Change detection in the flicker paradigm: Do faces have an advantage?

Changes to a scene that occur during an eye movement, image flicker, or movie cut are difficult to detect. One way to measure change detection performance is with the flicker paradigm, where changes between two images are introduced during a brief blank screen, which causes the images to “flicker”. Ro, Russell, and Lavie (2001) presented flickering displays consisting of one face and five different common objects. They found that changes to faces were detected both more rapidly and more accurately than changes to objects and suggested that faces capture attention due to their biological significance. In the present studies, we found that changes to objects were more readily detected than changes to faces when displays consisted of an object among a number of faces. That is, a change detection advantage was observed for the “odd-one-out” in the array, regardless of its significance. Therefore, faces may not have a special status for change detection.     

Visual perception in fencing: Do the eye movements of fencers represent their information pickup?

The present study examined whether results of athletes' eye movements while they observe fencing attacks reflect their actual information pickup by comparing these results with others gained with temporal and spatial occlusion and cuing techniques. Fifteen top-ranking expert fencers, 15 advanced fencers, and 32 sport students predicted the target region of 405 fencing attacks on a computer monitor. Results of eye movement recordings showed a stronger foveal fixation on the opponent's trunk and weapon in the two fencer groups. Top-ranking expert fencers fixated particularly on the upper trunk. This matched their performance decrements in the spatial occlusion condition. However, when the upper trunk was occluded, participants also shifted eye movements to neighboring body regions. Adding cues to the video material had no positive effects on prediction performance. We conclude that gaze behavior does not necessarily represent information pickup, but that studies applying the spatial occlusion paradigm should also register eye movements to avoid underestimating the information contributed by occluded regions.     

Visual inspection of data revisited: Do the eyes still have it?

In behavior analysis, visual inspection of graphic information is the standard by which data are evaluated. Efforts to supplement visual inspection using inferential statistical procedures to assess intervention effects (e.g., analysis of variance or time-series analysis) have met with opposition. However, when serial dependence is present in the data, the use of visual inspection by itself may prove to be problematic. Previously published reports demonstrate that autocorrelated data influence trained observers' ability to identify level treatment effects and trends that occur in the intervention phase of experiments. In this report, four recent studies are presented in which autoregressive equations were used to produce point-to-point functions to simulate experimental data. In each study, various parameters were manipulated to assess trained observers' responses to changes in point-to-point functions from the baseline condition to intervention. Level shifts over baseline behavior (treatment effect), as well as no change from baseline (no treatment effect or trend), were most readily identified by observers, but trends were rarely recognized. Furthermore, other factors previously thought to augment and improve observers' responses had no impact. Results are discussed in terms of the use of visual inspection and the training of behavior analysts.     

Memory Errors From A Change of Standard: A Lack of Awareness or of Understanding?

Memory errors occur when the context standard that is used when judging target behaviors is different from the category norm standard that is available later when the behaviors are recalled. Is insufficient awareness the reason for this change-of-standard effect? Two kinds of awareness were maximized in each of two studies: (a) awareness of the relation between the judgment and the context - telling subjects to be sure to use the non-target persons for comparison when judging the target person (salience); and (b) awareness at recall of the earlier judgmental context - asking subjects to recall the non-target persons before recalling the target person (reinstatement). Context reinstatement reduced memory errors. But when context reinstatement and salience were combined, the memory errors reappeared. In Study 2, an attempt at debiasing failed. The change-of-standard effect is explained in terms of a "natural" tendency to use the current categorical meaning of a judgment to reconstruct the referent of its past contextualized meaning.     

Do you know where your fingers have been? Explicit knowledge of the spatial layout of the keyboard in skilled typists

Two experiments evaluated skilled typists’ ability to report knowledge about the layout of keys on a standard keyboard. In Experiment 1, subjects judged the relative direction of letters on the computer keyboard. One group of subjects was asked to imagine the keyboard, one group was allowed to look at the keyboard, and one group was asked to type the letter pair before judging relative direction. The imagine group had larger angular error and longer response time than both the look and touch groups. In Experiment 2, subjects placed one key relative to another. Again, the imagine group had larger angular error, larger distance error, and longer response time than the other groups. The two experiments suggest that skilled typists have poor explicit knowledge of key locations. The results are interpreted in terms of a model with two hierarchical parts in the system controlling typewriting.     

Error Detection in Text: Do Feedback and Familiarity Help?

In the present study, the authors examined the extent to which familiarity and feedback (auditory and/or articulatory) might be beneficial to proofreading. Participants proofread unfamiliar and familiar (repeated) passages while (a) concurrently reading either aloud or silently, (b) concurrently listening to the passages being read to them, or (c) reading without either auditory or articulatory feedback. Errors were one-letter changes that transformed function words into contextually inappropriate words. Familiarity improved reading times largely irrespective of feedback, and it enhanced error detection only when auditory feedback was available to participants. Proofreaders' enhanced error detection in familiar text reflected a change in their sensitivity to errors rather than any change in the placement of the response criterion for reporting errors. These findings suggest that familiarity can produce two kinds of functional fluency, one involving speed of processing, which is largely independent of feedback, and the other concerned with accuracy of processing, which relies on feedback.     

Awareness of Infants: What Do They,and We,Seek?

I study the biological foundations of human cultural intelligence, and how they are supported. I observe the development of human motives for agency, the emotions that evaluate what is discovered, and the ways interests and discoveries and feelings may be shared with others. Ed Tronick and I have been privileged to study infants closely over several decades in which ideas of the dynamic powers of the human mind have been transformed, principally by recording how infants act in intimate companionship with their mothers in the first year or two. Here I try to clarify the ways we have, for different purposes and in different environments, taken complementary routes to understanding the meaning of infant life. His responsibilities are clinical and occupied with supporting the mental health of both the infant and the mother, and the building of a strong affectionate trust for life with others. My task has been trying to understand the subtle creativity and aesthetic and moral principles that animate a widening circle of relationships for a child, and that lead to cultural learning that is rich and playful. Ed and I are lucky to be discovering what every infant wants, and privileged to be supporting pride in good company, while striving to guard against causes of despair and shame in young children and their families.     

Is There a Simple Argument for Higher-Order Representation Theories of Awareness Consciousness?

William Lycan has articulated “a simple argument” for higher-order representation (HOR) theories of a variety of consciousness sometimes labeled ‘awareness consciousness’ (Lycan, Analysis 61.1, January 3–4, 2001). The purpose of this article is to critically assess the influential argument-strategy of the simple argument. I argue that, as stated, the simple argument fails since it is invalid. Moreover, I argue that an obvious “quick fix” would beg the question against competing same-order representation (SOR) theories of awareness consciousness. I then provide a reconstruction of the argument and argue that although the reconstructed argument deserves consideration, it is also too simple as stated. In particular, it raises several controversial questions about the nature of mental representation. These questions must be addressed before a verdict as to the cogency of the HOR argument-strategy can be reached. But since the questions are controversial, a cogent argument for HOR theories of awareness consciousness is unlikely to be simple.

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Moderation of Stimulus Material on the Prediction of IQ with Infants' Performance in the Visual Expectation Paradigm: Do Greebles Make the Task More Challenging?

The objective of this study was to examine the role of the stimulus material for the prediction of later IQ by early learning measures in the Visual Expectation Paradigm (VExP). The VExP was assessed at 9 months using two types of stimuli, Greebles and human faces. Greebles were assumed to be associated with a higher load on working memory in comparison to human faces. IQ was assessed at 3 years and 4 months of age. Sixty‐four children participated at both assessments in this longitudinal study. The results show a moderation of the stimulus material on the prediction of IQ. With Greebles as stimulus material, a significant relationship between infants' learning and IQ was found. There was no relation when infants' learned in the VExP using human faces. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Is "Change Blindness" Attenuated by Domain-specific Expertise? An Expert-Novices Comparison of Change Detection in Football Images

When an aspect of a visual image is altered, observers often fail to notice the change. Recent studies suggest that successful change detection requires the observer to attend to and effortfully encode the changing aspect between the images. In this study we addressed the question of whether individual characteristics of the observer, namely expertise in a domain, selectively influence the ability to detect changes in images from that domain. A total of 48 individuals, half of whom were experts in the sport of American football and half of whom were American football novices, were presented alternating sequences of football-related and unrelated images. Our results indicate that expertise in a specific domain increases observers' sensitivity to semantic changes of domain-related images. Implications for the development of diagnostic tools are briefly addressed.     

Multiply Victimized Women: How Do They Change?

Recent studies have demonstrated that women are frequently victims of several types of violent actions via different agents throughout their life spans. Furthermore, multiple victimizations have been associated with psychological difficulties. The present study aimed to understand the change processes, in a self-directed way, of 19 female victims of multiple violent actions during their lifetimes. The women were evaluated for one year using a depression scale and a qualitative interview. The interviews were analyzed using the innovative moments (IMs) model. The results evidenced three groups, according to the evolution of their depressive symptoms during the one-year evaluation period. There were two unchanged groups, one being the symptomatic group (N = 6), which continuously presented symptoms at a clinical level, and the other the asymptomatic group (N = 7), which did not report depressive symptoms at any assessment moment. The change group (N = 6) exhibited a reliable decrease in clinically significant symptoms. Regarding IMs, the majority of the women were able to develop innovative moments regarding the dominant problem over a one-year evaluation period. Those women mobilized alternative ways to address multiple victimization experiences primarily through reflection IMs. Although there were several exceptions to the problematic narratives during the one-year assessment, the change group had a higher proportion and diversity of IM types—namely, a higher reconceptualization and reflection subtype II—compared with the unchanged groups. Moreover, reconceptualization differentiated the change group from the other two groups. These latter IMs may reflect the concept of “postvictimization growth” and the positive changes that arise from experiences of victimization.     

Visual dreams in the congenitally blind?

An EEG study of sleep in congenitally blind persons revealed a significant correlation between the visual activity reported during dreaming and the decrease of alpha strength recorded from the central and occipital regions of the scalp. This provides the first objective evidence that subjects who have never had visual experiences can have dreams with virtual images that are probably mediated by the activation of the cortical areas responsible for visual representations.     

On the Relationship Between Interoceptive Awareness and Alexithymia: Is Interoceptive Awareness Related to Emotional Awareness?

Interoceptive awareness (IA) is associated with emotional experience, the processing of emotional stimuli, and activation of brain structures that monitor the internal visceral and emotional state of the organism. Alexithymia is characterized by difficulties in identifying and describing one's emotions and externally oriented thinking (EOT) and reflects impairments in emotional awareness and the regulation of emotions. This study examined the relationship between alexithymia and IA in a healthy population of N=155 persons. A well-validated heartbeat perception task to measure interoceptive awareness, the Toronto Alexithymia Scale (TAS-20) and a depression questionnaire (BDI-2) were administered to 88 women and 67 men. IA was inversely associated with all features of alexithymia in the whole sample. When considering sex differences, IA turned out to be a relevant negative predictor for the EOT subscale only in men. This large sample investigation in a nonclinical population indicates that IA represents a relevant negative predictor for alexithymia.     

The Role of the Family Therapist in Divorce: Benevolent Healer or Agent of Social Change?

Essay Review of:
The Dynamics of Divorce: A Life Cycle Perspective , F. W. Kaslow and L. L. Schwartz, New York: Brunner/Mazel, 1987.
Divorced Families: A Multidisciplinary Developmental View , C. R. Ahrons and R. H. Rodgers, New York: W. W. Norton, 1987.
The Difficult Divorce: Therapy for Children and Families , M. B. Isaacs, B. Montalvo, and D. Abelson, New York: Basic Books, 1986.     

Are Conflicts the Motor in Identity Change?

This paper aims to find empirical evidence for the assumption that conflicts are the motor of identity development. I hypothesized that conflicts in a specific domain cause an increase in exploration, a decrease in the strength of commitments, and a change in the content of commitments in that same domain. Eight participants kept a diary in which they reported the most important events during 6 months. The identity status in 6 domains before and after the diary period was assessed. Strong commitments with little exploration were preceded by a period of little or no conflicts in the relevant domain. Perceived change in content of commitments and decrease in strength of commitments were related to the number of conflicts during that same period, but exploration was not. This might be explained by the finding that most conflicts lasted much longer than 6 months. Using resampling techniques, significant results were found when we analyzed the 48 domains, but we cannot rule out the possibility that systematic differences between participants affected the findings.     

Awareness Versus Un-Clinging: Which Matters in Mindfulness?

Awareness and un-clinging have been emphasised in Buddhist discourse as important facets of mindfulness practice for over 2500 years. However, there is a lack of rigorous research examining the relationship between these two elements and their importance to well-being. To evaluate these abstract constructs, the current study adopted multiple assessment modalities; namely, a self-report scale, experience sampling (assessing ‘momentary mindfulness’), and semi-structured interviews (assessing ‘rater-rated mindfulness’). A total of 415 participants completed the questionnaire survey. Among them, 71 participants further took part in the experience sampling procedure and semi-structured interviews. The findings reveal that self-reported awareness was mildly correlated with momentary mindfulness (r = .35) but was not significantly correlated with rater-rated mindfulness. Self-reported un-clinging was moderately correlated with rater-rated mindfulness (r = .53) but was not significantly correlated with momentary mindfulness. Un-clinging, but not awareness, can distinguish meditators from non-meditators. Lastly, based on the Buddha’s mindfulness discourse, a path analysis model illustrates that the effects of un-clinging and awareness on stress reduction are mediated by emotional intelligence and non-attachment. Practical implications and future research designs are discussed.     

Gender Differences in the Representation of Violence on Spanish Television: Should Women be More Violent?

Gender differences in the representation of aggressors and victims are an important issue in the study of television violence in order to ascertain whether television contributes (and how) to reproduce or transform the traditional gender regime. Eighty-four hours of Spanish main TV broadcasting stations were randomly recorded during years 2000 and 2005. Variables related to the presentation of aggressors and victims and to the normative context of aggression were selected through content analysis. The results show the minimal presence of women in violent scenes. But women are also the victims of more serious violence. Paradoxically, women’s aggressions appear to have more positive consequences and to be less legitimized. The implications of these findings are discussed from a gender studies perspective.