The appraisal basis of anger occurrence and intensity revisited

In a diary study we examined the relation between anger appraisals on the one hand, and the occurrence and intensity of anger experiences in frustrating situations on the other hand. The appraisals of frustration, other presence, other-accountability, and hostile intention are shown to be jointly sufficient for the occurrence of anger experience. Absence of one or more of these appraisals further results in a smaller proportion of anger occurrences, in lower anger intensities, and in both within- and between-person differences in anger occurrence. These results are interpreted in terms of anger experience as a categorical phenomenon for which the jointly sufficient set of appraisals acts as a cognitive point of reference. Willingness to go for anger categorisations in appraisal patterns that deviate from this cognitive point of reference is, at least in part, subject to dispositional individual differences.     

Reversing the affective congruency effect: The role of target word frequency of occurrence

In this research the outcome of an affective priming experiment is shown to critically depend on the frequency of occurrence of the target words used. Low frequency target words (5.7 occurrences per million words) resulted in an affective congruency effect, i.e., faster responses following affectively congruent than incongruent primes. High frequency target words (32.6 occurrences per million) resulted in a reverse priming effect, i.e., faster responses following incongruent than congruent primes. The size of the congruency effect was larger than the size of the reverse priming effect, thus masking its emergence when word frequency was not taken into account. We propose that target word frequency has its influence via an accessibility-related mechanism having to do with differences in observed changes in affect between prime and target.     

Inadequacy of recall as a basis for frequency knowledge.

Subjects studied a word list comprising varying numbers of words from distinct semantic categories. The category names (trees, colors, etc.) were then re-presented, and for each name subjects either recalled as many exemplars as they could or estimated how many had been included in the list (Experiments 1 and 2). Recall was not sufficiently informative about actual category sizes to account for performance in the frequency estimation task. Moreover, it remained insufficiently informative when efforts were made to induce a recall-estimate strategy by requiring overt recall prior to estimation (Experiments 3-5), by using very small categories (Experiment 4), and by not showing the category name at study (Experiment 5), even though it did allow a partial account of estimation when the category exemplars were individually cued (Experiment 6). It is concluded that the role of recall in frequency estimation is much exaggerated.     

Multiple meanings,number of related meanings,frequency of occurrence,and the lexicon

A series of experiments was conducted examining lexical access of words with multiple meanings. Words with many meanings were accessed faster than words with few meanings. This effect was obtained independently of word frequency. Furthermore, while words may have several etymological derivations, the number of derivations does not affect access. Finally, among words with an equal number of derivations and an equal number of meanings, those whose meanings tend to be associated with only one derivation are also accessed faster. The relation between number of meanings and word frequency is discussed, especially with respect to the role number of meanings may have played in other research.     

Location vs. frequency of pure tones as a basis of fast discrimination

There are ample data suggesting that a spatial difference between two competing auditory messages provides a better basis for selective attention and listening than other differences. The present experiments show that the spatial difference (left vs. right ear) between two auditory inputs leads to their faster discrimination than even large differences in frequency (in the same ear). These results might explain the afore-mentioned privileged status of the spatial dimension as a basis of selective attention: spatial differences lead in faster identification of relevant or attended input than differences in other dimensions.     

Cardiovascular reactions to psychological stress and abuse history: the role of occurrence,frequency, and type of abuse

Background and objectives: Extreme cardiovascular reactions to psychological stress have been associated with traumatic life experiences. Previous studies have focused on the occurrence or frequency of abuse rather than type of abuse. We examined how occurrence, frequency, and the type of abuse history are related to cardiovascular reactivity (CVR) to acute psychological stress. Design: The study consisted of between group and continuous analyses to examine the association between occurrence, type, and frequency of abuse with cardiovascular reactions to acute psychological stress. Methods: Data from 64 participants were collected. Heart rate, systolic blood pressure, and diastolic blood pressure were measured at baseline and during a standard mental arithmetic stress task. Results: Individuals who experienced abuse showed diminished CVR to acute psychological stress; this was driven specifically by the history of sexual abuse. Frequency of abuse did not relate to stress reactions. Conclusions: These findings accord with previous work suggesting a relationship between traumatic life experience and hypoarousal in physiological reactivity and extend previous findings by suggesting the relationship may be driven by sexual abuse.     

Conspiracy theories on the basis of the evidence

Synthese - Conspiracy theories are often portrayed as unwarranted beliefs, typically supported by suspicious kinds of evidence. Yet contemporary work in Philosophy argues provisional belief in...     

Effects of Image Preprocessing on Face Matching and Recognition in Human Observers

In person identification, recognition failure due to variations of illumination is common. In this study, we employed image‐processing techniques to tackle this problem. Participants performed recognition and matching tasks where the face stimuli were either original images or computer‐processed images in which shading was weakened via a number of image‐processing techniques. The results show that whereas recognition accuracy in a memory task was unaffected, some of the techniques significantly improved the identification performance in a face‐matching task. We conclude that relative to long‐term face memory, face matching is more susceptible to discrepancy of shading in different images of a face. Reducing the discrepancy by certain preprocessing techniques can facilitate person identification when original face images contain large illumination differences. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Identifying psychopathy subtypes on the basis of personality structure

The authors used model-based cluster analysis to identify subtypes of criminal psychopaths on the basis of differences in personality structure. Participants included 96 male prisoners diagnosed as psychopathic, using the Psychopathy Checklist Revised (PCL-R; R. D. Hare, 1991). Personality was assessed using the brief form of the Multidimensional Personality Questionnaire (MPQ-BF; C. J. Patrick, J. J. Curtin, and A. Tellegen, 2002). The best-fitting model yielded two clusters. Emotionally stable psychopaths were characterized by low Stress Reaction and high Agency. Aggressive psychopaths were characterized by high Negative Emotionality, low Constraint, and low Communion. These results suggest that psychopaths as defined by the PCL-R includes distinct subtypes, distinguishable in terms of personality structure, that may reflect different etiologies.     

A note on the information-theoretic basis of Fitts' law

Fitts' law is an information-theoretic view of human motor behavior developed from Shannon's Theorem, 17, a fundamental theorem of communications systems. Using data from Fitts' original experiments, we demonstrate that Fitts' choice of an equation that deviates slightly from the underlying principal is perhaps unfounded, and that the relationship is improved by using an exact adaptation of Shannon's equation.     

Pigeons discriminate objects on the basis of abstract familiarity

Knowledge of previous encounters with conspecifics is thought to be beneficial as it allows fast and appropriate behavioral responses toward those animals. This level of categorization goes beyond perceptual similarity and requires the individual to refer to a more abstract common referent, namely familiarity. It has been shown that pigeons are able to form functional classes of conspecifics that are based on familiarity. To date, we do not know whether this ability is restricted to the social context (including heterospecifics) or if it can also be used to classify inanimate objects. Furthermore, the factors influencing the formation of this functional class are still unknown. Here, we show that pigeons (Columba livia) are able to use a categorical rule of familiarity to classify previously unseen photographs of objects from their living environment. Pigeons that lacked real-life experience with the objects were not able to do so. This suggests that perceptual features alone were not sufficient for class recognition. To investigate the impact of additional functional properties of the objects, familiar objects were further divided into two subcategories, namely those that were considered functionally relevant to the birds and those that were not. Although the majority of pigeons learned to categorize photographs of objects based on familiarity alone, our results also suggest an unlearned preference for “relevant” familiar objects. The results presented here suggest that pigeons are able to learn to extract the discriminative feature of abstract familiarity from pictures by referring to previous real-life experience but that additional functions of objects lead to a preference of these objects.     

Infants' ability to categorise on the basis of rhyme

Two experiments are described, which investigated 7 - to 13-month-old infants' abilities to categorise syllables according to their ending sounds, or rhymes. Using the Conditioned Headturn (CHT) Procedure, infants were conditioned to turn their head when one set of rhyming CVCs changed to another set of rhyming CVCs. Even the 7 -month-old infants demonstrated an ability to categorise according to rimes. The infants could be separated into three different groups: those who conditioned but did not succeed in a rhyming task; those who succeeded at one rhyming task but not a second; and those infants who succeeded on two rhyming tasks. The infants in the second group were showing an early sensitivity to rhyme. However, they appeared to be learning a very specific rule, listening only for one category of rhyme. The third group of infants was able to extend the initial rule they learned to include new rhymes. This group learned not only to highlight one particular rhyme, but were also able to abstract the previously learned rule to new rhymes, thereby demonstrating a higher level of sophistication in their categorisation of rhymes. These results are discussed in relation to the ontogeny of language learning, and work demonstrating a relationship between rhyming ability and competence in reading and writing.     

道德市场的合理性及其存在论基础

西方市民社会的经济理论和文化观曾为道德和市场的二元分裂提供理论支持,企业活动的非道德性似乎在经济与市场活动中得到确证.但是,随着现当代经济实践活动中面临的各种伦理问题,道德市场的合理性与建构已成为经济学家和哲学家探讨的重大课题.鲍曼论证了企业作为道德人比作为自利的"经济人"更能理想地实现自己的效用.这一观点得到现代博弈论的进一步论证;而马克思从人的本真性存在为道德市场的合理性提供了存在论基础.