Individual differences and cognitive models of the mind: using the differentiation hypothesis to distinguish general and specific cognitive processes

Mathematical models of cognition measure individual differences in cognitive processes, such as processing speed, working memory capacity, and executive functions, that may underlie general intelligence. As such, cognitive models allow identifying associations between specific cognitive processes and tracking the effect of experimental interventions aimed at the enhancement of intelligence on mediating process parameters. Moreover, cognitive models provide an explicit theoretical formalization of theories regarding specific cognitive processes that may help in overcoming ambiguities in the interpretation of fuzzy verbal theories. In this paper, we give an overview of the advantages of cognitive modeling in intelligence research and present models in the domains of processing speed, working memory, and selective attention that may be of particular interest for intelligence research. Moreover, we provide guidelines for the application of cognitive models in intelligence research, including data collection, the evaluation of model fit, and statistical analyses.

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Reading the Mind in Robots: How Theory of Mind Ability Alters Mental State Attributions During Human-Robot Interactions

Proceedings of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society Annual Meeting ◽

10.1177/1071181319631414 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 63 (1) ◽

pp. 1550-1554

Author(s):

Jacquelyn L. Schreck ◽

Olivia B. Newton ◽

Jihye Song ◽

Stephen M. Fiore

Keyword(s):

Individual Differences ◽

Theory Of Mind ◽

Cognitive Processes ◽

Mental State ◽

Social Cognitive ◽

Human Robot Interaction ◽

Social Signals ◽

Robot Interaction ◽

Navigation Task ◽

The Mind

This study examined how human-robot interaction is influenced by individual differences in theory of mind ability. Participants engaged in a hallway navigation task with a robot over a number of trials. The display on the robot and its proxemics behavior was manipulated, and participants made mental state attributions across trials. Participant ability in theory of mind was also assessed. Results show that proxemics behavior and robotic display characteristics differentially influence the degree to which individuals perceive the robot when making mental state attributions about self or other. Additionally, theory of mind ability interacted with proxemics and display characteristics. The findings illustrate the importance of understanding individual differences in higher level cognition. As robots become more social, the need to understand social cognitive processes in human-robot interactions increases. Results are discussed in the context of how individual differences and social signals theory inform research in human-robot interaction.

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Elaborating the role of reflection and individual differences in the study of folk-economic beliefs

Behavioral and Brain Sciences ◽

10.1017/s0140525x18000274 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 41 ◽

Author(s):

Kevin Arceneaux

Keyword(s):

Decision Making ◽

Individual Differences ◽

Cognitive Processes ◽

Evolutionary History ◽

Behavioral Responses ◽

History Of ◽

Economic Beliefs

AbstractIntuitions guide decision-making, and looking to the evolutionary history of humans illuminates why some behavioral responses are more intuitive than others. Yet a place remains for cognitive processes to second-guess intuitive responses – that is, to be reflective – and individual differences abound in automatic, intuitive processing as well.

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Characterizing Bilingual Effects on Cognition: The Search for Meaningful Individual Differences

Brain Sciences ◽

10.3390/brainsci11010081 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 11 (1) ◽

pp. 81

Author(s):

Kristina C. Backer ◽

Heather Bortfeld

Keyword(s):

Individual Differences ◽

Cognitive Processes ◽

Language Background ◽

Bilingual Advantage ◽

The Past ◽

General Movement ◽

And Performance ◽

Task Irrelevant ◽

Analytical Approaches ◽

The Relationship

A debate over the past decade has focused on the so-called bilingual advantage—the idea that bilingual and multilingual individuals have enhanced domain-general executive functions, relative to monolinguals, due to competition-induced monitoring of both processing and representation from the task-irrelevant language(s). In this commentary, we consider a recent study by Pot, Keijzer, and de Bot (2018), which focused on the relationship between individual differences in language usage and performance on an executive function task among multilingual older adults. We discuss their approach and findings in light of a more general movement towards embracing complexity in this domain of research, including individuals’ sociocultural context and position in the lifespan. The field increasingly considers interactions between bilingualism/multilingualism and cognition, employing measures of language use well beyond the early dichotomous perspectives on language background. Moreover, new measures of bilingualism and analytical approaches are helping researchers interrogate the complexities of specific processing issues. Indeed, our review of the bilingualism/multilingualism literature confirms the increased appreciation researchers have for the range of factors—beyond whether someone speaks one, two, or more languages—that impact specific cognitive processes. Here, we highlight some of the most salient of these, and incorporate suggestions for a way forward that likewise encompasses neural perspectives on the topic.

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Early intervention and the growth of children's fluid intelligence: A cognitive developmental perspective

Behavioral and Brain Sciences ◽

10.1017/s0140525x06299035 ◽

2006 ◽

Vol 29 (2) ◽

pp. 133-134 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Ruth M. Ford

Keyword(s):

Executive Function ◽

Individual Differences ◽

Early Intervention ◽

Fluid Intelligence ◽

Developmental Perspective ◽

Effective Intervention ◽

General Development ◽

Developmental Theories ◽

The Mind

From the stance of cognitive developmental theories, claims that general g is an entity of the mind are compatible with notions about domain-general development and age-invariant individual differences. Whether executive function is equated with general g or fluid g, research into the mechanisms by which development occurs is essential to elucidate the kinds of environmental inputs that engender effective intervention.

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Are similes and metaphors interchangeable?

Review of Cognitive Linguistics ◽

10.1075/rcl.15.1.01rom ◽

2017 ◽

Vol 15 (1) ◽

pp. 1-33 ◽

Cited By ~ 2

Author(s):

Manuela Romano

Keyword(s):

Cognitive Processes ◽

Cognitive Models ◽

Figures Of Speech ◽

Conceptual Semantic ◽

Discourse Type ◽

Opposite Process ◽

Usage Patterns ◽

News Interviews

Abstract Since Aristotle, scholars have regarded similes and metaphors as equivalent figures of speech sharing very similar comprehension, interpretation and usage patterns. By analysing the use of similes in real discourse, the aim of this study is to show that these two analogical figures reflect different cognitive processes, as well as different discursive functions, using as a framework cognitive models. To this end, this work presents, first, the main differentiating features of the two figures existing in the literature. And, second, it analyses 100 natural-occurring similes in English opinion discourse (news, interviews and commentary sections) in order to explain the conceptual-semantic and formal-syntactic factors which explain why similes and metaphors are not interchangeable in the discourse type under study; that is, why metaphors can usually be transformed into similes by adding like, whereas the opposite process seems to depend on specific conditions of structure, use and interpretation.

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Vir Dei: secular sanctity in the early tenth century

Studies in Church History ◽

10.1017/s0424208400005416 ◽

1972 ◽

Vol 8 ◽

pp. 41-53

Author(s):

Derek Baker

Keyword(s):

Individual Differences ◽

Middle Ages ◽

Early Life ◽

Late Antiquity ◽

Tenth Century ◽

Social Organisation ◽

Life Crisis ◽

Literary Convention ◽

The Mind ◽

The Middle Ages

As recent anniversary studies have emphasised, the vir Dei, the man of God, has been a christian type since the time of St Antony, and whatever pre-christian elements were embodied in the Athanasian picture the Vita Antonii possessed a christian coherence and completeness which made of it the proto-type for a whole range of literature in late antiquity and the Middle Ages. In hagiography the Antonine sequence of early life, crisis and conversion, probation and temptation, privation and renunciation, miraculous power, knowledge and authority, is, in its essentials, repeated ad nauseam. Martin, Guthlac, Odo, Dunstan, Bernard are all, whatever their individual differences, forced into the same procrustean biographical mould: each is clearly qualified, and named, as vir Dei, and each exemplifies the same - and at times the pre-eminent – christian vocation. Yet if the insight provided by such literature into the mind of medieval man is instructive about his society and social organisation, and illuminating about his ideal aspirations, the literary convention itself is always limiting, and frequently misleading. As Professor Momigliano has said, ‘biography was never quite a part of historiography’, and one might add that hagiography is not quite biography.

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