Memory, reasoning, and categorization: parallels and common mechanisms

Testing formal cognitive models of classification and old-new recognition in a real-world high-dimensional category domain

Categorization and old-new recognition memory are closely linked topics in the cognitive-psychology literature and there have been extensive past efforts at developing unified formal modeling accounts of these fundamental psychological processes. However, the existing formal-modeling literature has almost exclusively used small sets of simplified stimuli and artificial category structures. The present work extends this literature by collecting both categorization and old-new recognition judgments on a large set of high-dimensional stimuli that form real-world category structures: namely, a set of 540 images of rocks belonging to the geologically-defined categories igneous, metamorphic and sedimentary. Participants first engaged in a learning phase in which they classified large sets of training instances into these real-world categories. This was followed by a test phase in which they classified both training and novel transfer items into the learned categories and also judged whether each item was old or new. We attempted to model both the classification and recognition test data at the level of individual items. Ultimately, the categorization data were well fit by both an exemplar and clustering model, but not by a prototype model. Only the exemplar model was able to provide a reasonable first-order account of the old-new recognition data; however, the standard version of the model failed to capture the variability in hit rates within the class of old-training items themselves. An extended hybrid-similarity version of the exemplar model that made allowance for boosts in self-similarity due to matching distinctive features yielded much improved accounts of the old-new recognition data. The study is among the first to test cognitive-process models on their ability to account quantitatively for old-new recognition of real-world, high-dimensional stimuli at the level of individual items.

A Cortical Surface-Based Meta-Analysis of Human Reasoning

Recent advances in neuroimaging have augmented numerous findings in the human reasoning process but have yielded varying results. One possibility for this inconsistency is that reasoning is such an intricate cognitive process, involving attention, memory, executive functions, symbolic processing, and fluid intelligence, whereby various brain regions are inevitably implicated in orchestrating the process. Therefore, researchers have used meta-analyses for a better understanding of neural mechanisms of reasoning. However, previous meta-analysis techniques include weaknesses such as an inadequate representation of the cortical surface’s highly folded geometry. Accordingly, we developed a new meta-analysis method called Bayesian meta-analysis of the cortical surface (BMACS). BMACS offers a fast, accurate, and accessible inference of the spatial patterns of cognitive processes from peak brain activations across studies by applying spatial point processes to the cortical surface. Using BMACS, we found that the common pattern of activations from inductive and deductive reasoning was colocalized with the multiple-demand system, indicating that reasoning is a high-level convergence of complex cognitive processes. We hope surface-based meta-analysis will be facilitated by BMACS, bringing more profound knowledge of various cognitive processes.

¡Hola! Nice to Meet You: Language Mixing and Biographical Information Processing

In bilingual communities, social interactions take place in both single- and mixed-language contexts. Some of the information shared in multilingual conversations, such as interlocutors' personal information, is often required in consequent social encounters. In this study, we explored whether the autobiographical information provided in a single-language context is better remembered than in an equivalent mixed-language situation. More than 400 Basque-Spanish bilingual (pre) teenagers were presented with new persons who introduced themselves by either using only Spanish or only Basque, or by inter-sententially mixing both languages. Different memory measures were collected immediately after the initial exposure to the new pieces of information (immediate recall and recognition) and on the day after (delayed recall and recognition). In none of the time points was the information provided in a mixed-language fashion worse remembered than that provided in a strict one-language context. Interestingly, the variability across participants in their sociodemographic and linguistic variables had a negligible impact on the effects. These results are discussed considering their social and educational implications for bilingual communities.

Common and distinctive cognitive processes between categorization and category-based induction: Evidence from event-related potentials

Categorization involves forming equivalence classes of discriminable entities, whereas category-based induction (CBI) involves employing categorical knowledge to generalize novel properties. Previous studies have suggested either common or distinctive cognitive processing between categorization and CBI. However, no study has compared cognitive processes with the same stimuli sets using event-related potentials (ERPs), which help to determine the cognitive processes with a high temporal solution. In this study, we compared the ERP responses to categorization and CBI using two separate experiments (i.e., generic and specific conclusions), with the same task materials. Results from both experiments identified distinctive cognitive processing between categorization and CBI based on a greater proportion of "definitely" responses and smaller amplitudes of sustained negativity during categorization. These observations suggest that categorization involves decreased conflict monitoring and control than CBI under single-premise conditions. Contrastingly, categorization and CBI elicited similar FN400 amplitudes in both experiments, which suggests a common cognitive process between them. These findings present the common and distinctive cognitive processes between categorization and CBI.

Influence of category coherence and type of base-rate acquisition on property generalization

Category coherence involves identifying similarities between social categories, such as jobs and hobbies, and is primarily used for generalizing or drawing inferences about their properties. Category coherence is also used for drawing inferences from explicit information, such as base rates. For example, people generalize the properties of groups or brands from multiple sources (e.g., survey results and the share market in periodicals). However, generalizing the properties of categories using explicit base-rate information may not always involve category coherence; rather, it may involve directly analyzing base-rate information. Therefore, this study attempts to distinguish between conditions in which people use category coherence and explicit base-rate information. Specifically, we proposed that people acquiring explicit base-rate knowledge-described as a percentage-would generalize a category's properties according to its base rate; however, for base-rate information acquired via direct observation, the inductive strength in generalizing properties would be greater for categories with high levels of coherence. Our results (Experiment 1 and Experiment 2) validated these two predictions. Finally, the interaction between category coherence and type of base-rate acquisition was discussed.