Storage and verification stages in processing concepts

Trabasso, Tom; Rollins, Howard A.; Shaughnessy, Edward Anthony

doi:10.1016/0010-0285(71)90014-4

Cited by 311 publications

(150 citation statements)

References 25 publications

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“…For purposes of the present study, it is assumed that the verification process proceeds through four stages, as illustrated in Figure 2. This representation of the verification paradigm is similar to those shown by Carpenter and Just (1975), Chase and Clark (1972), and Trabasso, Rollins, and Shaughnessy (1971). Stage 1.…”

Section: The Tasksupporting

confidence: 69%

Understanding quantified categorical expressions

Revlin

Leirer

1980

Memory & Cognition

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A model of categorical inference (Revlis, 1975b) claims that a conversion operation participates in the encoding of quantified, categorical expressions. As a consequence, a reasoner is said to interpret such sentences as "All A are Boo in a way that permits it to also be the case that "All B are A." The present study examines this conception of encoding using a sentence-picture verification task. In two experiments, students were asked to judge whether one of five possible Euler diagrams was true or false of a categorical expression (e.g., All A are B, No A are B, Some A are B, Some A are not B). Verification errors support a three-stage verification model whose major component is access to a "meaning stack" representing the progressive analysis of categorical relations; at the top of that stack is a converted reading of the input sentence. These findings have implications for current conceptions of categorical inference and semantic retrieval.Some of the recent models of syllogistic reasoning make strong and largely unsupported claims concerning our understanding of the categorical relations we are asked to reason about (e.g., Erickson, 1974; JohnsonLaird, 1975; Revlis, 1975b). One such model, the conversion model (Revlis, 1975b), although accurate in predicting reasoners' decisions, makes a particularly counterintuitive claim regarding our representation of quantified relations; to wit, a conversion operation is said to participate in the encoding of such relations, so that when a reasoner is told that all A are B, he/she interprets this proposition to mean that the converse is also true (all B are A). In summary, the reasoner is said to make decisions from an interpretation, which, if expressed as a sentence, would be markedly different from the sentence as actually presented and intended by the experimenter. The purpose of the present study is to test for the operation of conversion in the encoding of quantified, categorical expressions using a sentence-picture verification task rather than an extended inference task. The findings have implications for models of syllogistic reasoning, as well as for conceptions of categorization and semantic retrieval (e.g., Just, 1974;Meyer, 1970). Conversion OperationThe presence of conversion was first noted as a psychologically relevant variable by Wilkins (1928), but she was at a loss to account for its presence. More recent findings in psycholinguistics and categorical reasoning suggest that conversion of quantified relations may be based on one or both of the following two factors:

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Section: The Tasksupporting

confidence: 69%

Understanding quantified categorical expressions

Revlin

Leirer

1980

Memory & Cognition

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“…Although our primary interest is in the overt allocation of attention, we note that across our three experiments, participants developed a systematic pattern of accessing stimulus features that is consistent with a serial rule-based approach to categorization (e.g., Bradmetz & Mathy, 2008;Fific, Little, & Nosofsky, 2010;Trabasso, Rollins, & Shaughnessy, 1971). The spatially separated features of our stimuli make this difficult to interpret, however.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 78%

Temporal characteristics of overt attentional behavior during category learning

Chen

Meier

Blair

et al. 2012

Atten Percept Psychophys

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Many theories of category learning incorporate mechanisms for selective attention, typically implemented as attention weights that change on a trial-by-trial basis. This is because there is relatively little data on within-trial changes in attention. We used eye tracking and mouse tracking as finegrained measures of attention in three complex visual categorization tasks to investigate temporal patterns in overt attentional behavior within individual categorization decisions. In Experiments 1 and 2, we recorded participants' eye movements while they performed three different categorization tasks. We extended previous research by demonstrating that not only are participants less likely to fixate irrelevant features, but also, when they do, these fixations are shorter than fixations to relevant features. We also found that participants' fixation patterns show increasingly consistent temporal patterns. Participants were faster, although no more accurate, when their fixation sequences followed a consistent temporal structure. In Experiment 3, we replicated these findings in a task where participants used mouse movements to uncover features. Overall, we showed that there are important temporal regularities in information sampling during category learning that cannot be accounted for by existing models. These can be used to supplement extant models for richer predictions of how information is attended to during the buildup to a categorization decision.Keywords Attention . Eye tracking . Categorization . Eye movements . Optimization . Learning . Error . Modeling . Temporal regularity . Visual cognition To interact with the world, people must learn how to sort through the vast amount of information it presents. One of the difficulties in doing so is that much of this information is irrelevant to the task at hand. Consequently, it is essential to allocate limited cognitive resources to important aspects of the environment through selective attention. The notion of selective attention is recognized within a broad range of research areas, from working memory (Awh, Anllo-Vento, & Hillyard, 2000) and priming (Tipper & Cranston, 1985) to cognitive development over the human life span (Plude, Enns, & Brodeur, 1994). Category learning, a paradigm that elicits voluntary control of attention, provides a unique opportunity for observing and formally analyzing how attention shifts over time in response to the relevance of available information. The present study uses eye tracking and mouse tracking to document temporal characteristics of overt top-down attentional behavior during categorization tasks and how this changes over the course of learning.One of the most influential models in the categorylearning literature, the generalized context model (GCM;Nosofsky, 1986), models the role of attention in learning as a weighting mechanism for incoming stimulus information. This type of model hypothesizes that relevant information gains more attention weight as a consequence of learning. For example, after learning the task of di...

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“…It seems that some as-yet unspecified notion of conceptual combination is required for this. (And a further unspecified one for 48 In the olden days there were various works on disjunctive concepts, both learning and using them (Furth 1963;Conant and Trabasso 1964;Seggie 1969;Bar-Hillel and Eifermann 1970;Trabasso et al 1971;Newstead and Griggs 1983), but these have seemingly diminished in recent years, and the few more recent writings have focussed on reasoning with disjunctions. However, there are works by, especially, James Hampton on aspects of these topics: (1988a, 1997, 2007, 2012).…”

Section: Basic Problems With Verb-oriented Conceptsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Compositionality and Concepts—A Perspective from Formal Semantics and Philosophy of Language

Pelletier

2017

Language, Cognition, and Mind

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It's no secret that different of the subfields in cognitive science dispute what the correct solution is to various problems that they each investigate in their separate ways. Sometimes this is due to differing antecedent ideas about what is the appropriate way to investigate the phenomenon, other times it is due to differing antecedent ideas about what principles an adequate solution should embody, and still other times it is due to differing antecedent ideas concerning what the dispute is about. . . as for example when they use the same terminology for different phenomena. This paper is an investigation into these differing antecedent ideas in the realm of meaning and compositionality as they play out in linguistics, cognitive psychology, and philosophy of language. The focus is on the notions of subjective meaning and objective meaning, and a main conclusion is that there needs be a "two-factor semantic theory" to accommodate the overall goals of both sides. Some steps are made towards that end, but various previous attempts are argued to have missed the point. In the end it will be shown that, clearly, more work needs to be done along a number of specified dimensions, especially on the subjective side of the dispute.

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Storage and verification stages in processing concepts

Cited by 311 publications

References 25 publications

Understanding quantified categorical expressions

Understanding quantified categorical expressions

Temporal characteristics of overt attentional behavior during category learning

Compositionality and Concepts—A Perspective from Formal Semantics and Philosophy of Language

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