Browsing by discipline "Cognitive science"

It has been previously shown that people express disgust at moral transgressions, with both verbal reports and facial expressions. It is also known that the real or imagined presence of an audience can make people more willing to punish perceived wrongdoers and harsher in their judgments of moral violations. The aim of this thesis was to examine whether other people's emotional communication may affect one's moral judgments of speculative dilemma situations, where the killing or harming of another person is motivated by the greater good. Specifically, this thesis aimed to find out if an audience's facial expression affects judgments of moral violations that break a deontological (duty-based) moral rule but are nevertheless utilitarian, ie. the violation can be said to increase aggregate welfare. The hypothesis was that a disgust-signaling facial expression would lead to less utilitarian judgments than a neutral expression. Four data sets from experiments were collected in Finland and in the Netherlands. 117, 124, 124 and 165 people took part in the experiments Three of the experiments were conducted on a computer, and one on a paper form. An established questionnaire of 12 moral dilemma situations was used. In each dilemma, the utilitarian option was also a deontological violation.The participants indicated on a Likert scale I) how acceptable the found the utilitarian option and II) how likely they thought they themselves would act according to this option. Photographs of faces were used as the audience stimulus. Depending on the experimental condition, these faces were either neutral, or expressed disgust or anger. The order of the dilemmas, the photographs and the placing of participants in different experimental conditions was fully randomized. In the fourth experiment, the possible effect of the audience's gender on moral judgments was also examined. In each of the data sets, a main effect of participant gender was observed: males were slightly more utilitarian than females. An anger-signaling audience had no effect discernible from a neutral audience, whereas a disgust-signaling audience led to changes in utilitarian judgment. Additionally, interactions between the emotional audience manipulation and participant and audience gender were observed. Based on these results, it seems that gender and the expression of disgust may have specific roles in audience effects on moral judgment.

Bicycling is a way of transport and a sport that is considered both healthy and environmentally friendly. It is also a convenient way to get around especially for children and adolescents who cannot drive cars. However, school-aged children are an overrepresented group in bicycling-related injuries. For Finnish children, bicycling injuries are the most common traffic injuries. One possible explanation for children's higher accident liability could be their less developed hazard perception skills. This thesis is based on a study about hazard perception, where a game-like hazard perception test with videos filmed from a bicyclist's perspective was designed and tested on participants of different age and exposure to bicycling. The videos contained natural, unstaged videos from traffic, and participants were instructed to point out targets such as road users on a potential collision course and locations where road users could emerge from (e. g. house corners).The test was done using a touch screen where participants were to point out targets while the video was rolling early enough to gain points. If a target was missed or pointed out too late, the video was paused and feedback given. Performance in the hazard perception test was tested on 3 groups: one group of 49 children from the 2nd grade (age 8-9) and two adult groups: 16 adults who cycle at least 3 times a week (experienced adults) and 15 adults who cycle never or only rarely (inexperienced adults). The adults performed better than the children both in terms of answer latency and percentage of correct answers. Adults were also significantly better at pointing out view blockers as potentially hazardous targets. No significant differences were found between the experienced and inexperienced adults groups, which suggests that the test might have been too easy for the adult group. A correlation between a high percentage of correct answers and a low answer latency was found on an individual level, which suggests that the game was successful in measuring hazard perception skills.

Objectives: GPS technology enables the visualisation of a map reader's location on a mobile map. Earlier research on the cognitive aspects of map reading identified that searching for map-environment points is an essential element for the process of determining one's location on a mobile map. Map-environment points refer to objects that are visualized on the map and are recognizable in the environment. However, because the GPS usually adds only one point to the map that has a relation to the environment, it does not provide a sufficient amount of information for self-location. The aim of the present thesis was to assess the effect of GPS on the cognitive processes involved in determining one's location on a map. Methods: The effect of GPS on self-location was studied in a field experiment. The subjects were shown a target on a mobile map, and they were asked to point in the direction of the target. In order for the map reader to be able to deduce the direction of the target, he/she has to locate himself/herself on the map. During the pointing tasks, the subjects were asked to think aloud. The data from the experiment were used to analyze the effect of the GPS on the time needed to perform the task. The subjects verbal data was used to assess the effect of the GPS on the number of landmark concepts mentioned during a task (landmark concepts are words referring to objects that can be recognized both on the map and in the environment). Results and conclusions: The results from the experiment indicate that the GPS reduces the time needed to locate oneself on a map. The analysis of the verbal data revealed that the GPS reduces the number of landmark concepts in the protocols. The findings suggest that the GPS guides the subject's search for the map-environment points and narrows the area on the map that must be searched for self-location.

Brains are capable of processing information with remarkable efficiency under constraints set by the limited supply of physical resources such as the amount of space and the availability of metabolic energy. Natural selection has optimised the structure and function of brain networks using simple design rules similar to those found in man-made electronic and information systems. This study presents findings concerning a number of general principles of brain design governing the evolution and organisation of neural information processing. The rule of minimising wiring in neuronal networks is one such principle operating on multiple levels of brain organisation. Both individual components and larger brain architectural units are seen to feature characteristics of near-optimal wiring. Miniaturisation of neuronal components conserves space but raises problems about noise in signalling. Small-world organisation of anatomical and functional networks is widely employed in the brain, contributing to high global efficiency at low cost. Metabolic costs severely constrain signal traffic in the human brain, necessitating the use of energy-efficient sparse neural representations. Extensive evidence is presented of anatomical and physiological optimisations facilitating efficient information processing in brain networks. Limitations of current experimental techniques are discussed, with a view on possible future avenues of research.

Design embraces several disciplines dedicated to the production of artifacts and services. These disciplines are quite independent and only recently has psychological interest focused on them. Nowadays, the psychological theories of design, also called design cognition literature, describe the design process from the information processing viewpoint. These models co-exist with the normative standards of how designs should be crafted. In many places there are concrete discrepancies between these two in a way that resembles the differences between the actual and ideal decision-making. This study aimed to explore the possible difference related to problem decomposition. Decomposition is a standard component of human problem-solving models and is also included in the normative models of design. The idea of decomposition is to focus on a single aspect of the problem at a time. Despite its significance, the nature of decomposition in conceptual design is poorly understood and has only been preliminary investigated. This study addressed the status of decomposition in conceptual design of products using protocol analysis. Previous empirical investigations have argued that there are implicit and explicit decomposition, but have not provided a theoretical basis for these two. Therefore, the current research began by reviewing the problem solving and design literature and then composing a cognitive model of the solution search of conceptual design. The result is a synthetic view which describes recognition and decomposition as the basic schemata for conceptual design. A psychological experiment was conducted to explore decomposition. In the test, sixteen (N=16) senior students of mechanical engineering created concepts for two alternative tasks. The concurrent think-aloud method and protocol analysis were used to study decomposition. The results showed that despite the emphasis on decomposition in the formal education, only few designers (N=3) used decomposition explicitly and spontaneously in the presented tasks, although the designers in general applied a top-down control strategy. Instead, inferring from the use of structured strategies, the designers always relied on implicit decomposition. These results confirm the initial observations found in the literature, but they also suggest that decomposition should be investigated further. In the future, the benefits and possibilities of explicit decomposition should be considered along with the cognitive mechanisms behind decomposition. After that, the current results could be reinterpreted.

Keskeytyksellä tarkoitetaan tehtävän (päätehtävä) kognitiivisen suorituksen katkeamista jonkin ulkopuolisen tekijän aiheuttamana. Päätehtävään palataan keskeytystehtävän jälkeen. Tutkielmassa tarkastellaan keskeytyksen vaikutusta päätehtävää koskeviin muistisisältöihin. Tutkielmassa tehdään katsaus empiiriseen keskeytystutkimukseen. Keskeytykset vaikuttavat mm. päätehtävän suoritusaikaan, -tarkkuuteen sekä -virheisiin. Haitallisuuteen vaikuttavat mm. muistikuormitus keskeytyksen hetkellä ja päätehtävää koskevan representaation uudelleen aktivoimiseksi annetut palautusvihjeet, keskeytyksen kompleksisuus, sen pituus, esiintymisfrekvenssi ja samankaltaisuus päätehtävän kanssa, tehtävien käyttämät modaliteetit sekä henkilön harjaantuneisuus. Tutkielmassa argumentoidaan muistitoimintojen keskeisyyden puolesta keskeytysten kognitiivisessa selittämisessä. Keskeytystutkimusten tuloksille konstruoidaan pitkäkestoisen työmuistin teorian pohjalta selitysmalli, jossa interferenssillä on keskeinen rooli. Pitkäkestoisen työmuistin tehtävänä on tallettaa suoritettavan päätehtävän kannalta olennaista tietoa sellaiseen tilaan, josta se on nopeasti aktivoitavissa lyhytkestoisen työmuistin käyttöön. Asiantuntijat pystyvät tallettamaan tiedon nopeasti pitkäkestoiseen työmuistiin ns. palautusrakenteisiin. Erilaisten muistikoodaus- ja palautusstrategioiden avulla asiantuntija pystyy tehokkaasti tekemään erottelun muistisisältöjen kesken, välttäen näin interferenssin. Tutkielmassa tehdään lisäksi katsaus muisti-illuusioiden tutkimukseen. Useimmat muisti-illuusioista ovat lähtöisin ongelmista muistisisältöjen lähteen monitoroinnissa. Katsauksesta käy ilmi kuinka tietyt muistivirheet liittyvät tiettyihin muistitoimintoihin. Koesarjassa toisaalta testataan selitysmallia, toisaalta sovelletaan muisti-illuusiotutkimuksen käsitteitä. Tarkoituksena on saada lisätietoa keskeytysten muistivaikutuksista. Mikäli keskeytykset tuottaisivat tietynlaisia muistivirheitä, olisi tähän tietoon perustuen mahdollista rajata tarkemmin vastaavat muistitoiminnot. Ensimmäisessä kokeessa koehenkilöt (n=12) varjostivat tietokoneelta auditiivisesti (puhe) ja visuaalisesti (puhujan videokuva) esitettyä tekstiä (pääteksti). Minuutin kuluttua puhe katkesi ja sitä seurasi välittömästi puolen minuutin tauko tai video toisesta tekstistä (keskeytysteksti). Koehenkilöt tekivät vapaan palautuksen päätekstistä. Toisessa kokeessa päätekstejä oli neljä siten, että kunkin jälkeen oli joko tauko tai keskeytysteksti. Koehenkilöt (n=16) palauttivat yhden pääteksteistä. Kolmannessa kokeessa (n=12) varioitiin päätekstin ja keskeytystekstin semanttista läheisyyttä kolmessa käsittelyssä. Muilta osin kokeet olivat kuten ensimmäinen koe. Jokaisessa kokeessa palautuksia analysoitiin vertaamalla niitä vastaaviin pääteksteihin. Palautuksista eriteltiin niiden tarkkuus, virheelliset väittämät (sekaannukset) sekä sarjapositiot. Lisäksi laadullisessa analyysissa sekaannukset luokiteltiin muistivirhetyypeittäin. Erot käsittelyiden välillä palautusten tarkkuudessa olivat tilastollisesti merkitseviä tai lähes merkitseviä kaikissa kokeissa. Toisessa kokeessa havaittiin keskeytyksen aiheuttavan sarjaposition äskeisyyskomponentin heikkenemisen. Ensimmäisessä ja kolmannessa kokeessa sekaannuksien määrässä oli merkitsevä tai lähes merkitsevä ero käsittelyiden välillä. Kolmannessa kokeessa sekoitettiin semanttisesti päätekstin kanssa samankaltaisten keskeytystekstien sisältöjä pääteksteihin. Koesarjan tulokset tukevat annettua selitysmallia. Tarkastelu osoittaa, että interferenssi selittää suurimman osan kokeissa havaituista eroista käsittelyiden välillä. Tulosten pohjalta selitysmallia tarkennetaan huomioimalla erilaisten keskeytystilanteiden rajoittava vaikutus palautusstrategioiden käyttöön. Tarkastelussa kiinnitetään huomiota myös pitkä- ja lyhytkestoisten muistien rooliin keskeytyksessä. Keskeytyksen aiheuttama tiedon syrjäyttäminen näkyy sarjapositioissa, mutta syrjäyttämisen heikentävä vaikutus palautuksen tarkkuuteen on pieni. Lopuksi selitysmallia arvioidaan ja sitä tarkastellaan muistivirhetutkimuksen sekä käytännön sovellusten kannalta.

This thesis is a study of the grammatical status of definiteness in the Finnish noun phrase, from the perspective of generative linguistics. I propose that the Finnish definite noun phrase contains a functional head D, hosting the definiteness feature [+DEF]. My argument is based on the noun phrase having numerous properties, which point to definiteness being present as a grammatical feature. In addition, many structural observations demonstrate that definiteness is linked to a functional projection above NP. I also propose that the element "se", which has reduced from a demonstrative into a definite article in spoken Finnish, is localizable to the Specifier position of DP, like demonstrative pronouns. The D-head, on the other hand, is always phonologically null in Finnish, and also present in "bare" definite noun phrases containing no definite determiner (i.e. a definite article, a demonstrative or a personal pronoun). The analysis fits well with a broader diachronic framework, according to which the definite article develops universally due to the semantic reduction of a demonstrative. I argue that the definite article is a consequence of an EPP-feature in the D-head, mandating the Specifier of DP to be articulated. In this regard, D behaves like the T-head in Finnish, where an optional EPP-feature produces a semantically empty expletive to the subject position of verbs with no semantic arguments.

Objectives. The main function of eye blinking is to moisten and protect the cornea. Therefore it may be surprising that blink rate can convey information about the person's emotional and cognitive state, and that people with abnormal blink rates can be perceived as unfriendly or nervous. Moreover, listeners' blinks have been shown to synchronize with a videotaped speaker's blinks. For these reasons, blinks are suggested to have social functions, as well. The objective of this thesis was to probe the neural correlates of blink viewing with magnetoencephalography (MEG). The research questions were: 1) Do viewed eye blinks elicit observable MEG responses? If they do, which brain regions are involved? 2) How does the response change when the blink video is slowed down? 3) Are the self-produced blinks synchronized with the viewed blinks? Methods. The participants (n = 9) were presented with a video of a neutral female face showing no other movement than a single eye blink. The video was played back with normal speed (blink duration 351 ms) and in slow motion (950 ms); a pair of normal and slow videos was repeated 102 times. Between the blink videos, five other facial expressions were shown, and the participants task was to memorize those expressions. A 306-channel neuromagnetometer recorded the brain responses with a sampling rate of 600 Hz. After averaging and filtering the responses, the mean peak latencies, return-to-baseline durations and amplitudes were compared on the channels showing the strongest peaks. The participants blinks were measured with electro-oculogram (EOG), and the proportion of blinks occurring during the viewed blink was compared with the proportions of blinks at other time points. Results and discussion. Both fast and slow viewed blinks elicited prominent MEG responses. The mean peak latencies of the responses to the slow blinks were longer than those to the normal blink (445 ms vs. 317 ms). The responses to the slow blink also returned to the baseline later (921 ms vs. 537 ms). The maximum responses were equal in amplitude between the normal and slow conditions, contrary to our expectations based on earlier results showing that when the viewed stimuli move faster, the responses are stronger. In accordance with earlier EEG results, the cortical sources, modeled as current dipoles, were located mainly in the occipito-temporal cortical regions in the right hemisphere. The subjects also tended to blink more after the blink in the video (peak around 700 ms after the onset of the viewed blink). In conclusion, eye blinks are likely to have social relevance, and this was the first study to demonstrate with MEG how the human brain reacts to viewed blinks.

Advances in computational linguistics have made analyzing large quantities of text data a more feasible task than ever before. In particular, the recent distributional language models hold promise of effective semantic analysis at a low computational cost. Semantics, however, is a multifaceted phenomenon, and although various language model architectures have been presented, there is relatively little research evaluating the semantic validity of such models. The aim of this research is to evaluate the semantic validity of different distributional language models, particularly as tools for representing Finnish language online text data. The models and methods are evaluated based on their performance on three empirical studies, each estimating a different aspect of semantic representation. The language models in the studies were built using word2vec architecture. The models were taught on approximately 2.6 billion tokens from the Suomi24 corpus of Finnish language social media discussions. 18 models were built in total, each with a different combination of feature processing methods. The models were evaluated in three studies. For Study I, a resource consisting of 300 similarity ratings for word pairs from 55 human annotators was collected. This resource was used as an evaluation task by comparing model estimated similarity scores to the human rated similarity judgments. Study II investigated relational semantics as an evaluation method and were operationalized in form of an analogy task, for which a Finnish language resource is presented. In Study III, the language models were evaluated based on their performance in document classification of Suomi24 messages to their respective topics. The results of the Studies indicate that each presented evaluation task is sufficiently reliable method for estimating language model semantic validity. In turn, distributed language models are reported being able to represent semantics given morphologically rich yet fragmentary Finnish language social media data. Feature processing methods are shown to increase the semantic accuracy of language models in most cases, but to a limited extent. If evaluated valid, semantic language technologies are proposed to hold widespread applicability across scientific as well as commercial fields.