All employees are equal,but some are more equal than others: dominance,agreeableness, and status inconsistency among men and women

Status inconsistency is a situation in which there is an objective or subjective mismatch between, for example, a person’s education and his/her income. This mismatch may transform into status enhancement, wherein rewards exceed one’s human capital, or into status detraction, wherein one’s human capital exceeds one’s rewards. Although status inconsistency affects employees’ attitudes and behaviours, little is known about individual differences in this variable. The current study investigates whether the relationships of agreeableness and dominance—with objective and subjective status inconsistency vary by gender. We analysed objective and subjective input and return statuses among a sample of 375 employees. We found that men who expressed a gender-non-congruent trait, namely agreeableness, experienced an objective backlash effect compared with dominant men, whereas women who expressed a gender-non-congruent trait, namely dominance, did not experience a backlash effect compared with agreeable women. In addition, our results show that agreeable employees, both men and women, perceive themselves as status-enhanced when in fact they are not. Finally, we show that objective status inconsistency mediates the relationships of agreeableness and dominance with subjective status inconsistency.     

The extraretinal signal for the visual perception of direction

The dependence of the perception of direction on two kinds of extraretinal signals was measured by asking Ss to indicate the position of a fixation target relative to the subjective straight ahead. Outflow was studied by making such localizations while the fixating eye was loaded by means of weights attached to a suction contact lens. Inflow was studied by making such localizations with brief test flashes to a passively rotated eye while the other eye fixated. Shifts in the perceived direction, of the fixation target were in line with predictions from outflow theory and not influenced by conflicting inflow signals.     

Identification of the eye-brain-hand system with point processes: a new approach to simple reaction time

By presenting a Poisson process of flashes to observers who hit a button as quickly as possible after each, the authors identified the system involved in simple reaction time (RT). The nonlinear kernels up to 2nd order were measured from the stimulus and response point processes. The 1st-order kernel is analogous to a histogram of simple RTs. The 2nd-order kernel shows complex patterns of nonlinear suppression and facilitation between pairs of flashes. Simple RT measured as the lag of the 1st-order kernel's peak agrees with RT from conventional discrete trial experiments. RTs are shorter and less variable when the flashes are separated by uniform rather than exponential delays, which shows that observers use the stimulus hazard function to become prepared to detect and respond to the flash.     

Self-efficacy, values, and complementarity in dyadic interactions: integrating interpersonal and social-cognitive theory

Dyadic interactions were analyzed using constructs from social-cognitive theory (self-efficacy and subjective values) and interpersonal theory (interpersonal circumplex [IPC] and complementarity). In Study 1, the authors developed a measure of efficacy for interpersonal actions associated with each IPC region--the Circumplex Scales of Interpersonal Efficacy (CSIE). In Study 2, the authors used the CSIE and the Circumplex Scales of Interpersonal Values (which assesses the subjective value of interpersonal events associated with each IPC region) to predict the dominance expressed and satisfaction experienced by members of 101 same-sex dyads trying to solve a murder mystery. Structural equation modeling analyses supported both social-cognitive and interpersonal theory. A social-cognitive person-variable (dominance efficacy) and an interpersonal dyadic-variable (reciprocity) together predicted dominant behaviors. Likewise, both a social-cognitive variable (friendliness values) and an interpersonal variable (correspondence of friendliness efficacy) predicted satisfaction. Finally, both shared performance outcomes and dynamic interpersonal processes predicted convergence of collective efficacy beliefs within dyads.     

Judgments of synchrony between auditory and moving or still visual stimuli.

The flash-lag effect is a visual illusion wherein intermittently flashed, stationary stimuli seem to trail after a moving visual stimulus despite being flashed synchronously. We tested hypotheses that the flash-lag effect is due to spatial extrapolation, shortened perceptual lags, or accelerated acquisition of moving stimuli, all of which call for an earlier awareness of moving visual stimuli over stationary ones. Participants judged synchrony of a click either to a stationary flash of light or to a series of adjacent flashes that seemingly bounced off or bumped into the edge of the visual display. To be judged synchronous with a stationary flash, audio clicks had to be presented earlier--not later--than clicks that went with events, like a simulated bounce (Experiment 1) or crash (Experiments 2-4), of a moving visual target. Click synchrony to the initial appearance of a moving stimulus was no different than to a flash, but clicks had to be delayed by 30-40 ms to seem synchronous with the final (crash) positions (Experiment 2). The temporal difference was constant over a wide range of motion velocity (Experiment 3). Interrupting the apparent motion by omitting two illumination positions before the last one did not alter subjective synchrony, nor did their occlusion, so the shift in subjective synchrony seems not to be due to brightness contrast (Experiment 4). Click synchrony to the offset of a long duration stationary illumination was also delayed relative to its onset (Experiment 5). Visual stimuli in motion enter awareness no sooner than do stationary flashes, so motion extrapolation, latency difference, and motion acceleration cannot explain the flash-lag effect.     

Episode Type,Attachment Orientation,and Frame Salience: Evidence for a Theory of Relational Framing

Relational framing theory asserts that dominance‐submission and affiliation‐disaffiliation tend to displace each other as frames for processing social interaction; involvement is argued to be a content‐free intensifier variable that contributes to judgments of dominance or affiliation as a function of the salient relational frame. The present study seeks to replicate and extend previous tests of these claims by evaluating three hypotheses: (a) The differential salience of dominance‐submission and affiliation‐disaffiliation frames as a function of the type of social episode is robust across same‐sex and cross‐sex friendship dyads; (b) the magnitude of the association between involvement and dominance and affiliation varies as a function of frame salience instantiated by the type of episode; and (c) attachment anxiety is positively correlated with the perceived relevance of both dominance‐submission and affiliation‐disaffiliation to social episodes. Results are consistent with all three of the hypotheses, but relational framing is unrelated to subscales operationalizing the comfort with closeness dimension of attachment orientation.     

Event-related potential indices of ambiguous sentence processing

An event-related potential (ERP) probe was used to examine various models of ambiguous sentence processing. ERPs to light flashes were recorded during and immediately after auditorily presented ambiguous and unambiguous target sentences. Each target sentence was preceded by either a relevant or a neutral context sentence. Principal component analyses of the ERPs indicated that although certain components varied as a function of ambiguity, none of the components varied as a function of preceding context. These findings provided some support for a postdecision model of ambiguity processing which suggests that both meanings of an ambiguity are always processed, even when prior disambiguating context is available.     

Preserved organization of semantic attributes in Alzheimer's disease

This study investigated whether Alzheimer's disease (AD) disrupts the basic organization of the semantic attributes of concepts. Young and normal older subjects and AD patients were presented with a target concept followed by a stimulus word and were to decide whether the stimulus was related to the target. On those trials where it was, the stimulus was either a high-, medium-, or low-dominance attribute of the target. The higher the normative dominance, the more important the attribute to concept meaning. In all 3 subject groups, decision time varied as a function of dominance. The higher the dominance, the faster the decision. Attribute dominance affected the performance of AD patients more than that of normal subjects. These results suggest that AD patients retain their knowledge of the relative importance that the different attributes of a concept have for concept meaning.     

Rhythm length and hemispheric asymmetry

Conflicting evidence has appeared in the literature concerning hemispheric asymmetry in the perception of rhythm. The present study investigated the effects of rhythm length on relative cerebral dominance. Twenty-four subjects were presented with sequences of one to four time intervals bounded by light flashes. The subjects' task was to determine if two such sequences were the same or different. The first rhythm was presented in both visual fields and the second only to one visual field. Reaction times and number of errors were recorded. It was found that increasing rhythm length resulted in a shift in cerebral dominance from left to right hemisphere. An interpretation of these findings was suggested in terms of the preferred mode of processing of each hemisphere, analytic vs. holistic.     

The effects of spatial frequency and target type on perceived duration

Two experiments are reported that attempt to demonstrate a critical role played by sensory persistence on a standard perceived-duration task employing brief visual stimuli. Experiment 1 examined the effect on perceived duration of varying the spatial frequency of a target. For both 40- and 70-msec flashes, increased spatial frequency resulted in reduced estimates of perceived duration. These results were contrasted with predictions derived from cognitive processing models of duration perception. In Experiment 2, three typical types of target employed in current research (an outlined circle, a “noise”-filled circle, and a completely filled circle) were shown to differ significantly in their perceived duration and in their sensitivity to increases in physical duration. The results were discussed in terms of variable degrees of retinal persistence produced by the three types of targets. The possible implications for specific discrepancies in the literature and across-study comparisons in general were enumerated.     

青少年家庭功能对其主观幸福感的影响-同伴依恋和亲社会行为的序列中介效应

以2949名中学生为被试,采用问卷法考察青少年的总体家庭功能、同伴依恋和亲社会行为对其主观幸福感的序列中介作用。结果表明：（1）总体家庭功能、同伴依恋、亲社会行为、生活满意度、积极情感两两间正相关显著,而与消极情感均显著负相关;（2）在控制年龄、性别、SES、社会赞许性后,总体家庭功能既能直接显著预测主观幸福感,也能分别通过同伴依恋、亲社会行为,及两者的链式关系间接作用于主观幸福感。     

Frequency thresholds for two-flash flicker and critical flicker: Why they differ

The minimum interval detectable between two successive flashes is longer than the minimum interval detectable when many flashes are viewed. The probability summation hypothesis is suggested to explain the difference. For a given flash duration, the minimum interval detectable decreases as a function of the number of flashes, n, until n equals about 8 or 10; further increases in n cause no further changes in this interval. Of the total decrease in the interval, from n=2 to n=99, about 90% is explained by the probability summation hypothesis.     

Emotional reaction to past and future events as a function of temporal distance

In three experiments with 30 Ss, imagined past and future events were used as stimuli. Scales were constructed by the ratio estimation method for (a) subjective temporal distance and (b) emotional reaction to the events. It was found (1) that subjective temporal distance was a power function of chronological distance, (2) that emotional reaction to past events could be described as an exponential function of subjective temporal distance; a simple relation thus exists between the two psychological variables, whereas emotional reaction is related in a more complicated way to the objective variable, and (3) that emotional reaction to future events could be described about as well by a power function as by an exponential function of both subjective and objective temporal distance.     

Oscillatory priming and form complexity

Detection of a target grouping is expedited when the target display is preceded by presentation of an oscillating premask that includes priming elements presented intraphasically and below detection threshold at the display locations subsequently occupied by the target. Five experiments were performed to investigate how priming is affected by both the complexity and the geometry of prime/target forms. Experiment 1 showed that the subjective complexity of different polygons was coded in accord with an objective measure of form complexity. Experiments 2 and 3 revealed oscillatory priming to increase as a function of the subjective complexity of prime/target forms when those forms were regular and predictable. However, Experiments 4 and 5 showed that this relation did not hold when the prime/target forms were irregular and unpredictable. Taken together, it is argued that both subjective complexity and the Pr?gnanz quality of the prime/target forms come to determine the magnitude of priming. These results are discussed with reference to current physiological hypotheses regarding perceptual organization.     

Synchronization with competing visual and auditory rhythms: bouncing ball meets metronome

Synchronization of finger taps with periodically flashing visual stimuli is known to be much more variable than synchronization with an auditory metronome. When one of these rhythms is the synchronization target and the other serves as a distracter at various temporal offsets, strong auditory dominance is observed. However, it has recently been shown that visuomotor synchronization improves substantially with moving stimuli such as a continuously bouncing ball. The present study pitted a bouncing ball against an auditory metronome in a target–distracter synchronization paradigm, with the participants being auditory experts (musicians) and visual experts (video gamers and ball players). Synchronization was still less variable with auditory than with visual target stimuli in both groups. For musicians, auditory stimuli tended to be more distracting than visual stimuli, whereas the opposite was the case for the visual experts. Overall, there was no main effect of distracter modality. Thus, a distracting spatiotemporal visual rhythm can be as effective as a distracting auditory rhythm in its capacity to perturb synchronous movement, but its effectiveness also depends on modality-specific expertise.     

The role of spatial complexity in the perception of speech and pure tones in dichotic listening

Ear advantages for CV syllables were determined for 28 right-handed individuals in a target monitoring dichotic task. In addition, ear dominance for dichotically presented tones was determined when the frequency difference of the two tones was small compared to the center frequency and when the frequency difference of the tones was larger. On all three tasks, subjects provided subjective separability ratings as measures of the spatial complexity of the dichotic stimuli. The results indicated a robust right ear advantage (REA) for the CV syllables and a left ear dominance on the two tone tasks, with a significant shift toward right ear dominance when the frequency difference of the tones was large. Although separability ratings for the group data indicated an increase in the perceived spatial separation of the components of the tone complex across the two tone tasks, the separability judgment ratings and the ear dominance scores were not correlated for either tone task. A significant correlation, however, was evidenced between the laterality measure for speech and the judgment of separability, indicating that a REA of increased magnitude is associated with more clearly localized and spatially separate speech sounds. Finally, the dominance scores on the two tone tasks were uncorrelated with the laterality measures of the speech task, whereas the scores on the tone tasks were highly correlated. The results suggest that spatial complexity does play a role in the emergence of the REA for speech. However, the failure to find a relationship between speech and nonspeech tasks suggest that all perceptual asymmetries observed with dichotic stimuli cannot be accounted for by a single theoretical explanation.     

Anger and testosterone: Evidence that situationally-induced anger relates to situationally-induced testosterone

Testosterone has been shown to relate to power, dominance, social status, and aggression. However, no research has related situationally induced changes in testosterone to subjective emotional experience. Based on the fact that anger relates to power, dominance, social status, and aggression, we predicted that testosterone would be uniquely related to the subjective experience of anger. In this study, salivary testosterone and cortisol were measured both prior to and following an anger-inducing event. In line with predictions, anger was associated with increased testosterone but not cortisol. These results provide the first evidence of a subjective emotional experience linked with changes in testosterone. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved).     

Subjective value of risky foods for individual domestic chicks: a hierarchical Bayesian model

For animals to decide which prey to attack, the gain and delay of the food item must be integrated in a value function. However, the subjective value is not obtained by expected profitability when it is accompanied by risk. To estimate the subjective value, we examined choices in a cross-shaped maze with two colored feeders in domestic chicks. When tested by a reversal in food amount or delay, chicks changed choices similarly in both conditions (experiment 1). We therefore examined risk sensitivity for amount and delay (experiment 2) by supplying one feeder with food of fixed profitability and the alternative feeder with high- or low-profitability food at equal probability. Profitability varied in amount (groups 1 and 2 at high and low variance) or in delay (group 3). To find the equilibrium, the amount (groups 1 and 2) or delay (group 3) of the food in the fixed feeder was adjusted in a total of 18 blocks. The Markov chain Monte Carlo method was applied to a hierarchical Bayesian model to estimate the subjective value. Chicks undervalued the variable feeder in group 1 and were indifferent in group 2 but overvalued the variable feeder in group 3 at a population level. Re-examination without the titration procedure (experiment 3) suggested that the subjective value was not absolute for each option. When the delay was varied, the variable option was often given a paradoxically high value depending on fixed alternative. Therefore, the basic assumption of the uniquely determined value function might be questioned.     

多目标觉知范式检验视觉意识容量

采用一种新的多目标觉知范式检验视觉意识容量。实验中首先迅速呈现包含8个刺激的圆形阵列（刺激位置随机分布）,然后所有刺激被灰色的圆覆盖,并随机选取阵列中的一个刺激作为目标,要求被试用尽可能少的点击次数找到目标。结果发现,即使被试不能一次击中目标,其也可能拥有对目标不精确的视觉信息。这些不精确的视觉信息能够帮助被试用更少的点击次数和更短的点击距离找到目标,且被试对这些不精确的视觉信息是有意识的。研究结果表明视觉意识能够以概率性的表征存在,并支持视觉整体统计假说,也能够进一步解释视觉意识容量的主观测量和客观测量之间存在的冲突。     

Category structure and created memories

Cued recall of categorized lists was used to examine effects of category structure on the creation of false memories. In three experiments, category members that had not been presented on studied categorized lists were nonetheless recalled by participants. Delaying the category cued recall test (Experiment 1) and priming category members that had been omitted from target lists (Experiment 3) increased the frequency of false recall. All three experiments showed that nonpresented category members that were higher in output dominance were more frequent intrusions. The typicality of category members, however, did not uniquely contribute to the predictability of false recall (or accurate recall) once the contribution of output dominance was taken into account, suggesting that item accessibility (related to output dominance) may be more instrumental than item distinctiveness (related to typicality) in causing certain types of false recall. The results show that created memories in category cued recall are strongly biased by prior category knowledge and can be predicted by the graded structure of categories, particularly in terms of the output dominance of category instances.