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PubMedDate not supplied

Limits and province of levels of processing: considerations of a construct.

The limitations and the proper domain of the levels-of-processing construct are considered. Following a sketch of the historical context in which the construct was proposed, some of its empirical and conceptual shortcomings are noted. The argument is then advanced that the notion of memory being determined by depth of processing should be regarded as a functional or purely psychological heuristic, immune to certain criticisms appropriate to the realms of cognitive science and cognitive neuroscience.

Attention↗
PubMed2006

The fusiform face area: a cortical region specialized for the perception of faces.

Faces are among the most important visual stimuli we perceive, informing us not only about a person's identity, but also about their mood, sex, age and direction of gaze. The ability to extract this information within a fraction of a second of viewing a face is important for normal social interactions and has probably played a critical role in the survival of our primate ancestors. Considerable evidence from behavioural, neuropsychological and neurophysiological investigations supports the hypothesis that humans have specialized cognitive and neural mechanisms dedicated to the perception of faces (the face-specificity hypothesis). Here, we review the literature on a region of the human brain that appears to play a key role in face perception, known as the fusiform face area (FFA). Section 1 outlines the theoretical background for much of this work. The face-specificity hypothesis falls squarely on one side of a longstanding debate in the fields of cognitive science and cognitive neuroscience concerning the extent to which the mind/brain is composed of: (i) special-purpose ('domain-specific') mechanisms, each dedicated to processing a specific kind of information (e.g. faces, according to the face-specificity hypothesis), versus (ii) general-purpose ('domain-general') mechanisms, each capable of operating on any kind of information. Face perception has long served both as one of the prime candidates of a domain-specific process and as a key target for attack by proponents of domain-general theories of brain and mind. Section 2 briefly reviews the prior literature on face perception from behaviour and neurophysiology. This work supports the face-specificity hypothesis and argues against its domain-general alternatives (the individuation hypothesis, the expertise hypothesis and others). Section 3 outlines the more recent evidence on this debate from brain imaging, focusing particularly on the FFA. We review the evidence that the FFA is selectively engaged in face perception, by addressing (and rebutting) five of the most widely discussed alternatives to this hypothesis. In section 4, we consider recent findings that are beginning to provide clues into the computations conducted in the FFA and the nature of the representations the FFA extracts from faces. We argue that the FFA is engaged both in detecting faces and in extracting the necessary perceptual information to recognize them, and that the properties of the FFA mirror previously identified behavioural signatures of face-specific processing (e.g. the face-inversion effect). Section 5 asks how the computations and representations in the FFA differ from those occurring in other nearby regions of cortex that respond strongly to faces and objects. The evidence indicates clear functional dissociations between these regions, demonstrating that the FFA shows not only functional specificity but also area specificity. We end by speculating in section 6 on some of the broader questions raised by current research on the FFA, including the developmental origins of this region and the question of whether faces are unique versus whether similarly specialized mechanisms also exist for other domains of high-level perception and cognition.

Animals↗
PubMed2006

Where's the evidence that active learning works?

Calls for reforms in the ways we teach science at all levels, and in all disciplines, are wide spread. The effectiveness of the changes being called for, employment of student-centered, active learning pedagogy, is now well supported by evidence. The relevant data have come from a number of different disciplines that include the learning sciences, cognitive psychology, and educational psychology. There is a growing body of research within specific scientific teaching communities that supports and validates the new approaches to teaching that have been adopted. These data are reviewed, and their applicability to physiology education is discussed. Some of the inherent limitations of research about teaching and learning are also discussed.

Cognitive Science↗
PubMed2002

The scope and direction of health informatics.

Health Informatics (HI) is a dynamic discipline based on the medical sciences, information sciences, and cognitive sciences. Its domain can broadly be defined as medical information management. The purpose of this paper is to provide an overview of this domain, discuss the current "state of the art," and indicate the likely growth areas for health informatics. The sources of information used in this paper are selected publications from the literature of Health Informatics, HI 5300: Introduction to Health Informatics, which is a course from the Department of Health Informatics at the University of Texas Houston Health Sciences Center, and the author's personal experience in practicing telemedicine and implementing an electronic medical record at the NASA-Johnson Space Center. The conclusion is that the direction of Health Informatics is in the direction of data management, transfer, and representation via electronic medical records and the Internet.

Forecasting↗
PubMed2005

Clinical cognition and biomedical informatics: issues of patient safety.

Recent developments in biomedical informatics research have afforded possibilities for great advances in health care delivery. These exciting opportunities also present a number of challenges to the implementation and integration of technologies in the workplace. As in most domains, there is a gulf between technologic artifacts and end users, which compromises the culture of safety in the workplace. Because clinical practice is a human endeavor, there is a need for bridging disciplines to enable clinicians to benefit from rapid technologic advances. This, in turn, necessitates a broadening of disciplinary boundaries to consider cognitive and social factors related to the design and use of technology. The authors argue for a place of prominence for cognitive science in understanding nursing factors associated with patient safety. Cognitive science provides a framework for the analysis and modeling of complex human performance. Studies of clinical cognition can meaningfully inform and shape design, development and assessment of information systems. Furthermore, they have a decisive impact on whether information technology has a positive influence on human performance and are especially important in understanding and promoting safe practices. These issues are discussed in the context of clinical informatics with a focus on nursing practice.

Biomedical Engineering↗
PubMed2006

Clinical cognition and biomedical informatics: Issues of patient safety.

Recent developments in biomedical informatics research have afforded possibilities for great advances in health care delivery. As in most domains, there is a gulf between technologic artifacts and end users, which compromises the culture of safety in the workplace. This necessitates a broadening of disciplinary boundaries to consider cognitive and social factors related to the design and use of technology. The authors argue for a place of prominence for cognitive science in understanding nursing factors associated with patient safety. Cognitive science provides a framework for the analysis and modeling of complex human performance. Studies of clinical cognition can meaningfully inform and shape design, development, and assessment of information systems. Furthermore, they have a decisive impact on whether information technology has a positive influence on human performance and are especially important in understanding and promoting safe practices. These issues are discussed in the context of clinical informatics with a focus on nursing practice.

Cognitive Science↗
PubMed1999

Ten years of the rational analysis of cognition.

Rational analysis is an empirical program that attempts to explain the function and purpose of cognitive processes. This article looks back on a decade of research outlining the rational analysis methodology and how the approach relates to other work in cognitive science. We illustrate rational analysis by considering how it has been applied to memory and reasoning. From the perspective of traditional cognitive science, the cognitive system can appear to be a rather arbitrary assortment of mechanisms with equally arbitrary limitations. In contrast, rational analysis views cognition as intricately adapted to its environment and to the problems it faces.

Journal Article↗
PubMed1999

A connectionist theory of phenomenal experience.

When cognitive scientists apply computational theory to the problem of phenomenal consciousness, as many have been doing recently, there are two fundamentally distinct approaches available. Consciousness is to be explained either in terms of the nature of the representational vehicles the brain deploys or in terms of the computational processes defined over these vehicles. We call versions of these two approaches vehicle and process theories of consciousness, respectively. However, although there may be space for vehicle theories of consciousness in cognitive science, they are relatively rare. This is because of the influence exerted, on the one hand, by a large body of research that purports to show that the explicit representation of information in the brain and conscious experience are dissociable, and on the other, by the classical computational theory of mind--the theory that takes human cognition to be a species of symbol manipulation. Two recent developments in cognitive science combine to suggest that a reappraisal of this situation is in order. First, a number of theorists have recently been highly critical of the experimental methodologies used in the dissociation studies--so critical, in fact, that it is no longer reasonable to assume that the dissociability of conscious experience and explicit representation has been adequately demonstrated. Second, classicism, as a theory of human cognition, is no longer as dominant in cognitive science as it once was. It now has a lively competitor in the form of connectionism; and connectionism, unlike classicism, does have the computational resources to support a robust vehicle theory of consciousness. In this target article we develop and defend this connectionist vehicle theory of consciousness. It takes the form of the following simple empirical hypothesis: phenomenal experience consists of the explicit representation of information in neurally realized parallel distributed processing (PDP) networks. This hypothesis leads us to reassess some common wisdom about consciousness, but, we argue, in fruitful and ultimately plausible ways.

Cognition↗
PubMed2002

Modeling individual differences in perceptual and attentional processes related to bulimic symptoms.

Attentional and perceptual differences between women with high and low levels of bulimic symptoms were studied with techniques adapted from cognitive science. Stimuli were pictures of young women varying in body size and facial affect. A multidimensional scaling analysis showed that the high-symptom women were significantly more attentive to information about body size and significantly less attentive to information about affect. In prototype classification tasks, the high-symptom women used significantly more information about body size and significantly less information about affect. There were strong associations between individual differences in attention in the similarity task and decision making in the classification tasks. The study shows the potential utility of cognitive science methods for the study of cognitive factors in psychopathology.

Adult↗
PubMed2005

How do connectionist networks compute?

Although connectionism is advocated by its proponents as an alternative to the classical computational theory of mind, doubts persist about its computational credentials. Our aim is to dispel these doubts by explaining how connectionist networks compute. We first develop a generic account of computation-no easy task, because computation, like almost every other foundational concept in cognitive science, has resisted canonical definition. We opt for a characterisation that does justice to the explanatory role of computation in cognitive science. Next we examine what might be regarded as the "conventional" account of connectionist computation. We show why this account is inadequate and hence fosters the suspicion that connectionist networks are not genuinely computational. Lastly, we turn to the principal task of the paper: the development of a more robust portrait of connectionist computation. The basis of this portrait is an explanation of the representational capacities of connection weights, supported by an analysis of the weight configurations of a series of simulated neural networks.

Cognitive Science↗
PubMed2002

Application of stochastic modeling to the assessment of group and individual differences in cognitive functioning.

This article begins with a guiding schema of relations among cognitive science, clinical science, and assessment technology. Emphasis is placed on stochastic modeling of cognitive processes. Basic models are adjusted so as to parsimoniously accommodate performance deviations occurring with psychopathology. Modified portions of models indicate functions affected by disorder, whereas portions remaining intact indicate spared functions. Findings from clinical cognitive science are applied to the individual case using Bayesian procedures. Methods are instantiated with respect to cognitive psychopathology of paranoid schizophrenia. The authors address observations and issues arising from this application, including integration of these methods with current assessment practices.

Bayes Theorem↗
PubMed2000

The origins and nature of the cognitive paradigm: an overview.

Although cognitive science, the 'science of mind' is generally regarded as of relatively recent vintage, its origins can actually be traced back to ideas from the 1930s. The purpose of this paper is to offer a view of the essential nature of what has come to be called the cognitive paradigm--the framework around which cognitive science has come to be constructed--and about its origins and development. Of particular note is the interdisciplinarity of the field, with its strong links to psychology, linguistics, neurobiology, computer science and philosophy. As will be explained below, this interdisciplinary character is rooted in the historical development of the science itself, and can only be understood in such a context. Thus, the present article is strongly historical in spirit and content.

Artificial Intelligence↗
PubMed1989

Cognitive errors in diagnosis: instantiation, classification, and consequences.

To identify diagnostic errors caused by faulty clinical cognition, we analyzed 40 consecutive transcripts of problem-solving exercises published in a pedagogic series of clinical reasoning. The analysis disclosed multiple errors in cognition and produced a provisional classification of these errors based on a framework derived from cognitive science. Faults in cognition were identified in all steps of the diagnostic process, including triggering, context formulation, information gathering and processing, and verification. We instantiated each type of error by providing detailed specific examples, and identified the consequences of each error. We conclude that cognitive errors can be identified and classified, that they can produce serious morbidity, and that a classification of cognitive errors is a step toward a deeper understanding of the epidemiology, causes, and prevention of diagnostic errors.

Clinical Competence↗
PubMed2006

Genes, brain, and cognition: a roadmap for the cognitive scientist.

This paper reviews current progress in genetics in relation to the understanding of human cognition. It is argued that genetics occupies a prominent place in the future of cognitive science, and that cognitive scientists should play an active role in the process. Recent research in genetics and developmental neuroscience is reviewed and argued to provide a new perspective on the timeless questions of innateness and modularity. The special case of the genetic bases of language is further discussed, with the study of developmental dyslexia as an exemplary entry point. This Special Issue puts together articles providing different empirical examples and theoretical perspectives on how the integration between the different levels of description (gene, brain, and cognition) is to be achieved.

Brain↗
PubMed2005

Measuring emotional processes in animals: the utility of a cognitive approach.

Contemporary researchers regard emotional states as multifaceted, comprising physiological, behavioural, cognitive and subjective components. Subjective, conscious experience of emotion can be inferred from linguistic report in humans, but is inaccessible to direct measurement in non-human animals. However, measurement of other components of emotion is possible, and a variety of methods exist for monitoring emotional processes in animals by measuring behavioural and physiological changes. These are important tools, but they have limitations including difficulties of interpretation and the likelihood that many may be sensitive indicators of emotional arousal but not valence-pleasantness/unpleasantness. Cognitive components of emotion are a largely unexplored source of information about animal emotions, despite the fact that cognition-emotion links have been extensively researched in human cognitive science indicating that cognitive processes-appraisals of stimuli, events and situations-play an important role in the generation of emotional states, and that emotional states influence cognitive functioning by inducing attentional, memory and judgement biases. Building on this research, it is possible to design non-linguistic cognitive measures of animal emotion that may be especially informative in offering new methods for assessing emotional valence (positive as well as negative), discriminating same-valenced emotion of different types, identifying phenotypes with a cognitive predisposition to develop affective disorders, and perhaps shedding light on the issue of conscious emotional experiences in animals.

Animals↗
PubMed2003

Human gaze control during real-world scene perception.

In human vision, acuity and color sensitivity are best at the point of fixation, and the visual-cognitive system exploits this fact by actively controlling gaze to direct fixation towards important and informative scene regions in real time as needed. How gaze control operates over complex real-world scenes has recently become of central concern in several core cognitive science disciplines including cognitive psychology, visual neuroscience, and machine vision. This article reviews current approaches and empirical findings in human gaze control during real-world scene perception.

Journal Article↗
PubMed2004

Disfluencies and human language comprehension.

Spoken language contains disfluencies, which include editing terms such as uh and um as well as repeats and corrections. In less than ten years the question of how disfluencies are handled by the human sentence comprehension system has gone from virtually ignored to a topic of major interest in computational linguistics and psycholinguistics. We discuss relevant empirical findings and describe a computational model that captures how disfluencies influence parsing and comprehension. The research reviewed shows that the parser, which presumably evolved to handle conversations, deals with disfluencies in a way that is efficient and linguistically principled. The success of this research program reinforces the current trend in cognitive science to view cognitive mechanisms as adaptations to real-world constraints and challenges.

Computer Simulation↗