The changing face of police interrogation

This paper discusses some of the apparent changes in interrogations following the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 and the introduction of tape recorders into police stations. These reforms are believed to have had several marked effects on interrogations. For example, the use of persuasive questioning is believed to have declined, as has the number of suspects making admissions. The evidence for these hypotheses is discussed. It is suggested that the apparent fall in confessions can be explained by methodological differences between studies and that the confession rate has in fact remained almost constant. Although there does appear to have been a change in the types of persuasive questioning employed during interrogations, it is difficult to establish whether or not the use of such questioning has declined. There is some evidence that persuasive questioning is now being carried out away from recording equipment.     

The changing face of visual persistence

In three experiments, the effect of target luminance on estimates of visual persistence was determined on a popular successive-field task. Even though the experiments differed from each other only in terms of minor changes in stimulus conditions, very different effects were obtained across the three experiments. The different findings were attributed to the often overlooked roles of masking and target degradation on tasks of persistence. Implications for the numerous contradictory findings in the persistence literature are discussed, and the current popularity of the successive-field task is questioned.     

The changing face of Chinese immigrants in Canada

This paper analyzes the changing characteristics of Chinese immigrants to Canada between 1980 and 2001. It reveals that recent Chinese immigrants to Canada constitute a substantially different group from those of former years. They are no longer a homogeneous group from the rural areas of Mainland China, but in fact citizens of 132 countries, speaking 100 different languages and dialects. This study also reveals significant differences among Chinese subgroups. Given Canada’s time dependent immigration selection procedures, these differences are rationalized on the basis of a proposed single and double selection theory.     

The changing face of urbanization and the living environment in Japan

The dominance of such Japanese metropolises as Tokyo is discussed, as well as prospects for local cities. The housing environment, urban renewal, and inudstrializa‐tion patterns in urban Japan are explored.     

BJSP and the changing face of the group in social psychology

I reflect on the contribution that BJSP has made to the conceptualization of the group within social psychology by highlighting two cases studies from the social identity tradition published in 1990. These illustrate BJSP's distinctive strength and openness to theoretical innovation over the last decades.     

Models,measurement and computer simulation: the changing face of experimentation

The paper presents an argument for treating certain types of computer simulation as having the same epistemic status as experimental measurement. While this may seem a rather counterintuitive view it becomes less so when one looks carefully at the role that models play in experimental activity, particularly measurement. I begin by discussing how models function as “measuring instruments” and go on to examine the ways in which simulation can be said to constitute an experimental activity. By focussing on the connections between models and their various functions, simulation and experiment one can begin to see similarities in the practices associated with each type of activity. Establishing the connections between simulation and particular types of modelling strategies and highlighting the ways in which those strategies are essential features of experimentation allows us to clarify the contexts in which we can legitimately call computer simulation a form of experimental measurement.

The face behind the mask: a developmental study

Faces are a rich and available source of social information, and the representation for faces is robust in adults (i.e. the face detection effect; Purcell & Stewart, 1988). The current study compared the developmental trajectory of the robustness of face perception against the trajectory for a non-face object. Participants (5-35 years old) were presented with rapid (17 and 33 millisecond) presentations of face and house stimuli and were instructed to identify the object category of the stimulus (face or house). There was an interaction between object type and age such that the developmental slope for face identification was steeper than the slope for house identification for the 17-millisecond presentation. These data show that faces are processed in a different way than a non-face object during the period from middle childhood through adolescence and adulthood, and this differential processing may involve the massive amount of exposure we have to faces.     

Death of the Soviet regime: A study in American sovietology by a historian

Rapidly changing estimates on the Soviet régime's ability to survive show how difficult it is for American Sovietologists to grasp what is going on.The paper orginated from a series of informal debates and lunchtable conversations held at the Russian Research Center of Harvard University, over the future of the Soviet regime, around the time of its 50th anniversay. The essay was originally presented as a Russian Research Center Seminar paper on March 20, 1970. The author wishes to express his thanks to Professor Richard Pipes, Director of the Center, for permission to reproduce most of the content of the paper.     

Sin,narcissism, and the changing face of conversion

Noting that current psychological discussions of conversion give far less attention to the sense of sin than did William James and his contemporaries, this article argues for renewed attention to sin and its role in the conversion experience. Using data from a survey of Christian laity on their attitudes toward the traditional deadly sins, the author concludes that the sins that trouble men and women today involve their narcissistic needs. As many seek relief from the tyranny of their narcissistic needs, the author contends that what would constitute conversion for them is the transformation of narcissism. Typical candidates for such conversion are adults, not adolescents.     

The role of inner and outer face parts in holistic processing: A developmental study

The effects of inner–outer feature interactions with unfamiliar faces were investigated in 6- and 10-year-old children and adults (20–30 years) to determine their contribution in holistic face vision. Participants completed a two-alternative forced-choice (2AFC) task under two conditions. The congruent condition used whole, inner-only, and outer-only stimuli. The incongruent condition used stimuli combining the inner features from one face with outer features from a novel face, or vice versa. Results yielded strong congruency effects which were moderated by pronounced feature-type asymmetries specific to developmental stage. Adults showed an inner-feature preference during congruent trials, but no asymmetry for incongruent trials. Children showed no asymmetry for congruent trials, but an outer-feature preference for incongruent trials. These findings concur with recent theoretical developments indicating that adults and children are likely to differ in the types of feature-specific information they preferentially encode in face perception, and that holistic effects are moderated differently in adults and children as a function of feature type.     

The changing psychology of culture in German‐speaking countries: A Google Ngram study

This article provides evidence for the long‐term affiliation between ecological and cultural changes in German‐speaking countries, based on the assumptions derived from social change and human development theory. Based on this theory, the increase in urbanisation, as a measure of ecological change, is associated with significant cultural changes of psychology. Whereas urbanisation is linked to greater individualistic values and materialistic attitudes, rural environments are strongly associated with collectivistic values like allegiance, prevalence of religion, and feelings of belonging and benevolence. Due to an increase in the German urbanisation rate over time, our study investigates whether Germany and the German‐speaking countries around show the presumed changes in psychology. By using Google Books Ngram Viewer, we find that word frequencies, signifying individualistic (collectivistic) values, are positively (negatively) related to the urbanisation rate of Germany. Our results indicate that predictions about implications of an urbanising population for the psychology of culture hold true, supporting international universality of the social change and human development theory. Furthermore, we provide evidence for a predicted reversal for the time during and after World War II, reflecting Nazi propaganda and influence.     

The changing face of aggression: the effect of personalized avatars in a violent video game on levels of aggressive behavior

Video game developments allow players to design their own personalized avatars. Previous research has shown that this capability increases levels of aggression within socially acceptable forms of violence. Using the general aggression model (GAM), the current study examined the effect of avatar personalization on behavioral aggression within a violent video game. Participants who played a violent video game and designed their own avatars were significantly more aggressive than those who played the same violent video game with a generic avatar, and were also more aggressive than those who played the nonviolent video game, regardless of whether or not they designed their own personalized characters. Limitations and directions for future research are discussed.