nonlinear dynamics and psycholinguistics - a special double issue of ecological psychology 2002英文电子图书

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1、ECOLOGICALPSYCHOLOGY,14(1–2),1–4Copyright©2002,LawrenceErlbaumAssociates,Inc.INTRODUCTIONNonlinearDynamicsandPsycholinguisticsGuyC.VanOrdenCognitiveSystemsGroupArizonaStateUniversityAsmallchangeinhandwritingandthewordbugbecomesbag.Smallchangesthatresultindisproportionateorqualitativedifferencesi

2、noutcomearesymptomaticofphenomenathatmaybedescribedusingnonlinearequations.Ifthesystemofnon-linearequationsincludestimeasavariable,thenitcomposesanonlineardynamicsystem—thetermdynamicsimplymeansthatthesystemchangesintime.Thecon-trastimpliedbythetermnonlinearisincontrastwithlineardescriptions.Ina

3、lineardescriptionofthepreviousexample,thesmallchangeinhandwritingshouldpro-duceaproportionaldifferenceinoutcome.Halfthechangeshouldequalhalfthedifferenceinoutcome;twicethechangeshouldequaltwicethedifferenceinout-come—asthoughahandwrittenstringwereinsomesenseaweightedaverageofbugandbag.Twentieth-

4、centurycognitivepsychologywasbuiltontheassumptionoflinear-ity.Theessentialgoalofcognitiveresearchprogramshasbeentodescribethemen-talarchitecturethatunderliescognitiveandlinguisticacts,suchasreadingoren-gaginginconversation.Thisgoalrequiresanempiricalmethodsufficienttoreduceobservedbehaviortounde

5、rlyingcognitiveprocesses.This,inturn,requiresthatef-fectsofcognitiveprocesses,atsomelevelofdescription,combinelinearlytomakeupthewholeofthebehaviorinquestion(plusrandomnoise).Linearityallowsthereductionofbehavioraleffectstocognitiveprocesses.Thus,itmakessensethatmoststatisticaltoolsderivefromthe

6、generallinearmodel,andmostresearchpro-RequestsforreprintsshouldbesenttoGuyC.VanOrden,CognitiveSystemsGroup,Depart-mentofPsychology,ArizonaStateUniversity,Tempe,AZ85287–1104.E-mail:guy.van.orden@asu.edu2VANORDENgramsassumethatmeasurementsofcognitivebehaviorlendthemselvestolinearreductiveanalysis.

7、Alltheauthorsofthisspecialissuebelievethatnonlineardynamicsystemtheorymaybeusefullyappliedtoproblemsinpsycholinguistics.Theydonotagree,however,onthefeasibilityofreducingbehaviortoamentalarchitecture.Ononehand,indi-vidualproc