Knowledge that Transforms

It has been proposed that human category learning consists of an early abstraction-based stage followed by a later exemplar-memorization stage. To investigate whether similar processing stages extend to category learning in a nonverbal species, we applied a prototype-exception paradigm to investigating pigeon category learning. Five birds and 8 humans learned six-dimensional perceptual categories constructed to include prototypes, typical items, and exceptions. We evaluated the birds' and humans' categorization strategies at different points during learning. Early on in both species, prototype performance improved rapidly as exception performance remained below chance, indicating an initial mastery of the categories' general structure. Later on, exception performance improved selectively and dramatically, indicating exception-item resolution and exemplar memorization. Abstraction- and exemplar-based formal models reinforced these interpretations. The results suggest a psychological transition in pigeon category learning from abstraction- to exemplar-based processing similar to that found in humans.

Hurricanes strike some houses and spare others, lotteries are won and lost, and children are born into wealthy and poor families. Rationally, there is no reason to prefer people who are lucky to those who are unlucky. In fact, the explicit codes of ethics by which modern societies govern themselves emphasize neutrality or even a favoring of the least advantaged (Rawls, 1971). But rationality is not always a quality of human minds (Simon, 1957; Tversky & Kahneman, 1974), and this is so even when decisions involve the dimension of right versus wrong (Banaji & Bhaskar, 2000). Understanding how children think about other people who experience luck or misfortune can provide a window into the origins of attitudes and preferences toward social groups that vary in privilege. Accordingly, we tested children’s preferences for lucky versus unlucky individuals. Then we pushed further to

Monkey and human cortex contain view-specific face neurons, but it remains unclear whether they code face shape. We tested the view specificity of face-shape coding by inducing figural face aftereffects at one viewpoint (3/4 left) and testing generalization to different viewpoints (front view and 3/4 right). The aftereffects were induced by adaptation to consistent figural distortions (contracted or expanded), which shifts the distortion perceived as most normal toward the adapting distortion. The strong aftereffect that was observed at the adapting view was significantly and substantially reduced for both front-view test faces and mirror-image (3/4 right) test faces, indicating view specificity. The limited transfer across mirror views is strong evidence of view specificity, given their figural similarity. The aftereffects survived a size change between adaptation and test faces (Experiment 2), a result that rules out low-level adaptation as an explanation. These results provide strong evidence that face-shape coding is view-specific.

A critical prediction of the E-Z Reader model is that experimental manipulations that disrupt early encoding of visual and orthographic features of the fixated word without affecting subsequent lexical processing should influence the processing difficulty of the fixated word without affecting the processing of the next word. We tested this prediction by monitoring participants' eye movements while they read sentences in which a target word was presented either normally or altered. In the critical condition, the contrast between the target word and the background was substantially reduced. Such a reduction in stimulus quality is typically assumed to have an impact that is largely confined to a very early stage of word recognition. Results were consistent with the E-Z Reader model: This faint presentation had a robust influence on the duration of fixations on the target word without substantially altering the processing of the next word.

Minority boys are at risk of academic disengagement. Prior research documents that an aspect of racial-ethnic identity, in-group connection, can buffer against this risk, but that in-group connection is undermined in high-risk neighborhoods. We examined another way that boys may feel connected to the in-group, by looking like in-group members. We hypothesize that physical markers of in-group membership can serve to improve boys' sense of belongingness, thereby facilitating their engagement in school. We tested our model with low-income, high-risk African American (Study 1, n= 102) and Latino (Study 2, n= 66) teens. Hierarchical regression supported our model; dark skin tone was a protective factor (and light skin tone a risk factor) for African American boys, and feeling that one looks Latino was a protective factor (and feeling that one does not look Latino a risk factor) for Latino boys' grades, in-class behavior, and school engagement. Mediational analyses suggest that markers of belongingness have their impact via peer-group choice.

Children confront the formidable task of assimilating information in the environment and accommodating their cognitive structures to that information. Developmental science is concerned equally with two distinctive features of these processes: children's group mean level of performance through time and the standing of individual children through time. Prevailing opinion since the inception of the mental-measurement movement has been that individual development is unstable-that individual children change unpredictably in their abilities. We report results of a large-scale controlled, multivariate, prospective, microgenetic, 4-year longitudinal study that reveals a statistically significant cascade of species-typical cognitive abilities from infancy to childhood. Infancy is a recognizable starting point of life; we find that to a small but significant degree, infancy also represents a setting point in the life of the individual.

We introduce a new paradigm to assess how children's choices for the future are influenced by their current desires. Forty-eight 3-, 4-, and 5-year-olds were assigned to one of four conditions. In two of these conditions (intervention), we manipulated children's current state of thirst by allowing them to eat pretzels. In the remaining two conditions (baseline), we did not give them pretzels. The children were then asked to choose between water and pretzels. In one intervention and one baseline condition, they chose what they would like "now," whereas in the other intervention and baseline conditions, they chose what they would like "tomorrow." Results revealed that, despite children's overwhelming desire for pretzels in the baseline conditions, children in both intervention conditions chose water. The data support the notion that children's current state influences not only their choices for the present, but also their choices for the future. We discuss this finding in terms of both cognitive-developmental and adult social-cognitive theory.

We show how decision makers can be induced to choose a personally inferior alternative, a strong violation of rational decision making. First, the inferior alternative is installed as the leading option by starting with information that supports this alternative. Then, the decision maker uses the natural process of distorting new information to support whichever alternative is leading. This leader-supporting distortion overcomes the inherent advantages of the superior alternative. The end result is a tendency to choose the self-identified inferior alternative. We trace the choice process to reveal the amount of distortion and its influence on preference. Self-reported awareness of distortion to support the inferior alternative is not related to the amount of distortion. The absence of valid awareness suggests that the manipulation that produces this preference violation is unlikely to be detected and that the distortion is unlikely to be corrected by the decision maker. As expected, given the lack of awareness, final confidence is just as high when the inferior alternative is chosen as when the superior one is. The discussion considers how to prevent an adversary from manipulating one's decisions using this technique.

The distinction between central and peripheral cues has played an important role in understanding the functional nature of visual attention for the past 30 years. In the present article, we propose a new taxonomy that is based on linguistic categories of spatial relations. Within this framework, spatial cues are categorized as either "projective" or "deictic." Using an empirical diagnostic, we demonstrate that the word cues above, below, left, and right express projective spatial relations, whereas arrow cues, eye-gaze cues, and abrupt-onset cues express deictic spatial relations. Thus, the projective-versus-deictic distinction crosscuts the more traditional central-versus-peripheral distinction. The theoretical utility of this new distinction is discussed in the context of recent evidence suggesting that a variety of central cues can elicit reflexive orienting.

Emotion has been both lauded and vilified for its role in decision making. How are people able to ensure that helpful emotions guide decision making and irrelevant emotions are kept out of decision making? The orbitofrontal cortex has been identified as a neural area involved in incorporating emotion into decision making. Is this area's function specific to the integration of emotion and cognition, or does it more broadly govern whether emotional information should be integrated into cognition? The present research examined the role of orbitofrontal cortex when it was appropriate to control (i.e., prevent) the influence of emotion in decision making (Experiment 1) and to incorporate the influence of emotion in decision making (Experiment 2). Together, the two studies suggest that activity in lateral orbitofrontal cortex is associated with evaluating the contextual relevance of emotional information for decision making.