A theory of relation learning and cross-domain generalization.

People readily generalize knowledge to novel domains and stimuli. We present a theory, instantiated in a computational model, based on the idea that cross-domain generalization in humans is a case of analogical inference over structured (i.e.

Multiple dimensions of semantic and perceptual similarity contribute to mnemonic discrimination for pictures.

People often misrecognize objects that are similar to those they have previously encountered. These mnemonic discrimination errors are attributed to shared memory representations (gist) typically characterized in terms of meaning. In two experiments, we investigated multiple semantic and perceptual relations that may contribute: at the concept level, a feature-based measure of concept confusability quantified each concept's tendency to activate other similar concepts via shared features; at the item level, rated item exemplarity indexed the degree to which the specific depicted objects activated their particular concepts.

An ecologically valid examination of event-based and time-based prospective memory using immersive virtual reality: the effects of delay and task type on everyday prospective memory.

Recent research has focused on assessing either event- or time-based prospective memory (PM) using laboratory tasks. Yet, the findings pertaining to PM performance on laboratory tasks are often inconsistent with the findings on corresponding naturalistic experiments. Ecologically valid neuropsychological tasks resemble the complexity and cognitive demands of everyday tasks, offer an adequate level of experimental control, and allow a generalisation of the findings to everyday performance.

Validation of the Virtual Reality Everyday Assessment Lab (VR-EAL): An Immersive Virtual Reality Neuropsychological Battery with Enhanced Ecological Validity.

Objective: The assessment of cognitive functions such as prospective memory, episodic memory, attention, and executive functions benefits from an ecologically valid approach to better understand how performance outcomes generalize to everyday life. Immersive virtual reality (VR) is considered capable of simulating real-life situations to enhance ecological validity. The present study attempted to validate the Virtual Reality Everyday Assessment Lab (VR-EAL), an immersive VR neuropsychological battery, against an extensive paper-and-pencil neuropsychological battery.

Validation of the Virtual Reality Neuroscience Questionnaire: Maximum Duration of Immersive Virtual Reality Sessions Without the Presence of Pertinent Adverse Symptomatology.

There are major concerns about the suitability of immersive virtual reality (VR) systems (i.e., head-mounted display; HMD) to be implemented in research and clinical settings, because of the presence of nausea, dizziness, disorientation, fatigue, and instability (i.

Tensors and compositionality in neural systems.

Neither neurobiological nor process models of meaning composition specify the operator through which constituent parts are bound together into compositional structures. In this paper, we argue that a neurophysiological computation system cannot achieve the compositionality exhibited in human thought and language if it were to rely on a multiplicative operator to perform binding, as the tensor product (TP)-based systems that have been widely adopted in cognitive science, neuroscience and artificial intelligence do. We show via simulation and two behavioural experiments that TPs violate variable-value independence, but human behaviour does not.

Technological Competence Is a Pre-condition for Effective Implementation of Virtual Reality Head Mounted Displays in Human Neuroscience: A Technological Review and Meta-Analysis.

Immersive virtual reality (VR) emerges as a promising research and clinical tool. However, several studies suggest that VR induced adverse symptoms and effects (VRISE) may undermine the health and safety standards, and the reliability of the scientific results. In the current literature review, the technical reasons for the adverse symptomatology are investigated to provide suggestions and technological knowledge for the implementation of VR head-mounted display (HMD) systems in cognitive neuroscience.

Individual Differences in Relational Learning and Analogical Reasoning: A Computational Model of Longitudinal Change.

Children's cognitive control and knowledge at school entry predict growth rates in analogical reasoning skill over time; however, the mechanisms by which these factors interact and impact learning are unclear. We propose that inhibitory control (IC) is critical for developing both the relational representations necessary to reason and the ability to use these representations in complex problem solving. We evaluate this hypothesis using computational simulations in a model of analogical thinking, Discovery of Relations by Analogy/Learning and Inference with Schemas and Analogy (DORA/LISA; Doumas et al.

A mechanism for the cortical computation of hierarchical linguistic structure.

Biological systems often detect species-specific signals in the environment. In humans, speech and language are species-specific signals of fundamental biological importance. To detect the linguistic signal, human brains must form hierarchical representations from a sequence of perceptual inputs distributed in time.

Representing composed meanings through temporal binding.

A key feature of human thought and language is compositionality, the ability to bind pre-existing concepts or word meanings together in order to express new ideas. Here we ask how newly composed complex concepts are mentally represented and matched to the outside world, by testing whether it is harder to verify if a picture matches the meaning of a phrase, like big pink tree, than the meaning of a single word, like tree. Five sentence-picture verification experiments provide evidence that, in fact, the meaning of a phrase can often be checked just as fast as the meaning of one single word (and sometimes faster), indicating that the phrase's constituent concepts can be represented and checked in parallel.

Shaping relations: Exploiting relational features for visuospatial priming.

Although relational reasoning has been described as a process at the heart of human cognition, the exact character of relational representations remains an open debate. Symbolic-connectionist models of relational cognition suggest that relations are structured representations, but that they are ultimately grounded in feature sets; thus, they predict that activating those features can affect the trajectory of the relational reasoning process. The present work points out that such models do not necessarily specify what those features are though, and endeavors to show that spatial information is likely a part of it.

Varying variation: the effects of within- versus across-feature differences on relational category learning.

Learning of feature-based categories is known to interact with feature-variation in a variety of ways, depending on the type of variation (e.g., Markman and Maddox, 2003).

Comparison and mapping facilitate relation discovery and predication.

Relational concepts play a central role in human perception and cognition, but little is known about how they are acquired. For example, how do we come to understand that physical force is a higher-order multiplicative relation between mass and acceleration, or that two circles are the same-shape in the same way that two squares are? A recent model of relational learning, DORA (Discovery of Relations by Analogy; Doumas, Hummel & Sandhofer, 2008), predicts that comparison and analogical mapping play a central role in the discovery and predication of novel higher-order relations. We report two experiments testing and confirming this prediction.

A window of perception when diverting attention? Enhancing recognition for explicitly presented, unattended, and irrelevant stimuli by target alignment.

Research has demonstrated that irrelevant suprathreshold motion stimuli that are aligned with attended targets in a separate task, fail to illicit inhibitory control in a subsequent motion direction discrimination task (Tsushima, Seitz, & Watanabe, 2008). We extended these findings to conditions involving higher exposure levels to a more salient stimulus (written words) in an inattentional blindness paradigm. Across three experiments, participants were required to respond to immediate picture repetitions in a stream of serially presented line drawings, while at the same time ignore a simultaneously presented stream of superimposed words.

Conditions of directed attention inhibit recognition performance for explicitly presented target-aligned irrelevant stimuli.

The fate of irrelevant and overtly presented stimuli that was temporally aligned with an attended target in a separate task was explored. Seitz and Watanabe (2003) demonstrated that if an irrelevant motion stimulus was implicit (i.e.

A computational account of the development of the generalization of shape information.

Abecassis, Sera, Yonas, and Schwade (2001) showed that young children represent shapes more metrically, and perhaps more holistically, than do older children and adults. How does a child transition from representing objects and events as undifferentiated wholes to representing them explicitly in terms of their attributes? According to RBC (Recognition-by-Components theory; Biederman, 1987), objects are represented as collections of categorical geometric parts ("geons") in particular categorical spatial relations. We propose that the transition from holistic to more categorical visual shape processing is a function of the development of geon-like representations via a process of progressive intersection discovery.

A computational account of children's analogical reasoning: balancing inhibitory control in working memory and relational representation.

Theories accounting for the development of analogical reasoning tend to emphasize either the centrality of relational knowledge accretion or changes in information processing capability. Simulations in LISA (Hummel & Holyoak, 1997, 2003), a neurally inspired computer model of analogical reasoning, allow us to explore how these factors may collaboratively contribute to the development of analogy in young children. Simulations explain systematic variations in United States and Hong Kong children's performance on analogies between familiar scenes (Richland, Morrison & Holyoak, 2006; Richland, Chang, Morrison & Au, 2010).

A theory of the discovery and predication of relational concepts.

Relational thinking plays a central role in human cognition. However, it is not known how children and adults acquire relational concepts and come to represent them in a form that is useful for the purposes of relational thinking (i.e.