Increasing stimulus intensity does not affect sensorimotor synchronization

When people synchronize taps with isochronously presented stimuli, taps usually precede the pacing stimuli [negative mean asynchrony (NMA)]. One explanation of NMA [sensory accumulation model (SAM), Aschersleben in Brain Cogn 48:66–79, 2002] is that more time is needed to generate a central code for kinesthetic-tactile information than for auditory or visual stimuli. The SAM predicts that raising the intensity of the pacing stimuli shortens the time for their sensory accumulation, thereby increasing NMA. This prediction was tested by asking participants to synchronize finger force pulses with target isochronous stimuli with various intensities. In addition, participants performed a simple reaction-time task, for comparison. Higher intensity led to shorter reaction times. However, intensity manipulation did not affect NMA in the synchronization task. This finding is not consistent with the predictions based on the SAM. Discrepancies in sensitivity to stimulus intensity between sensorimotor synchronization and reaction-time tasks point to the involvement of different timing mechanisms in these two tasks.     

Timing precision in circle drawing does not depend on spatial precision of the timing target

The authors manipulated the width of a timing target in continuous circle drawing to determine whether a more stringent spatial-timing criterion would produce an increase in participants' (N = 30) temporal variability. They also examined the effect of the computational method of determining cycle duration. There was no effect of spatial precision on temporal variability in circle drawing, and tapping and circle drawing were found to use the same criterion. Those findings lend strong support to the earlier view of R. B. Ivry, R. M. Spencer, H. N. Zelaznik, and J. Diedrichsen (2002), who argued that continuous tasks such as circle drawing are timed differently from discrete-like tasks such as tapping. Therefore, the results of the present study provide support for the event and emergent timing frameworks.     

Comfortable synchronization of cyclic drawing movements with a metronome

Continuous circle drawing is considered a paragon of emergent timing, whereas the timing of finger tapping is said to be event-based. Synchronization with a metronome, however, must to some extent be event-based for both types of movement. Because the target events in the movement trajectory are more poorly defined in circle drawing than in tapping, circle drawing shows more variable asynchronies with a metronome than does tapping. One factor that may have contributed to high variability in past studies is that circle size, drawing direction, and target point were prescribed and perhaps outside the comfort range. In the present study, participants were free to choose most comfortable settings of these parameters for two continuously drawn shapes, circles and infinity signs, while synchronizing with a regular or intermittently perturbed metronome at four different tempi. Results showed that preferred circle sizes were generally smaller than in previous studies but tended to increase as tempo decreased. Synchronization results were similar for circles and infinity signs, and similar to earlier results for circles drawn within a fixed template (Repp & Steinman, 2010). Comparison with tapping data still showed drawing to exhibit much greater variability and persistence of asynchronies as well as slower phase correction in response to phase shifts in the metronome. With comfort level ruled out as a factor, these differences can now be attributed more confidently to differences in event definition and/or movement dynamics.     

Grouping does not require attention

Many theories of visual perception stipulate that Gestalt grouping occurs preattentively. Subjects' failure to report perceiving even salient grouping patterns under conditions of inattention challenges this assumption (see, e.g., Mack, Tang, Tuma, Kahn, & Rock, 1992), but Moore and Egeth (1997) showed that although subjects are indeed unable to identify grouping patterns outside the focus of attention, effects of these patterns on visual perception can be observed when they are assessed using implicit, rather than explicit, measures. However, this finding, which is the only one to date demonstrating grouping effects without attention, is open to an alternative account. In the present study, we eliminated this confound and replicated Moore and Egeth's findings, using the Müller-Lyer illusion (Experiments 1 and 2). Moreover, we found converging evidence for these findings with a variant of the flanker task (Experiment 3), when the amount of available attentional resources was varied (Experiments 4 and 5). The results reinforce the idea that, although grouping outside the focus of attention cannot be the object of overt report, grouping processes can occur without attention.     

Evidence does not equal knowledge

Timothy Williamson has argued that a person S’s total evidence is constituted solely by propositions that S knows. This theory of evidence entails that a false belief can not be a part of S’s evidence base for a conclusion. I argue by counterexample that this thesis (E = K for now) forces an implausible separation between what it means for a belief to be justified and rational from one’s perspective and what it means to base one’s beliefs on the evidence. Furthermore, I argue that E = K entails the implausible result that there are cases in which a well-evidenced belief necessarily can not serve as evidence for a further proposition.     

Task preparation as a mnemonic: The benefits of drawing (and not drawing)

Psychonomic Bulletin & Review - Creating a visual representation of an item through drawing affords that item a substantive memory benefit, relative to several control tasks. Recent findings...     

Caffeine does not modulate inhibitory control

The effects of a 3mg/kg body weight (BW) dose of caffeine were assessed on behavioral indices of response inhibition. To meet these aims, we selected a modified AX version of the Continuous Performance Test (CPT), the stop task, and the flanker task. In three double-blind, placebo-controlled, within-subjects experiments, these tasks were administered to healthy participants. While the results for the AX-CPT were indicative of improved response inhibition after caffeine, they might also reflect caffeine-induced changes in mechanisms other than response inhibition (e.g., attentional processes). The results for the stop task and flanker task were more straightforward. That is, the effects of caffeine on overall flanker performance and selective response suppression as revealed by distribution-analytical techniques were negligible. In the stop task a global effect of caffeine on processing speed was seen, rather than specific effects on response inhibition. Taken together, these experiments showed that both active and reactive inhibition were not significantly modulated by caffeine. The present results are linked to neural circuits that underlie inhibitory control and the role of caffeine-induced strategic changes.     

Action does not resist visual illusions

Recent TICS articles1, 2 discussed the psychophysical evidence in favor of Goodale and Milner's action vs. perception hypothesis³. Carey argued that most of the studies investigating the effects of visual illusions on grasping can be reconciled with the notion that the action system resists visual illusions¹. Bruno suggested a new interpretation of the action vs. perception hypothesis in order to incorporate most of the empirical findings². Here, I argue that action does not resist visual illusions. Even more, the effects on the motor system seem to be comparable to the effects on the perceptual system. This challenges the action vs. perception hypothesis in its current form.     

Ordinary morality does not imply atheism

Many theist as well as many atheist philosophers have maintained that if God exists, then every instance of undeserved, unwanted suffering ultimately benefits the sufferer. Recently, several authors have argued that this implication of theism conflicts with ordinary morality. I show that these arguments all rest on a common mistake. Defenders of these arguments overlook the role of merely potential instances of suffering in determining our moral obligations toward suffering.     

Time does not heal all wounds

Cross-sectional studies show that divorced people report lower levels of life satisfaction than do married people. However, such studies cannot determine whether satisfaction actually changes following divorce. In the current study, data from an 18-year panel study of more than 30,000 Germans were used to examine reaction and adaptation to divorce. Results show that satisfaction drops as one approaches divorce and then gradually rebounds over time. However, the return to baseline is not complete. In addition, prospective analyses show that people who will divorce are less happy than those who stay married, even before either group gets married. Thus, the association between divorce and life satisfaction is due to both preexisting differences and lasting changes following the event.     

Stimulus uncertainty does not impair stereopsis

The effect of stimulus uncertainty on the stereoscopic resolution of letters was examined for two classes of letters: (1) letters presented stereoscopically as random-element stereograms, and (2) letters presented as two-dimensional physical contours. The variables of stimulus discriminability (stereoscopic vs. physical contours) and stimulus uncertainty (number of alternative letter targets) were combined factorially. Stereoscopically presented letters were more difficult to resolve, but stimulus uncertainty had the same effect for both stereoscopic and physically defined letters. The additivity of these two variables suggests that the perception of stereoscopic forms is an automatic process not impaired by uncertainty about the form to be resolved.     

What the analyst does not hear

In the clinical situation, the analyst fails to hear more than he or she hears and spends much time working in the dark. The author raises questions about how we can take cognizance of that state of affairs in our thinking about analytic work. A clinical example illustrates how, in an analytic atmosphere, a patient will correct an analyst's failure to hear. Some ideas are offered about how to maximize the patient's participation in that effort. The author suggests that the problem may not fall precisely under the heading of technique so much as reflecting the analyst's attitude.     

Change blindness and priming: When it does and does not occur

In a series of three experiments, we explored the nature of implicit representations in change blindness (CB). Using 3 x 3 letter arrays, we asked subjects (Ss) to locate changes in paired arrays separated by 80 ms ISIs, in which one, two or three letters of a row in the second array changed. In one testing version, a tone followed the second array, signaling a row for partial report (PR). In the other version, no PR was required. After Ss reported whether a change had been detected and the PR had been completed (if required), they were asked to identify a degraded letter trigram that was either novel, or from a previously shown row (repetition priming). Our findings indicate that when CB occurs, both the pre-change and post-change stimulus information primes despite its unavailability to consciousness. Surprisingly, findings also indicate that when change detection occurs only the post-change information primes.     

Intuitionistic mathematics does not needex falso quodlibet

We define a system IR of first-order intuitionistic relevant logic. We show that intuitionistic mathematics (on the assumption that it is consistent) can be relevantized, by virtue of the following metatheorem: any intuitionistic proof of A from a setX of premisses can be converted into a proof in IR of eitherA or absurdity from some subset ofX. Thus IR establishes the same inconsistencies and theorems as intuitionistic logic, and allows one to prove every intuitionistic consequence of any consistent set of premisses.This paper grew out of discussion of a survey talk, on earlier work, that I gave to the 5th A.N.U. Paraconsistency Conference in January 1988. I am greatly indebted to the suggestion by Michael MacRobbie on that occasion that I investigate the so-called non-Ketonen form of the sequent rule for on the right. That suggestion inspired the correspondingly modified rule of Introduction in the system of natural deduction given above.     

Letter familiarity does not aid feature extraction

Summary Familiarity effects in visual letter processing were examined by means of a mutilation detection task. The uppercase E was used as the non-mutilated letter. One or two horizontal bars of the E were delected, to produce an upright or inverted F or L. These four mutilations of the E were assigned to the same response. In Experiment 1, brief exposure of the stimuli was followed by a backward mask. Experiment 2 was identical to Experiment 1, except that the display duration of the stimulus was increased and the backward mask was omitted. In Experiment 3, the overall luminance of the stimuli (luminance per point times length of the constituent line segments) was held constant. In Experiment 4, the upright and inverted non-E letter occurred in different blocks to encourage a normal (upright) letter processing strategy in the upright letter blocks. Accuracy (Experiment 1) and mean correct response times (all experiments) were not different for the upright and inverted F or for the upright and inverted L. These findings and converging results from other studies indicate that the higher familiarity of the upright letters did not aid feature extraction.     

The adolescent who does not finish anything

Practical information for therapists who deal with adolescents who do not finish tasks is presented. The relationship of task incompletion to neurosis, psychosis, depression, homosexuality, and drug abuse is described, and techniques and guidelines for treatment are provided.     

Why reliabilism does not permit easy knowledge

Reliabilism furnishes an account of basic knowledge that circumvents the problem of the given. However, reliabilism and other epistemological theories that countenance basic knowledge have been criticized for permitting all-too-easy higher-level knowledge. In this paper, I describe the problem of easy knowledge, look briefly at proposed solutions, and then develop my own. I argue that the easy knowledge problem, as it applies to reliabilism, hinges on a false and too crude understanding of ‘reliable’. With a more plausible conception of ‘reliable’, a simple and elegant solution emerges.     

Level-ordering does not constrain children's ungrammatical compounds

English-speaking children typically avoid using regular plurals in novel grammatical deverbal compounds as in rat eater but allow irregular plurals as in mice eater (Gordon, 19985). To explain these data, it has been argued that level-ordering model constrains the production of morphologically complex words, including those with which children have had little to no experience. If level-ordering can be supported, children should avoid regular plurals in their ungrammatical deverbal compounds like a breaker-bottle. Seventy-two English-speaking children were included in the present study, 36 from Britain and 36 from Canada. The results showed that 50% of the children who produced ungrammatical compounds included regular plurals in the compounds they produced. Conversely, none of the children who produced grammatical compounds included regular plurals. These results indicate that level-ordering does not constrain children's production of ungrammatical compounds. These results raise the possibility that level-ordering may not be a valid constraint of children's compounding in general.