Using episodic memory to gauge implicit and/or indeterminate social commitments

In discussing Mahr and Csibra’s observations about the role of episodic memory in grounding social commitments, we propose that episodic memory is especially useful for gauging cases of implicit commitment and cases in which the content of a commitment is indeterminate. We conclude with some thoughts about how commitment may relate to the evolution of episodic memory

Investigating the role of exogenous cueing on selection history formation

© 2019, The Psychonomic Society, Inc. An abundance of recent empirical data suggest that repeatedly allocating visual attention to task-relevant and/or reward-predicting features in the visual world engenders an attentional bias for these frequently attended stimuli, even when they become task irrelevant and no longer predict reward. In short, attentional selection in the past hinders voluntary control of attention in the present. But do such enduring attentional biases rely on a history of voluntary, goal-directed attentional selection, or can they be generated through involuntary, effortless attentional allocation? An abrupt visual onset triggers such a reflexive allocation of covert spatial attention to its location in the visual field, automatically modulating numerous aspects of visual perception. In this Registered Report, we asked whether a selection history that has been reflexively and involuntarily derived (i.e., through abrupt-onset cueing) also interferes with goal-directed attentional control, even in the complete absence of exogenous cues. To build spatially distinct histories of exogenous selection, we presented abrupt-onset cues twice as often at one of two task locations, and as expected, these cues reflexively modulated visual processing: task accuracy increased, and response times (RTs) decreased, when the cue appeared near the target’s location, relative to that of the distractor. Upon removal of these cues, however, we found no evidence that exogenous selection history modulated task performance: task accuracy and RTs at the previously most-cued and previously least-cued sides were statistically indistinguishable. Thus, unlike voluntarily directed attention, involuntary attentional allocation may not be sufficient to engender historically contingent selection biases

Techniques for targeted Fermi-GBM follow-up of gravitational-wave events

The Advanced LIGO and Advanced Virgo ground-based gravitational-wave detectors are projected to come online 2015-2016, reaching a final sensitivity sufficient to observe dozens of binary neutron star mergers per year by 2018. We present a fully-automated, targeted search strategy for prompt gamma-ray counterparts in offline Fermi-GBM data. The multi-detector method makes use of a detailed model response of the instrument, and benefits from time and sky location information derived from the gravitational-wave signal.Comment: 2012 Fermi Symposium proceedings - eConf C12102

Planned search for LIGO-GBM coincidence in the first advanced LIGO data run

In the fall of 2015 the first scientific observing run (O1) of the advanced LIGO detectors will be conducted. Based on the recent commissioning progress at the LIGO Hanford and Livingston sites, the gravitational wave detector range for a neutron star binary inspiral is expected to be of order 60 Mpc. We describe here our planning for an O1 search for coincidence between a LIGO gravitational wave detection and a gamma-ray signal from the Fermi Gamma-ray Burst Monitor. Such a coincidence would constitute measurement of an electromagnetic counterpart to a gravitational wave signal, with significant corresponding scientific benefits, including revealing the central engine powering the gamma-ray burst, enhanced confidence in the event as a genuine astrophysical detection, and a determination of the relative speed of the photon and graviton.Comment: Submitted to Moriond Gravitation Conference Proceedings 201

Flexible goal attribution in early mindreading

The 2-systems theory developed by Apperly and Butterfill (2009; Butterfill & Apperly, 2013) is an influential approach to explaining the success of infants and young children on implicit false-belief tasks. There is extensive empirical and theoretical work examining many aspects of this theory, but little attention has been paid to the way in which it characterizes goal attribution. We argue here that this aspect of the theory is inadequate. Butterfill and Apperly’s characterization of goal attribution is designed to show how goals could be ascribed by infants without representing them as related to other psychological states, and the minimal mindreading system is supposed to operate without employing flexible semantic-executive cognitive processes. But research on infant goal attribution reveals that infants exhibit a high degree of situational awareness that is strongly suggestive of flexible semantic-executive cognitive processing, and infants appear moreover to be sensitive to interrelations between goals, preferences, and beliefs. Further, close attention to the structure of implicit mindreading tasks—for which the theory was specifically designed—indicates that flexible goal attribution is required to succeed. We conclude by suggesting 2 approaches to resolving these problems