Masking of tones by tones and of noise by noise

Using a two-alternative temporal forced-choice technique, two binaural detection experiments were performed. In the first, the detectability of a 250-Hz 128-msec tonal signal masked by a gated 70-dB SPL tone of the same frequency and duration was measured as a function of the level of the signal, the phase angle at which the signal was added to the masker, and the interaural phase difference of the signal. In the second experiment, the signal was a wideband (100-3,000 Hz) 128-msec Gaussian noise masked by a continuous Gaussian noise of the same bandwidth and coherent with the signal. The detectability of this noise signal was measured as a function of the same variables investigated in the first experiment. In both experiments detectability was found to follow a simple energy- or power-detection model when the interaural phase difference was 0 deg. When the interaural phase difference was 180 deg, the function relating the signal level required for a constant level of performance to the signal-masker phase angle is such that neither the Webster-Jeffress hypothesis nor Durlach’s E-C model accounts for the data. The data are reasonably well fit by a model proposed by Hafter and Carrier.     

The perception of emotions by ear and by eye

Emotions are expressed in the voice as well as on the face. As a first step to explore the question of their integration, we used a bimodal perception situation modelled after the McGurk paradigm, in which varying degrees of discordance can be created between the affects expressed in a face and in a tone of voice. Experiment 1 showed that subjects can effectively combine information from the two sources, in that identification of the emotion in the face is biased in the direction of the simultaneously presented tone of voice. Experiment 2 showed that this effect occurs also under instructions to base the judgement exclusively on the face. Experiment 3 showed the reverse effect, a bias from the emotion in the face on judgement of the emotion in the voice. These results strongly suggest the existence of mandatory bidirectional links between affect detection structures in vision and audition.     

Social cuing of guilt by anger and of shame by disgust

Scholars have proposed a conceptual structure for the self-critical moral emotions of guilt and shame and the other-critical emotions of anger and disgust. In this model, guilt is linked with anger and shame with disgust. This relationship may express itself in asymmetrical social cuing between emotions: In a social context, other people's angry facial expressions may communicate that the target should feel guilty, and other people's disgusted facial expressions may communicate that the target should feel ashamed. We conducted two experiments, one in the United Kingdom and the other in Spain, in which participants were shown pictures of faces expressing either anger or disgust. Participants rated the degree to which the faces would make them feel guilt or shame in a casual social encounter, and they answered questions about inferences concerning the emotional expressions. In both studies, angry expressions led to greater guilt and less shame than did disgusted expressions. This relationship was explained better by the type of norm violation inferred than by whether the violation was thought to involve the target's action or personality versus the target's character.     

The use of imagery by intelligent and by creative schoolchildren

Two studies focusing on differences in thinking strategies between intellectually gifted and creative children were undertaken. In the first study (N = 29), ethnographic techniques of observation along with testing and problem-solving interviews were used in a regular classroom. Three subjects (one high IQ and high creativity, one high IQ and low creativity, and one low IQ and high creativity) were identified for intensive observation. In the second study, testing procedures and problem-solving interviews were completed with 30 children who were placed in a gifted program within an urban school system. Both studies produced evidence supporting the link between imaging abilities and creative thinking.     

Retrograde enhancement of kinesthetic memory by alcohol and by glucose

Several studies have reported that administration of a low dose of alcohol is capable of retrograde enhancement of memory. It has been postulated that the neurobiological mechanisms underlying this effect may involve the liberation of glucose and/or activation of reward centers. Here the effects of a low dose of alcohol were compared to those of glucose on kinesthetic memory. Mood and blood glucose levels were also measured. Compared with a placebo, both glucose and alcohol significantly enhanced kinesthetic memory performance. Only glucose ingestion resulted in significantly elevated blood glucose levels. The three groups' mood scores were statistically indistinguishable. Low-dose alcohol consumption does not result in the release of glucose nor does it affect any aspect of mood, at least as measured here. These results confirm that kinesthetic memory can be improved by administration of alcohol and extend the range of tasks which are sensitive to enhancement by glucose.     

Survey of advantages obtained by judoka in competition by level of practice

In judo, placing the opponent in a situation of uncertainty requires the mastery of several throws. French young judoka learn, respectively, 10, 9, and 8 throws to earn yellow, orange, and green belts. These techniques allow throwing down a judoka in several directions (backward, forward, left and right). To see what happens in competition 82 judoka were observed during regional competitions. The average number of matches was 3.3 +/- 0.5. The average number of successful attack directions was 2.8 +/- 1.3 for 8 children at orange to green belt level; 2.1 +/- 0.7 for 11 children at blue belt level; 2.2 +/- 0.8 for 17 children at brown belt level; 2.8 +/- 0.9 for 20 cadets at brown to black belt level, 2.6 +/- 1.1 for 10 juniors at brown to black belt level, and 3.3 +/- 0.9 for 16 seniors at black belt level. These scores for children with blue and brown belts were significantly different (p=.02) from those of seniors with black belts. Such results imply a nonlinear progression between the technical level (represented by the belt) and the capacity to create uncertainty (the ability to throw down the opponent with at least three techniques in three different directions). Judo is a sport of slow technical maturation; it requires this adaptation before its mastery in competition.     

Repetition and confirmation of messages received by ear and by eye

A rating method was used to obtain operating characteristics for 60 heterogeneous words. A single message was heard in noise, or seen briefly in a tachistoscope. It was repeated until it had been assigned to the highest accuracy category (“confirmed”) or sent a maximum of six trials. The comparisons showed that it matters little whether reception is by eye or by ear. Whether within a trial or over successive repetitions, accuracy of reception is a direct function of the confidence rating and is relatively independent of the intelligibility level. Neither do the accuracy of reception or the distributions of rating categories change markedly over trials. Although no direct test was made, it appears that accuracy of reception is not lessened by the task of rating. Both visual and auditory data are fitted reasonably well by predictions made from a simple stochastic model based on the assumptions that (1) intelligibility, (2) probability of a correct acceptance, and (3) probability of an incorrect acceptance remain constant over successive repetitions. The model fits the visual better than the auditory data, as might be expected, since conditions of reception are more homogeneous over trials for vision than for audition.     

The establishment of stimulus control by instructions and by differential reinforcement

A repeated acquisition design was used to study the effects of instructions and differential reinforcement on the performance of complex chains by undergraduates. The chains required responding on a series of keys that corresponded to characters that appeared on a monitor. Each day, subjects performed a new chain in a learning session and later relearned the same chain in a test session. Experiment 1 replicated previous research by showing that instructional stimuli paired with the correct responses in the learning sessions, combined with differential reinforcement in both learning and test sessions, resulted in stimulus control by the characters in each link. Experiment 2 separated the effects of instructional stimuli and differential reinforcement, and showed that stimulus control by the characters could be established solely by differential reinforcement during the test sessions. Experiment 3 showed that when a rule specified the relation between learning and test sessions, some subjects performed accurately in the test sessions without exposure to any differential consequences. This rule apparently altered the stimulus control properties of the characters much as did differential reinforcement during testing. However, compared to differential reinforcement, the rule established stimulus control more quickly.     

现代伦理学:在康德与卢梭之间

本文为纪念康德逝世 2 0 0周年而作 ,反省的主要问题是现代意义上的各种伦理学的核心形态可能是什么。文章分析了康德所受卢梭影响的性质 ,以及两者之间仍然存在的巨大差别 ,指出现代意义上的规范伦理学的基本位置大致还是处在康德与卢梭之间。     

Comprehension of familiar phrases by left- but not by right-hemisphere damaged patients

Single words, familiar phrases (idioms and speech formulas), and novel sentences (matched to the familiar phrases in length, frequency, and structure) were selected for a picture-matching auditory comprehension task and administered to left- and right-brain damaged (LBD, RBD) subjects. The groups did not differ in single word comprehension. A 2 x 2 ANOVA revealed opposite patterns on the two other tasks, with LBD subjects performing worse on novel than familiar phrases, and RBD subject impaired on familiar phrase but not on novel sentence comprehension. The role of grammatical/referential vs. holistic/inferential meaning in left and right hemisphere function is discussed.     

Tuning the brain by learning and by stimulation of the nucleus basalis

Although it is well-established that the cerebral cortex is a substrate for learning, memory and higher cognitive functions, rather less is known about the mechanisms by which experiences are acquired and stored in the cortex. The role of the basal forebrain cholinergic system (BFCS) in learning-induced plasticity is underlined by a recent report by Kilgard and Merzenich[1]. In this article I will discuss the findings of Kilgard and Merzenich in the context of other developments in our understanding of the BFCS and its role in learning-induced plasticity. However, before the discussion I would like to provide some essential background information.     

Use of number by crows: investigation by matching and oddity learning

Hooded crows were trained in two-alternative simultaneous matching and oddity tasks with stimulus sets of three different categories: color (black and white), shape (Arabic Numerals 1 and 2, which were used as visual shapes only), and number of elements (arrays of one and two items). These three sets were used for training successively and repeatedly; the stimulus set was changed to the next one after the criterion (80% correct or better over 30 consecutive trials) was reached with the previous one. Training was continued until the criterion could be reached within the first 30 to 50 trials for each of the three training sets. During partial transfer tests, familiar stimuli (numerals and arrays in the range from 1 to 2) were paired with novel ones (numerals and arrays in the range from 3 to 4). At the final stage of testing only novel stimuli were presented (numerals and arrays in the range from 5 to 8). Four of 6 birds were able to transfer in these tests, and their performance was significantly above chance. Moreover, performance of the birds on the array stimuli did not differ from their performance on the color or shape stimuli. They were capable of recognizing the number of elements in arrays and comparing the stimuli by this attribute. It was concluded that crows were able to apply the matching (or oddity) concept to stimuli of numerical category.     

The Spiritual Trauma Experienced by Victims of Sexual Abuse by Catholic Clergy

Most of the published literature on clergy abuse of children has addressed the emotional and psychological effects of sexual abuse common to all victims. The literature published by Church-related sources has consistently addressed the impact of clergy abuse on the Church as an institution as well as the problems and treatment needs of the clergy abusers. Little has been written or even explored about the spiritual trauma suffered by clergy victims. This article examines some of the symptoms and possible recovery from the spiritual dimension of post abuse trauma.     

Modulation of spatial Stroop by object-based attention but not by space-based attention

Earlier studies have shown that the spatial Stroop effect systematically decreases when a peripheral precue is presented at the same location as the target, compared to an uncued location condition. In this study, two experiments were conducted to explore whether the cueing modulation of spatial Stroop is object based and/or space based. In Experiment 1, we found evidence favouring the view that the cueing modulation of the spatial Stroop effect is entirely object based, as no differences were found in conflict reduction for the same-location and same-object conditions. In Experiment 2, the cue was predictive, and a similar object-based modulation of spatial Stroop was still observed. However, the direction of such modulation was affected by the rectangles' orientation. Overall, the pattern of results obtained favours the object-integration (Lupiáñez & Milliken, 1999; Lupiáñez, Milliken, Solano, Weaver, & Tipper, 2001) and referential-coding accounts (Danziger, Kingstone, & Ward, 2001) and seems to provide evidence against the attention-shift account (Rubichi, Nicoletti, Iani, & Umilta, 1997; Stoffer, 1991).     

Perception of three-dimensional shape specified by optic flow by 8-week-old infants

Sensitivity of 8-week-old infants to optical flow specifying the shape of a three-dimensional object was assessed. Infants viewed kinetic random-dot displays that specified three-dimensional cubes. The cubes were identical except for the presence or absence of an interior corner. Half of the infants viewed the full display. The other half viewed the central region of the displays, where the flow specifying the presence or absence of the corner differed. Infants in the full-view condition looked significantly longer to a novel cube than to the familiar cube following habituation. In contrast, infants in the partial-view condition looked equally to the novel and familiar cubes, ruling out the possibility that infants who viewed the full displays merely discriminated differences in motion in the central region of the two displays. These findings suggest that infants as young as 8 weeks perceive three-dimensional object shape from optic flow.     

Children by choice or by chance: The perceived effects of parity

In a study examining inferences made about couples based on their choice whether or not to have children, college undergraduates projected 1-year and 25-year life situations for a hypothetical couple who either (1) neither had nor wished to have children, (2) were presented without any reference to children, or (3) already had two children. This manipulation notwithstanding, most couples were projected as becoming parents. Female subjects saw having children as enhancing the quality of life of both partners, while males took the opposite view.