Assimilation and contrast: the two sides of specific interference between action and perception

Perception and action have long been treated as relatively independent and serial processes. More recent views, however, consider perception and action as relying on a common set of processes and/or representations. The present paper will focus on a variety of specific (content-based) perception–action interactions that have been taken as support for such views. In particular, the following aspects will be considered: direction of influence (perception on action vs. action on perception), temporal type (concurrent vs. non-concurrent), functional relation (related/unrelated), and type of movements (biological vs. non-biological). Different extant models of the perception-action interface are discussed and a classification schema proposed that tries to explain when contrast and when assimilation effects will arise.     

The two sides of beauty: Laterality and the duality of facial attractiveness

We hypothesized that facial attractiveness represents a dual judgment, a combination of reward-based, sexual processes, and aesthetic, cognitive processes. Herein we describe a study that demonstrates that sexual and nonsexual processes both contribute to attractiveness judgments and that these processes can be dissociated. Female participants rated the general attractiveness of faces presented in either their left or right visual field. In order to examine sexual and nonsexual components of these judgments, general attractiveness ratings were correlated with ratings of these same faces made by two independent groups of raters in two specific contexts, one sexual and one nonsexual. Based on an items analysis, partial correlation coefficients were computed for each individual and used as the dependent variable of interest in a 2 (laterality: right, left) by 2 (context: sexual, nonsexual) ANOVA. This analysis revealed an interaction such that faces rated in a sexual context better predicted attractiveness ratings of faces shown in the left than right visual field, whereas faces rated in a nonsexual context better predicted attractiveness of faces shown in the right than left visual field. This finding is consistent with the assertion that sexual and nonsexual preferences involve predominantly lateralized processing routes that independently contribute to what is perceived to be attractive.     

Body and mind: two sides of one coin

ABSTRACT

Psychosomatics is concerned with mentalization and the mind’s impact on the body’s functions. Choosing the reverse approach, how the body steers the mind, the author elaborates on a monistic mind-body-theory, suggesting that all physiological processes down to the cellular level have a psychological concomitant. Body and mind are the two sides of one coin, distinguished though by different representational organizations. This perspective is pertinent to Freud’s 1915 definition of the drive as the body’s demand on the mind. It also opens interesting perspectives for the elaboration of a preservative drive and its specific ideation in mental life. Comparing the dynamics between the sexual and the preservative drives with the workings of the autonomous nervous system reveals some specific traits of the preservative drives, as they are considered characteristic for psychosomatic patients. As a case in point, the author looks into the French conception of the drives and the theoretical framework of the Paris School of Psychosomatics, to which her conception would add an important dimension, theoretically, clinically, and technically.     

Functional equivalence of the two sides of the human tongue

Taste sensitivity to sucrose and NaCl of the left and right side of the human tongue was compared. The results did not show a significant difference when the data of the whole experimental group were taken together. Analysis of the individual results showed that there was one exception: A female subject showed a quality-specific difference between left and right. A speculative explanation is offered for this result.     

共享因素对参照性交流双方学习的影响

采用参照性交流学习范式,探查共享因素对双方学习的影响。结果显示:从学习阶段6开始"共享语言+对象+表情"方式的成绩显著高于"共享语言+对象"方式,低分组条件下该方式成绩显著最高,且该方式高、低分组间无显著差异;"共享语言+对象"方式下揭开的维度数量显著最少。表明:"共享语言+对象+表情"方式下学习效率最高,集中表现于低分组学习效率更高且双方协调水平最高;"共享语言+对象"方式的选择性注意水平最低。     

The two sides of the mental clock: the Imaginal HemiSpatial Effect in the healthy brain

When subjects are asked to compare the mental images of two analog clocks telling different times (the mental clock test), they are faster to process angles formed by hands located in the right than in the left half of the dial. In the present paper, we demonstrate that this Imaginal HemiSpatial Effect (IHSE) can be also observed in two modified versions of the mental clock test: in Experiment 1 subjects had to imagine the position occupied by two numbers within a clock face and to judge if the subtended angle was smaller or greater than 90 degrees , while in Experiment 2 subjects were asked to match two imagined positions on a clock face with two visually presented locations. The finding of the IHSE in these tasks suggested that it is a genuine phenomenon related to spatial imagery tasks, and is consistent with recent neuroimaging evidence that the left parietal lobe is mainly involved in the generation of spatial mental images.     

The two sides of goal intentions: Intention self-concordance and intention strength as predictors of physical activity

Objective: The present research introduces an extended conceptualisation of self-concordance, which is considered an attribute not only of goals, but also of goal intentions. Based on a corresponding operationalisation, we investigate the interplay of both intention strength and intention self-concordance in the prediction of physical activity.

Design: Data were taken from a longitudinal study of 134 obese people who were asked to fill out a questionnaire three times every six months.

Main measures: Physical activity and intention self-concordance were measured by validated scales. Intentions strength was assessed by an item typically employed in the extant literature.

Results: Logistic regression analyses and path analyses showed both intention strength and self-concordance to be significant predictors of changes in physical activity over time. Additional analyses found self-efficacy to be a significant predictor of intention strength and self-concordance; for outcome expectations this was not the case.

Conclusions: Findings support the idea that intention strength and self-concordance are two critical facets of a goal intention that need to be considered in the prediction of physical activity participation. Whereas intention strength refers to the degree of determination with which a goal intention is adopted, self-concordance rather captures the quality of this intention.     

On the perception of two successive sound bursts

Summary This paper is concerned with both time perception and the methodology of perceptual psychology. The perception of the pattern of two successive sound bursts was studied by two different methods, i.e., magnitude estimation and phenomenal report. The temporal interval between the bursts was varied from 38 ms to 3394 ms. First, the observer estimated the duration or speed of each pair by a number without modulus. The estimations could not be fitted by a single power function across the entire range of intervals. That is, the exponent changed discontinuously. Next, the observer categorized freely the impressions of all the pairs. The quality of the phenomenon changed at the point where the exponent changed. All the observers arrived at the same three categories expressing the phenomena of the pairs. The boundaries between them corresponded approximately to the intervals of 150 ms and 2000 ms. The pairs in the middle category were often associated with body movements. The other categories also are of a unique nature. Finally, the possibility and the usefulness of employing psychophysical methods and phenomenological methods together is discussed.We are grateful to Professor Y. Umeoka, University of Tokyo, for his constant advice     

Different signals of personality and health from the two sides of the face

Previous studies demonstrate that people with different personality traits have different-looking faces. We investigated whether personality and health information are differently signalled by the two hemifaces. Using composite images created from women with high and low scores on health and personality dimensions, we investigated discrimination accuracy with original and mirrored hemifaces. By comparing discrimination accuracy for particular types of hemiface, we address issues regarding both the location of information signals and how these signals are conveyed. From the hemiface stimuli, participants could accurately identify three of the Big Five traits, along with health. We found differences in which hemiface could be more accurately identified, depending on the expressed trait. Emotional stability and health were more accurately discriminated from the right hemiface, while extraversion showed higher accuracy from the left hemiface. We found evidence for differences between hemifaces related to both directional asymmetries and to other information content. Finally, our results also address ongoing debate about which side of the face is more attractive, as we found attractiveness differences between hemifaces depended upon the personality trait most clearly expressed.     

共同的文化和信仰构筑起牢固的精神纽带——海峡两岸道教交流回顾

2008年12月31日,纪念<告台湾同胞书>发表30周年座谈会在北京人民大会堂隆重举.行,国家主席胡锦涛出席座谈会并发表了重要讲话,中肯务实地提出了进一步推动两岸关系和平发展的六点意见,指出要"弘扬中华文化,加强精神纽带".这必将对进一步推动两岸宗教交流、增进两岸人们的情感产生深远的影响.     

A psychophysiological investigation of mourning: There are two sides to the story

Motivation and Emotion - Mourning constitutes an important human emotion, which might cause—among other things—major depressive symptoms when lasting for too long. To date, no study...     

The two sides of competition: Competition‐induced effort and affect during intergroup versus interindividual competition

Competition strongly affects individual effort and performance for both individuals and groups. Especially in work settings, these effort gains might come at the cost of individual well‐being. The present study tested whether competition increases both effort (as indicated by task performance) and stress (in terms of cardiovascular reactivity and affective response), and whether this effect is further qualified by the type of competition (interindividual vs. intergroup), using a cognitive computer‐based task and a 2 (Group: Yes, No) × 2 (Competition: Yes, No) × 2 (Gender) factorial design (N= 147). All participants either worked as a representative of a group or as an individual, and were offered performance‐related incentives distributed in a lottery. In the competition conditions, participants were informed that they competed with someone else, and that only the winning person/team would take part in the lottery. Consistent with expectations, competition increased both individual effort and cardiovascular reactivity compared to non‐competitive work. Moreover, for female participants, intergroup competition triggered increased effort and more positive affect than interindividual competition. Aside from documenting costly side‐effects of competition in terms of stress, this study provides evidence for a stress‐related explanation of effort gains during intergroup competition as compared to interindividual competition.     

Span of perception as related to two stimulus-report intervals

The Psychological Record -     

The independence of size perception and distance perception

Research on distance perception has focused on environmental sources of information, which have been well documented; in contrast, size perception research has focused on familiarity or has relied on distance information. An analysis of these two parallel bodies of work reveals their lack of equivalence. Furthermore, definitions of familiarity need environmental grounding, specifically concerning the amount of size variation among different tokens of an object. To demonstrate the independence of size and distance perception, subjects in two experiments were asked to estimate the sizes of common objects from memory and then to estimate both the sizes and the distances of a subset of such objects displayed in front of them. The experiments found that token variation was a critical variable in the accuracy of size estimations, whether from memory or with vision, and that distance had no impact at all on size perception. Furthermore, when distance information was good, size had no effect on distance estimation; in contrast, at far distances, the distances to token variable or unknown objects were estimated with less accuracy. The results suggest that size perception has been misconceptualized, so that the relevant research to understand its properties has not been undertaken. The size-distance invariance hypothesis was shown to be inadequate for both areas of research.