Scalar properties in animal timing: conformity and violations

The article reviews data from animal subjects on a range of timing tasks (including fixed-interval and temporal differentiation schedules, stimulus timing, aversive conditioning, and Pavlovian methods) with respect to conformity to the two scalar properties of timing behaviour: mean accuracy and scalar (Weberian) variance. Systematic deviations were found in data from temporal differentiation schedules, timing of very short (<100 ms) or very long (>100 s) durations, effects of "task difficulty", and some special cases where circadian and interval timing seemed to interact, or where some specific durations seemed to be timed more precisely than others. Theoretical reconciliation of some of these deviations with underlying scalar timing can be achieved, but a number of problematical cases remain unexplained.     

Scalar properties in human timing: Conformity and violations

Data from studies of timing in human participants were reviewed with respect to their conformity to the two scalar properties of timing: mean accuracy and the scalar property of variance. Results reviewed were taken from studies of temporal generalization, temporal bisection, discrimination methods, and “classical” timing tasks such as the reproduction, production, and verbal estimation of duration. Evidence for one or both scalar properties was found in many studies, including those using children and elderly participants, but systematic violations were sometimes noted. These violations occurred (a) when very short durations (<100 ms) were timed, (b) in situations in which timing tasks varying in difficulty were compared, (c) when classical timing tasks were employed, and (d) in situations where highly practised observers exhibited unusual patterns of variance. A later section attempted to reconcile some of these violations with an underlying scalar-consistent timing mechanism.     

Scalar properties in animal timing: Conformity and violations

The article reviews data from animal subjects on a range of timing tasks (including fixed-interval and temporal differentiation schedules, stimulus timing, aversive conditioning, and Pavlovian methods) with respect to conformity to the two scalar properties of timing behaviour: mean accuracy and scalar (Weberian) variance. Systematic deviations were found in data from temporal differentiation schedules, timing of very short (<100 ms) or very long (>100 s) durations, effects of “task difficulty”, and some special cases where circadian and interval timing seemed to interact, or where some specific durations seemed to be timed more precisely than others. Theoretical reconciliation of some of these deviations with underlying scalar timing can be achieved, but a number of problematical cases remain unexplained.     

Women's human rights violations: Cameroonian students' perceptions

Cameroonian university students (N = 666) assessed whether certain different societal positions that the law grants to women and men (the husband chooses the marital home, the husband wields parental power, a married woman cannot freely engage in trade, the husband administers his wife's personal property) and certain cultural practices (female genital mutilation, parents arranging their children's marriage) were seen as violations of women's human rights. Justifications for the choices were also analysed. Female genital mutilation was most often seen as a violation of women's human rights, and the husband selecting the marital home was least often seen as a violation. These differences were explained by cultural specificities. Women more often than men saw the cases as violations of rights. Respondents coming from the North saw the cases less often as violations of rights than respondents from other geocultural areas, which was in accordance with their previously observed higher collectivism. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Scalar timing in temporal generalization in children with short and long stimulus durations.

This experiment investigated temporal generalization performance in children aged 3, 5, and 8 years by using auditory stimulus durations where the standard was 0.4 s or 4.0 s, and non-standard stimuli were spaced linearly around the standard. At all ages, generalization gradients superimposed well when plotted on the same relative scale, indicating conformity to scalar timing. Whatever the standard duration used, the principal developmental changes were the increasing steepness of the generalization gradient with increasing age and a shift from symmetrical gradients, in the 3- and 5-year-olds, to adult-like asymmetrical gradients in the 8-year-olds.     

Counting processes in human timing

A subject reproducing a long duration, t, may time out either a single interval of duration t or a succession of n intervals, each of duration t/n. It is shown that a class of timing models obeying Weber’s law predicts the variance of reproductions of t to be a decreasing function of the number of subdivisions, n. In contrast, a second class of proportional variance models, which includes Creelman’s pulse counter model (1962), predicts no change in the variance as a function of n. Data are presented from a duration reproduction experiment in which subjects counted silently at a specified rate up to a given number and then responded. Several statistics involving the variance of the reproduced durations are shown to be predicted significantly better by the Weber’s law class of models than by the proportional variance class of models.     

Absolutely relative or relatively absolute: violations of value invariance in human decision making

Making decisions based on relative rather than absolute information processing is tied to choice optimality via the accumulation of evidence differences and to canonical neural processing via accumulation of evidence ratios. These theoretical frameworks predict invariance of decision latencies to absolute intensities that maintain differences and ratios, respectively. While information about the absolute values of the choice alternatives is not necessary for choosing the best alternative, it may nevertheless hold valuable information about the context of the decision. To test the sensitivity of human decision making to absolute values, we manipulated the intensities of brightness stimuli pairs while preserving either their differences or their ratios. Although asked to choose the brighter alternative relative to the other, participants responded faster to higher absolute values. Thus, our results provide empirical evidence for human sensitivity to task irrelevant absolute values indicating a hard-wired mechanism that precedes executive control. Computational investigations of several modelling architectures reveal two alternative accounts for this phenomenon, which combine absolute and relative processing. One account involves accumulation of differences with activation dependent processing noise and the other emerges from accumulation of absolute values subject to the temporal dynamics of lateral inhibition. The potential adaptive role of such choice mechanisms is discussed.     

The human message in politics: the impact of emotional slogans on subtle conformity

The present work directly tests the persuasive potential of emotions in political slogans. Previous research that distinguished emotions on the human dimension found that individuals conform differently to the opinion of members of the in-group or the out-group when these targets expressed themselves in terms of uniquely human emotions (Vaes, Paladino, Castelli, Leyens, & Giovanazzi, 2003). In line with these findings, the present experiment tested the hypothesis that political slogans that express a uniquely human emotion and that are associated with the campaign of a political candidate who has the same political affiliation as participants (i.e., in-group) will induce more conformity reactions than a candidate of the opposing coalition (i.e., out-group) who presents similar kinds of slogans. Results confirmed this hypothesis on a subtle conformity measure and are discussed as a consequence of an infrahumanization process. Finally, possible applications of the presented findings and new avenues for future research are proposed.     

信息性从众行为和规范性从众行为比较研究

目的:从众可分成两种,即信息性从众行为和规范性从众,探讨它们两者之间的区别。方法:通过瑞文智力测验为材料创造了这两种从众情境,观察大学生被试在两种实验条件下的行为差异。结果:信息性从众和社会规范性从众两者之间存在显著差异(Z=-3.183,P=0.001)。结论:大学生被试的信息性从众行为多于社会规范性从众行为,两者存在统计学上的显著性差异。     

Latent timing in human conditioned avoidance

Four experiments explored signal timing in human conditioned avoidance. Participants received discrimination training with different duration signals that announced the outcome (S+) or not (S-). Temporal discrimination and superposition of performance to S+ signals of different length (3, 6, or 9 s) was found both in within-subjects (Experiment 1a) and between-subjects (Experiment 1b) designs. S- signals also produced a temporal discrimination and superposition effect during a single test trial conducted after the meaning of the signals was reversed through instructions. Experiments 2a and 2b replicated these results in a situation in which (a) the durations of the S+ and S- signals were different (4.5 or 9 s) to prevent any temporal generalization between them (Experiment 2a), and (b) only S- signals were presented during training, precluding developing of inhibition to S- (Experiment 2b). These results show that participants time both S+ and S- signals in human conditioned avoidance, and they further suggest that the timing of a cue is independent of reinforcement.     

The effect of alcohol administration on human timing: a comparison of prospective timing, retrospective timing and passage of time judgements

Previous research suggests that human timing may be affected by alcohol administration. The current study aimed to expand on previous research by examining the effect of alcohol on prospective timing, retrospective timing and passage of time judgements. A blind between-subjects design was employed in which participants were either administered 0 g of alcohol per kilogramme of body weight (placebo), 0.4 g/kg (low dose) or 0.6 g/kg (high dose). Participants completed four types of temporal task; verbal estimation and temporal generalisation, a retrospective timing task and a passage of time judgement task. A high dose of alcohol resulted in overestimations of duration relative to the low dose and placebo group in the verbal estimation task. A high dose of alcohol was also associated with time passing more quickly than normal. Alcohol had no effect on retrospective judgements. The results suggest that a high dose of alcohol increases internal clock speed leading to over-estimations of duration on prospective timing tasks, and the sensation of time passing more quickly than normal. The absence of an effect of alcohol on retrospective timing supports the suggestion that retrospective judgements are not based on the output of an internal clock.     

Driving anger and traffic violations: Gender differences

In this work, we examined the contribution of anger-related variables to explaining traffic rule violations with control for the effect of variables such as age, gender and annual mileage. Also, we explored gender differences in driving-elicited anger and its forms of expression with provision for exposure in terms of mileage. In addition, we studied male and female driving habits in relation to individual histories of fines and accidents with a view to identifying the role of drivers’ anger in driving violation behaviours. To this end, we conducted a survey on a sample of 541 drivers (53.9% females, 46.1% males) aged 20–73 years. The results obtained with provision for mileage revealed substantial differences in driving behaviour between genders. Thus, males reported greater number of fines and accidents, and were more prone to violating traffic regulations. There were also gender differences in the specific driving situations causing anger. Thus, males were angrier at police presence and females at traffic obstructions. There were additional differences in anger expression forms, with women exhibiting a more adaptive attitude. The specific contribution of anger-related variables to driving violation behaviours was explored, and its theoretical and treatment implications are discussed.     

Ineffective deception in conformity research: Some causes and consequences

Suspiciousness of deception threatens the internal validity of the conformity experiment, and analyses suggest it is becoming more widespread. After being led to believe their own ability in a visual judgment task was higher, lower, or the same as the ability of the other group members, 65 undergraduate women made visual and informational judgments in the Crutchfield apparatus. Major findings include treatment effects on suspiciousness, less conformity by suspicious Ss, and ‘significant’ treatment effects on conformity only when suspicious Ss were removed from the analyses. Measures of self-confidence and confidence in others were significantly related to and likely determinants of suspiciousness. Implications for improving deception in conformity research are discussed.