Food Systems Change and the Environment: Local and Global Connections

Making changes to the way food is produced, distributed, and processed is one strategy for addressing global climate change. In this case study, we examine the "forming" stage of an emergent and locally-based coalition that is both participatory and focused on promoting food security by creating food systems change. Social network analysis is used to compare network density, centrality, and centralization among coalition partners before the formation of the coalition and at its one-year anniversary. Findings reveal that the coalition facilitated information seeking, assistance seeking, and collaborative efforts related to food security among a group of organizational stakeholders that were relatively disconnected pre-coalition. Results also illuminate tensions related to increased centralization of the network, coalition efficiency, and the goals of democratic decision-making. This study highlights the utility of social network analysis as a tool for evaluating the aims and trajectory of locally-based coalitions focused on global concerns.     

Global and Local Pessimistic Meta-inductions

The global pessimistic meta-induction argues from the falsity of scientific theories accepted in the past to the likely falsity of currently accepted scientific theories. I contend that this argument commits a statistical error previously unmentioned in the literature and is self-undermining. I then compare the global pessimistic meta-induction to a local pessimistic meta-induction based on recent negative assessments of the reliability of medical research. If there is any future in drawing pessimistic conclusions from the history of science, it lies in local meta-inductions, but these meta-inductions will not result in global distrust of the results of science.     

Global and Local processing in Williams Syndrome: Drawing versus Perceiving

It has been hypothesized that a local processing bias underlies overall visuospatial impairments in Williams syndrome (WS). However, recent studies have challenged this hypothesis by providing evidence against a local processing bias at the perceptual level. The aim of the present study was to further examine drawing and perceptual skills in children with WS using closely matched-hierarchical stimuli. In the drawing task children with WS exhibited a local processing bias. However, no significant preferential bias was found in the perceptual task. This indicates that children with WS do not systematically present a preferential bias for local information. Taken together the findings of the present study suggest that perceptual processing deficits per se are unlikely to explain local processing biases in visuoconstructive tasks often described in people with WS.     

Global Banking and Financial Services to Immigrants in Canada and the US

It is important to consider how financial institutions are adjusting their operational strategies because of the changing dynamics of financial resource and population flows. This paper compares the ways in which globally prominent banks provide financial services to immigrants in Canada and the US and addresses the following two research questions: (1) How has HSBC reacted strategically and operationally to people–money comovements involving immigrants, in which HSBC has ethnic assets, in the US and Canada? (2) What are the similarities and differences in HSBC’s strategic choices in entering or expanding in the San Francisco and Vancouver areas, and what explains such differences?     

Global and Local Feature Distinctiveness Effects in Language Acquisition

Various aspects of semantic features drive early vocabulary development, but less is known about how the global and local structure of the overall semantic feature space influences language acquisition. A feature network of English words was constructed from a large database of adult feature production norms such that edges in the network represented feature distances between words (i.e., Manhattan distances of probability distributions of features elicited for each pair of words). A word's global feature distinctiveness is measured with respect to all other words in the network and a word's local feature distinctiveness is measured relative to words in sub-networks derived from clustering analyses. This paper investigates how feature distinctiveness of individual words at local and global scales of the network influences language acquisition. Regression analyses indicate that global feature distinctiveness was associated with earlier age of acquisition ratings, and was a stronger predictor of age of acquisition than local feature distinctiveness. These results suggest that the global structure of the semantic feature network could play an important role in language acquisition, whereby globally distinctive concepts help to structure vocabulary development over the lifespan.     

Global Changes and Local Accidents: Consistency in Attributions for Environmental Effects1

A questionnaire concerning environmental issues was administered to 462 tourists visiting beaches in southwestern England. One set of items concerned the greenhouse effect, and measured the extent to which global warming was seen as attributable to individual behavior or corporate industrial activity, controllable by changes in behavior and policy, and having an immediate impact on the local climate. Other items concerned a recent shipping accident that had resulted in oil pollution of beaches in the region. Attributing the greenhouse effect to individual or corporate behavior, and interpreting climatic events as signs of this effect, were associated with a belief that the consequences of global warming could be disastrous, but also controllable through international and/or individual action. These responses covaried significantly with those concerning the oil spillage. Thus, greater perceptions of the urgency of dealing with global warming were associated with more negative views of the impact of the oil spillage, and with a greater tendency to attribute the shipping accident as due to bad seamanship, rather than chance. Those who saw individual behavior as contributing to the greenhouse effect were more likely to attribute the accident to bad seamanship, whereas those who felt that ordinary people could do little to stop the effects of global warming regarded the accident as one which could have happened to any tanker. It is suggested that cross-situational consistencies in attributional style and normative beliefs may contribute to associations between attitudes on distinct environmental issues.     

整体/局部加工中的半球功能不对称效应

20世纪末的研究证据显示,对Navon等级刺激的整体/局部加工中半球功能不对称效应发生在早期还是晚期阶段,研究者存在着争论。近期的电生理和功能成像研究资料表明,整体/局部加工的半球不对称效应可能是一个受到多种因素调节的复杂动态系统;早期信息表征的半球功能不对称效应可能主要受知觉因素的影响,而注意控制和反应冲突可能主要调节晚期知觉加工的半球功能不对称     

GLOMOsys: A Systems Account of Global Versus Local Processing

Within GLOMO^sys (the GLObal versus LOcal processing MOdel, a systems account) we examine the functionalities of two processing systems that process information either globally or locally (looking at the forest vs. the trees). GLOMO^sys suggests that (a) global versus local perceptual processing carries over to other tasks; (b) perceptual processing is related to conceptual processing (e.g., creative/analytic tasks; face/verbal recognition; similarity/dissimilarity generation; abstract/concrete construals, distance estimates, inclusive/exclusive categorization; assimilation/contrast in social judgments); (c) perceptual and conceptual processing is elicited by real-world variables (e.g., mood, exteroceptive and interoceptive cues of approach/avoidance, promotion/prevention focus, high/low power, distance, obstacles, novelty/familiarity, love/sex, interdependent/independent selves); (d) regulatory focus, psychological distance, and novelty are driving effects; and (e) the global system (glo-sys) processes novelty and the local system (lo-sys) processes familiarity. We discuss whether glo-sys is responsible for understanding meaning, relate the systems to physiological research, and discuss new research questions.     

整体语境和局部语境对代词理解的影响

通过眼动实验,考察了语篇理解中整体语境和局部语境对代词理解的影响。实验一是预备实验,发现名词与动词词组之间关系的典型性不同,整合的速度也不一样。实验二发现,代词的理解不是一次完成的,代词理解的初期受整体语境的语义偏向影响,而不受局部语境的影响。在第二阶段主要受到局部语境的影响。代词的理解过程比较符合Cook（2004）所提出的两阶段模型     

生物运动加工特异性：整体结构和局部运动的作用

人类具有很强的识别生物体运动信息的能力, 甚至当运动信息仅是由附着在头部和一些重要关节上的光点的运动组成时, 观察者对该信息检测和编码的优势依然存在。光点生物运动信息包含整体信息(如整体形状)和局部信息(如各个点的运动轨迹)。先前的绝大部分研究强调整体形状在生物运动知觉中的作用。最近有研究表明去除了整体结构信息的局部生物运动仍然存在加工优势, 揭示了局部生物运动本身可能包含了一些特异性信息。因此生物运动知觉并非单一现象, 而是一种具有不同加工机制(基于整体结构和基于局部运动)的多水平现象。     

注意和非注意条件下的整体和局部性质加工

以往关于整体和局部知觉的研究通常要求被试直接对出现在复合刺激整体或局部水平上的靶目标做反应,因此复合刺激与任务相关并被注意。该研究通过测量复合字母的整体和局部性质对随后出现的探测刺激的启动效应来研究在非注意条件下整体和局部性质加工的差异。实验一发现复合刺激的整体和局部性质对探测刺激产生负启动效应,但二者没有显著差异。实验二缩短了启动刺激与探测刺激之间的时间间隔,复合刺激的整体和局部性质对探测刺激都不再产生启动效应。在实验一、二中,当要求被试直接对复合刺激做反应时,其分辨局部性质的错误率都比分辨整体性质的错误率高。根据这些结果,讨论了在注意和非注意下的整体和局部性质加工的差异。     

整字和部件的语义关系对汉字认知的影响

等级汉字是指由小汉字组成的大汉字。依据Navon的复合刺激范式,实验1选取“生物和非生物范畴”的汉字构建等级汉字,探索语义范畴是否一致对刺激认知的影响。实验2选取“意义相反或无关”的汉字组成等级汉字,采用真假字判断任务探索语义关系对刺激加工的影响。实验结果发现,等级汉字加工受大小汉字语义范畴关系和语义关系的影响,同时,任务类型影响汉字认知。     

Think and Act Global and Local: A Portrait of the Individual as a Flexible Information-Processor

What accounts for the links between religion and health and well-being? This question was central to the commentators' responses to the target articles. Many of the commentators provided fresh new ways of explaining religion in psychological, social, physiological, and evolutionary terms. A few, however, came perilously close to the slippery slope of radical reductionism. In this article, I argue that religion is, by definition, unique, for it has a singular point of reference, the sacred. In addition, I review empirical studies assessing the independent predictive power of religion; they suggest that religion is a unique source of motivation and values, a unique form of coping, and a unique source of distress. Finally, I contend that social scientists should learn more about the connections between religion and health and well-being, not to explain religion away, but to gain a more complete understanding of religion and human nature more generally. Researchers should remember that religion represents not only a resource for psychological well-being and physical health, but a distinctive human dimension that carries meaning and power in and of itself.     

Local and Global Sources of Control in Pigeon Delayed Matching-to-sample Performance

The present study employed a behavioural detection approach to investigate the combined effects of sample duration and sample presentation frequency on delayed matching accuracy of pigeons. Experiment 1 showed that when both samples were exposed at each of the two possible durations within a two-alternative, delayed matching session, discriminability was higher to the longer duration sample than to the short-duration sample, as found when sample duration is varied between sessions. Experiment 2's asymmetrical procedure increased bias toward the more frequent of the two samples but had no influence on discriminability. Initial discriminability was higher to samples exposed for longer durations, irrespective of stimulus presentation frequency. The results suggest qualitatively different effects of the two sources of stimulus control under consideration: Sample duration (a local or within-trial manipulation) exerted its effect on discrimination of the stimuli, whereas sample presentation frequence (a global factor) exerted its major effect on response bias. An interpretation of the data in terms of Blough's (1996) analysis of errors in matching tasks suggests that the amount of behaviour under control of the sample stimulus markedly changed with different sample durations. The analysis also showed that the biasing manipulation exerted most of its effect on the portion of behaviour outside of control by the critical stimulus. We argue that theoretical accounts of delayed matching performance need to consider both local and global factors as determinants of matching accuracy.