“Basic black” renascent: A new wardrobe

In the dozen years since publication of Uttal’s fundamental paper, “‘Basic Black’ in Com-puter Interfaces for Psychological Research,” many changes have taken place in on-line real-time computing. A look at the basic wardrobe today reveals some striking changes and certain fundamental constants. Most of the interface elements in the wardrobe specified by Uttal are still commonplace in the fashion catalogs of real-time computing. However, they are offered now as fully integrated circuits, chips, or subsystems that are added by inserting a chip into a socket or a printed circuit board into a chassis. Missing in Uttal’s specification are the essential software tools for using the hardware of that wardrobe. The current real-time computing laboratory psychologist will find that the most significant elements in a really adaptable wardrobe are software tools.     

A “new rhetoric” for a “new dialectic”: Prolegomena to a responsible public argument

This essay offers, as a counterpart to pragma-dialectical argument, a “new rhetoric” produced in the situated discourse of a public forum when a community addresses matters of common urgency and undertakes informed action. Such a rhetoric takes the principles of discourse ethics as its informing dialectic by identifying an interlocutor as one who is obligatedboth to argue effectively,and also to hold open, even reinforce, norms of communicative reason. Implications concerning the study of fallacies and theethos obligations of communicative reasoning are discussed.     

Deviance‐construction in Stalinist societies: A critical analysis

This study is concerned with the definition of deviance and the processes of constructing deviance in Stalinist societies. Deviances created by the state in these societies are analyzed, especially from functionalist and phenomenologist aspects and by applying Foucault's approach. Solzhenitsyn's Gulag Archipelago is used as a starting point for the analysis. In his work, Solzhenitsyn dwells at length on the “deviances” and the process of deviance construction in Stalinist Soviet Union. It is suggested that, in these societies, “total state deviance” fits in a desacralized, demodernized world view. Finally some consequences of this deviance image still at work are discussed.     

On a class of “impossible” figures: A new language for a new analysis

Multibar figures provide a class of illusions that have been used by psychologists as well as by artists like Escher. For scientific purposes one needs as precise a definition and analysis as possible for these figures. A first attempt at this has been made by Cowan (1974) with the theory of braids. The present work points out some semantic and technical problems not dealt with by Cowan, and proposes a new language for the study of multibar figures. This language is shown to be incomplete, and some further problems are reviewed.     

The role of “irrelevant” derogation in vicarious aggression catharsis: A field experiment

In order to test hypotheses about the occurence of aggression catharsis, a field experiment was conducted in which passengers in taxi cabs served as subjects. En route to each subject's destination, the taxi driver left the cab with the meter operating for an amount of time which resulted in a small or large overcharge (the first independent variable). When the driver returned, subjects read one of four letters which either praised or derogated the driver (the second independent variable) on a relevant or irrelevant dimension (the third independent variable). Subjects' responses confirmed the principal hypothesis on several different atitudinal and behavioral dependent measures: angered subjects tended to complain less often, more often paid the overcharge, and more often left a tip, when they read the irrelevant derogation letter. The results contribute to the delineation of a set of conditions under which vicarious catharsis can be clearly observed.     

Computer “personalities”: A new approach to understanding user compatibility

While many scholars have looked at computer processes as a means of better understanding how the brain functions, very few have explored the opposite perspective, that computers have personalities which may influence how they interact with people. This article describes a study which compared the personalities of two popular personal computers, then discusses the implications for computer development, documentation, marketing and training.John Penrose is a professor in the Information and Decision Systems Department at San Diego State University. Lawrence M. Seiford is Associate Professor at the Department of Industrial Engineering and Operations Research at the University of Massachusetts.     

Probing the public's honesty: A field experiment using the “lost letter” technique∗

The present study probed the honesty of the general public through an experimentl approach. A variaty of experimental procedures have been used in previous research. This study used the “lost letter” technique, whereby ordinary citizens are offered an opportunity to keep envelopes that are planted on their cars and that are apparently lost. They are stamped and addressed (actually they are addressed to the investigators).

One quarter of the “lost” letters were kept by the subjects. On the whole, the value of the contents (some contained a coin made to appear valuable) did not seem to affect the return rate. Also, little difference was found in the behavior of the male and female subjects. Age, however, did appear important as younger subjects were significantly more likely to keep the letters. Since the value of the contents was not important, a failure to return could simply indicate less altruism on their part. Also, an interaction was found between the variables of age and sex, as young females had the lowest return rate and older females the highest return rate, with males of both age categories falling in between these extremes. This finding suggests that future research comparing the criminality or deviance of tie sexes consider the variations in the behavior of each sex across different age categories.     

The “impact factor style of thinking”: A new theoretical framework

Over the last few years, university policy in developed countries has placed too much emphasis on assessing publications on the basis of the impact factor. Any scientific material that has not been published in a journal indexed in the Journal Citation Reports is academically irrelevant. Hence, researchers strive hard to publish in such journals. Failure to achieve this means not having a successful career or receiving any academic recognition. A thorough analysis of the effects of this phenomenon on the researcher community leads to the conclusion that the overestimation of the impact factor is likely to cause disappointment among many researchers. Researchers only have two options: adopting a politically correct behavior, that is, following the “impact factor style of thinking”, or accepting the futility of their research regardless of its relevance. This is an example of the involvement of university policy habitus obsessed impact index. O policy impact index is accepted, or is doomed to academic ostracism, and exclusion from participation in all university policy.     

A new horizontal eye movement calibration method: Subject-controlled “smooth pursuit” and “zero drift”

A subject-controlled smooth pursuit method of calibration of eye movement apparatus is proposed for the horizontal axis which is more rapid, requires no interpolation and no linearity assumption, and is as accurate as the fixation point method usually used. The zero drift method of verification proposed then permits accuracy to be estimated in a way that distinguishes apparatus errors from fixation errors. This is only possible in the fixation point method by asking the subject to make repeated long fixations.     

Towards a “virtual pigeon”: A new technique for investigating avian social perception

The purpose of the present study is to examine the applicability of a computer-generated, virtual animal to study animal cognition. Pigeons were trained to discriminate between movies of a real pigeon and a rat. Then, they were tested with movies of the computer-generated (CG) pigeon. Subjects showed generalization to the CG pigeon, however, they also responded to modified versions in which the CG pigeon was showing impossible movement, namely hopping and walking without its head bobbing. Hence, the pigeons did not attend to these particular details of the display. When they were trained to discriminate between the normal and the modified version of the CG pigeon, they were able to learn the discrimination. The results of an additional partial occlusion test suggest that the subjects used head movement as a cue for the usual vs. unusual CG pigeon discrimination.This contribution is part of the special issue ‘Animal Logics’ (Watanabe and Huber 2006)     

The Schröder staircase: A new perspective

A range of variants of the Schröder staircase was generated by computer, giving quantifiable changes of perspective and the option of adding appropriate texture to the steps of the staircase. Increases in perspective and the addition of texture gradients led to increases in the proportion of viewing time during which the percept appropriate to the perspective was reported. It is suggested that this might be a useful method of studying the processing of depth information.     

Wesley Salmon's Complementarity Thesis: Causalism and Unificationism Reconciled?

In his later years, Wesley Salmon believed that the two dominant models of scientific explanation (his own causal‐mechanical model and the unificationist model) were reconcilable. Salmon envisaged a ‘new consensus’ about explanation: he suggested that the two models represent two ‘complementary’ types of explanation, which may ‘peacefully coexist’ because they illuminate different aspects of scientific understanding. This paper traces the development of Salmon's ideas and presents a critical analysis of his complementarity thesis. Salmon's thesis is rejected on the basis of two objections, and an alternative view of the relation between different types of explanation is proposed.     

A Review of: “A Limbo of Shards”

The following interview began as a family conversation over the Christmas holidays in 1987 at the home of Jane and Joseph (Jo) Wheelwright on the Hollister Ranch in Santa Barbara County, California. Betty, the Wheelwrights' daughter-in-law and a writer and teacher, was curious about their thoughts on gender differences. With the tape recorder running, they agreed to answer some questions.

The Wheelwrights both worked personally with C. G. Jung and have been Jungian analysts for 50 years. They, with others, founded the C. G. Jung Institute of San Fmncisco in 1943. Dr. Joseph Wheelwright is Emeritus Clinical Professor of Psychiatry at the University of California at San Francisco and a former faculty member of the University of California in Berkeley. He has published about 50 articles in various psychological journals in the US. and abroad. Jane Hollister Wheelwright has written about gender issues in Women and Men (San Francisco Jung Institute, 1978) and in For Women Growing Older: The Animus (C. G. Jung Educational Center of Houston, Texas, 1984). She grew up in the wilderness, an experience that has influenced many of her preceptions.