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Children's judgments in theory choice tasks: scientific rationality in childhood.

The current research examined whether children could use certain metaconceptual criteria such as the range of explanation, non-ad hocness of explanation, empirical consistency, and logical consistency to choose between competing accounts of physical phenomena. The tasks were constructed so that the conceptual content of the explanations to be evaluated was either consistent, inconsistent, or neutral with regard to children's prior knowledge. It was found that even 7-year-olds could use metaconceptual criteria such as the range, empirical consistency, and logical consistency of theories when the theories did not violate their beliefs. However only older children (11-year-olds) showed a systematic preference for non-ad hoc theories over ad hoc ones. The findings are consistent with recent work in the philosophy of science showing that, in evaluating theoretical alternatives, scientists are influenced by their prior beliefs about the domain being considered. This research demonstrates that even young children share some of the cognitive underpinnings of scientific rationality that scientists do.

Astronomical Phenomena↗

Judgments by children and adults regarding communication skills of esophageal speakers.

The intelligibility and acceptability of esophageal speech were judged by a group of children and a group of adults. Eight esophageal speakers demonstrating a range of speech proficiency and differing vocal characteristics were videotaped reading a children's story. These recordings were played to child and adult judges. Data were analyzed to provide information about within-group and between-group comparisons. Findings indicated that children achieved higher intelligibility scores and employed different values than did adults when listening to esophageal speech.

Adult↗

Recognition and judgment of facial stimuli in schizotypal subjects.

Affect recognition abilities, an important component of successful social functioning, were examined in two groups of schizotypal subjects who were identified by the Perceptual Aberration/Magical Ideation and Physical Anhedonia Scales (PABS, MIS, PAS). Prior research has demonstrated social impairments in subjects identified by these scales and in schizophrenics. Although research has shown schizophrenic subjects to have facial affect recognition deficits, the present results did not support the hypothesis that such impairments would appear in subjects exhibiting similar symptoms, but to a less severe degree, when compared with controls. The results suggest that deficits in emotional decoding may appear at a relatively late stage in the developmental course of mental disorder, or may only be associated with more severe levels of schizophrenia-spectrum symptomatology. The paper discusses theoretical and methodological implications for research on the components and development of social deficits in the schizophrenia-spectrum disorders.

Adult↗

Linking object boundaries at scale: a common mechanism for size and shape judgments.

The area over which boundary information contributes to the determination of the center of an extended object was inferred from results of a bisection task. The object to be bisected was a rectangle with two long sinusoidally modulated sides, i.e. a wiggly rectangle. The spatial frequency and amplitude of the edge modulation were varied. Two object widths were tested. The modulation of the perceived center approximately equaled that of the edges at very low edge modulation frequencies and decreased in amplitude with increasing edge modulation frequency. The edge modulation had a greater modulating effect on the perceived center for the narrower object than for the wider object. This scaling with object width didn't follow perfect zoom invariance but was precisely matched by the scaling of the bisection threshold with width, strongly supporting the idea that the same mechanism determines both the location of the perceived center for these stimuli and its variance. We propose that this mechanism is the linking of object boundaries at a scale determined by the object width.

Form Perception↗

Ideal observer for heading judgments.

Several aspects of the viewing situation affect the ability to determine heading from optical flow. These include the amount of depth variation and number of texture elements in the scene, the location and amount of the visual field stimulated, and the position of the focus of expansion within the stimulus. Without a quantification of the discrimination information provided by the stimuli presented to the observer, it is impossible to determine how much of an observed change in performance reflects the properties of neural mechanisms and strategies employed by the observer. To enable a better quantification, we developed an ideal observer for the discrimination of heading from random-dot flow fields. Internal noises of the ideal observer were set by the results of single-dot velocity discrimination experiments. We compared human and ideal observer performance in discriminating headings with different patterns of flow (e.g. radial vs laminar) presented on different parts of the retina. Efficiency--the ratio of ideal and human thresholds--was fairly constant for the various flow patterns and retinal eccentricities. This outcome indicates that most of the variation in human observers' ability to estimate heading from the flow patterns and retinal loci considered here is due to changes in the discrimination information provided by the stimulus after measurement by the visual system. In the discussion, we show how the ideal observer can be used to quantify the spatial distribution of heading discrimination information for any observer translation through any scene represented by dots.

Depth Perception↗

"Proof" of cause and effect in epidemiologic studies: criteria for judgment.

A review of epidemiologic criteria for judging cause and effect emphasizes their empirical basis and points to their limitations for establishing "scientific proof." The criteria are applied to a controversy concerning a putative detrimental effect of spermicides on spontaneous abortion and congenital malformations. The criteria indicate a lack of firm evidence for the contention that spermicides have an adverse effect on pregnancy outcome.

Abnormalities, Drug-Induced↗