A Darkening Spring: How Preexisting Distrust Shaped COVID-19 Skepticism

Despite widespread communication of the health risks associated with the COVID-19 virus, many Americans underestimated its risks and were antagonistic regarding preventative measures. Political partisanship has been linked to diverging attitudes towards the virus, but the cognitive processes underlying this divergence remain unclear. Bayesian models fit to data gathered through two preregistered, online surveys administered before (March 13, 2020, N = 850) and during the first-wave (April-May, 2020, N = 1610) of cases in the United States, reveal two preexisting forms of distrust––distrust in Democratic politicians and in medical scientists––that drove initial skepticism about the virus. During the first-wave of cases, additional factors came into play, suggesting that skeptical attitudes became more deeply embedded within a complex network of auxiliary beliefs. These findings highlight how mechanisms that enhance cognitive coherence can drive anti-science attitudes.

Understanding Narrative-Driven Intergroup Conflict Dynamics Using Computational Cognitive Coherence Maps

Humans make sense of the world through narratives. Therefore, adversaries often use conflict-sustaining narratives to maintain dominance and delegitimize the actions of the rivals. To better understand narratives’ role and influence in such intractable conflicts, a computational framework and methodology are introduced. The computational cognitive model and its underlying inference mechanism allow analysts to simulate and analyze narratives in relation to opposing narratives. The ability to simulate the interaction of adversarial stories with a set of micronarratives shared by members of a group opens new avenues to counter conflict-sustaining narratives. The methodology and its application to a concrete conflict scenario demonstrate how to conduct simulation-driven exploratory analysis over a complex adaptive narrative space to discern how narratives are matched to unfolding events and how they can be used to facilitate favorable change.

The Cognitive Coherence of Sociolects Across the Lifespan: A Case Study of Swabian German

In a thought-provoking article, Guy (2013:63) claims that “lectal coherence ... [implies] that variables are correlated; if they are not, the cognitive and social reality of the ‘sociolect’ is problematic.” Considerable linguistic research has established that, for structural reasons, variables are correlated; however, structural correlation does not imply sociolectal coherence. Thus the question arises: do multiple variables cluster or correlate, loosely, tightly, or not at all, based on social factors, such as age, gender, community belonging, salience, prestige/stigma, or other external factors (Guy and Hinskens 2016)? This paper explores the unresolved question of cognitive sociolectal coherence by investigating a panel of 20 speakers of Swabian, a dialect spoken in southwestern Germany, across a 35-year lifespan. The corpus consists of Labovian-style sociolinguistic interviews, and the data comprise 20 phonological and morphosyntactic linguistic features, coded for a binary distinction between the dialect and standard variant. In concurrence with Guy (2013), the findings support the notion that sociolectal coherence is more multi-dimensional than previously believed. However, clear patterns have emerged, indicating that sociolectal coherence may lie in more cognitive constructs such as the type, status, and stigmatisation of the variable itself.

Cognitive Networks: Interactivity, Intersubjectivity, and Synergy

Some properties of cognitive networks are discussed in the article in the context of the modern achievements of the network science. It is the study in network structures and their surprising properties that gives a new impetus to the development of the theory of complex systems (synergetics). The analysis of cognitive processes from the point of view of the network structures that arise in them not only fits with such concepts already existing in cognitive science and epistemology, as cognitive niches, cognitive maps, cognitive coherence, etc.), but also brings some new aspects to the understanding of interactivity, intersubjectivity, synergy in cognition and creative activities, empathy.

Desarrollo de la capacidad de memoria semántica a través de la formación de redes relacionadas en estudiantes con trastorno del espectro autista

Este estudio presenta el análisis de la efectividad de un programa, cuya finalidad es facilitar el desarrollo de la memoria semántica y sus relaciones en estudiantes con trastorno del espectro autista, diseñado bajo los principios teóricos de la teoría de la percepción y la teoría de la coherencia central cognitiva. Para llevarlo a cabo, se ha utilizado un diseño experimental pretests-programa-postests de dos grupos, uno experimental y otro de control, en el cual han participado 14 estudiantes de 13 años de edad, distribuidos equitativamente entre ambos grupos. Los resultados muestran que el programa responde positivamente a los objetivos de la investigación, ya que los estudiantes que integran el grupo experimental han mejorado significativamente en relación con sus pares del grupo control. Development of semantic memory ability through the training of related networks in students with autism spectrum disorder Abstract Study presents the analysis of the efficacy of a program to issue the development of semantic memory and relationships in students with autism spectrum disorder, designed the theoretical principles of the theory of perception and theory of central cognitive coherence. To do this study, a pre-tests-program-pos-tests experimental design of two groups, an experimental group and a control group, in which 14 students participate, of 13 years, equally distributed between both groups. The results show that the program responds positively to the objectives of the research, since the students the experimental group has improved the significantly compared with the pairs of the control group. Recibido: 17 de marzo de 2017Aceptado: 26 de junio de 2017

Establishing task- and modality-dependent dissociations between the semantic and default mode networks

The default mode network (DMN) and semantic network (SN) are two of the most extensively studied systems, and both are increasingly used as clinical biomarkers in neurological studies. There are strong theoretical reasons to assume a relationship between the networks, as well as anatomical evidence that they might rely on overlapping cortical regions, such as the anterior temporal lobe (ATL) or angular gyrus (AG). Despite these strong motivations, the relationship between the two systems has received minimal attention. We directly compared the SN and DMN using a large (n = 69) distortion-corrected functional MRI (fMRI) dataset, spanning a range of semantic and nonsemantic tasks that varied input modality. The results showed that both networks fractionate depending on the semantic nature of the task, stimulus type, modality, and task difficulty. Furthermore, despite recent claims that both AG and ATL are semantic hubs, the two areas responded very differently, with results supporting the role of ATL, but not AG, in semantic representation. Specifically, the left ATL was positively activated for all semantic tasks, but deactivated during nonsemantic task performance. In contrast, the left AG was deactivated for all tasks, with the level of deactivation related to task difficulty. Thus, ATL and AG do not share a common interest in semantic tasks, but, rather, a common “disinterest” in nonsemantic tasks. The implications for the variability in the DMN, its cognitive coherence, and interpretation of resting-state fMRI data are discussed.