As the latest biannual meeting of the German Society for Cognitive Science (Gesellschaft für Kognitionswissenschaft, GK), KogWis 2010 at Potsdam University reflects the current trends in a fascinating domain of research concerned with human and artificial cognition and the interaction of mind and brain. The Plenary talks provide a venue for questions of the numerical capacities and human arithmetic (Brian Butterworth), of the theoretical development of cognitive architectures and intelligent virtual agents (Pat Langley), of categorizations induced by linguistic constructions (Claudia Maienborn), and of a cross-level account of the “Self as a complex system“ (Paul Thagard). KogWis 2010 integrates a wealth of experimental research, cognitive modelling, and conceptual analysis in 5 invited symposia, over 150 individual talks, 6 symposia, and more than 40 poster contributions. Some of the invited symposia reflect local and regional strenghts of research in the Berlin-Brandenburg area: the two largests research fields of the university Cognitive Sciences Area of Excellence in Potsdam are represented by an invited symposium on “Information Structure” by the Special Research Area 632 (“Sonderforschungsbereich”, SFB) of the same name, of Potsdam University and Humboldt-University Berlin, and by a satellite conference of the research group “Mind and Brain Dynamics”. The Berlin School of Mind and Brain at Humboldt-University Berlin takes part with an invited symposium on “Decision Making” from a perspective of cognitive neuroscience and philosophy and the DFG Cluster of Excellence “Languages of Emotion” of Free University presents interdisciplinary research results in an invited symposium on “Symbolising Emotions”.

Linguistic and psycholinguistic accounts based on the study of English may prove unreliable as guides to sentence processing in even closely related languages. The present study illustrates this claim in a test of sentence interpretation by German-, Italian-, and English-speaking adults. Subjects were presented with simple transitive sentences in which contrasts of (1) word order, (2) agreement, (3) animacy, and (4) stress were systematically varied. For each sentence, subjects were asked to state which of the two nouns was the actor. The results indicated that Americans relied overwhelming on word order, using a first-noun strategy in NVN and a second-noun strategy in VNN and NNV sentences. Germans relied on both agreement and animacy. Italians showed extreme reliance on agreement cues. In both German and Italian, stress played a role in terms of complex interactions with word order and agreement. The findings were interpreted in terms of the “competition model” of Bates and MacWhinney (in H. Winitz (Ed.), Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences Conference on Native and Foreign Language Acquisition. New York: New York Academy of Sciences, 1982) in which cue validity is considered to be the primary determinant of cue strength. According to this model, cues are said to be high in validity when they are also high in applicability and reliability.

Just and Carpenter (1980) presented a theory of reading based on eye fixations wherein their "psycholinguistic" variables accounted for 72% of the variance in word gaze durations. This comment raises some statistical and theoretical problems with their use of simultaneous regression analysis of gaze duration measures and with the resulting theory of reading. A major problem was the confounding of perceptual with psycholinguistic factors. New eye fixation data are presented to support these criticisms. Analysis of fixations within words revealed that most gaze duration variance was contributed by number of fixations rather than by fixation duration.

The development of phonetic codes in memory of 141 pairs of normal and disabled readers from 7.8 to 16.8 years of age was tested with a task adapted from L. S. Mark, D. Shankweiler, I. Y. Liberman, and C. A. Fowler (Memory & Cognition, 1977, 5, 623–629) that measured false-positive errors in recognition memory for foil words which rhymed with words in the memory list versus foil words that did not rhyme. Our younger subjects replicated Mark et al., showing a larger difference between rhyming and nonrhyming false-positive errors for the normal readers. The older disabled readers' phonetic effect was comparable to that of the younger normal readers, suggesting a developmental lag in their use of phonetic coding in memory. Surprisingly, the normal readers' phonetic effect declined with age in the recognition task, but they maintained a significant advantage across age in the auditory WISC-R digit span recall test, and a test of phonological nonword decoding. The normals' decline with age in rhyming confusion may be due to an increase in the precision of their phonetic codes.

The spectral efficiency of blackness induction was measured in three normal trichromatic observers and in one deuteranomalous observer. The psychophysical task was to adjust the radiance of a monochromatic 60–120′ annulus until a 45′ central broadband field just turned black and its contour became indiscriminable from a dark surrounding gap that separated it from the annulus. The reciprocal of the radiance required to induce blackness with annulus wavelengths between 420 and 680 nm was used to define a spectral-efficiency function for the blackness component of the achromatic process. For each observer, the shape of this blackness-sensitivity function agreed with the spectral-efficiency function based on heterochromatic flicker photometry when measured with the same 60–120′ annulus. Both of these functions matched the Commission Internationale de l'Eclairage Vλ function except at short wavelengths. Ancillary measurements showed that the latter difference in sensitivity can be ascribed to nonuniformities of preretinal absorption, since the annular field excluded the central 60′ of the fovea. Thus our evidence indicates that, at least to a good first approximation, induced blackness is inversely related to the spectral-luminosity function. These findings are consistent with a model that separates the achromatic and the chromatic pathways.

Auszug: "Man kann Motivation definieren als die „aktivierende Ausrichtung des momentanen Lebensvollzugs auf einen positiv bewerteten Zielzustand“ (Rheinberg, 2002b, S. 17). Definitionen dieser Art sollen den Kern des interessierenden Gegenstandes möglichst knapp und hoch verdichtet fassen. Besonderheiten bleiben deshalb zunächst unerwähnt und müssen dann zusätzlich erläutert werden. Im jetzigen Fall sind mindestens zwei Zusatzerläuterungen erforderlich. (1) Der „positiv bewertete Zielzustand“ kann gelegentlich in der Vermeidung oder der Abwehr unerwünschter Ereignisse bestehen. Eine solche Meiden-Motivation kann andere Qualitäten haben als eine reine Aufsuchungsmotivation. Dieser Punkt wird uns in diesem Kapitel nicht beschäftigen. Er wird in den Kapiteln xx behandelt. (2) Der zweite Punkt ist diffiziler und ist Gegenstand dieses Kapitels. Wenn man, wie hier, den Zielzustand zum Ausgangspunkt der Motivationsdefinition macht, so könnte man daraus vorschnell eine Aussage über die Lokalisierung von Anreizen ablesen: Der Zielzustand ist das, was Anreiz besitzt und die zielführende Aktivität ist lediglich das Instrument, das diesen Zielzustand herbeiführt. Danach würde eine Aktivität ihre Attraktivität aus dem Anreiz der Ergebnisse beziehen, auf die sie abzielt. Eine solche Auffassung findet sich z. B. bei Heckhausen (1977) oder Vroom (1964).

Motivational conditions have been thus far largely neglected by contemporary theoretical approaches in knowledge psychology. The present article attempts to demonstrate the necessity for the greater integration of both. Suggestions are made regarding the choice and conceptualization of relevant motivational factors. Two possible groups of factors can be distinguished: (1) motivational factors of personality, and (2) motivational effects of action. Available theoretical approaches (e.g., the "levels of processing" approach) and examples are used to clarify the potential effects of these factors on the acquisition and representation of knowledge. Finally, a review is made of empirical studies allowing confirmatory allegations about the posited relationships between motivational factors and processes related to knowledge. This review reveals substantial research deficits on this topic.

Ausgehend von der Feststellung, daß die bisherige Forschung zum Textlernen motivationale Variablen, die gerade aus pädagogischer Sicht als sehr bedeutsam erscheinen, vernachlässigt hat, wird ein Überblick über Untersuchungen gegeben, die den Einfluß von Interesse auf das Verstehen von Texten überprüften. Ein Großteil der betrachteten Arbeiten kommt zu dem Ergebnis, daß Interesse eine bedeutsame Rolle beim Textlernen einnimmt. Trotzdem sind eine Reihe von Einwänden vorzubringen, die vor allem Defizite bei der Konzeptualisierung und Messung von Interesse und die Vernachlässigung qualitativer, prozessualer und struktureller Aspekte der Verstehensleistung betreffen. Abschließend wird auf pädagogische Konsequenzen bezüglich der Gestaltung von Lehrtexten hingewiesen.

Es wurde der Zusammenhang zwischen allgemeinem Studieninteresse, Interesse an empirischen Forschungsmethoden sowie dem Leistungsmotiv (unabhängige Variablen) und Umfang, Inhalt und Struktur methodischen Wissens im Studienfach Pädagogik (abhängige Variablen) geprüft. Im Mittelpunkt der Analysen standen die Auswirkungen des Methodeninteresses. Auf der Basis eines Fragebogens wurden 20 Pädagogikstudenten zu Beginn eines Methodenseminars für Studienanfänger in zwei Gruppen mit hohem bzw. niedrigem Methodeninteresse geteilt. Die verschiedenen Aspekte methodenspezifischen Wissens wurden acht Wochen später mittels eines Assoziationstests zu neun Stimulusbegriffen erhoben. Die Ergebnisse belegen, daß hohes Interesse zu qualitativen (Inhalt und Struktur), nicht jedoch zu quantitativen Wissensunterschieden (Umfang) führt. / The study examined the relationship between general study interest, specific interest in methodology, achievement motivation (independent variables), and the extent, content, and structure of methodological knowledge for the field of education (dependent variables). The analyses focussed on determining the impact of methodology interest. 20 education majors were divided into two groups at the beginning of an introductory methodology course. One group consisted of students with high interest in methodology and the other with little interest in the topic. Various aspects of knowledge about methodology were assessed eight weeks later, using an word association test containing nine stimulus concepts. The results indicate that high interest leads to qualitative (content and structure), but not to quantitative differences in knowledge (extent).

The present study investigated the influence of topic interest on the comprehension of texts. The primary goals of the study were as follows: (1) to formulate a new definition of the concept "topic interest", (2) to control for cognitive capabilities (intelligence, short-term memory) and prior knowledge, and(3) to assess different levels of comprehension. A total of 53 male students, majoring in computer science, took part in the study. Subjects were presented with a text on "Psychology of Emotion". Prior to reading the text, they were asked to indicate their level of interest in the topic. After reading the text, subjects were given a test of comprehension involving open-ended questions. The questions were designed to represent different levels of comprehension. The results show that the effect of topic interest on text comprehension is especially pronounced when a deeper level of understanding is required. Surprisingly, prior knowledge had no effect on the level of comprehension. Verbal intelligence, on the other hand, showed a clear effect on comprehension, especially in answering questions of simple knowledge. The effects of interest and verbal intelligence could be shown to be independent of one another.