The Functional Role of Cognitive Frameworks on Visuomotor Adaptation Performance

The authors investigated the effects of cognitive representations of movement directions on sensorimotor adaptation performance. Adaptation performance was measured via a pointing experiment in which participants were provided with visual feedback that was distorted along the midsagittal plane (i.e., left-right reversal). Performance was analyzed relative to participants’ individual adaptation gains and 3 groups were subsequently defined (i.e., skilled, average, and poor adapters). The group separation was kept for the Cognitive Measurement of Represented Directions, which was used to analyze participants’ cognitive representation of movement directions. The results showed that skilled adapters, in contrast to poor adapters, possess a global representation of movement directions aligned to the cardinal axes. The cognitive representation structure hence supports the sensorimotor adaptation performance.     

Disaster threat and justice sensitivity: a terror management perspective

Based on terror management theory, we tested the idea that reminders of death strengthen justice sensitivity. In Study 1, we exposed participants to three different kinds of death‐related pictures (terrorism vs. natural disasters vs. graveyards) or neutral pictures. The results showed that death‐related visual material led to more justice sensitivity from three perspectives (victim, observer, and perpetrator) than neutral visual material. Likewise, Study 2 indicated that fake newspaper articles claiming that the likelihood of terrorism is very high (vs. low) strengthened these three justice sensitivity types. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.     

Wittgenstein on Verification and Seeing-As, 1930–1932

This article examines the little-explored remarks on verification in Wittgenstein's notebooks during the period between 1930 and 1932. In these remarks, Wittgenstein connects a verificationist theory of meaning with the notion of logical multiplicity, understood as a space of possibilities: a proposition is verified by a fact if and only if the proposition and the fact have the same logical multiplicity. But while in his early philosophy logical multiplicities were analysed as an outcome of the formal properties of simple objects and simple signs, Wittgenstein in the early 1930s connects the notion of logical multiplicity with the notion of ways of seeing. I will argue that the relevant ways of seeing are closely similar to seeing-as or aspect seeing. According to Wittgenstein's view in the early 1930s, logical multiplicities are part of our perceptual experience of propositions and facts. In this sense, the verification relation depends on how we experience propositions and facts as being surrounded by a logical space of possibilities. Strikingly, Wittgenstein's way of thinking about the verification relation offers solutions to a set of seemingly intractable problems connected with the versions of verificationism developed by members of the Vienna Circle.     

Placebo effects in spider phobia: an eye-tracking experiment

ABSTRACT

Several eye-tracking studies have revealed that spider phobic patients show a typical hypervigilance-avoidance pattern when confronted with images of spiders. The present experiment investigated if this pattern can be changed via placebo treatment. We conducted an eye-tracking experiment with 37 women with spider phobia. They looked at picture pairs (a spider paired with a neutral picture) for 7?s each in a retest design: once with and once without a placebo pill presented along with the verbal suggestion that it can reduce phobic symptoms. The placebo was labelled as Propranolol, a beta-blocker that has been successfully used to treat spider phobia. In the placebo condition, both the fixation count and the dwell time on the spider pictures increased, especially in the second half of the presentation time. This was associated with a slight decrease in self-reported symptom severity. In summary, we were able to show that a placebo was able to positively influence visual avoidance in spider phobia. This effect might help to overcome apprehension about engaging in exposure therapy, which is present in many phobic patients.     

Statistical Judgment Formation in Personnel Selection: A Study in Military Aviation Psychology

This study addresses the issue of data combination in personnel selection. In a pilot study for the selection of trainee pilots for the German Luftwaffe, 99 applicants were assessed using a comprehensive battery of tests that measured inductive thinking, spatial thinking, attentiveness, visual and verbal short-term memory, sensorimotor coordination, and reactive stress tolerance. The global evaluation of the applicants' performance in a flight simulator served as an external criterion. The predictive validity of this test battery was checked by carrying out a discriminant analysis as well as by calculating a neural network. The 2 methods were compared with regard to their classification rate, stability, and separation of correct and incorrect classifications. The results show that artificial neural networks are useful tools for improving the quality of selection procedures for trainee pilots.     

Food Fight! The Swedish Low-Carb/High Fat (LCHF) Movement and the Turning of Science Popularisation Against the Scientists

Science popularisation is widely recognised as having its ‘political uses’ and as serving as a conventional means for buttressing the epistemic authority of the institutions of science in society. By separating the work of producing new knowledge from its dissemination, popularisation promotes public understanding and appreciation of science placed beyond public reach and influence. However, simply by insisting upon such a separation, so popularisation remains vulnerable to ‘capture’ by skilled and resourceful communicators intent on turning it against the established authority of scientists. This is a phenomenon which can be analysed in relation to the communicative strategies pursued by a collection of general practitioners, diabetics and self-styled dietary experts in Sweden championing a low-carbohydrate/high fat (LCHF) dietetics akin to the Diet Revolution initiated by Robert Atkins in the early 1970s. By dedicating themselves to achieving an overwhelming public presence in the propagation of simplified accounts of dietary science, the LCHF movement has been able to fashion science popularisation into a weapon capable of being turned back upon established dietary expertise in Sweden. In this effort they have proceeded on two fronts; firstly by debunking established dietary advice for failing to live up to idealised standards of ‘sound science’, and secondly, by effectively mobilising the personal testimony and endorsements of dieters themselves in order to publicly confirm the authenticity and trustworthiness of the LCHF regimen.