Posts in Category: psychology
the study of (mostly human) sensation & perception, cognition (learning, knowledge representation, thinking & reasoning) and behavior (action, judgment, choice & decision making, expertise and skilled performance)
Paper: A taxonomy of (practical vs. theoretical) actions
| The solution to a problem changes the problem. |
| Peer’s Law |
Hansjörg Neth, Thomas Müller
Thinking by doing and doing by thinking: A taxonomy of actions
Abstract: Taking a lead from existing typologies of actions in the philosophical and cognitive science literatures, we present a novel taxonomy of actions.
Paper: Arithmetic with Arabic vs. Roman numerals
| … how information is represented can greatly affect how easy it is to do different things with it. (…) it is easy to add, to subtract, and even to multiply if the Arabic or binary representations are used, but it is not at all easy to do these things — especially multiplication — with Roman numerals. This is a key reason why the Roman culture failed to develop mathematics in the way the earlier Arabic cultures had. |
| D Marr (1982): Vision, p. 21 |
Dirk Schlimm, Hansjörg Neth
Modeling ancient and modern arithmetic practices: Addition and multiplication with Arabic and Roman numerals
Abstract: To analyze the task of mental arithmetic with external representations in different number systems we model algorithms for addition and multiplication with Arabic and Roman numerals. This demonstrates that Roman numerals are not only informationally equivalent to Arabic ones but also computationally similar — a claim that is widely disputed. An analysis of our models’ elementary processing steps reveals intricate trade-offs between problem representation, algorithm, and interactive resources. Our simulations allow for a more nuanced view of the received wisdom on Roman numerals. While symbolic computation with Roman numerals requires fewer internal resources than with Arabic ones, the large number of needed symbols inflates the number of external processing steps.
Paper: Discretionary interleaving and cognitive foraging
| (…) we make search in our memory for a forgotten idea, just as we rummage our house for a lost object. In both cases we visit what seems to us the probable neighborhood of that which we miss. We turn over the things under which, or within which, or alongside of which, it may possibly be; and if it lies near them, it soon comes to view. |
| William James (1890), The Principles of Psychology, p. 654 |
Stephen J. Payne, Geoffrey B. Duggan, Hansjörg Neth
Discretionary task interleaving: Heuristics for time allocation in cognitive foraging
Abstract: When participants allocated time across 2 tasks (in which they generated as many words as possible from a fixed set of letters), they made frequent switches. This allowed them to allocate more time to the more productive task (i.e., the set of letters from which more words could be generated) even though times between the last word and the switch decision (“giving-up times”) were higher in the less productive task. These findings were reliable across 2 experiments using Scrabble tasks and 1 experiment using word-search puzzles. Switch decisions appeared relatively unaffected by the ease of the competing task or by explicit information about tasks’ potential gain. The authors propose that switch decisions reflected a dual orientation to the experimental tasks. First, there was a sensitivity to continuous rate of return — an information-foraging orientation that produced a tendency to switch in keeping with R. F. Green’s (1984) rule and a tendency to stay longer in more rewarding tasks. Second, there was a tendency to switch tasks after subgoal completion. A model combining these tendencies predicted all the reliable effects in the experimental data.
Paper: Immediate interactive behavior (IIB)
| … immediate behavior, responses that must be made to some stimulus within very approximately one second (that is, roughly from ~300 ms to ~3 sec). (…) … immediate behavior is where the architecture shows through — where you can see the cognitive wheels turn and hear the cognitive gears grind. Immediate behavior is the appropriate arena in which to discover the nature of the cognitive architecture. |
| A. Newell (1990), Unified theories of cognition, p. 235f. |
Hansjörg Neth, Richard A. Carlson, Wayne D. Gray, Alex Kirlik, David Kirsh, Stephen J. Payne
Immediate interactive behavior: How embodied and embedded cognition uses and changes the world to achieve its goals
Summary: We rarely solve problems in our head alone. Instead, most real-world problem solving and routine behavior recruits external resources and achieves its goals through an intricate process of interaction with the physical environment. Immediate interactive behavior (IIB) entails all adaptive activities of agents that routinely and dynamically use their embodied and environmentally embedded nature to augment cognitive processes. IIB also characterizes an emerging domain of cognitive science research that studies how cognitive agents exploit and alter their task-environments in real-time. Examples of IIB include arranging coins when adding their values, solving a problem with paper and pencil, arranging tools and ingredients while preparing a meal, programming a VCR, and flying an airplane.