cognitive ecology - m. friedman, et. al., (ap, 1996)

ERRATUM On the title page, the editors' affiliation should read: Department of Psychology University of California, Los Angeles Los Angeles, California Friedman and Carterette: Cognitive Ecology ISBN: 0-12-161966-4 This Page Intentionally Left Blank Cognitive Ecology Handbook of Perception and Cognition 2nd Edition Series Editors E d w a r d C Carterette and M o r t o n P F r i e d m a n Cognitive Ecology Edited by M o r t o n P F r i e d m a n Edward C Carterette Department of Psychology University of Southern California, Los Angeles Los Angeles, California Academic Press San, Diego New York Boston London Sydney Tokyo Toronto This book is printed on acid-free paper ( ~ Copyright 1996 by ACADEMIC PRESS, INC All Rights Reserved No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher A c a d e m i c Press, Inc A Division of Harcourt Brace & Company 525 B Street, Suite 1900, San Diego, California 92101-4495 United Kingdom Edition published by Academic Press Limited 24-28 Oval Road, London NW 7DX Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Cognitive ecology / edited by Morton P Friedman, Edward C Carterette p cm (Handbok of perception and cognition (2rid ed.)) Includes bibliographical references and index ISBN 0-12-161966-4 (alk paper) Cognition and culture Human information processing Perception Senses and Sensation I Friedman, Morton P II Carterette, Edward C III Series BF311.C5515 1995 153 dc20 95-20313 CIP PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 95 96 97 98 99 00 BB ., , , , - "; , ,.r , ;i,,-, " , , - ~ 2- ~-.' ~ "." ~'"~ ~,', ; " " : : ~ , ~ , ~ x ' ~ ~ ' ~ V ~ :~.~._~ ', " Contents xi xiii Contributors Foreword Preface XV M i n d and Culture The Environment of Minds: Toward a Noetic and Hedonic Ecology Eleanor R o s c h e I The Historical Background: Behaviorism II Noetic Ecology: The Knower and Knowledge A Perception B Attention C Connectionism III Hedonic Ecology: Desires and Things Desired A Neutral Reference Points for Gain and Loss 7 11 12 12 vi Contents B Habituation C Comparison D Categorizations E Probability, F Counterfactuals IV The Self V Conclusions References 13 14 15 16 17 20 22 23 Cultural Organization of Cognitive Functions Jaan Valsiner I Introduction II Shared Mysteries of Culture and Cognition A The Concept of Culture from an Anthropological Standpoint B Psychology's Inferential Fallacies and Discourse about Culture C Cognition: Process Situated within Contexts D Context-Bound Cognition and Ecological Approaches E Language Constraints on the Understanding of Flow of Mental Processes III Contemporary Attempts to Understand Culture within Mental Processes A Cultural Voices in (and around) the Mind B Dialogical Nature of Mental Processes: Ivana Markova and the Prague School C Barbara Rogoff's Ethnography of Participatory Appropriation D Lutz Eckensberger's Ecological Approach for Analyzing Culture in the Mind E Michael Cole and the Laboratory of Comparative Human Cognition F Carl Ratner's Sociohistorical Perspective G Richard Shweder's "Cultural Psychology" H The Perspective of Coconstructionism I Conclusions: Multivoicedness in Contemporary Theorizing IV Pathways to Methodology A What Kind of Methodology Is Needed? B Developmental Perspective as the Methodological Norm C Levels of Complexity and Units of Analysis D Analytic Levels and Parsimony in Investigation 29 30 30 32 34 35 36 37 37 39 39 41 42 42 43 43 44 44 45 45 46 48 Contents V General Conclusions" Dynamic Interdependence of Culture and Cognition References ~176 VU 49 50 The Arts Confluence and Divergence in Empirical Aesthetics, Philosophy, and Mainstream Psychology Gerald C Cupchik and Andrew S Winston I Origins of Unity in Diversity and Disinterest II Contemporary Theory and Research A Unity and Diversity in Psychological Research B Aesthetic Distance and Aesthetic Experience III Aesthetics and Mainstream Psychology A Physical-Sensory and Semantic Information in Everyday and Aesthetic Processing B Hierarchical Structure in Everyday and Aesthetic Stimuli IV Conclusions References 62 65 65 66 72 72 76 80 81 Music Perception and Cognition Roger A Kendall and Edward C Carterette I Introduction A Definition of Music B Music as Communication II Musical Pitch: Scales and Tuning A Basic Concepts B Psychological Correlates III Musical Gestalts A Fission B Similarity and Contrast C Multiple Cues D Polyphony IV Melody as Pitch Pattern A Melodic Contour 87 88 89 91 91 94 108 108 110 111 113 115 115 370 Harry T Lawless Single scale allowed - sucrose+strawberry Single scale allowed- sucrose solution A W m I I 01 C m re' Ill I11 t,t) =i Both Scales allowed- sucrose + strawberry Both Scales allowed - sucrose solution i 10 I 20 I 30 i 40 i 50 i 60 I 70 I 80 I 90 Time (s) F I G U R E "Dumping" or enhancement of halo effect when scale responses are restricted Aromatic strawberry flavor enhanced sweetness, but to a greater extent when responses were restricted to sweetness ratings only (as opposed to rating both sweetness and fruitiness) (Reprinted with permission from Lawless & Clark, 1992.) rated, should be conducted It also suggests some caution in substantiating claims for various synergies or e n h a n c e m e n t effects in which ratings are restricted to too few attributes Respondents may choose to " d u m p " some of their impressions into the most suitable category or the only allowable response if the attribute they perceive is otherwise unavailable on the ballot We have termed this a dumping, effect (Lawless & Clark, 1992) Alleged enhancements such as the effect o f ethyl maltol on sweetness should be viewed with caution unless the response biases inherent in d u m p i n g responses or in mislabeling smells as tastes can be ruled out Ethyl maltol is especially problematic in this regard because it has an odor sometimes characterized as "sweet" (Civille & Lawless, 1986) An example of a simple halo effect was shown in Figure As noted above, a minute a m o u n t of vanillin (a "sweet" aromatic) was added to lowfat milk A sample of food science students in a sensory evaluation course (who might have been expected to be more analytical and less influenced) rated the milk as sweeter, creamier, and thicker than a control milk w i t h o u t the added vanillin O f course, this apparent enhancement may have been exacerbated by the fact that no scale for vanilla flavor was provided, possibly adding an element of dumping to the halo Flavor 371 B Trigeminal Interactions Interactions of taste and smell with the trigeminal flavor senses are poorly understood However, anyone who has compared flat soda to carbonated soda will recognize that the tingle imparted by CO will alter the flavor balance in a product, usually to its detriment when the carbonation is not present Flat soda is usually too sweet Decarbonated champagne is usually very poor wine Several psychophysical studies have examined interactions of trigeminal irritation from chemicals with taste and with odor perception As in most laboratory psychophysics, these studies have focused on simple intensity changes in single chemicals in simple mixtures The first workers to examine effects of chemical irritation on olfaction found mutual inhibition of smell by CO in the nose (Cain & Murphy, 1980) This seems to occur even though the onset of the sting from CO is delayed somewhat compared to the onset of smell sensations Because many smells also have an irritative component (Tucker, 1971), it is probable that some of this inhibition is a common event in everyday flavor perception If a person had decreased sensitivity to nasal irritation the balance of aromatic flavor perception might be shifted in favor of the olfactory components If irritation impact is reduced, then the inhibitory effects of nasal irritation would also be reduced This might explain, in part, why smokers who are less responsive to irritation have little or no apparent olfactory deficiency when tested under controlled conditions Application of the red pepper compound, capsaicin, to the skin or oral epithelium has profound desensitizing effects (Jansco, 1960; Lawless & Gillette, 1985; Szolscanyi, 1977) This is also known to occur with systemic administration of capsaicinmanimals injected with capsaicin become inured to chemical irritants to a remarkable degree This is believed to reflect a depletion in substance-P, a peptide neurotransmitter for pain (Burks, Buck, & Miller, 1985) Because effects of substance-P have also been linked to functioning of endorphins (Andersen, Lund, & Puil, 1978), there is at least an indirect explanation for the apparent addiction that occurs to spicy foods among some people High dietary levels of capsaicin also result in a chronic desensitization, as shown in psychophysical tests (Lawless et al., 1985) The extent and influence of this desensitization on other flavor senses should be investigated further When confronted with the seemingly shocking level of hot pepper use by the regular spicy food consumer, a common comment by people who not eat hot spices is, "how can you taste your food?" There are several possible replies, one of which is that the burn or irritation is not unpleasant, and therefore does not command the attention the way other painful stimuli do, and that the other flavors are still present in addition to the pain (you merely have to shift your attention to t h e m n i f you want to) In spite of a vast literature on capsaicin in animal models, Nagy once commented that "no detailed quantitation has been conducted on the influence of capsaidn on non-nociceptive sensory stimuli" (Nagy, 1982) This raises the fundamental question of whether chili burn can mask tastes in the mouth, 372 Harry T Lawless the way that C O sting masks smells in the nose Partial inhibition of taste responses has been found following pretreatment of oral tissues with capsaicin, particularly of sour and bitter tastes (Karrer & Bartoshuk, 1989; Lawless et al., 1985; Lawless & Stevens, 1984) In contrast, Cowart (1987) observed little or no effect of capsaicin on tastes when capsaicin was mixed with taste stimuli, even though such direct mixing produced equal or higher levels of overall irritation than capsaicin pretreatments A potential resolution of this paradox is suggested by the finding that capsaicin desensitization takes several minutes to develop (i.e., it depends upon a delay between treatment and test stimuli) (Green, 1989) Such a temporal gap would have occurred to varying degrees in pretreatment experiments with tastants Conversely, when capsaicin stimuli were given in a more continuous sequence (as in mixture studies) irritation grew over trials The potential time dependence of capsaicin inhibition of taste as well as the fact that capsaicin inhibition is most reliably observed for acid and quinine, substances sometimes reported as partially irritative, suggests that the inhibitory effect seen in pretreatment studies may have been due to desensitization to an irritative mmponent of the presumed "tastants," rather than a direct effect on gustatory intensity per se If so, two simple predictions can be made regarding time and concentration variables: Inhibition of taste should parallel the time course of capsaicin selfdesensitization, including the need for a hiatus between capsaicin treatment and testing as observed by Green More intense taste stimuli (strong acid, strong salt) should show proportionally larger decrements after capsaicin treatment, because they have more of an irritative component than weaker, more dilute stimuli The reciprocal issue of whether tastes can modulate or ameliorate chili burn is a subject of some speculation There are folk remedies in various cultures, such as starchy corn (Peru), ghee (India), pineapple (Philippines), sugar (various Latin countries), and beer (Ithaca, N e w York, among other places) Systematic studies of trying to wash out chili burn with different tasting rinses has shown some effect for sweet (most pronounced), sour, and perhaps salt (Sizer & Harris, 1985; Stevens & Lawless, 1986) Cold stimuli provide a temporary but potent inhibition of pepper burn, as known to many habitu& of ethnic restaurants Since capsaicin is highly lipid soluble, the Indian remedy of ghee (clarified butter) would seem to have some merit Sour things stimulate salivary flow, which may provide some relief to abused oral tissues The combination of fatty, sour, cold, and sweet suggests the author's favorite antidote, frozen yogurt Certainly the Indian culinary practice of alternating cool, sweet chutneys with hot curries would seem to have some merit from this perspective C Halo Effects o f A p p e a r a n c e on Flavor Humans are a visually driven species In many societies with mature culinary arts, the visual presentation of a food is as important as its flavor and texture characteris- Flavor 373 tics Japanese cuisine is one good example A common effect in consumer testing is when foods are more deeply colored, they will obtain higher ratings for flavor intensity Effects of colored foods on flavor intensity and flavor identification are discussed in Stillman (1993) A good example of visual influence can be found in the literature on perception of milks of varying fat content Most people believe that skim milk is easily differentiated from whole milk or even from 2% low-fat milk by appearance, flavor, and texture (mouthfeel) However, most of their perception of fat content is driven by appearance (Pangborn & Dunkley, 1964; Tuorila, 1986) In our laboratory, trained descriptive panelists readily differentiate skim milk from 2% on the basis of appearance (color) ratings, mouthfeel, and flavor However, when visual cues are removed, the psychophysical functions for flavor and texture as a function of fat content become flattenedmdiscrimination is markedly impaired (Philips, McGiff, Barbano, & Lawless, 1993) When tested in the dark with cold milk (approximately refrigerator temperature), discrimination of skim milk from 2% milk drops almost to chance performance, a result that skim milk drinkers find difficult to swallow This line of research emphasizes that humans react to the ensemble of sensory stimulation available from a food Even "objective" trained descriptive panelists are subject to visual bias VII FLAVOR SCIENCE, CUISINE, AND CULTURE Most of what we understand about flavor perception has arisen from research conducted with physiological, psychophysical, or chemical orientations There is a dearth of information connecting flavor perception and flavor preferences to the practical culinary arts Undoubtedly many of our cultural habits arise for social, historical, economic, and religious reasons (Harris, 1985) Any practical discussion of flavor should point out that ethnic cuisine is an important part of each person's cultural identity 1Kozin (1983) has explored this notion in a systematic way, noting the particular combinations of recurrent flavors that seem to define certain regional and ethnic styles of" cooking She calls these flavor principles For example, the combination of soy sauce with garlic, brown sugar, sesame seed, and chile will mark a dish as characteristically Korean while soy sauce with garlic, molasses, ground peanuts, and chile will be recognizably Indonesian She goes on to theorize that these constellations of flavors form attractive blends that tend to resist combinations with other ingredients Greek cuisine uses a lot of lemon, oregano, cinnamon, and tomato The lemon-oregano combination recurs, as does the cinnamon-tomato However, the oregano-tomato does not usually combine, although it can in other cultures Flavor harmonies may represent centuries of cultural evolution In Greek cuisine, the wine retsina is very resiny, reminiscent of pine sap Pine sap or gum was apparently used as a closure in ancient times on amphora containing wine, so some cultural flavor tradition persists As mentioned above, this rather unusual wine 374 Harry T Lawless flavor is difficult for m a n y n o n - G r e e k s to accept w h e n tasted in isolation H o w e v e r , w i t h the use o f herbs like oregano in G r e e k food (many o f w h i c h have p i n e - r e l a t e d t e r p e n e aromatics), the w i n e - f o o d m a t c h w i t h retsina is e m i n e n t l y palatable B e cause w i n e in m o s t cultures is an a c c o m p a n i m e n t to food, it is likely that w i n e styles and flavor principles coevolve C o n s i d e r a t i o n o f the origin o f flavor preferences and culinary c o m b i n a t i o n s is b e y o n d the scope o f this chapter H o w e v e r , o n e interesting hint is available in the literature b o t h o f dairy science and h u m a n perceptual studies: Flavors such as garlic are readily transmitted from a mother's diet into milk, and may f o r m an early part o f h u m a n experience H u m a n infants, in fact, will spend m o r e time at a nipple that is p r o d u c i n g garlic flavored milk than o n e that is n o t (Menella & B e a u c h a m p , 1991) It is quite possible that o u r allegiance to the cuisine o f o u r culture arises from this early but indirect exposure to w h a t the adults in o u r culture are eating References Ackerman, D (1990) A natural history of the senses New York: Random House Acree, T E., Barnard, J., & Cunningham, D G (1984) A procedure for the sensory analysis for gas chromatographic effluents Food Chemistry, 14, 273-286 Amerine, M R., & Roessler, E B (1982) Wines, their sensory evaluation (2nd ed.) San Francisco: W H Freeman Amoore, J E (1970) Molecular basis of odor Springfield, IL: Charles C Thomas Amoore, J E (1971) Olfactory genetics and anosmia In L M Beidler (Eds.), Handbook of sensory physiology (pp 245-256) Berlin: Springer-Verlag Amoore, J E., Forrester, L J., & Pelosi, P (1976) Specific anosmia to isobutyraldehyde: the malty primary odor Chemical Senses, 2, 17-25 Amoore, J E., Venstrom, D., & Davis, A R (1968) Measurement of specific anosmia Perceptual and Motor Skills, 26, 143-164 Andersen, R K., Lund, J P., & Puil, E (1978) Enkephalin and substance P effects related to trigeminal pain Canadian Journat of Physiology and Pharmacology, 56, 216-222 Anliker, J., Bartoshuk, L., Ferris, A., & Hooks, L (1991) Children's food preferences and genetic sensitivity to the bitter taste of PROP American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, 54, 316-320 Ayya, N., & Lawless, H T (1992) Qualitative and quantitative evaluation of high-intensity sweeteners and sweetener mixtures Chemical Senses, 17, 245-259 Azevedo, E., Krieger, H., Mi, M P., & Morton, N E (1965) PTC taste sensitivity and endemic goiter in Brazil American Journal of Human Genetics, 17, 87-90 Bartoshuk, L M (1968) Water taste in man Perception & Psychophysics, 3, 69-72 Bartoshuk, L M (1975) Taste mixtures: Is mixture suppression related to compression? Physiology and Behavior, 14, 643-649 Bartoshuk, L M (1979) Bitter taste of saccharin related to the genetic ability to taste the bitter substance 6-N-Propylthiouracil Science, 205, 934-935 Bartoshuk, L M., Cain, W S., Cleveland, C T., Grossman, L S., Marks, L E., Stevens, J C., & Stolwijk, J A (1974) Saltiness of monosodium glutamate and sodium intake Journal of the American Medical Association, 230, 670 Bartoshuk, L M., & Cleveland, C T (1977) Mixtures of substances with similar tastes: a test of a new model of taste mixture interactions Sensory Processes, 1, 177-186 Bartoshuk, L M., Murphy, C L & Cleveland, C T (1978) Sweet taste of dilute NaC1 Physiology and Behavior, 21, 609-613 Flavor 375 Bartoshuk, L M., 1