It's a Jungle in There: How Competition and Cooperation in the Brain Shape the Mind (38 page)

17
For printed words, see Morrison and Ellis (1995, 2000). For pictured objects, see Belke, Brysbaert, Meyer, and Ghyselinck (2005) and Carroll and White (1973).

18
Seminal research has been done on the basis for this effect by Kuhl et al. (1992).

19
Gould and Eldredge (1977).

20
Hoff (2009).

21
James (1890).

22
Evidence for niche opportunities was recently reported for a plant species in the Chihuahuan Desert of Mexico (Allington et al., 2013). I learned about this from a brief note in the Editor’s Choice column of
Science
magazine (Hurtley and Yeston, 2012).

23
Schmidt and Lee (2011).

1
The exact reference for this quote is unclear, even to Geoff Hinton himself, as he confirmed in an email he sent me on March 2, 2012, after I asked him what the source of this quotation was. In his email, he wrote, “I don’t think I have ever published it. I just use it in talks.”

2
For more on neurons and other features of the nervous system, see textbooks such as Kandel, Schwartz, and Jessel (2000).

3
For more information, see the Wikipedia article on “synaptic pruning.”

4
Besides Wikipedia and references leading from it, see Bullock, Bennett, Johnston, Josephson, Marder, and Fields (2005).

5
Appreciating that there are excitatory and inhibitory interneuronal effects was one of the insights of Charles Sherrington, who, as mentioned earlier, won a Nobel Prize for his research.

6
This principle was introduced by Hebb (1949), though he did not use the actual phrase. According to the Wikipedia site devoted to Hebbian theory,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hebbian_theory#cite_note-1
, which I consulted on February 7, 2013, “The mnemonic phrase is usually attributed to Carla Shatz at Stanford University.” Wikipedia goes on to say that one place where the phrase is referenced is Doidge (2007, p. 427).

7
The effects of glucose availability on the brain’s performance have been demonstrated in studies of ego depletion, a term that refers to reduced self-control following a very effortful task. Ego depletion is counteracted by drinking sweetened (glucose-laden) lemonade (Gailliot et al., 2007). A related, less uplifting result, but one that makes the same scientific point, is that judges in parole hearings are more likely to be lenient soon after meals, when their glucose levels are high, than long after meals, when their glucose levels are low (Danziger, Levov, and Avnaim-Pesso, 2011).

8
For a review, see Gallistel (1981).

9
See also Edelman (1987).

10
To learn the words “afferent” and “efferent,” you can use the following mnemonic (memory-aiding) device:
A
fferent fibers carry signals
a
rriving
a
t the central nervous system.
E
fferent signals carry signals
e
xiting from the central nervous system.

11
There are many excellent textbooks about the nervous system. Examples are Gazzaniga, Ivry, and Mangun (2008); Kandel, Schwartz, and Jessell (2000); and Purves, Augustine, Fitzpatrick, and Hall (2011).

12
See Wikipedia’s article on “cortical cooling.”

13
The acronyms can be decoded as follows: EEG = electroencephalography; MEG = magneto-electroencephalography; ERP = event-related potentials; PET = positron-emission tomography; MRI = magnetic resonance imaging; fMRI = functional magnetic resonance imaging; DOI = diffusion optical imaging. You can begin to learn more about these techniques by reading the Wikipedia entry for Neuroimaging.

14
For a review, see Hubel and Wiesel (1979).

15
Neuroscience textbooks review these findings in much greater detail. See, for example, Gazzaniga, Ivry, and Mangun (2008) and Purves, Augustine, Fitzpatrick, and Hall (2011).

16
Doidge (2007) has a book about plasticity for the general public.

17
Merzenich et al. (1987).

18
To see these brain sites, look up “cerebral cortex” on Wikipedia.

19
Woolsey (1958).

20
Jenkins et al. (1990).

21
Sterr et al. (1999). For a review, see Neville and Sur (2009).

22
Weinstein (1968).

23
Elbert et al. (1995); Munte, Altenbuller, and Janke (2002); Sadato et al. (1998).

24
As further proof of the functional importance of this neural change, it has been shown that temporarily deactivating or scrambling neural signals in these transformed visual areas via transmagnetic stimulation adversely affects the Braille-reading ability of the volunteers in whom this is done. Once the transmagnetic stimulation is turned off, the ability to read Braille returns to its previously high level (Sadato et al., 1998). See also Bavelier and Hirshorn (2010).

25
Colapinto (2009).

26
This is an imaginary conversation. I’ve put words into the mouths of Ramachandran and the amputee for stylistic vividness. See Ramachandran and Blakeslee (1998).

27
Cytowic and Eagleton (2009); Marks (1975); Ramachandran and Hubbard (2001).

1
Cherry (1958).

2
Broadbent (1958).

3
Gray and Wedderburn (1960). The fact that students in Broadbent’s class disproved their teacher’s theory encourages me to urge my students to think for themselves and challenge authority, including whatever (intellectual) authority I may have in the classroom.

4
A study with a similar conclusion was conducted by Treisman (1960). In her experiment, the word sequence presented to one ear was sensible up to a point and then turned nonsensical, while the word sequence to the other ear was nonsensical up to a point and then became sensible. A number of participants recalled what was meaningful by switching from one ear, or one message, to another.

5
I would have praised Oxford University even if this book weren’t published by Oxford University Press.

6
Moray (1959).

7
Cherry (1958); Marlsen-Wilson (1973).

8
The instruction is given without the demonstration student’s knowing it. A PowerPoint slide, shown out of the view of the shadower, indicates to the class what will happen.

9
James (1890), Chapter 11, pp. 403–404.

10
Rubin (1915).

11
More formal studies of spontaneous reversals with the Rubin figure, including studies with other figures, have been done by Attneave (1971) and by Kleinschmidt, Büchel, Zeki, and Frackowiak (1998). The latter authors explored the brain basis for spontaneous flips of reversible figures.

12
Necker (1832).

13
This account appeals to the concept of
embodied perception
, the notion that perception of the external environment is largely expressed in terms of what if affords for actions that can be carried out within it. The latter notion is often ascribed to Gibson (1979), who coined the word
affordance
, which means opportunity for action. Evidence for embodied perception has come from several sources, including the discovery of so-called mirror neurons, which are neurons that fire when one either observes someone carrying out an action or when one carries out that action oneself (Rizzolatti and Craighero, 2004).

14
Pashler (1993).

15
For earlier work on this phenomenon, which is known as the psychological refractory period, see Welford (1952).

16
Yarbus (1967).

17
Saccadic eye movements are eye jumps that occur when you visually scan pictures, text, and other static displays. A review of eye-movement control systems, written mainly for cognitive psychologists, can be found in
Chapter 5
of my book (Rosenbaum, 2010) on human motor control.

18
Posner and Snyder (1975).

19
I don’t know whether Posner used these exact words.

20
Cohen et al. (1994); Schall (2001).

21
Jonides and Mack (1984) considered this and other possibilities. A useful book about the importance of inhibition is Dagenbach and Carr (1994).

22
Posner and Cohen (1984); Klein (2000).

23
Wolfe (1934).

24
Tipper (1985).

25
Eriksen (1995).

26
Coles et al. (1985).

27
Stroop (1935); MacLeod (1991).

28
If, on theoretical grounds, you feel hesitant to say there is active inhibition, you can at least allow that it’s harder for the needed response to reach the necessary activation when lots of activation is going to the response called for by the color name.

29
Reisberg, Baron, and Kemler (1980).

30
Logan (1988, 2002).

31
Schneider and Shiffrin (1977).

32
I’m putting words in the investigators’ mouths here just for the sake of pedagogy.

33
I didn’t use the terms late selection and early selection earlier in this chapter, but it’s the distinction I was referring to when I discussed research bearing on the locus of attentional effects.

34
Cherry (1958).

35
Zatorre, Mondor, and Evans (1999).

36
Roelfsema, Lamme, and Spekrejse (1998).

37
O’Craven, Downing, and Kanwisher (1999).

38
Bredemeiser and Simon (2012); Duncan (1984); Neisser and Becklen (1975).

39
There is a great deal of evidence for the view that actions can be imagined. For a review, see Jeannerod (1995).

40
Sperling and Weichselgartner (1995).

41
Desimone and Duncan (1995).

42
Smith and Kosslyn (2007).

43
Moran and Desimone (1985).

44
An earlier, influential statement of this idea was offered by Kahneman (1973).

45
Desimone and Duncan (1995); Duncan, Humphreys, and Ward (1997).

46
To learn more about research on attention, see Anderson (2010), Johnson and Proctor (2003), Pashler (1998), and Smith and Kosslyn (2007).

1
Donders (1969).

2
This isn’t a real quote from Donders. I’m putting words in his mouth to convey his thinking as I imagine it.

3
Hick (1952); Hyman (1953).

4
Shannon and Weaver (1949).

5
Notice that with eight alternatives, the number of binary choices that’s needed is three. Not accidentally, 8 equals 2 raised to the 3rd power. That power, the exponent of 3, relates to the number of S-R alternatives in a systematic way. The exponent to which 2 is raised is 1 for 2 alternatives (2
¹
= 2), 2 for 4 alternatives (2
²
= 4), 3 for 8 alternatives (2
³
= 8), 4 for 16 alternatives (2
⁴
= 16), and so on.

6
Moles (1966).

7
Miller (1956). Although evidence for chunks comes from studies of recall, you can relate this evidence to RT research by considering how long it would take to memorize items that are easily chunked or not easily chunked. Material that is not easily chunked takes much longer to memorize than material that is.

8
Kornblum (1969).

9
Experimental psychologists have long known that more frequent S-R alternatives have shorter choice RTs than less frequent S-R alternatives. This intuitive phenomenon, called the
frequency effect
, is one of the most robust phenomena in experimental psychology. See, for example, Frekeriksen and Kroll (1976) and Balota and Spieler (1999).

10
Sternberg (1966). This paper was cited 2,252 times, according to Google Scholar on February 7, 2012.

11
Occam’s razor is named for a medieval English friar, William of Occam, whose (conceptual) razor, it is said, shaves off unnecessary assumptions.

12
Townsend (1974, 1990).

13
For modeling along these lines, see Townsend (1974, 1990).

14
In his 1966 paper, Sternberg did consider a parallel search model, but not one in which the search items, or their neural representatives, interact in such a way that they drain one another.

15
Fitts and Seeger (1953).

16
Proctor and Vu (2006).

17
Simon and Ruddell (1967); Simon (1990).

18
Yamaguchi and Proctor (2012).

19
The Simon effect isn’t manifested only in connection with
spatial
relations between stimuli and responses. It is also manifested in connection with attitudes. This has been shown in a famous implicit association test (Greenwald, McGhee, and Schwartz, 1998) in which people who claim not to be biased against dark-skinned individuals may take longer to confirm that “pleasant” characterizes a dark-skinned person than a light-skinned person. Skin color is irrelevant to the choice, but it intrudes, revealing an implicit association.

20
For a review of the literature on RT distributions, see Luce (1986).

21
de Jong, Coles, Logan, and Gratton (1990); Logan and Cowan (1984); Osman, Kornblum, and Meyer (1986).

22
I was first alerted to the fact that RTs are puzzlingly long by Emilio Bizzi, head of MIT’s Department of Cognitive and Brain Science at the time, in a seminar of his that I audited while I was on sabbatical at MIT in 1985. He briefly mused on the fact that RTs are much longer than one might expect considering the speed of nerve conduction.

23
The speeds range from 24.6 to 38.4 meters per second, as shown by the great German physiologist, Hermann von Helmholtz, and as reported in a Wikipedia article about Helmholtz.

24
Latash (2008).

25
Meyer and Schvaneveldt (1971). There are many other kinds of priming related to language. A critical feature of priming is that it reflects opportunism. Virtually any potential source of priming—for instance, meaning, syntax, or episodic associations—contribute. Some authors have pushed this perspective, including MacDonald, Pearlmutter, and Seidenberg (1994) and MacWhinney and Bates (1989), who described their account of the relevant effects as the
competition
model.