Split (1)

train · 25k rows

text stringlengths 13 991
Theories supported by effect of transposed-letter priming.
There are a number of theories that are supported by the results shown by the transposed-letter effect.
The SERIOL model (sequential encoding regulated by inputs to oscillations within letter units) described by Whitney (2001) explains processing of words as five levels, or nodes: retinal level, feature level, letter level, bigram level and word level. In the bigram level, the letters detected are turned into a number of pairs. For example, the word “cart” has the bigrams ca, ar, rt, ar, at and ct. The bigrams that more closely represent the location of letters in the words are given more weight. The pairs are then used to form the word. Within this model, letter location is still a factor but is not a defining feature of word processing, so the transposed-letter effect is consistent with this model.
In the SOLAR model (self-organizing lexical acquisition and recognition) described by Davis (1999) each letter is associated with its own level of activation. The first letter in the word has the highest level of activation and so on until the last word has the lowest level of activation. In this model, position does describe the level of activation for that particular letter but because the activation is successive, two letters beside each other would have a similar activation level. The SOLAR model is consistent with the results of the transposed-letter effect priming because with this effect experiments have shown priming when two adjacent letters are switched but not when two letters farther apart in the word are switched.
Transposed-letter priming was used by Christianson, Johnson and Rayner (2005) on compound words to test the role of morphemes in word processing. They switched the letters either within the morphemes (for example, snowball to snowblal) or between morphemes (for example, snowball to snobwall) in the primes and found a greater priming effect within the morphemes than between. This supported the theory that morphemes are used during the processing of compound words because the priming effect was only reduced when the letters were switched over the morpheme boundary and were unable to separate into their separate parts.
The classic version of the model focused on competition during sentence processing, crosslinguistic competition in bilingualism, and the role of competition in language acquisition.
The Competition Model was initially proposed as a theory of cross-linguistic sentence processing. The model suggests that people interpret the meaning of a sentence by taking into account various linguistic cues contained in the sentence context, such as word order, morphology, and semantic characteristics (e.g., animacy), to compute a probabilistic value for each interpretation, eventually choosing the interpretation with the highest likelihood. According to the model, cue weights are learned inductively on the basis of the extent to which the cues are available and reliable guides to meanings in comprehension and to forms in production.
The model holds that cues both compete and coooperate during processing. Sometimes cues cooperate or converge by pointing to the same interpretation or production. Sometimes, cues compete by pointing to conflicting interpretations or productions.
The application of the model to child language acquisition focuses on the role that cue availability and reliability play in determining the order of acquisition of grammatical structures. The basic finding is that children first learn the most available cue(s) in their language. If the most available cue is not also the most reliable, then children slowly shift from depending on the available cue to depending on the more reliable cue.
The classic Competition Model accounts well for many of the basic features of sentence processing and cue learning. It relies on a small set of assumptions regarding cues, validity, reliability, competition, transfer, and strength—each of which could be investigated directly. However, the model is limited in several important ways.
· Brain Structure: The classic model makes no contact with what we now know about the organization of language in the brain. As a result, it provides only incomplete understanding of patterns of language disorder and loss.
· Critical Period: The classic model fails to come to grips with the idea that there is a biologically-determined critical period for language acquisition.
· Motivation: The classic model provides no role for social and motivational factors governing language learning, preference, code-switching, and attrition.
· Mental Models: The classic model fails to include a role for mental model construction during comprehension and formulation during production.
· Microgenesis: The classic model does not provide a microgenetic account for the course of item acquisition, fluency development, and cue strength learning.
Extending the classic model to deal with these challenges involves borrowing insights from related theories. The resultant broader theory is called the Unified Competition Model or UCM, because it seeks to unify a variety of independent theoretical frameworks into a single overall model. The transition from the classic version of the model to the unified version worked to bring the model into fuller accord with the theory of emergentism, as developed in the biological (West-Eberhard, 2003), social (Kontopoulos, 1993) and physical sciences (von Bertalanffy, 1968).
Unifying the L1 and L2 Learning Models.
A major challenge facing an emergentist, functionalist, non-nativist model such as the UCM involves dealing with age-related changes in the outcome of second language (L2) acquisition. It is widely accepted that children end up acquiring a second language more completely than adults. One account proposes that this "fundamental difference" (Bley-Vroman, 2009) between child and adult L2 learning arises from the expiration of a biologically-based critical period for natural language learning. In contrast, the framework of the Competition Model emphasizes that all forms of language acquisition make use of the same set of cognitive and social processes, although they differ in the relative reliance on specific processes and the extent to which these processes interact with other learning.
Specifically, the UCM holds that adults are more challenged than children by a set of four risk factors that can impede L2 acquisition.
Adults can counterbalance these four risk factors through an emphasis on four protective or preventive factors.
All of these processes can impact both children and adults. What differs across age is the relative social status of the person and the degree to which they have already consolidated L1.
Structural linguistic analysis (Harris, 1951) distinguishes the levels of input phonology, output phonology, lexicon, semantics, morphology, syntax, mental models, and interaction. Processing on these levels can be analyzed in terms of the related theories of statistical learning (input phonology), gating and fluency (output phonology), embodied cognition and hub-and-spoke theory (semantics), DevLex (lexicon), item-based patterns (syntax), perspective theory (mental models), and CA theory (interaction). The theories for lexicon, syntax, and mental models have been elaborated in specific ways that help unify the approach. These elaborations include specifically the theory of item-based patterns and the theory of perspective shifting.
The levels distinguished by structural analysis are richly interconnected. This means that, although they are partially decomposable (Simon, 1962), they are not modular in the sense of Fodor (1983), but rather interactive in the sense of Rumelhart and McClelland (1987). In order to achieve gating and activation, processing levels must be interconnected in a way that permits smooth coordination. The UCM assumes that these interconnections rely on methods for topological, i.e. tonotopic (Wessinger, Buonocore, Kussmaul, & Mangun, 1997) or somatotopic (Hauk, Johnsrude, & Pulvermuller, 2004), organization that are used throughout the cortex.
Structural analysis has many important consequences for our understanding of relations between first and second language learning. Age-related first language entrenchment operates in very different ways in different cortical areas (Werker & Hensch, 2014). In second language production, contrasts and timing relations between the levels of conceptualization, formulation, and articulation (Levelt, 1989) produce marked effects on language performance (Skehan, 2009), although similar effects can be found also in first language acquisition (Snow, 1999). The details of this analysis can be found in MacWhinney (2017).
The classic version of the Competition Model emphasized the ways in which cue reliability shaped cue strength. These effects were measured in highly structured sentence processing experiments. To address certain limitations of this research, the Unified Competition Model sought to account in greater detail for age-related facts in the comparison between child and adult second language learning. Within the classic model, the only mechanism that could account for these effects was competition between L1 and L2 patterns, as expressed through negative transfer. Although transfer plays a major role as a risk factor for difficulties in adult L2 learning, it is not the only risk factor.
Looking more closely at the variety of L2 learning outcomes across structural levels and timeframes, it became evident that we needed to construct a more complex account for variable outcomes in L2 learning. This account required a deeper integration of emergentist theory into the UCM framework. The resultant account is now able to address each of the limitations of the classic model mentioned earlier. Specifically,
· by linking linguistic structures to particular brain regions, the model is increasingly grounded neurolinguistically (MacWhinney, 2019),
· by delineating a set of risk and protective factors, the model deals more accurately with age-related patterns in L2 learning,
· by providing a time/process frames account of social and motivational factors, the model accounts better for variation in L2 outcome by social groups, work environments, as well as providing accounts for patterns of code-switching and language attrition,
· by linking in the theory of perspective-switching, we have a fuller understanding of online sentence processing, and
· by developing corpus (MacWhinney, 2019) and online experimental (eCALL) methods (MacWhinney, 2017), the model now provides a fuller microgenetic account of the growth of fluency .
By addressing each of these issues within the context of analyses of L2 learning, the current version of the UCM allows us to better understand not only L2 learning, but also language evolution (MacWhinney, 2005), language change, child language development (MacWhinney, 2015), language disorders (Presson & MacWhinney, 2011), and language attrition (MacWhinney, 2018).
Spreading activation is a method for searching associative networks, biological and artificial neural networks, or semantic networks. The search process is initiated by labeling a set of source nodes (e.g. concepts in a semantic network) with weights or "activation" and then iteratively propagating or "spreading" that activation out to other nodes linked to the source nodes. Most often these "weights" are real values that decay as activation propagates through the network. When the weights are discrete this process is often referred to as marker passing. Activation may originate from alternate paths, identified by distinct markers, and terminate when two alternate paths reach the same node. However brain studies show that several different brain areas play an important role in semantic processing.
Spreading activation models are used in cognitive psychology to model the fan out effect.
Spreading activation can also be applied in information retrieval, by means of a network of nodes representing documents and terms contained in those documents.
When a word (the target) is preceded by an associated word (the prime) in word recognition tasks, participants seem to perform better in the amount of time that it takes them to respond. For instance, subjects respond faster to the word "doctor" when it is preceded by "nurse" than when it is preceded by an unrelated word like "carrot". This semantic priming effect with words that are close in meaning within the cognitive network has been seen in a wide range of tasks given by experimenters, ranging from sentence verification to lexical decision and naming.
As another example, if the original concept is "red" and the concept "vehicles" is primed, they are much more likely to say "fire engine" instead of something unrelated to vehicles, such as "cherries". If instead "fruits" was primed, they would likely name "cherries" and continue on from there. The activation of pathways in the network has everything to do with how closely linked two concepts are by meaning, as well as how a subject is primed.
A directed graph is populated by Nodes[ 1...N ] each having an associated activation value A [ i ] which is a real number in the range [ 0.0 ... 1.0]. A Link[ i, j ] connects source node[ i ] with target node[ j ]. Each edge has an associated weight W [ i, j ] usually a real number in the range [0.0 ... 1.0].
Language coordination is the tendency of people to mimic the language of others. The coordination occurs when one person responds to another using similar vocabulary, or word or sentence structure. Language coordination can also be applied to individuals, who linguistically coordinate to a group. As suggested by the communication accommodation theory, this is often used as a way to reduce social distance (convergence). Language coordination often occurs unconsciously.
A propositional attitude is a mental state held by an agent toward a proposition.
Linguistically, propositional attitudes are denoted by a verb (e.g. "believed") governing an embedded "that" clause, for example, 'Sally believed that she had won'.
Propositional attitudes are often assumed to be the fundamental units of thought and their contents, being propositions, are true or false from the perspective of the person. An agent can have different propositional attitudes toward the same proposition (e.g., "S believes that her ice-cream is cold," and "S fears that her ice-cream is cold").
Propositional attitudes have directions of fit: some are meant to reflect the world, others to influence it.
One topic of central concern is the relation between the modalities of assertion and belief, perhaps with intention thrown in for good measure. For example, we frequently find ourselves faced with the question of whether or not a person's assertions conform to his or her beliefs. Discrepancies here can occur for many reasons, but when the departure of assertion from belief is intentional, we usually call that a "lie".
Other comparisons of multiple modalities that frequently arise are the relationships between belief and knowledge and the discrepancies that occur among observations, expectations, and intentions. Deviations of observations from expectations are commonly perceived as "surprises", phenomena that call for "explanations" to reduce the shock of amazement.
In logic, the formal properties of verbs like "assert", "believe", "command", "consider", "deny", "doubt", "imagine", "judge", "know", "want", "wish", and a host of others that involve attitudes or intentions toward propositions are notorious for their recalcitrance to analysis.
One of the fundamental principles governing identity is that of "substitutivity", also known as fungibility — or, as it might well be called, that of "indiscernibility of identicals". It provides that, "given a true statement of identity, one of its two terms may be substituted for the other in any true statement and the result will be true". It is easy to find cases contrary to this principle. For example, the statements:
are true; however, replacement of the name 'Giorgione' by the name 'Barbarelli' turns (2) into the falsehood:
Quine's example here refers to Giorgio Barbarelli's sobriquet "Giorgione", an Italian name roughly glossed as "Big George." The basis of the paradox here is that while the two names signify the same individual (the meaning of the first statement), the names are not themselves identical; the second statement refers to an attribute (origin) that they do not share.
What sort of name shall we give to verbs like 'believe' and 'wish' and so forth? I should be inclined to call them 'propositional verbs'. This is merely a suggested name for convenience, because they are verbs which have the "form" of relating an object to a proposition. As I have been explaining, that is not what they really do, but it is convenient to call them propositional verbs. Of course you might call them 'attitudes', but I should not like that because it is a psychological term, and although all the instances in our experience are psychological, there is no reason to suppose that all the verbs I am talking of are psychological. There is never any reason to suppose that sort of thing. (Russell 1918, 227).
What a proposition is, is one thing. How we feel about it, or how we regard it, is another. We can accept it, assert it, believe it, command it, contest it, declare it, deny it, doubt it, enjoin it, exclaim it, expect it. Different attitudes toward propositions are called "propositional attitudes", and they are also discussed under the headings of "intentionality" and "linguistic modality".
Many problematic situations in real life arise from the circumstance that many different propositions in many different modalities are in the air at once. In order to compare propositions of different colours and flavours, as it were, we have no basis for comparison but to examine the underlying propositions themselves. Thus we are brought back to matters of language and logic. Despite the name, propositional attitudes are not regarded as psychological attitudes proper, since the formal disciplines of linguistics and logic are concerned with nothing more concrete than what can be said in general about their formal properties and their patterns of interaction.
Bilingual lexical access is an area of psycholinguistics that studies the activation or retrieval process of the mental lexicon for bilingual people.
Bilingual lexical access can be understood as all aspects of the word processing, including all of the mental activity from the time when a word from one language is perceived to the time when all its lexical knowledge from the target language is available. Research in this field seeks to fully understand these mental processes. Bilingual individuals have two mental lexical representations for an item or concept and can successfully select words from one language without significant interference from the other language. It is the field's goal to understand whether these dual representations interact or affect one another.
Bilingual lexical access researchers focus on the control mechanisms bilinguals use to suppress the language not in use when in a monolingual mode and the degree to which the related representations within the language not in use are activated. For example, when a Dutch-English bilingual is asked to name a picture of a dog in English, he or she will come up with the English word "dog". Bilingual lexical access is the mental process that underlies this seemingly simple task: the process that makes the connection between the idea of a dog and the word "dog" in the target language. While activating the English word "dog", its Dutch equivalent ("hond") is most likely also in a state of activation.
Early research of bilingual lexical access was based on theories of monolingual lexical access. These theories relied mainly upon generalizations without specifying how lexical access works.
Subsequent advancement in medical science has improved understanding of psycholinguistics, resulting in more detailed research and a deeper understanding of language production. "Many early studies of second language acquisition focused on the morphosyntactic development of learners and the general finding was that bound morphemes appear in the same order in the first and second language".
Knowledge of monolingual access led to the question of bilingual lexical access. Early models of bilingual lexical access shared similar characteristics with these monolingual lexical access models; the bilingual models began by focusing on if bilingual lexical access would be different from monolinguals. In addition, to study the activation process in a separate language, they also investigated whether the lexical activation would be processed in a parallel fashion for both languages or selectively processed for the target language. The bilingual models also study whether the bilingual system has a single lexicon combining words from both languages or separate lexicons for words in each language.
Language-selective access is the exclusive activation of information in the contextually appropriate language system. It implies when a bilingual encounters a spoken or written word, the activation is restricted to the target language subsystem which contains the input word.
Language-nonselective access is the automatic co-activation of information in both linguistic systems. It implies that when a bilingual encounters a spoken or written word, the activation happens in parallel in both contextually appropriate and inappropriate linguistic subsystems. Also, there is evidence that bilinguals take longer than monolinguals to detect non-words while in both bilingual and monolingual modes, providing evidence that bilinguals do not fully deactivate their other language while in a monolingual mode.
Once bilinguals acquire the lexical information from both languages, bilingual lexical access activates in language comprehension. "Lexical access incomprehension" is the process of how people make contact with lexical representation in their mental lexicon that contains the information, which enables them to understand the words or sentences. Word recognition is the most essential process of bilingual lexical access in language comprehension, in which researchers investigate the selective or non-selective recognition of isolated words. At the same time, sentence processing also plays an important role in language comprehension, where researchers can investigate if the presence of words in a sentence context restricts lexical access only to the target language.
Word recognition is usually used in both narrow and broad ways. When it is used in the narrow sense, it means the moment when a match occurs between a printed word and its orthographic word-form stored in the lexicon, or a match between a spoken word and its phonological word-form. Only after this match has taken place, all the syntactical and morphological information of the word and the meaning of the word will become accessible for further processing. In a broader way, it refers to lexical access is the entire period from the matching processing to the retrieval of lexical information. In the research of bilingual lexical access, word recognition uses single, out-of-context words from both languages to investigate all the aspects of bilingual lexical access.
In word recognition studies, the cognate or interlingual homograph effects are most often used with the following tasks:
Models of bilingual lexical access in word recognition.
Most current models in word recognition assume that bilingual lexical access is nonselective, which also take into account the demands of task and context-dependence of processing.
The IC model is complementary to the BIA model. It focuses on the importance of task demands and regulation that happened during language processing by modifying the levels of activation of items in the language network. In this model, a key concept is the language task schema, which specifies the mental processing steps that bilinguals take to perform a particular language task. The language task schema regulates the output from the word identification system by altering the activation levels of representations within that system by inhibiting outputs from it. For example, when a bilingual switches from one language to another in translation, a change in the language schema corresponding to the languages must take place.
In the language model framework, language processing mechanisms and languages as a whole can be achieved to different extents. The relative activation state of language is called language mode, and it is influenced by many factors, such as the person spoke or listened to, users’ language proficiency, the non-linguistic context and so on. Language users can be in a bilingual mode if they are talking to other bilinguals or reading text with mixed languages. However, if they listen to someone who is monolingual or is just speaking one language, the activation state would switch to a more monolingual mode. Based on this model, the bilinguals' language mode depends on the language users' expectation and by language environment.
The BIA+ model is an extension and adaptation of the BIA model. The BIA+ model includes not only an orthographic representation and language nodes, but also phonological and semantic representations. All these representations are assumed to be part of a word identification system that provides output to a task/decision system. The information flow in bilingual lexical processing proceeds exclusively from the word identification system toward a task/decision system without any influence of this task/decision system on the activation state of words.
Most current studies of bilingual lexical access are based on the comprehension of isolated words without considering whether contextual information affects lexical access in bilinguals. However, in everyday communication, words are most often encountered in a meaningful context and not in isolation (e.g. in a newspaper article). Research done by Déprez (1994) has shown that mixed utterances in children are not limited to the lexical level but also in the areas of morphology, syntax, and pronunciation. Researchers also began to investigate the cognitive nature of bilingual lexical access in context by examining word recognition in sentences.
The main methodological tasks in sentence processing.
In sentence processing, a number of online measuring techniques are exploited to detect cognitive activity at the very moment it takes place or only slightly after. Cognates and interlingual homographs are often used as markers that are inserted in test sentences with the following tasks:
Studies of bilingual lexical access in sentence processing.
Although most studies on bilingual sentence processing focus on L2 processing, there are still a few studies that have investigated cross-language activation during their native language (L1) reading. For example, van Assche et al. replicated the cognate effect in L1 with Dutch–English bilinguals, and found that a non-dominant language may affect native-language sentence reading, both at earliest and at later reading stages. Titone et al. observed this cross-language activation in English-French bilinguals at early reading stages only when the L2 was acquired early in life. They also concluded that the semantic constraint provided by a sentence can attenuate cross-language activation at later reading stages.
Polysemy ( or ; from , , "many" and , , "sign") is the capacity for a word or phrase to have multiple meanings, usually related by contiguity of meaning within a semantic field. Polysemy is thus distinct from homonymy—or homophony—which is an accidental similarity between two (or even more) words (such as "bear" the animal, and the verb "to bear"); while homonymy is a mere linguistic coincidence, polysemy is not. In deciding between polysemy or homonymy, it might be necessary to look at the history of the word to see if the two meanings are historically related. Dictionary writers often list polysemes under the same entry; homonyms are defined separately.
In linear or vertical polysemy, one sense of a word is a subset of the other. These are examples of hyponymy and hypernymy, and are sometimes called autohyponyms. For example, 'dog' can be used for 'male dog'. Alan Cruse identifies four types of linear polysemy:
In non-linear polysemy, the original sense of a word is used figuratively to provide a different way of looking at the new subject. Alan Cruse identifies three types of non-linear polysemy:
There are several tests for polysemy, but one of them is zeugma: if one word seems to exhibit zeugma when applied in different contexts, it is likely that the contexts bring out different polysemes of the same word. If the two senses of the same word do not seem to "fit," yet seem related, then it is likely that they are polysemous. This test again depends on speakers' judgments about relatedness, which means that it is not infallible, but merely a helpful conceptual aid.
The difference between homonyms and polysemes is subtle. Lexicographers define polysemes within a single dictionary lemma, numbering different meanings, while homonyms are treated in separate entries (or lemmata). Semantic shift can separate a polysemous word into separate homonyms. For example, "check" as in "bank check" (or "Cheque"), "check" in chess, and "check" meaning "verification" are considered homonyms, while they originated as a single word derived from chess in the 14th century. Psycholinguistic experiments have shown that homonyms and polysemes are represented differently within people's mental lexicon: while the different meanings of homonyms (which are semantically unrelated) tend to interfere or compete with each other during comprehension, this does not usually occur for the polysemes that have semantically related meanings. Results for this contention, however, have been mixed.
For Dick Hebdige polysemy means that, "each text is seen to generate a potentially infinite range of meanings," making, according to Richard Middleton, "any homology, out of the most heterogeneous materials, possible. The idea of "signifying practice"—texts not as communicating or expressing a pre-existing meaning but as 'positioning subjects' within a "process" of semiosis—changes the whole basis of creating social meaning".
Charles Fillmore and Beryl Atkins' definition stipulates three elements: (i) the various senses of a polysemous word have a central origin, (ii) the links between these senses form a network, and (iii) understanding the 'inner' one contributes to understanding of the 'outer' one.
One group of polysemes are those in which a word meaning an activity, perhaps derived from a verb, acquires the meanings of those engaged in the activity, or perhaps the results of the activity, or the time or place in which the activity occurs or has occurred. Sometimes only one of those meanings is intended, depending on context, and sometimes multiple meanings are intended at the same time. Other types are derivations from one of the other meanings that leads to a verb or activity.
This example shows the specific polysemy where the same word is used at different levels of a taxonomy. Example 1 contains 2, and 2 contains 3.
The different meanings can be combined in a single sentence, e.g. "John used to work for the newspaper that you are reading."
A lexical conception of polysemy was developed by B. T. S. Atkins, in the form of lexical implication rules. These are rules that describe how words, in one lexical context, can then be used, in a different form, in a related context. A crude example of such a rule is the pastoral idea of "verbizing one's nouns": that certain nouns, used in certain contexts, can be converted into a verb, conveying a related meaning.
Another clarification of polysemy is the idea of predicate transfer—the reassignment of a property to an object that would not otherwise inherently have that property. Thus, the expression "I am parked out back" conveys the meaning of "parked" from "car" to the property of "I possess a car". This avoids incorrect polysemous interpretations of "parked": that "people can be parked", or that "I am pretending to be a car", or that "I am something that can be parked". This is supported by the morphology: "We are parked out back" does not mean that there are multiple cars; rather, that there are multiple passengers (having the property of being in possession of a car).
Cognitive shifting is the mental process of "consciously" redirecting one's attention from one fixation to another. In contrast, if this process happened "unconsciously", then it is referred to as task switching. Both are forms of cognitive flexibility.
In the general framework of cognitive therapy and awareness management, cognitive shifting refers to the conscious choice to take charge of one's mental habits—and redirect one's focus of attention in helpful, more successful directions. In the term's specific usage in corporate awareness methodology, cognitive shifting is a performance-oriented technique for refocusing attention in more alert, innovative, charismatic and empathic directions.
In cognitive therapy, as developed by its founder Aaron T. Beck and others, a client is taught to shift his or her cognitive focus from one thought or mental fixation to a more positive, realistic focus—thus the descriptive origins of the term "cognitive shifting". In "third wave" ACT therapy as taught by Steven C. Hayes and his associates in the Acceptance and Commitment Therapy movement, cognitive shifting is employed not only to shift from negative to positive thoughts, but also to shift into a quiet state of mindfulness. Cognitive shifting is also employed quite dominantly in the meditative-health procedures of medical and stress-reduction researchers such as Jon Kabat-Zinn at the University of Massachusetts Medical School.
Cognitive shifting has become a common term among therapists especially on the West Coast, and more recently in discussions of mind management methodology. More recently the term, as noted above, has appeared regularly in medical and psychiatric journals etc.
"In research": The term has become fairly common in psychiatric research, used in the following manner: "Neuropsychological findings in obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) have been explained in terms of reduced cognitive shifting ability as a result of low levels of frontal inhibitory activity."
"In therapy": In therapy (as in the work of Steven Hayes and associates), a client is taught first to identify and accept a negative thought or attitude, and then to allow the cognitive shifting process to re-direct attention away from the negative fixation, toward a chosen aim or goal that is more positive—thus the "accept and choose act" from whence comes the ACT therapy name. Cognitive studies of the elderly refer to "...Impaired cognitive shifting in Parkinsonian patients on anticholinergic therapy..." etc.
"Everyday usage": Books such as "The Way Of The Tiger" by Lance Secretan, and "The Creative Manager" by Peter Russell have shown how cognitive shifting principles apply to everyday life. Decades ago Rollo May taught the process of conscious choosing and cognitive shifting at Princeton in his psychology lectures. And in books such as "The Emotional Brain", Joseph LeDoux clarified the power of consciously shifting from a negative to a more positive emotional focus. In John Selby's writings, most notable in "Quiet Your Mind", the term appears frequently.
"In meditation": Among the first references to the general mental process of focal shifting or cognitive shifting (the term cognitive is a relatively new term), the Hindu Upanishads are probably the first written documentation of the meditative process of redirecting one's focus of attention in particular disciplined directions. Cognitive shifting is the core process of all meditation, especially in Kundalini meditation but also in Zen meditation and even in Christian mysticism where the mind's attention is re-directed (or shifted) toward particular theologically-determined focal points. Recent books have spoken directly of cognitive shifting as a meditative procedure.
In a recent NPR interview with Michael Toms, and elsewhere in his writings, John Selby attributes his initial introduction to the process of cognitive shifting to Jiddu Krishnamurti, whom he considers his early spiritual teacher, and also to his training with Rollo May at Princeton. In the NPR interview, Selby says he is almost certain that he first heard the actual term from a lecture by the 1960s philosopher Alan Watts during his "Expanding Christianity" lectures at the San Francisco Theological Seminary in 1972.
The primary cognitive technology that is used for cognitive shifting is called "focus phrase" methodology. This term has emerged from the actual process in which cognitive shifting is encouraged or even provoked in a client or any other person. The person states clear intent through a specially-worded focus phrase—and then experiences the inner shift that the focus phrase elicits.
Another term sometimes used for focus phrases is "elicitor statements". In some methodologies focus phrases are said as a set of 4 to 7 statements, fairly quickly and to oneself. In other techniques a single focus phrase is held in the mind during a whole morning or day, and perhaps changed each new day during the week.
Formulation of the theory is credited to the Belgian psychologist Albert Michotte and Fabio Metelli, an Italian psychologist, with their work developed in recent years by E.S. Reed and the Gestaltists.
Modal completion is a similar phenomenon in which a shape is perceived to be occluding other shapes even when the shape itself is not drawn. Examples include the triangle that appears to be occluding three disks and an outlined triangle in the Kanizsa triangle and the circles and squares that appear in different versions of the Koffka cross.
Graphical perception is the human capacity for visually interpreting information on graphs and charts. Both quantitative and qualitative information can be said to be encoded into the image, and the human capacity to interpret it is sometimes called decoding. The importance of human graphical perception, what we discern easily versus what our brains have more difficulty decoding, is fundamental to good statistical graphics design, where clarity, transparency, accuracy and precision in data display and interpretation are essential for understanding the translation of data in a graph to clarify and interpret the science.
Graphical perception is achieved in dimensions or steps of discernment by:

Subsets and Splits

No community queries yet

The top public SQL queries from the community will appear here once available.