Concepts contain rich structures that support flexible semantic cognition. These structures can be characterized by patterns of feature covariation: Certain features tend to cluster in the same items (e.g., "feathers," "wings," "can fly"). Existing computational models demonstrate how this kind of structure can be…

We present a neural network model of referent identification in a visual world task. Inputs are visual representations of item pairs unfolding with sequences of phonemes identifying the target item. The model is trained to output the semantic representation of the target and to suppress the distractor. The training set uses a 200-word lexicon…

Production and comprehension have long been viewed as inseparable components of language. The study of vision, by contrast, has centered almost exclusively on comprehension. Here we investigate drawing--the most basic form of visual production. How do we convey concepts in visual form, and how does refining this skill, in turn, affect recognition?…

Behavioral research has shown that 12- but not 9-month-olds imitate an unusual and inefficient action (turning on a lamp with one's forehead) more when the model's hands are free. Rational-imitation accounts suggest that infants evaluate actions based on the rationality principle, that is, they expect people to choose efficient means to achieve a…

This paper proposes a synthesis of the science of learning into a "model" teachers can follow and apply right away in their classrooms. Recent studies in neuroscience show that that our brains appear to actively and purposefully forget most of what we learn--continually clearing out old and unneeded memories to allow us to focus on more…

Although infants begin learning about their environment before they are born, little is known about how the infant brain changes during learning. Here, we take the initial steps in documenting how the neural responses in the brain change as infants learn to associate audio and visual stimuli. Using functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNRIS) to…

We propose a neural dynamic model that specifies how low-level visual processes can be integrated with higher level cognition to achieve flexible spatial language behaviors. This model uses real-word visual input that is linked to relational spatial descriptions through a neural mechanism for reference frame transformations. We demonstrate that…

Action observation and action execution are tightly coupled on a neurophysiological and a behavioral level, such that visually perceiving an action can contaminate simultaneous and subsequent action execution. More specifically, observing a model in postural disequilibrium was shown to induce an increase in observers' body sway. Here we…

In this study, we investigated how people deal with irrelevant contextual information during speech production. Two main models have been proposed. WEAVER++ assumes that irrelevant information is removed from the production system by an early blocking mechanism. On the other hand, the response exclusion hypothesis assumes a blocking mechanism that…

In an experimental paradigm adapted from Hari (1995), forty observers listened via headphones to 8 binaural clicks: 4 left-ear leading followed by 4 right-ear leading with either 38 or 140 ms interstimulus intervals (ISIs). Concurrently, they viewed either foveal or peripheral visual stimuli designed to activate either the parvocellular or…

Memory improves when encoding and retrieval processes overlap. Here, we investigated how the neural bases of long-term memory encoding vary as a function of the degree to which functional processes engaged at study are engaged again at test. In an incidental learning paradigm, electrical brain activity was recorded from the scalps of healthy…

Visual peripersonal space (i.e., the space immediately surrounding the body) is represented by multimodal neurons integrating tactile stimuli applied on a body part with visual stimuli delivered near the same body part, e.g., the hand. Tool use may modify the boundaries of the peri-hand area, where vision and touch are integrated. The neural…

In this study hemispheric asymmetries for categorizing objects at the basic versus subordinate level of abstraction were investigated. As predictions derived from different theoretical approaches are contradictory and experimental evidence is inconclusive in this regard, we conducted two categorization experiments, where we contrasted two…

This study examined predictions based upon the right hemisphere (RH) model, the valence-arousal model, and a recently proposed integrated model (Killgore & Yurgelun-Todd, 2007) of emotion processing by testing immediate recall and recognition memory for positive, negative, and neutral verbal stimuli among 35 right-handed women. Building upon…

The current authors reply to a response by Bowers on a comment by the current authors on the original article. A typical problem in any discussion about grandmother cells is that there is not a general consensus about what should be called as such. Here, we discuss possible interpretations in turn and contrast them with what we find in our own…