Differentiating dreaming and waking reports with automatic text analysis and Support Vector Machines.

We analyzed similarities and differences between dream and waking reports in a collection by Kahan and Sullivan (2012). We compared word frequencies in the reports using the automatic text analysis software, Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count (LIWC). Social words were more frequent in dream than waking reports, support for Social Simulation Theory.

An Application of Network Science to Phonological Sequence Learning in Children With Developmental Language Disorder.

Purpose: Network science has been a valuable tool in language research for investigating relationships between complex linguistic elements but has not yet been applied to sound sequencing in production. In the present work, we used standard error-based accuracy and articulatory kinematic approaches as well as novel measures from network science to evaluate variability and sequencing errors in speech production in children with developmental language disorder (DLD; aka specific language impairment).

Method: Twelve preschoolers with DLD and 12 age-matched controls participated in a 3-day novel word learning study.

The Cognitive Social Network in Dreams: Transitivity, Assortativity, and Giant Component Proportion Are Monotonic.

For five individuals, a social network was constructed from a series of his or her dreams. Three important network measures were calculated for each network: transitivity, assortativity, and giant component proportion. These were monotonically related; over the five networks as transitivity increased, assortativity increased and giant component proportion decreased.

Parallel effects of memory set activation and search on timing and working memory capacity.

Accurately estimating a time interval is required in everyday activities such as driving or cooking. Estimating time is relatively easy, provided a person attends to it. But a brief shift of attention to another task usually interferes with timing.

Estimating averages from distributions of tone durations.

We examined whether estimating average duration was influenced by the distribution peak location. We presented participants with samples of various tone durations and then presented comparison tone durations. Participants judged whether each comparison duration was longer than the average sample duration.

Metamorphosed characters in dreams: constraints of conceptual structure and amount of theory of mind.

Dream reports from 21 dreamers in which a metamorphosis of a person-like entity or animal occurred were coded for characters and animals and for inner states attributed to them (Theory of Mind). In myths and fairy tales, Kelly and Keil (1985) found that conscious beings (people, gods) tend to be transformed into entities nearby in the conceptual structure of Keil (1979). This also occurred in dream reports, but perceptual nearness seemed more important than conceptual nearness.

Timing is affected by demands in memory search but not by task switching.

Recent studies suggest that timing and tasks involving executive control processes might require the same attentional resources. This should lead to interference when timing and executive tasks are executed concurrently. This study examined the interference between timing and task switching, an executive function.

Properties of the organization of memory for people: evidence from dream reports.

Steyvers and Tenenbaum (2005) showed that semantic networks for words have three organizational properties: short average path lengths, high clustering, and power law degree distribution. If these are general properties of memory organization, they would apply to memory for other complex material, including people and relations between them. In addition, if during dreaming, characters are generated via knowledge in the dreamer's memory, the three properties would be found in a relational network of characters in dreams.

Silent reading rate and memory span.

This paper reports two experiments concerned with the form of the linear function relating memory span to pronunciation rate. Experiment 1 asked whether the intercept of the equation is attributable to an interaction between modality, word-length, and serial position. The results lead us to reject this possibility.

Steps toward building mathematical and computer models from cognitive task analyses.

Typically, detailed quantitative and computer models of human operators performing real world tasks cannot easily be developed. We propose a technique that more easily allows for that development. We propose that when a cognitive task analysis has been carried out, a computer simulation model useful for approximations of task completion time is often within reach.

Task switching and response correspondence in the psychological refractory period paradigm.

Three experiments examined the effects of task switching and response correspondence in a psychological refractory period paradigm. A letter task (vowel-consonant) and a digit task (odd-even) were combined to form 4 possible dual-task pairs in each trial: letter-letter, letter-digit, digit-digit, and digit-letter. Foreknowledge of task transition (repeat or switch) and task identity (letter or digit) was varied across experiments: no foreknowledge in Experiment 1, partial foreknowledge (task transition only) in Experiment 2, and full foreknowledge in Experiment 3.