strategies, and teach students to use the scientific method to resolve clinical problems. These changes will require efforts in faculty development, and have implications for the administration and function of dental schools.

Behavioral Sciences↗
PubMed1997

The proper use of self-report questions in effective measurement of health outcomes.

Outcomes research often relies on the use of general population survey data. The recent efforts to employ cognitive science theory in the development of data collection instruments has led to the establishment of new questionnaire design research methods. Intensive cognitive techniques are used in laboratory interviews to develop and pretest self-report survey questions with the goal of reducing non-sampling response error. This article presents the theoretical and applied approach used in the cognitive laboratory to study the ways people respond to surveys, and offers guidelines for improving self-report survey questions.

Cognition↗
PubMed2001

The exploitation of regularities in the environment by the brain.

Statistical regularities of the environment are important for learning, memory, intelligence, inductive inference, and in fact, for any area of cognitive science where an information-processing brain promotes survival by exploiting them. This has been recognised by many of those interested in cognitive function, starting with Helmholtz, Mach, and Pearson, and continuing through Craik, Tolman, Attneave, and Brunswik. In the current era, many of us have begun to show how neural mechanisms exploit the regular statistical properties of natural images. Shepard proposed that the apparent trajectory of an object when seen successively at two positions results from internalising the rules of kinematic geometry, and although kinematic geometry is not statistical in nature, this is clearly a related idea. Here it is argued that Shepard's term, "internalisation," is insufficient because it is also necessary to derive an advantage from the process. Having mechanisms selectively sensitive to the spatio-temporal patterns of excitation commonly experienced when viewing moving objects would facilitate the detection, interpolation, and extrapolation of such motions, and might explain the twisting motions that are experienced. Although Shepard's explanation in terms of Chasles' rule seems doubtful, his theory and experiments illustrate that local twisting motions are needed for the analysis of moving objects and provoke thoughts about how they might be detected.

Brain↗
PubMed2001

Teaching science vs. the apprentice model--do we really have the choice?

The debate about the appropriate methodology of medical education has been (and still is) dominated by the opposing poles of teaching science versus teaching practical skills. I will argue that this conflict between scientific education and practical training has its roots in the underlying, more systematic question about the conceptual foundation of medicine: how far or in what respects can medicine be considered to be a science? By analyzing the epistemological status of medicine I will show that the internal aim of medicine ("promoting health through the prevention and treatment of disease") differs from the internal aim of science ("the methodological and systematic acquisition of knowledge"). Therefore, medicine as a whole discipline should not be considered as a science. However, medicine can be conceptually and methodologically scientific in so much as it is based on scientific knowledge. There is evidence from cognitive science research that diagnostic reasoning not only relies on the application of scientific knowledge but also--especially in routine cases--on a process of pattern recognition, a reasoning strategy based on the memory of previously encountered patients. Hence, medical education must contain both: the imparting of scientific knowledge and the rich exposure to concrete cases during practical training. Hence, the question of teaching science vs. the apprentice model will not be "either-or" but rather "both--but in which proportion?"

Competency-Based Education↗
PubMed2005

The social nature of primate cognition.

The hypothesis that the enlarged brain size of the primates was selected for by social, rather than purely ecological, factors has been strongly influential in studies of primate cognition and behaviour over the past two decades. However, the Machiavellian intelligence hypothesis, also known as the social brain hypothesis, tends to emphasize certain traits and behaviours, like exploitation and deception, at the expense of others, such as tolerance and behavioural coordination, and therefore presents only one view of how social life may shape cognition. This review outlines work from other relevant disciplines, including evolutionary economics, cognitive science and neurophysiology, to illustrate how these can be used to build a more general theoretical framework, incorporating notions of embodied and distributed cognition, in which to situate questions concerning the evolution of primate social cognition.

Animals↗
PubMed1987

Neuropharmacological strategies for understanding psychobiological determinants of cognition.

Psychopharmacological methods that have proven useful in exploring brain processes can be helpful in describing the psychobiological determinants of distinct cognitive processes. The methods and theory in current cognitive science can be exploited by neuropharmacologists interested not only in describing brain function but in building a viable picture of brain-behavior (cognitive) relationships. This paper provides a sketch of our knowledge about the neuropharmacology of cognitive processes. It also cites some questions, problems and approaches for further research efforts that would help us describe the psychobiology of cognition.

Animals↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Hans-Lukas Teuber: a tribute.

Hans-Lukas Teuber (1916-1977) was one of the most influential neuropsychologists of his generation. In the first part of his career he headed the Psychophysiology Laboratory at the New York University--Bellevue Medical Center. There he and his associates played a major role in establishing human neuropsychology as a rigorous experimental science closely linked to contemporary neurophysiology and experimental psychology. In the second part of his career he founded the Department of Psychology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. This rapidly became a world center of the neuro- and cognitive sciences and a model for the establishment of new neuroscience centers that brought together neuroanatomy, neurophysiology, neuropsychology, and cognitive psychology into an interacting community. Teuber's contributions extended far beyond the institutions he founded and the many important experimental and theoretical papers he wrote. He was a consummate organizer, synthesizer, and sponsor of research on the brain, as well as the mentor of many of today's leading brain researchers. This special issue on object recognition and the temporal lobes is dedicated to his memory.

History, 20th Century↗
PubMed2003

A theory-based method for the evaluation of individual quality of life: the SEIQoL.

Few reports about methods of evaluating quality of life (QoL) among the thousands published since medical interest in the subject slowly began nearly 40 years ago are based upon theory. This paper, prepared in response to a request to furnish an exception (Meadows KA. Introduction to an Advanced Seminar: Assessing Health-Related Quality of Life. What can the Cognitive Sciences Contribute? Hull University, October 9, 2000) describes the origins of the Schedule for the Evaluation of Individual Quality of Life (SEIQoL). This derives its cognitive aspects from theoretical studies of perception by Egon Brunswik, their extension to Social Judgment Theory (SJT) by Kenneth Hammond and the application of these ideas to QoL by the present authors and their colleagues.

Attitude to Health↗
PubMed2003

The metaphorical foundations of chemical explanation.

To address the question of whether typical chemical explanations have characteristics that distinguish them from explanations in other sciences, it is important to recognize the deeply metaphorical nature of scientific explanation in general. The theory of conceptual metaphor, based on results from modern cognitive sciences, postulates that largely unconscious thought processes, grounded in embodied experience and in experiences drawn from the social domain, are at the core of scientific reasoning. I argue, using several examples, that models employed by chemists as explanatory instruments are metaphorical in nature and have a character distinguishable from explanatory representations employed in other fields of science.

Journal Article↗
PubMed2006

Forward inference using functional neuroimaging: dissociations versus associations.

Many people are excited by functional neuroimaging as a new tool for cognitive science; many others are sceptical. In this opinion article, I describe a 'forward inference' that one can make from patterns of brain activity to distinguish between cognitive theories. I give an example of forward inferences in research on recognition memory, and outline some statistical criteria for a 'qualitative difference' in brain activity. Forward inferences resemble the dissociation logic long-used in behavioural studies of healthy and brain-damaged people, although I argue that dissociations in neuroimaging data can go beyond behavioural dissociations. Nonetheless, forward inferences are only as good as the cognitive theories to which they pertain, and are most valuable in conjunction with other types of inference.

Association↗
PubMed1997

The synergy of memory, affects and metaphor.

Recently, the concept of metaphor has been revitalized as a result of the convergence of interest in this subject from a variety of disciplines including neurobiology, linguistics and cognitive science. Metaphor is now viewed as an emergent property of mind. Metaphor is rooted in the body in two senses: metaphor is used to organize bodily sensation cognitively, especially affects, and secondly, metaphor is rooted in the body as it rests on the border between mind and brain. Metaphor is therefore viewed as a developmentally early, primitive mental function related to synesthesia. There is a significant distinction between frozen or foreclosed metaphors and open and generative metaphors. The foreclosed metaphor will dominate the perception of others in cases of trauma and can be understood as an explanation of transference repetition. Clinical examples of foreclosed metaphors are illustrated by vignettes of patients who have suffered traumas. Examples taken from two artists are used to illustrate instances in which the artist's own unassimilated experiences appear as generative metaphors.

Affect↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Metaphors and models: the ASR bubble in the Floridan aquifer.

Studies at the intersection of cognitive science and linguistics have revealed the crucial role that metaphors play in shaping our thoughts about phenomena we cannot see. According to the domains interaction theory of cognition, a metaphoric expression sets up mappings between a target domain that we wish to understand and a familiar source domain. The source domain contains elements ("commonplaces") that we manipulate mentally, like parts of an analogue model, to illuminate the target domain. This paper applies the structure of domains interaction theory to analyze the dynamics of a metaphor in hydrogeology: the so-called bubble formed by water injected into an aquifer during aquifer storage and recovery (ASR). Of the four commonplaces of bubbles--(1) they are discrete; (2) they are geometrically simple; (3) they rise; and (4) they burst--we focus on the first two using both displacement and dispersion (tracer) models for both homogeneous and heterogeneous storage zones patterned from geological studies of the Suwannee Limestone of Sarasota County, Florida. The displacement model easily shows that "bottle brush" better represents the geometric complexity predicted from the known and inferred heterogeneity. There is virtually no difference, however, in the prediction of recovery efficiency using the dispersion model for a bubble (homogeneous flow zone) vs. bottle brush (heterogeneous flow zone). On the other hand, only the bottle brush reveals that unrecovered tracer is located preferentially in the low-permeability layers that lie adjacent to high-permeability channels in the flow zones.

Conservation of Natural Resources↗
PubMed1998

Is craving the source of compulsive drug use?

Compulsive drug use, which is typically portrayed as a defining quality of addictive behavior, has been described as a pattern of drug consumption that is stimulus bound, stereotyped, difficult to regulate and identified by a loss of control over intake. It is widely assumed that compulsive drug use is caused by drug craving. This assumption is supported by numerous findings of a general correspondence between measures of craving and drug-use behavior. A more focussed analysis of the available data, however, reveals that craving and drug use are not coupled to the degree required by the hypothesis that craving is the source of all drug use in the addict. As an alternative to this craving-based view, compulsive drug use could be characterized as a form of automatized behavior. Automatic performance is assumed to develop over the course of repeated practice of motor and cognitive skills. Automatized behavior, like compulsive drug use, tends to be stimulus bound, stereotyped, effortless, difficult to control and regulated largely outside of awareness. The formulation of drug compulsion as a manifestation of automaticity rather than craving allows addiction researchers to apply methods and measures derived from cognitive sciences to investigate the fundamental organization of compulsive drug-use behavior.

Cognition↗
PubMed1994

Brain-imaging studies of cognitive functions.

Little is understood about the brain, the mind and their relationships. However, rapid technical advances in brain-imaging devices such as positron emission tomography (PET), functional magnetic resonance imaging, EEG and EMG have increased the capabilities for visualizing the working brain, and uncovering the cerebral areas participating in the realization of cognitive tasks, and progress in cognitive science has led to a better understanding of the functional architecture of mental abilities. There is, therefore, considerable potential for achieving a greater understanding of the relationships between cognition and cerebral structures through brain-imaging studies of mental functions. However, these studies are confronted with a series of difficulties related to the assumptions that govern their application, the constraints imposed by these techniques on the design of cognitive experiments, the complexities inherent in establishing relations between cognition and anatomy through physiology, and to the interpretation of patterns of cerebral activation. In this article, potential difficulties are described drawing essentially on examples from PET studies of cognitive functions. Whereas a bright future lies ahead for the study of human brain mapping, many problems still have to be overcome and solved in order to exploit the full potential of new brain-imaging techniques.

Brain↗