Involuntary Autobiographical Memories

Results from a diary study of involuntary memories are presented (14 subjects; 7 males, 7 females, average age 23 years). Virtually all of the recorded memories had identifiable cues. Memory access was biased towards (a) mood-congruent (b) recent and (c) distinctive (unusual) events. The memories were most frequently rated as emotionally positive and prior rehearsal was rated low. Also, the memories were found to influence current mood consonant with the emotional valence of the memories. Stressful and repetitive involuntary recollections—as they are observed in clinical settings subsequent to traumatic events—may be viewed as a malignant effect of normal mechanisms of involuntary memories.     

Involuntary attention and brightness contrast

Carrasco, Ling, and Read (2004) reported that involuntary attention increased perceived contrast. We replicated Carrasco et al. and then tested an alternative hypothesis: With stimuli near threshold, a peripheral cue biased observers to believe a stimulus had been presented in the cued location. Consistent with this hypothesis, the effect disappeared when we used higher-contrast stimuli. We further tested the guessing-bias hypothesis in three ways: (1) In a detection experiment, the cue affected bias, but did not increase d'; (2) when the cue followed the stimulus, we obtained the same results as when the cue preceded the stimulus; (3) in one experiment, some trials contained no stimulus, yet observers responded that the cued blank stimulus had higher contrast than the uncued blank stimulus. The results suggest that the effects of a noninformative peripheral cue are best described in terms of nonperceptual biases.     

Involuntary strategy-dependent dual task performance

Previous studies showed that some dual tasks can be performed simultaneously without costs. Yet, a variable SOA between the inputs to such tasks leads to strategic, often involuntary, prioritization of one of the two tasks. Here we explore the boundary conditions for this involuntary or exogenous strategy. In Experiment 1, subjects were initially trained on dual task performance where the input to the two tasks is presented simultaneously (0 SOA). We used two tasks that under such conditions can be performed without costs and indeed subjects displayed perfect sharing of the tasks. Subjects then performed the same two tasks but with a variable SOA (0, 50, 150, 800?ms). This manipulation led to a serial-like performance of the two tasks even in trials with 0 SOA. In Experiment 2, subjects participated in eight sessions. Within each session, they performed in alternation blocks with a fixed 0 SOA and blocks with a variable SOA. Subjects displayed perfect sharing in the pure 0 SOA blocks but performed the two tasks serially in the mixed SOA blocks despite receiving identical instructions. These findings demonstrate that task context is a powerful factor in dual task performance and may lead subjects to involuntarily exhibit dual task costs even in conditions where they can perform the tasks without any costs. Moreover, these findings strongly suggest that costs observed in PRP studies reflect the use of such exogenous strategies rather than a general structural dual task limitation.     

Involuntary attention and identification accuracy

Using the spatial cuing paradigm, Prinzmetal, McCool, and Park (2005) made the distinction between voluntary and involuntary attention. They claimed that although accuracy was affected by an informative spatial cue (which controls voluntary attention), it was not affected by a noninformative cue (which controls involuntary attention). We reevaluate two reports that assert that noninformative spatial cues affect accuracy. Dufour (1999) reported that a noninformative auditory cue enhanced visual identification in a conjunction search task. Klein and Dick (2002) reported that, in an RSVP task with visual cues, the cue also enhanced accuracy at short stimulus onset asynchronies. We found that Dufour's results were due to overt orienting (eye movements) rather than to covert attention. The results of Klein and Dick were due either to location uncertainty or to a confounding of the order of stimulus presentation and condition.     

Attitudes Toward Voluntary and Involuntary Childlessness

Prior research has documented negative attitudes toward the voluntarily childless. Although research indicates that infertile couples perceive their condition to be discrediting, the extent to which the public considers involuntary childlessness as a negative attribute is unclear. Infertility might be construed by many to be a disease of professional couples overly concerned with careers or too stressed to conceive. In this experiment, 215 university students read one of six scenarios describing a couple as either: (a) voluntarily childless, involuntarily childless, or having children; or (b) holding professional or nonprofessional employment. Subjects rated each member of the couple on 26 characteristics (e.g., ambitious, caring, and stressed) and responded to 12 items concerning the quality and strength of the couple's relationship. Results support prior research demonstrating a stigma of voluntary childlessness but suggest that involuntary childlessness is not universally stigmatizing and may actually lead to some positive attributions. Recommendations for future research and applications are discussed.     

Involuntary attentional capture by abrupt onsets

The extent to which brief abrupt-onset visual stimuli involuntarily capture spatial attention was examined in five experiments. The paradigm used was intended to maximize the opportunity and incentive for subjects to ignore abrupt-onset distractor stimuli in nontarget locations. Subjects made a speeded two-choice response to a target letter appearing in one of four boxes. An abrupt-onset visual stimulus, easily discriminable from the target, was flashed briefly prior to the presentation of a target. In separate blocks, the flash stimulus marked the box in which the target would subsequently appear (SAME), a different box (DIFF), fixation (CENTER), or all four boxes (ALL). Prior to each block, subjects were informed of the flash-target relationship. In all five experiments, response time was elevated in the DIFF, CENTER, and ALL conditions. The interference effect was larger for the DIFF condition and persisted for longer flash-target SOAs. These results suggest that, under appropriate conditions, spatial attention can be involuntarily drawn to abrupt-onset events despite the intention of subjects’ to ignore them.     

Involuntary attentional capture by abrupt onsets.

The extent to which brief abrupt-onset visual stimuli involuntarily capture spatial attention was examined in five experiments. The paradigm used was intended to maximize the opportunity and incentive for subjects to ignore abrupt-onset distractor stimuli in nontarget locations. Subjects made a speeded two-choice response to a target letter appearing in one of four boxes. An abrupt-onset visual stimulus, easily discriminable from the target, was flashed briefly prior to the presentation of a target. In separate blocks, the flash stimulus marked the box in which the target would subsequently appear (SAME), a different box (DIFF), fixation (CENTER), or all four boxes (ALL). Prior to each block, subjects were informed of the flash-target relationship. In all five experiments, response time was elevated in the DIFF, CENTER, and ALL conditions. The interference effect was larger for the DIFF condition and persisted for longer flash-target SOAs. These results suggest that, under appropriate conditions, spatial attention can be involuntarily drawn to abrupt-onset events despite the intention of subjects' to ignore them.     

Involuntary attentional shifts due to orientation differences

We tested the ability of orientation differences to cause involuntary shifts of visual attention and found that these attentional shifts can occur in response to an orientation “pop-out” display. Texturelike cue stimuli consisting of discrete oriented bars, with either uniform orientation or containing a noninformative orthogonally oriented bar, were presented for a variable duration. Subsequent to or partially coincident with the cue stimulus was the target display of a localization or two-interval forced-choice task, followed by a mask display. Naive subjects consistently showed greater accuracy in trials with the target at the location of the orthogonal orientation compared with trials with uniformly oriented bars, with only 100 msec between the cue and mask onsets. Discriminating these orientations required a stimulus onset asynchrony (SOA) of 50–70 msec. The attentional facilitation is transient, in most cases absent, with a cue-mask SOA of 250 msec. These results suggest that the preattentive character of some texture discrimination tasks with SOAs of only 100 msec is vitiated by the involuntary attentional shifts that are caused by orientation differences.     

Involuntary belief and the command to have faith

Richard Swinburne argues that belief is a necessary but not sufficient condition for faith, and he also argues that, while faith is voluntary, belief is involuntary. This essay is concerned with the tension arising from the involuntary aspect of faith, the Christian doctrine that human beings have an obligation to exercise faith, and the moral claim that people are only responsible for actions where they have the ability to do otherwise. Put more concisely, the problem concerns the coherence of the following claims: (1) one cannot have faith, (2) one has an obligation to have faith, and (3) ought implies can. To solve this dilemma, I offer three solutions that I believe have the philosophical resources to demonstrate the consistency of these claims. Thus, I defend the claim that it is logically possible for a person to be culpable for an involuntary failure to have faith in God.     

非自愿移民的自愿安置--市场经济条件下农村水库移民安置策略研究

移民的“意愿度”影响安置效果。提高安置时的“意愿度”可减缓移民的经济社会问题。市场经济框架下,非自愿移民可实现自愿安置。首先,项目影响人的需求发生了改变:基本需求单位缩小,群体差别化,年轻人就业的非农化与居住的城镇化意愿加大,生计中对土地依赖减弱。其次,安置条件(供给)发生了变化:补偿政策优化、补偿标准提高,土地资源约束有所缓解,区位条件在安置中日趋重要。各地探索和实践了多样化安置方式,如就地后靠、以土为本的农业安置、投亲靠友、自谋生计和社会保障等。项目影响人根据自己的需求从多样化的方案中选择适宜的安置方式,可实现自愿安置。     

Involuntary listening aids seeing: evidence from human electrophysiology

It is well known that sensory events of one modality can influence judgments of sensory events in other modalities. For example, people respond more quickly to a target appearing at the location of a previous cue than to a target appearing at another location, even when the two stimuli are from different modalities. Such cross-modal interactions suggest that involuntary spatial attention mechanisms are not entirely modality-specific. In the present study, event-related brain potentials (ERPs) were recorded to elucidate the neural basis and timing of involuntary, cross-modal spatial attention effects. We found that orienting spatial attention to an irrelevant sound modulates the ERP to a subsequent visual target over modality-specific, extrastriate visual cortex, but only after the initial stages of sensory processing are completed. These findings are consistent with the proposal that involuntary spatial attention orienting to auditory and visual stimuli involves shared, or at least linked, brain mechanisms.