Resolving Conflicts Between Syntax and Plausibility in Sentence Comprehension.

Comprehension of plausible and implausible object- and subject-relative clause sentences with and without prepositional phrases was examined. Undergraduates read each sentence then evaluated a statement as consistent or inconsistent with the sentence. Higher acceptance of consistent than inconsistent statements indicated reliance on .

Fundamental differences between perception and cognition aside from cognitive penetrability.

Fundamental differences between perception and cognition argue that the distinction can be maintained independently of cognitive penetrability. The core processes of cognition can be integrated under the theory of relational knowledge. The distinguishing properties include symbols and an operating system, structure-consistent mapping between representations, construction of representations in working memory that enable generation of inferences, and different developmental time courses.

Neural correlates of deductive reasoning: An ERP study with the Wason Selection Task.

The Wason Selection Task (WST) is a well-known test of reasoning in which one turns over cards to test a rule about the two faces. Modifications were made to the WST to enable more direct and analytical investigation of reasoning processes. The modifications included extensive training to reduce variations in task interpretation, isolation of working memory in the decision phase, a separate rule for each card and variations in the form of the rule (number-letter as well as letter-number), separate scoring for each card, and inclusion of control cards that could be recognized by features without relational processing.

Genetic basis of a cognitive complexity metric.

Relational complexity (RC) is a metric reflecting capacity limitation in relational processing. It plays a crucial role in higher cognitive processes and is an endophenotype for several disorders. However, the genetic underpinnings of complex relational processing have not been investigated.

Planning following stroke: a relational complexity approach using the tower of london.

Planning on the 4-disk version of the Tower of London (TOL4) was examined in stroke patients and unimpaired controls. Overall TOL4 solution scores indicated impaired planning in the frontal stroke but not non-frontal stroke patients. Consistent with the claim that processing the relations between current states, intermediate states, and goal states is a key process in planning, the domain-general relational complexity metric was a good indicator of the experienced difficulty of TOL4 problems.

Verbal learning and memory following stroke.

Objective: The research examined whether verbal learning and memory impairment previously observed 1 year after left hemisphere stroke endures over a longer period and whether stroke sufferers compensate for their impairments using working memory.

Methodology: Twenty-one persons with left hemisphere lesions; 20 with right hemisphere lesions only and 41 matched controls completed the Hopkins Verbal Learning Test-Revised (HVLT-R), a working memory test (Letter-Number Sequencing, LNS) and the Boston Naming Test (BNT).

Results: Persons with left hemisphere damage performed more poorly on HVLT-R than controls.

Complexity in relational processing predicts changes in functional brain network dynamics.

The ability to link variables is critical to many high-order cognitive functions, including reasoning. It has been proposed that limits in relating variables depend critically on relational complexity, defined formally as the number of variables to be related in solving a problem. In humans, the prefrontal cortex is known to be important for reasoning, but recent studies have suggested that such processes are likely to involve widespread functional brain networks.

Relational processing following stroke.

The research examined relational processing following stroke. Stroke patients (14 with frontal, 30 with non-frontal lesions) and 41 matched controls completed four relational processing tasks: sentence comprehension, Latin square matrix completion, modified Dimensional Change Card Sorting, and n-back. Each task included items at two or three levels of relational complexity.

Conditional discrimination in young children: the roles of associative and relational processing.

Two experiments examined conditional discrimination in 4- to 6-year-olds. Children learned to choose one of two objects (e.g.

Relational knowledge: the foundation of higher cognition.

Accumulating evidence on the nature, function and acquisition of relational knowledge indicates a crucial role of such knowledge in higher cognitive processes. In this review, we specify the essential properties of relational knowledge, together with the role it plays in reasoning, categorisation, planning, quantification and language. Furthermore, we discuss the processes involved in its acquisition and how these processes have been implemented in contemporary neural network models.

What do transitive inference and class inclusion have in common? Categorical (co)products and cognitive development.

Transitive inference, class inclusion and a variety of other inferential abilities have strikingly similar developmental profiles-all are acquired around the age of five. Yet, little is known about the reasons for this correspondence. Category theory was invented as a formal means of establishing commonalities between various mathematical structures.

Separating cognitive capacity from knowledge: a new hypothesis.

We propose that working memory and reasoning share related capacity limits. These limits are quantified in terms of the number of items that can be kept active in working memory, and the number of interrelationships between elements that can be kept active in reasoning. The latter defines the complexity of reasoning problems and the processing loads they impose.

Acquisition of structured knowledge without instruction: the relational schema induction paradigm.

Participants learned about a structure without explicit explanation, either by using relational schema induction (G. S. Halford, J.

Relational processing and working memory capacity in comprehension of relative clause sentences.

Previous research has indicated that the cognitive load imposed by tasks in various content domains increases with the complexity of the relational information processed. Sentence comprehension entails processing noun-verb relations to determine who did what to whom. The difficulty of object-extracted relative clause sentences might stem from the complex noun-verb relations they entail.

An analysis of relational complexity in an air traffic control conflict detection task.

Theoretical analyses of air traffic complexity were carried out using the Method for the Analysis of Relational Complexity. Twenty-two air traffic controllers examined static air traffic displays and were required to detect and resolve conflicts. Objective measures of performance included conflict detection time and accuracy.

How many variables can humans process?

The conceptual complexity of problems was manipulated to probe the limits of human information processing capacity. Participants were asked to interpret graphically displayed statistical interactions. In such problems, all independent variables need to be considered together, so that decomposition into smaller subtasks is constrained, and thus the order of the interaction directly determines conceptual complexity.

Theory of mind and relational complexity.

Cognitive complexity and control theory and relational complexity theory attribute developmental changes in theory of mind (TOM) to complexity. In 3 studies, 3-, 4-, and 5-year-olds performed TOM tasks (false belief, appearance-reality), less complex connections (Level 1 perspective-taking) tasks, and transformations tasks (understanding the effects of location changes and colored filters) with content similar to TOM. There were also predictor tasks at binary-relational and ternary-relational complexity levels, with different content.

A cognitive complexity metric applied to cognitive development.

Two experiments tested predictions from a theory in which processing load depends on relational complexity (RC), the number of variables related in a single decision. Tasks from six domains (transitivity, hierarchical classification, class inclusion, cardinality, relative-clause sentence comprehension, and hypothesis testing) were administered to children aged 3-8 years. Complexity analyses indicated that the domains entailed ternary relations (three variables).

Young children's performance on the balance scale: the influence of relational complexity.

Three experiments investigated the effect of complexity on children's understanding of a beam balance. In nonconflict problems, weights or distances varied, while the other was held constant. In conflict items, both weight and distance varied, and items were of three kinds: weight dominant, distance dominant, or balance (in which neither was dominant).