What Do We See When We See Total Darkness?

Seeing total darkness is a peculiar perceptual state: in it, the subject is visually aware of something while seeming to fail to be aware of anything. Recent treatments of the topic (Sorensen 2008 , Soteriou 2000 ) leave this particular puzzle unsolved. Here, I attempt a solution. Following Dretske, I begin by suggesting that the perceptual report ‘S sees (total) darkness’ is ambiguous between two distinct kinds of perceptual states: epistemic and non‐epistemic. This will lead to an examination of the metaphysics of what is supposed to be seen. I show, on the one hand, the difficulty of reducing the perception of total darkness to the perception of a particular instantiation of a property, and on the other, that it has important similarities with the perception of (non‐particular) ‘stuff’. I propose, finally, that the solution to the puzzle might involve postulating a novel ontological status for total darkness: that of a ‘concrete universal’. Potential implications of interest for particularism and for naïve realism are suggested.     

Do You ‘See’ What I ‘See’? Differentiation of Visual Action Words

Dickinson and Szeligo (Can J Exp Psychol 62(4):211–222, 2008) found that processing time for simple visual stimuli was affected by the visual action participants had been instructed to perform on these stimuli (e.g., see, distinguish). It was concluded that these effects reflected the differences in the durations of these various visual actions, and the results were compared to participants’ subjective ratings of word meaning but it was also possible that word characteristics like length might have influenced response times. The present study takes advantage of word length differences between French and English visual action words in order to address this issue. The goals of the present study were to provide evidence that (1) the processing time differences previously found were due to differences in the cognitive actions represented by these words (and not due to characteristics to the words themselves), and (2) that individuals subjectively differentiate visual action words in such a way that allows for predictable differences in behaviour. Participants differentiated 14 French visual action words along two dimensions. Four of these words were then used in the instructions for a size-discrimination task. Processing time depended on the visual action word in the instruction to the task and differed in a predictable manner according to word meaning but not word length.     

Do You See What I See? An Exploration of Congruence in Ratings From Multiple Perspectives1

This paper provides a comparative analysis of behavioral observations made on 152 service providers in a business advisory and professional services firm from 5 distinctly different ratings sources (self, direct reports, peers, supervisor, and clients). Results focused on differences in ratings level and degree of congruence with self-assessments by observer type. The data suggested that service providers and their clients may have a different perceptual frame of reference than do internal observers (e.g., direct reports, peers, and supervisors). Moreover, congruence in self-others' ratings was found to be a significant predictor of performance assessments from the same observer source. Implications of these results for the use of multirater appraisal systems are discussed.     

Why Cannot Children See as the Same What Grown-Ups Cannot See as Different?— Early Numerical Thinking Revisited

Based on close observations of two 4-year-old children responding to their parents' requests for quantitative comparisons, we offer a "participationist" account of the origins and development of numerical thinking, one that portrays numbers as a product rather than a pregiven object of human communication. In parallel, we propose a participationist reinterpretation of relevant past research, most of which has been guided by the metaphor of learning-as-acquisition (of mental schemes, of concepts, etc.). The point of departure for our analyses is the assumption that thinking can be usefully conceptualized as a special case of activity of communicating and that learning arithmetic can be thought of as a development of a specialized discourse. We claim that the development of this discourse involves the ability to see as "the same" things that, so far, could only be seen as different. In the longer run, this ability will lead to the objectification of the discourse-that is, to the use of number words as if they signified discourse-independent entities "out there" in the world. This development commences in child's ritualized participation in arithmetical routines of grown-ups and continues in a gradual transformation of the rituals into genuine explorations. Paraphrasing Vygotsky (1978), we conclude that the numerical discourse that begins as an interpersonal affair turns in the growing mind into a matter of one's relation with human-independent world. We also claim that this kind of development is a 1-way process, and the change from the interpersonal to between-person-and-the-world outlook, once accomplished, can hardly be reversed.     

Gay–See also–Lesbian Resources for Believers

ABSTRACT

Few bibliographies exist that specifically focus on the resources available for lesbian and gay people of faith. This paper seeks to gather some of the best resources, both old and new, into a cohesive and comprehensive format as they mainly relate to the Christian tradition. Focusing on available books, as well as Internet resources, annotated lists have been assembled that document resources that many theological libraries might consider for purchase. Books have been categorized in typical library categories and each entry is annotated to aid in selection. Internet sites have also been annotated to explain their inclusion in the article.     

Do Supervisors and Subordinates See Eye-to-Eye on Job Enrichment?

The Social Information Processing Model states that employees' perceptions of their job characteristics are influenced in part by others (e.g., supervisors). This study compared supervisors' and their subordinates' perceptions of the subordinates' job enrichment. The convergence of these perceptions were then examined in relation to the subordinates' job satisfaction, performance, and organizational commitment. Fifty-two supervisor-subordinate pairs from an university in the northeastern United States were the subjects in this study. Results indicted that: (1) supervisors and their subordinates perceive subordinates' job characteristics differently, and (2) the supervisors' perceptions have limited relationships with critical work outcomes. Implications of these findings are discussed.     

How Clearly Must I See? Art and Ethics in Pedagogical Practice

This essay explores pedagogical practices and ethical obligations in the embrace of cultural and religious diversity by a faculty team in a theological school course. Attention is given to the interplay of art and ethical dilemmas in an educational praxis that calls into question students’ taken‐for‐granted worldviews and theologies. In the first of three sections the writers identify several assumptions they brought to the conduct of the course regarding diversity, art, and pedagogy. The second section describes student encounters with and responses to art from a variety of cultural contexts. The paper concludes with a critical reflection on ethical and political issues arising from pedagogical practices that engage students with art.     

See red? Turn pale? Unveiling emotions through cardiovascular and hemodynamic changes

Cardiodynamic and hemodynamic reactions to emotion-eliciting film sequences were investigated. Thirty-two healthy subjects (12 women, 20 men) were randomly assigned to one of two groups. In the first group, anger was induced using selected scenes of the film "Ragtime." In the second group, scenes of the film "The Shining" were chosen to elicit fear. A documentary film was used as a baseline stimulus in both groups. EKG, impedance cardiography, and blood pressure were continuously monitored. The two emotional conditions elicited significant differential changes in subjective ratings and cardiovascular indices. Fear was associated with decreased cardiac output, increased total peripheral resistance, and a reduction in stroke volume and myocardial contractility. Anger was associated with an increase of cardiac output and small changes in total peripheral resistance. These results support the hypothesis that discrete emotions such as fear and anger elicit differential patterns of physiological responses.     

How Can Experts See the Invisible? Reply to Bilalić and Gobet

Experts in all fields are able to see what is invisible to others. Experts are also able to see what is visible to all—and this is explored by Bilalić and Gobet. We question the method of normalizing all subjects in an experimental condition, and asking experts to behave as if they were novices. We claim that method leads Bilalić and Gobet to a nonsequitur .     

Do You See What I See? The Influence of Gender Stereotypes on Student and Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) Perceptions of Violent Same-Sex and Opposite-Sex Relationships

ABSTRACT

Forty-one men and 67 women undergraduate students, as well as 35 men and 27 women Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) officers, rated the abusiveness of intimate partner violence (IPV) vignettes portraying each possible gender combination of victim and perpetrator (Harris &; Cook, 1994 Harris, R. J. and Cook, C. A. 1994. Attributions about spouse abuse: It matters who the batterers and victims are. Sex Roles, 30: 553–565. [Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]). Rating differences according to victim and perpetrator gender, occupation (student or RCMP officer), and participant gender were anticipated. Analyses found that student and RCMP ratings of abuse severity were both highest for the male-female scenario. However, the RCMP considered the female-male, male-male, and female-female scenarios to be more abusive than did the students. Our findings suggest that, while the RCMP appeared to be more sensitive to male and same-sex victims than students, both groups remain somewhat biased.     

Did Somebody See It? Applying the Verifiability Approach to Insurance Claim Interviews

We examined the application of the verifiability approach to insurance claim interviews. The verifiability approach states that truth tellers and liars differ from each other in terms of the number of details they give that can be verified. Eighty‐three true and false insurance claim statements, related to damage, theft, or loss, were coded in terms of ‘witnesses’ (was the incident witnessed by others) and ‘verifiability’ (the number of perceptual and contextual details provided that could be checked by the investigator). We found that the majority of liars, compared with half the truth tellers, described unwitnessed incidents. This difference between the groups allowed for the detection of liars only. Discrimination between liars and truth tellers based on the verifiability of details was not possible. The implications of these findings are discussed. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

How We See Ourselves: A Resident’s Reflection on the Class Play

The “class play” is an annual tradition in residency training programs and medical schools that celebrates the end of the academic year. It is also a locally generated narrative that reveals important components of an institution’s values, culture, and group dynamics. Exploring the class play is a reflexive exercise that allows one to reflect on his or her professional development and place in the department in a structural, historical, and experience-near driven way. In this way, the creation of and examining of the class play may be seen as an opportunity to understand and expand upon medicine’s Hidden Curriculum.     

What Revolution Would You Like to See In the Field of Psychotherapy? Introduction

Contributors to a theme issue were invited to address two questions: (a) What revolution would you like to see in the field of psychotherapy? (b) What makes it revolutionary? That is, how and why is it revolutionary? In a spirit of helping contributors do their job, an attempt is made to clarify the meaning of a revolutionary new idea in the field of psychotherapy by identifying components that do not especially belong, and by proposing components that can be thought of as defining the proposed meaning.     

Lord,When did We See You? Towards a Topography of the Visual

As it outlines a Christian topography of the visual, this article argues that the gaze cultivated by attention to art and the gaze of mercy bear important affinities, even if particular artworks exhibit tensions with mercy. Drawing on Augustine, Dionysius and Gregory of Nyssa, we argue that in this topography, the visual registers in multiple depths, which we explore through four distinct moments: seeing, seeing the excess, seeing the claim and seeing the divine. By analyzing the gaze of art and the gaze of mercy together with reference to artworks created during and about El Salvador’s civil war (1980–92) – the homilies of Óscar Romero, the poetry of Carolyn Forché and the visual art of Fernando Llort – we show that the gaze of art echoes and can prepare for the gaze of mercy, particularly in the first three moments, for which there are direct analogies between art and mercy’s gazes. There is no such direct analogy in the fourth moment of seeing the divine, yet even here there is a faint foreshadowing that connects art to mercy.     

“Do You See and Hear More? A Study on Telugu Perception Verbs”

Journal of Psycholinguistic Research - Verbs of perception describe the actual perception of some entity and it is emphasized by earlier researchers that lexicon in languages is...     

See what you’ve done! Active touch affects the number of perceived visual objects

Previous research has shown that visual perception is affected by sensory information from other modalities. For example, sound can alter the visual intensity or the number of visual objects perceived. However, when touch and vision are combined, vision normally dominates—a phenomenon known asvisual capture. Here we report a cross-modal interaction between active touch and vision: The perceived number of brief visual events (flashes) is affected by the number of concurrently performed finger movements (keypresses). This sensorimotor illusion occurred despite little ambiguity in the visual stimuli themselves and depended on a close temporal proximity between movement execution and vision.     

Maltreated Children's Emotional and Behavioral Problems: Do Teachers and Parents See the Same Things?

We examined whether parent/caregivers and teacher/therapists differ in their perceptions of the behavior problems of young maltreated children. The sample consisted of 33 maltreated preschoolers (58% neglected, 24% sexually abused, 18% physically abused, 59% African American, 41% Caucasian) enrolled in a metropolitan-area treatment center providing an educational/intervention program for maltreated children and their families. Most (82%) of the participant families had an annual income of $10,000 or less. Parent/caregivers and teacher/ therapists provided data about the children, employing the Colorado Child Temperament Inventory, Child Behavior Checklist, and Preschool Behavior Questionnaire. The results indicate that the teacher/therapists and the parent/caregivers perceived the same child as behaving differently. Implications concerning how teachers and parents might communicate are discussed, as well as possible reasons for the two different perceptions of the same child. Three potential reasons for the differences are that they are due to the different perspectives of parents and teachers in assessing child behaviors, to situational variation in child behavior (e.g., home versus school), or to some combination of both effects.