No abstract

In addition to its critical role in encoding individual episodes, the hippocampus is capable of extracting regularities across experiences. This ability is central to category learning, and a growing literature indicates that the hippocampus indeed makes important contributions to this kind of learning. Using a neural network model that mirrors the anatomy of the hippocampus, we investigated the mechanisms by which the hippocampus may support novel category learning. We simulated three category learning paradigms and evaluated the network's ability to categorize and to recognize specific exemplars in each. We found that the trisynaptic pathway within the hippocampus-connecting entorhinal cortex to dentate gyrus, CA3, and CA1-was critical for remembering individual exemplars, reflecting the rapid binding and pattern separation functions of this circuit. The monosynaptic pathway from entorhinal cortex to CA1, in contrast, was responsible for detecting the regularities that define category structure, made possible by the use of distributed representations and a slower learning rate. Together, the simulations provide an account of how the hippocampus and its constituent pathways support novel category learning.

Köhler's observation that most people match pseudoword "maluma" to curvy objects and "takete" to spiky objects represented the well-known example of sound symbolism-the idea that link between sound and meaning of words was not entirely arbitrary. This study was aimed to examine the existence of sound symbolism in natural language and to consider the potential role of some aspects of experimental design and stimuli features which had not been considered in experimental studies so far. Three experiments were done in order to explore the influence of visual information on language processing. Visual lexical decision task with the sharp-sounding and soft-sounding verbal stimuli presented within the spiky and curvy frames was used. Reaction time analysis in these three experiments highlighted additional aspects of visual and language processing which influence the potential interplay of these two processes. As results revealed, when visual information preceded presentation of verbal material for approximately 1000 ms or when visual and verbal material were presented simultaneously, the processing was being delayed and the interactions of these two processes occurred. The pattern of obtained results gave further support to the idea of sound symbolism as pre-semantic phenomenon and the hypothesis that the effect emerged from very early stages of language processing.

Parents modulate their speech and their actions during infant-directed interactions, and these modulations facilitate infants' language and action learning, respectively. But do these behaviors and their benefits cross these modality boundaries? We investigated mothers' infant-directed speech and actions while they demonstrated the action-effects of 4 novel objects to their 14-month-old infants. Mothers (N ϭ 35) spent the majority of the time either speaking or demonstrating the to-be-learned actions to their infant while hardly talking and acting at the same time. Moreover, mothers' infant-directed speech predicted infants' action learning success beyond the effect of infant-directed actions. Thus, mothers' speech modulations during naturalistic interactions do more than support infants' language learning; they also facilitate infants' action learning, presumably by directing and maintaining infants' attention toward the to-be learned actions.

A key question in categorization is how infants extract regularities from the exemplars they encounter. Detecting similarities and dissimilarities across items is vital in order to determine category‐relevant features. Previous research found evidence that infants acquire a single category more easily with paired presentations in comparison with single presentations (Oakes & Ribar, 2005, Infancy, 7, 85; Oakes & Kovack‐Lesh, 2007, Cogniție, Creier, Comportament / Cognition, Brain, Behavior, XI, 661). Here, we focus on infants’ acquisition of a category contrast, that is, when they are exposed to two categories. In an eye‐tracking study, we examined 10‐month‐old infants’ ability to learn two novel visual categories when presented with one item at a time and with items in pairs. Infants were familiarized with pairs of items from the same category or with pairs of items from different categories (cross‐category pairs). Using a linear model with a priori contrasts, we show that infants’ learning is directly related to the opportunity for category comparison: There is no evidence of category learning in the single‐item condition, improved performance when familiarized with same‐category pairs, and finally robust category learning when familiarized with cross‐category pairs. We conclude that comparison which involves items from different categories promotes category formation, by highlighting differences and promoting a discovery of category boundaries.

No abstract

The aim of the present paper is to experimentally test whether sound symbolism has selective effects on labels with different ranges-of-reference within a simple noun-hierarchy. In two experiments, adult participants learned the make up of two categories of unfamiliar objects (‘alien life forms’), and were passively exposed to either category-labels or item-labels, in a learning-by-guessing categorization task. Following category training, participants were tested on their visual discrimination of object pairs. For different groups of participants, the labels were either congruent or incongruent with the objects. In Experiment 1, when trained on items with individual labels, participants were worse (made more errors) at detecting visual object mismatches when trained labels were incongruent. In Experiment 2, when participants were trained on items in labelled categories, participants were faster at detecting a match if the trained labels were congruent, and faster at detecting a mismatch if the trained labels were incongruent. This pattern of results suggests that sound symbolism in category labels facilitates later similarity judgments when congruent, and discrimination when incongruent, whereas for item labels incongruence generates error in judgements of visual object differences. These findings reveal that sound symbolic congruence has a different outcome at different levels of labelling within a noun hierarchy. These effects emerged in the absence of the label itself, indicating subtle but pervasive effects on visual object processing.

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to test if our eating behavior is determined not only by conscious evaluations of certain foods (explicit attitudes), but also by their automatic evaluations (implicit attitudes). Design/methodology/approach In two studies, the authors examined the predictive and incremental validity of these two types of attitudinal measures of eating behavior. Implicit attitudes were assessed with a standard implicit attitude test procedure (target categories were “sweets” and “fruit,” and attribute categories were “good” and “bad”); two explicit attitude measures were assessed: an explicit measure of preference for sweets over fruit and a semantic differential measure. The behavioral measure in Study 1 was the quantity of sweets consumed; in Study 2, it was a relative measure of sweets vs fruit consumption registered through a three-day diary. Findings The relatively low correlation between implicit and explicit attitude measures indicated that these measures at least partially tap into different processes. Implicit attitudes proved to be superior over explicit attitudes in predicting food consumption, especially for consumption registered via diary. This fact suggests that implicit attitudes are powerful drivers of long-term behavior. Practical implications The findings could be useful in tailoring interventions to promote healthier eating habits. Originality/value The research tested predictive power of implicit food-related attitudes. It compared the food consumption in laboratory and real-life settings. A new measure for daily food consumption was developed and it was calculated relative to recommended serving size.