The Interaction of the Processes
of Mapping and Perception
during Analogy Making
Svetoslav Bliznashki
Scientific Advisor: Boicho Kokinov
Introduction
• The top-down influence of analogical
reasoning on high-level perception is
investigated.
• The methodology applied makes use of rerepresentation of ambiguous figures.
Structure of the presentation
• Specifics of the analogy making phenomenon as
well as some unresolved issues and
controversies.
• A brief outline of research on top-down influence
on perception of ambiguous figures.
• Hypotheses, methodology and results from two
experiments dealing with top-down influence of
analogy making on perception.
• Implications for future studies.
Analogical Reasoning (AR) definition
• Analogical reasoning is a cognitive
process through which new knowledge
and insights are obtained for a novel
domain or a particular problem on the
basis of prior knowledge of familiar
domains or problems.
AR - sub-processes
• Perceptual stage – constructing a perceptual
representation of the problem to be solved. This
representation is called “target” for it comprises the
problem which needs a solution.
• Retrieval – retrieving a similar an episode similar to the
target from Long Term Memory (LTM).
• Mapping – establishing correspondences between
objects in the base and the target domains.
• Transfer – transferring knowledge from the base domain
to the target domain in order to solve the particular
problem.
• Evaluation – the results from the transfer stage are
evaluated and if the problem is solved correctly the new
knowledge is incorporated (i.e. learning takes place).
AR – mapping mechanisms
• Mapping is considered to be the central and most
specific process of AR (e.g. Gentner 1983).
• There are many possible matches between the objects
of the target and the base domains. How are the
particularly useful matches selected and the trivial or
misleading ones discarded? The reduction of the number
of possible matches is achieved by imposing several
types of constraints on the mapping process.
• These are:
 the informational constraints (e.g. Keane 1994) structural constraints, similarity constraints and
pragmatic constraints.
 the behavioral constraints - working memory (WM)
constraints and background knowledge constraints.
AR – structural constraints
• Objects are mapped to each other on the basis of a
mapping between the relations which these objects
serve as arguments to (Gentner 1983). Thus the
mapping phenomenon relies primarily on the relational
structure of the problem space.
• Higher-order relations are more readily mapped than
lower-order relations (the systematicity principle).
• Only entities of the same type can be mapped. Thus
objects are mapped with other objects only, attributes
are mapped only with attributes and most importantly
relations of a given order are mapped only with relations
of the same order.
• If two relations are mapped their corresponding
arguments (objects) must also be mapped.
AR – similarity and pragmatic
constraints
• Similarity constraints – similar relations
(and their corresponding objects
respectively) are more likely to be mapped
(Holyoak and Thagard 1989) .
• Pragmatic constraints – mappings which
are more important in terms of goal
relevance are preferred other things being
equal (Holyoak and Thagard 1989) .
AR – WM constraints
• Analogical mapping can be obstructed in cases
when WM capacity is overloaded. That’s why
simpler structures result in fewer mapping errors
(e.g. Keane 1990).
• The limited WM capacity can result in subjects
using mapping strategies which reduce the WM
load. This strategies, however can lead to
mapping errors. This constraint also results in
different response latencies for more difficult
problems to be mapped (Keane 1994).
AR – background knowledge
constraints
• Keane (1991) showed that mappings
which are consistent with background
knowledge are performed faster than
those which are inconsistent or irrelevant
with to background knowledge. These
constraints can also effect the number of
mapping errors the subjects produce with
more errors taking place when some
correct mappings are inconsistent with
background knowledge.
AR – transfer.
• What is most important about analogies is that they are a
very important source of new knowledge about the target
domain. This new knowledge about the target is
supposed to be generated through a process called
transfer (e.g. Keane 1994). The transfer mechanism
transfers those relations in the base domain which have
not been mapped to relations in the target. The
arguments of the transferred relations are arguments
from the target domain which are selected on the basis
of the informational constraints (primarily on the basis of
the structural constraints) outlined above.
AR – unresolved issues and
controversies
• Parallel vs. sequential processing.
This controversy is related to the issue of
whether the distinct processes involved in AR
operate at least partially in parallel or are strictly
consecutive. According to the sequential
approach a particular sub-process begins
operating only after the previous one has
finished its work and has produced an output
which serves as an input to the next process. On
the other hand, the parallel account argues that
different processes operate simultaneously.
AR – unresolved issues and
controversies
• Modular vs. interactionist views.
This controversy is tightly related to the previous one. The
interactionist account often assumes parallelism while the modular
typically argues for sequential processing. The difference between
this controversy and the parallel – sequential one is that the
interactionist view supports the idea that different processes (e.g.
representation building and mapping) can be decomposed to
simpler steps which operate in parallel and participate in the
production of both mapping and perception while the modular view
holds that different processes don’t operate in parallel and can rely
on potentially very different mechanisms (see Kokinov 2007 for a
review). Thus this controversy seems to incorporate the sequential –
parallel dispute and carry it even further.
• The current work attempts to address empirically these controversial
issues. As will be seen later it appears that the results from our
experiments are more consistent with the parallel interactionist
accounts.
Perceptual representations of
ambiguous figures.
• The top-down influence on perceptual
representations has been repeatedly
studied (see Long 2004 for a review).
• Priming, context and motivational effects
have been proven to shape perceptual
experience of ambiguous stimuli (see
Dunning 2006 for a review).
Perceptual representations of
ambiguous figures.
• The great majority of studies exploring top-down
influence on ambiguous figures have explored this
influence by placing subjects in particular contexts (in
broad sense), presenting some ambiguous figures to
them and asking them afterwards what they have
actually seen.
• Recently, however more implicit measures like reaction
time (RT) and eye-tracking have been shown to correlate
significantly with verbal reports and to verify reports’
accuracy. Dunning (2006) for example demonstrated that
subjects who claim to have seen an ambiguous figure
only in one way have their concept corresponding to that
interpretation primed but no such priming effect is found
with the concept referring to the non perceived
interpretation.
Hypotheses
•
Both experiments explore two
phenomena:
1. The influence of analogical mapping on
perception.
2. The faith of the non perceived
alternative.
Hypothesis 1
• Both experiments test the hypothesis that
mapping can alter perception and cause
re-representation . Moreover the
experiments test this prediction with an
ambiguous picture which is very hard to be
seen both ways. The hypothesis is that
even such a hard – to – re-represent
picture will be seen both ways in the
context of a particular mapping situation.
Hypothesis 2
• The concept which the non perceived
representation refers to will be primed only
for subjects belonging to groups which are
likely to re-represent the stimulus but who
for some reason failed to explicitly rerepresent the ambiguous figure.
Hypothesis 1 - reasoning
• Both the modular and the interactionist accounts
assume that mapping can change perceptual
experience although they differ on haw this
influence is carried over.
• The modular account assumes that the
perceptual module can call back the perceptual
module and ask it for a re-representation if no
meaningful mapping has been found between
the base and the target. Thus the interactionist
view assumes that different modules can
communicate their outputs to other modules, i.e.
we have something as a loop structure.
Hypothesis 1 - reasoning
• According to the interactionist view the different
processes can be decomposed to relatively simple
mechanisms which may be such that they participate in
the production of both perception and mapping.
Moreover, the elementary steps (sub-processes) which
produce the macro-level processes are not separated in
time and thus may appear in various orders making
perception and mapping interleaved at all stages
(Kokinov 2007).
• Nonetheless as far I know no one has ever tried to
explore the influence of mapping on perception
empirically. A success in proving that this influence exists
will further reveal the complexity and importance of AR
as a cognitive phenomenon.
Hypothesis 1 - reasoning
•
•
•
Why re-representation?
In our experiments we use an ambiguous figure which has one
dominant and one “recessive” interpretation, i.e. it is very easy to see
one way but very hard to be represented differently although the
recessive representation is as meaningful as the dominant one.
On one hand this serves as a methodological trick by which we are sure
that experimental subjects don’t simply report just one of the
interpretations although they have seen them both.
On the other hand, however, we believe that such a situation is very
close to AR in real world situations. It is widely accepted that AR is
tightly linked to phenomena like creativity, problem solving and even
scientific discovery. Such phenomena are often thought of as involving
re-representation of the target problems in a novel, creative and useful
ways. Little is known, however, on the processes which lie at the core of
such re-representations. Our intent is to show that analogical mapping
as a process crucial to creative thinking may be one of the factors
which can cause ingenious re-representations of the problems
encountered both in everyday settings and in the scientific laboratories.
Hypothesis 2 - reasoning
• Our second hypothesis, namely that the non
perceived (the “recessive”) alternative will prime
its corresponding concept in an initial attempt to
lay the modular and interactionist views on
empirical ground. That is because it appears that
these two alternative views would make different
predictions about the faith of the non perceived
for subjects in experimental settings in which the
re-representation has a high probability of
occurring.
Hypothesis 2 - reasoning
• Modular view:
According to the modular view the non perceived recessive
interpretation should probably have no influence on further
processing. That is because since this representation fails to be
established and is not passed to the next module (for subjects don’t
re-represent the stimulus) it should not influence further processing.
Moreover the sequential nature of modular accounts prevents partial
representations or full representations which the system for some
reason does not eventually settle upon to have influence on further
processing because this “further processing” begins only after the
previous module (the perceptual stage in our case) has finished its
work and has passed its outcome to the next processing stage (the
mapping stage in our case). Thus since the alternative
representation is not passed on to the mapping (or any other) stage
and since partial or not settled upon representations can have no
influence on later processes because these processes have not
begun yet no such influence is assumed.
Hypothesis 2 - reasoning
• Interactionist view:
The interactionist accounts claim that cognitive system
operates in parallel. Also many such accounts (e.g. the
COPYCAT cognitive model – Hofstadter 1994) assume that
several alternative representations are constructed one of
which the system gradually settles upon. The modular
accounts are more likely to suppose that only one
representation is fed forward to the mapping module.
Because of the parallel nature of models influenced by the
interactionist accounts partial representations and
representations which the system does not for some reason
settle upon can influence further processing. Moreover such
views often claim that different processes rely on one and the
same simple basic mechanisms which makes such influence
a straightforward phenomenon for similar mechanisms are
easy to influence each other.
Hypothesis 2 - reasoning
• In our experiments we propose that subjects in groups likely to
re-represent the stimulus who for some reason don’t do so will
nonetheless exhibit priming effects on the concept the recessive
interpretation refers to. That is because the high probability of rerepresentation probably results in those subjects constructing
partial representations of the recessive interpretation or even full
representations which are not settled upon. However, those
(partial) representations are supposed to prime the concepts
corresponding to the recessive interpretation of the ambiguous
stimuli because of the parallelism in human cognitive system.
• Less or no such priming is expected for subjects in groups which
are unlikely to re-represent the stimulus because they are not
supposed to have constructed even partial representations of the
recessive interpretation of the ambiguous stimulus nor they are
expected to have constructed entire but not settled upon
representations.
Experiment 1 – stimuli, design and
procedure
•
There are three groups in a between
subjects design:
1. A control group
2. A condition called “strong mapping
condition”
3. A condition called “weak mapping
condition”
Experiment 1 – stimuli, design and
procedure
• The subjects from both the strong and the
weak mapping conditions see slides in
which a base and a target are presented in
the form of simple line drawings. There are
two drawings in the base and a single
drawing represents the target. The
subjects have to solve the target problem
by choosing one of four alternatives, the
one which best satisfies the relation in the
base.
Experiment 1 – stimuli, design and
procedure
• The subjects in the control group see the same
slides except that their slides do not contain a
base (i.e. their slides contain only one target
picture and four alternatives). All other pictures
(the target and the four options) are equivalent
across groups. The task in this condition is
simply to say which of the four options presented
is the most similar to the target picture.
• In order to control for the differential complexity
of the task all groups are obliged to watch each
slide for at least 30 seconds.
Experiment 1 – stimuli, design and
procedure
• All groups experience four such slides with the first being
defined as a trial slide in. The slides are presented in the
same order for all groups.
• Actually we are not interested in any of the reactions to
the slides except for the last one, in which the target
picture is ambiguous. This ambiguity results from the
picture representing simultaneously a human face and
an inscription. The inscription reads “cat”. This picture
was designed to be easily seen as a human face but
very hardly seen as an inscription. In a preliminary test
only one out of twenty (5%) subjects saw the face and
the inscription and this was achieved only after asking
subjects to try to see something different than a human
face. All target slides are shown in Appendix A at the end
of the presentation.
Experiment 1 – stimuli, design and
procedure
• In the strong mapping condition only when the
picture is seen as an inscription a plausible
analogy exists.
• After the experiment finishes all subjects are
shown the target picture for one second and
then are asked whether they have seen
something different from a human face or not.
Whether they have seen the inscription reading
“cat” or not constitutes the first dependent
variable in the experiment.
Experiment 1 – stimuli, design and
procedure
• The only difference between the strong mapping
and the weak mapping condition was the
background of the fourth option on the last slide.
Although a small difference it was supposed to
cause huge differences between these two
groups for in the strong mapping case the fourth
option embodied a salient relation depicted in
the base while in the weak mapping condition
this was not the case. Thus these two groups
differed only in terms of the relational structures
of the tasks.
Experiment 1 – stimuli, design and
procedure
•
•
•
Here we expected that the subjects in the strong mapping condition would
see the picture also as an inscription more often than those in the other two
groups. Our reasons were that if no meaningful mapping existed between
the base and the target there would emerge a pressure to re-represent the
target in order to map it meaningfully to some part of the base. Moreover
the fact that the fourth alternative was of textual nature and embodied a
salient relation in the base is expected to cause subjects to try re-represent
the target towards a textual interpretation or simply to make the concept of
written text more relevant to the problem situation which in turn should
make the re-representation in textual direction more easy.
None of these arguments holds true for the other two conditions and hence
they were not supposed to differ from each other but were expected to
cause significantly less re-representations than the strong mapping group.
The control group was included in the experiment in order to show that the
relational structure of the task is what causes re-representation of the
ambiguous stimulus rather than facts like the mere presence of a problem
situation or more time, efforts, etc. invested in a problem solving tasks than
in a simpler tasks like similarity judgments.
Experiment 1 – stimuli, design and
procedure
• In the same experiment, we also try to test
our second hypothesis, namely that the
concept which the non perceived
representation refers to will be primed only
for subjects belonging to groups which are
likely to re-represent the stimulus but who
for some reason failed to explicitly rerepresent the ambiguous figure.
Experiment 1 – stimuli, design and
procedure
• In order to test our second hypothesis we
included an additional task in the experiment.
This is a version of the well known lexical
decision task (LDT) in which the subjects are
required to press a “yes” button if a string on a
computer screen forms a word and the “no”
button if the string is meaningless.
• The subjects have to solve such a task five
times – before and after the presentation of each
slide. Thus there are 5 such trials in the
experiment . Each trial consists of six strings.
Experiment 1 – stimuli, design and
procedure
• Each LDT trial contains three words and three non-words (except for
the last trial in which there are four words and two non-words) and
these are presented randomly to all subjects within trials. The same
six strings are experienced by all subjects across trials, however. All
strings consist of five letters and all words are controlled for
subjective frequency. No words are repeated during individual trials
as well as across trials. All strings are shown in Appendix A.
• Again we are interested primarily in the last trial. It consists of two
non-words and four words – the word “cat” (the inscription on the
last slide which precedes the last word verification trial), two words
which are presented in the options for answer in the last slide (which
are thus primed during the presentation of the last slide) and a word
which hasn’t occurred anywhere in the experiment which was
supposed to be used as a base line indicator in the subsequent
analyses.
Experiment 1 – stimuli, design and
procedure
• Our hypothesis here was that even the subjects in the
strong mapping condition who don’t “see” the inscription
(they haven’t explicitly re-represented the target) would
probably be somewhat primed by it, i.e. they would
respond to the word "cat” in the last session faster than
the subjects in the control group and the weak mapping
group, the majority of which also haven’t seen the
inscription. In other words we hypothesize that some
implicit (unconscious) and perhaps primitive and subtle
re-representation has taken place in the experimental
condition even in the case when no explicit rerepresentation has occurred. Thus the reaction time (RT)
to the word “cat” constituted our second dependent
variable in that study.
Results
• Twenty subjects participated in each of the
three conditions of this experiment.
• First we will show the re-representation
frequencies across the three groups and
then we’ll discuss the RT results.
Results – re-representation
# people who re-represent the target as a function of experimental
group - Χ2(df=2)=9.573, p=0.008
20
19
18
18
16
14
12
12
face only
10
8
cat and face
8
6
4
2
1
2
0
control
strong
weak
Results – re-representation
frequences of responses as a function of experimental group Χ2(df=6)=9.622, p=0.141
14
13
12
10
10
10
flower
8
6
6
4
bag
6
horse
tomato
4
3
3
2
2
1
0
0
control
strong
weak
2
Results – re-representation
frequences of responses as a function of whether the target was rerepresented - Χ2(df=2)=4.071, p=0.254
28
30
25
20
15
flower
bag
12
horse
tomato
10
5
4
5
5
1
2
0
face only
cat and face
3
Results – re-representation
GR * AMB_PIC Crosstabulation
Count
GR
control
s trong mapping
Total
AMB_PIC
face only
cat and face
19
1
12
8
31
9
Total
20
20
40
Chi-Square Tests
Pears on Chi-Square
Continuity Correctiona
Likelihood Ratio
Fisher's Exact Test
Linear-by-Linear
Ass ociation
N of Valid Cas es
Value
7,025 b
5,161
7,792
6,849
df
1
1
1
1
Asymp. Sig.
(2-s ided)
,008
,023
,005
Exact Sig.
(2-s ided)
Exact Sig.
(1-s ided)
,020
,010
,009
40
a. Computed only for a 2x2 table
b. 2 cells (50,0%) have expected count less than 5. The minimum expected count is
4,50.
Results – re-representation
GR * AMB_PIC Crosstabulation
Count
GR
control
weak mapping
Total
AMB_PIC
face only cat and face
19
1
18
2
37
3
Total
20
20
40
Chi-Square Tests
Pears on Chi-Square
Continuity Correctiona
Likelihood Ratio
Fisher's Exact Test
Linear-by-Linear
Ass ociation
N of Valid Cas es
Value
,360 b
,000
,367
,351
df
1
1
1
1
Asymp. Sig.
(2-s ided)
,548
1,000
,545
Exact Sig.
(2-s ided)
Exact Sig.
(1-s ided)
1,000
,500
,553
40
a. Computed only for a 2x2 table
b. 2 cells (50,0%) have expected count less than 5. The minimum expected count is
1,50.
Results – re-representation
GR * AMB_PIC Crosstabulation
Count
GR
s trong mapping
weak mapping
Total
AMB_PIC
face only
cat and face
12
8
18
2
30
10
Total
20
20
40
Chi-Square Tests
Pears on Chi-Square
Continuity Correctiona
Likelihood Ratio
Fisher's Exact Test
Linear-by-Linear
Ass ociation
N of Valid Cas es
Value
4,800 b
3,333
5,063
4,680
df
1
1
1
1
Asymp. Sig.
(2-s ided)
,028
,068
,024
Exact Sig.
(2-s ided)
Exact Sig.
(1-s ided)
,065
,032
,031
40
a. Computed only for a 2x2 table
b. 0 cells (,0%) have expected count les s than 5. The minimum expected count is
5,00.
Discussion
•
•
•
Obviously our first hypothesis is completely justified for the strong
mapping condition causing significantly more re-representations than
both other conditions.
The weak mapping and the control conditions don’t differ significantly
which implies that the relational structure of the problem space is what
actually causes re-representation in that experiment.
The fact that the distribution of responses given is not affected by
neither the experimental conditions nor from whether subjects rerepresented or not the target stimulus implies that we were probably
wrong when we hypothesized that re-representing the figure will lead to
a correct mapping and correct solving of the task. This is probably due
to the “sameness” relation in the base (there are two drawings in the
first line as their should be two drawings or two inscriptions in the
second) which appeared difficult to be recognized by most of the
subjects. On the other hand the fact that we still obtain significant
results with respect to our primary dependent measure implies that
nonetheless the textual alternative has been recognized as a relevant
one when it embodied the “negativity” relation (a white to a black frog)
depicted in the base.
RT results
•
1.
2.
3.
4.
We compared the RTs to the word “cat” for four
independent groups of subjects
Those who didn’t see the inscription in the control
group.
Those who saw it in the strong mapping group.
Those who didn’t see it in the strong mapping group.
Those who didn’t see it in the weak mapping group.
That is because too few subjects re-represented the
target in the control and the weak mapping groups in
order to fully cross the two variables - experimental
condition (three levels) x re-representation (two levels).
RT results
Raw RT of "cat" as a function of ecperimental group and whether rerepresentation took place
843,83333
850
800
RT in msec.
750
706,1
683,33333
700
634,75
650
600
550
500
control no cat
strong mapping strong mapping weak mapping
cat
no cat
no cat
Series1
RT results
ANOVA
CAT
TREE_CAT
LOG_CAT
LGTR_LGC
CAT_Z
Between Groups
Within Groups
Total
Between Groups
Within Groups
Total
Between Groups
Within Groups
Total
Between Groups
Within Groups
Total
Between Groups
Within Groups
Total
Sum of
Squares
243435,3
931183,0
1174618
218710,0
1089020
1307730
,418
1,622
2,041
,341
1,656
1,997
6,599
35,065
41,663
df
3
54
57
3
54
57
3
54
57
3
54
57
3
54
57
Mean Square
81145,103
17244,129
F
4,706
Sig.
,005
72903,338
20167,035
3,615
,019
,139
,030
4,640
,006
,114
,031
3,710
,017
2,200
,649
3,387
,024
Test Statisticsa, b
Chi-Square
df
Asymp. Sig.
CAT
14,536
3
,002
TREE_CAT
10,637
3
,014
a. Kruskal Wallis Tes t
b. Grouping Variable: GR
LOG_CAT
14,536
3
,002
LGTR_LGC
10,138
3
,017
CAT_Z
8,943
3
,030
RT discussion
• Surprisingly it appeared that the word “cat” the “strong mapping no
cat group” was primed as we expected but in a negative direction.
The RTs to “cat” in that group are significantly longer than those of
the other three groups (using the natural logarithm transformation of
raw data and the Tukey HSD adjustment).
• We suppose that the word “cat” was inhibited for some reason in
that group rather than that it was primed in the control and the weak
mapping groups because when the RT of the word “cat” was
normed by the RT to the neutral word “tree” which was matched to
“cat” on parameters like number of letters and subjective frequency
it appeared that only the subjects from the “strong mapping no cat
group” had reacted more slowly to “cat” than to “tree”. All other
groups had reacted faster to “tree” than to “cat”. When this measure
was used, again the overall effect was significant and the control
group - “strong mapping no cat group” comparison was also
significant. Nonetheless this issue had to be clarified in future
studies.
RT discussion
• Subjects reacted significantly faster to words
than to non words.
• The four groups produced no significant
differences on any other words or non words
included in the experiment except for the word
“cat”.
• These results are what should be expected from
previous research and suggest that there were
no substantial artifacts in our study.
RT discussion
•



Problems with the RT study:
Only a single stimulus (“cat”) is used in that experiment and most of the
analyses conducted are not of repeated measurements type which is
known to be more sensitive than traditional ANOVA. However other studies
also use the same methodology (e.g. Dunning 2006) and succeed in
obtaining significant results.
Levels of the independent variable are formed post hoc which makes this
study resemble a natural rather than a random group design and thus
prevents us from drawing causal inferences. However the fact that our
independent variable caused no differences other than the expected ones
makes it improbable that some unexpected confounding caused our
results.
The results may be due simply to some specifics of the materials used in
that experiments. For example it may be the fact the ambiguous stimulus
consists of interpretations from different domains (i.e. pictorial vs.
orthographic) which causes these results. Such a claim sounds a little
unconvincing but there is nothing in these experiments which can explicitly
rule it out.
RT discussion
• Regardless of whether the “strong mapping no
cat group” was negatively primed or it reflected a
base line and the control and the weak mapping
groups (including only subjects who made no –
re-representation) were positively primed or
both, it appears that the non represented
alternative primes its corresponding concept and
this result is considered to be more consistent
with the interactionist view of AR.
Experiment 2 – stimuli, design and
procedure
• The second experiment tests the same hypotheses as the first one
and uses essentially the same stimuli, and procedures. Again 20
subjects participate in each condition. That's why only a brief
description is provided here.
• The second experiment uses the same target stimulus and the same
slides except for the last one. The RT procedure is exactly the same,
involves the same stimuli, tests the same hypothesis and suffers the
same problems so it will not be described here. Again a between
groups design is used but this time only two experimental groups
are present. The dependent variables are also the same as the one
used in the previous study – the number of people who re-represent
the target picture and see it also as an inscription as well as RT. The
two target slides (this experiment involves only two groups) are
shown in Appendix C.
• It is evident that the difference is that this time the bases differ
between the two different groups rather than the options which are
exactly the same. Only one picture in the base (a wolf versus a
cloth) is different.
Experiment 2 – stimuli, design and
procedure
•
•
We expect that the slide with the wolf base should cause more re-representation
than the slide with the cloth base. The reasons for this are similar to those
explained in the context of the first study. The first group (the one with the cloth
base) contains a simple mapping which can be achieved with no rerepresentation of the target. Thus the second written alternative represents a
clear right answer which can be easily achieved without having to re-represent
anything. On the other hand the second group (wolf base) involves a more
difficult task for no clear right answer is present when one sees the target as a
human face only. However if one manages to see the picture as an inscription
reading “cat” the situation becomes entirely clear for this time the “tiger” option is
obviously the correct one.
Here what we expect is again that the relational structure of the problem space
and consequently the mapping employed will make difference according to
whether the subjects do or don’t re-represent the target object. More specifically
the assumption is that in the second group the lack of obviously meaningful
mapping and the particular relation employed in the base will create a pressure
for the subjects’ perceptual system to re-represent the target in a way consistent
with the relation in the base and the options presented (i.e. to re-represent the
target as an animal creature mappable to the “dog” object in the base in a way
consistent with the relation A little pet dog to a wild wolf). The two target slides
are to be found in Appendix C.
Experiment 2 – stimuli, design and
procedure
•
There were two main reasons why this
difference was introduced:
1. The first reason is that we wanted to repeat the
first study in a slightly different setting in order
to show that the results were consistent with
the previous ones with respect to both the rerepresentation and the RT findings.
Furthermore we wanted to test whether
variations in the base of the problem situation
can also lead to perceptual re-representations
because our theoretical account surely posits
than they should do so.
Experiment 2 – stimuli, design and
procedure
2.
From the first experiment it appeared that the subjects who actually
re-represented that target in the strong mapping condition often failed
to choose the “correct” alternative. . On one hand these results are
interesting because they show that subjects from this condition didn’t
re-represented the target because they were forced to do so simply
because of the objects involved in the task. On the other hand,
however, we intended to supply the subjects with a “correct” answer
and the fact that we failed to do so may have caused some
unexpected confounding. That is why we designed the second
experiment in such a way that both conditions had “correct”
responses. The second condition’s “correct” response was much
more obvious when one re-represented the target picture than was
the case in the strong mapping condition of experiment one. We
intended to check whether the subjects from the two conditions gave
different responses to the last slide as well as to see if the response
given correlated with the probability of re-representation. In that
experiment we expected that subjects from both group will tend to
give “correct” responses more frequently than subjects from the first
experiment.
Results – re-representation
# of people who re-represent the target as a function to
experimental group - Χ2(df=1)=6.144; p=0.013
18
18
16
14
11
12
9
10
fce only
face and cat
8
6
4
2
2
0
dog_cloth
dog_wolf
Results – re-representation
frequences of responses as a function to experimental group Χ2(df=3)=9.033; p=0.029
17
18
16
14
12
tiger
9
10
8
hat
tomato
6
flower
6
3
4
2
2
2
1
0
0
dog_cloth
dog_wolf
Results – re-representation
frequences of responses as a function of whether the target was rerepresented - Χ2(df=3)=23.635; p=0.000
24
25
20
tiger
15
hat
tomato
10
flower
7
5
3
0
2
2
1
0
face only
face and cat
1
Discussion
• All hypotheses and expectations were
supported.
RT Results
• Again the reaction times to the word “cat”
were analyzed.
• The groups were formed as follows:
1) The subjects in the “dog - cloth group” who
didn’t see the inscription.
2) The subjects in the experimental group
who saw the inscription.
3) The subjects in the experimental group
who didn’t see the inscription.
RT Results
Raw RT of "cat" as a function of ecperimental group and whether rerepresentation took place
732,182
740
720
700
RT im msec
680
657,056
660
640
Series1
613,556
620
600
580
560
540
cloth no cat
wolf cat
wolf no cat
RT Results
ANOVA
CAT
TREE_CAT
CAT_STAN
CAT_STF4
LOGCAT
TR_CA_LO
Between Groups
Within Groups
Total
Between Groups
Within Groups
Total
Between Groups
Within Groups
Total
Between Groups
Within Groups
Total
Between Groups
Within Groups
Total
Between Groups
Within Groups
Total
Sum of
Squares
62160,776
552892,8
615053,6
275861,5
1617628
1893489
3,654
22,911
26,566
8,249
22,252
30,501
,161
1,078
1,239
,531
2,100
2,631
df
2
35
37
2
35
37
2
35
37
2
35
37
2
35
37
2
35
37
Mean Square
31080,388
15796,937
F
1,967
Sig.
,155
137930,745
46217,939
2,984
,064
1,827
,655
2,791
,075
4,125
,636
6,487
,004
,080
,031
2,608
,088
,266
,060
4,429
,019
Test Statisticsa, b
Chi-Square
df
Asymp. Sig.
CAT
6,324
2
,042
TREE_CAT
14,996
2
,001
a. Kruskal Wallis Tes t
b. Grouping Variable: GR
CAT_STAN
5,876
2
,053
CAT_STF4
10,053
2
,007
LOGCAT
6,324
2
,042
TR_CA_LO
14,743
2
,001
RT discussion
• This time we see the same trends as the ones from Experiment 1.
• Unfortunately this time not all results are significant – only those
from the non-parametric tests are significant on all measures. They
appear to be the most appropriate for that case, however.
• We took the standardized on the basis of the words from the last
trial RT to the word “cat” in order to conduct post hoc comparisons.
This is not a “fair” approach to our data but all we wanted was to
examine the trends.
• It appeared that the “wolf no cat group” differed significantly from the
two other groups which didn’t differ between each other.
• Again the “wolf mo cat group” exhibited slower RTs than the control
word “tree” unlike both other groups (“tree” – “cat” = -118.3636). The
fastest RT to “cat” was for the “wolf cat group”.
RT discussion
• Again it appears that some priming took
place which is more consistent with the
interactionist accounts on AR.
Appendix A – control
condition
:
C
?
D
домат
чанта
1
2
3
4
Appendix A – strong
mapping condition
:
A
B
:
C
?
D
домат
чанта
1
2
3
4
Appendix A – weak
mapping condition
:
A
B
:
C
?
D
домат
чанта
1
2
3
4
Appendix A – strings
for the RT task
Trial 1
Trial 2
Trial 3
Trial 4
Trial 5
String 1
брада
дреко
намче
сълза
шапка
String 2
гачка
пирце
лейка
рарка
дърво
String 3
бълба
зебра
нърец
рицар
котка
String 4
вател
замък
метла
плица
тигър
String 5
възел
клони
охлюв
пънар
лупан
String 6
везни
кълец
линар
петел
бурон
Exactly these items are presented during each of the trials
but in a completely random order. Here we give the order of
presentation for the eighth subject in the strong mapping
condition in EXPERIMENT 1.
Appendix B – dog –
cloth condition
B
A
?
D
C
тигър
шапка
1
2
3
4
Appendix B – dog –
wolf condition
B
A
?
D
C
тигър
шапка
1
2
3
4