On the Origins of Critical Realism

Critical realism has been used in connection with different epistemological positions. The article reviews its different uses in German, American, and British philosophy and examines its relation to Barbour's introduction of the term in the science and theology debate. The result is that there is a close connection to scientific realism, but not to philosophical critical realism in a narrower sense. Critical realism is a type of realism defining the term in Kant's sense as related to the question of the existence of the tempospatial world. It distinguishes itself as a middle way between naïve realism and other extremes.     

Perceptual processing of natural scenes at rapid rates: Effects of complexity, content, and emotional arousal

During rapid serial visual presentation (RSVP), the perceptual system is confronted with a rapidly changing array of sensory information demanding resolution. At rapid rates of presentation, previous studies have found an early (e.g., 150–280 ms) negativity over occipital sensors that is enhanced when emotional, as compared with neutral, pictures are viewed, suggesting facilitated perception. In the present study, we explored how picture composition and the presence of people in the image affect perceptual processing of pictures of natural scenes. Using RSVP, pictures that differed in perceptual composition (figure–ground or scenes), content (presence of people or not), and emotional content (emotionally arousing or neutral) were presented in a continuous stream for 330 ms each with no intertrial interval. In both subject and picture analyses, all three variables affected the amplitude of occipital negativity, with the greatest enhancement for figure–ground compositions (as compared with scenes), irrespective of content and emotional arousal, supporting an interpretation that ease of perceptual processing is associated with enhanced occipital negativity. Viewing emotional pictures prompted enhanced negativity only for pictures that depicted people, suggesting that specific features of emotionally arousing images are associated with facilitated perceptual processing, rather than all emotional content.     

The cognitive and neural basis of option generation and subsequent choice

Decision-making research has thoroughly investigated how people choose from a set of externally provided options. However, in ill-structured real-world environments, possible options for action are not defined by the situation but have to be generated by the agent. Here, we apply behavioral analysis (Study 1) and functional magnetic resonance imaging (Study 2) to investigate option generation and subsequent choice. For this purpose, we employ a new experimental task that requires participants to generate options for simple real-world scenarios and to subsequently decide among the generated options. Correlational analysis with a cognitive test battery suggests that retrieval of options from long-term memory is a relevant process during option generation. The results of the fMRI study demonstrate that option generation in simple real-world scenarios recruits the anterior prefrontal cortex. Furthermore, we show that choice behavior and its neural correlates differ between self-generated and externally provided options. Specifically, choice between self-generated options is associated with stronger recruitment of the dorsal anterior cingulate cortex. This impact of option generation on subsequent choice underlines the need for an expanded model of decision making to accommodate choice between self-generated options.     

Deductive Reasoning in the Structuralist Approach

The distinction between the syntactic and the semantic approach to scientific theories emerged in formal philosophy of science. The semantic approach is commonly considered more advanced and more successful than the syntactic one, but the transition from the one approach to the other was not brought about without any loss. In essence, it is the formal analysis of atomic propositions and the analysis of deductive reasoning that dropped out of consideration in at least some of the elaborated versions of the semantic approach. In structuralist theory of science, as founded by Sneed and Stegmüller, the focus is on global propositions concerning the question of whether or not certain empirical systems satisfy a set-theoretic predicate that encodes the axioms of a scientific theory. Hence, an analysis of deductive reasoning from atomic premisses with the help of a given theory is missing. The objective of the present paper is to develop a deductive system on the basis of the structuralist framework. This system comes with a novel formulation of empirical propositions in structuralism.     

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.     

Rapid enumeration within a fraction of a single glance: The role of visible persistence in object individuation capacity

The number of items that can be individuated at a single glance is limited. Here, we investigate object individuation at a higher temporal resolution, in fractions of a single glance. In two experiments involving object individuation we manipulated the duration of visual persistence of the target items with a forward masking procedure. The number of items as well as their stimulus–onset asynchrony (SOA) to the mask was varied independently. The results showed main effects of numerosity and SOA, as well as an interaction. These effects were not caused by a generic reduction of item visibility by the mask. Instead, the SOA manipulation appeared to fractionate the time to access the sensory image. These findings suggest that the capacity limit of 3–4 items found in object individuation is, at least partially, the consequence of the temporal window of access to sensory information.     

The Dark Triad and competitive psychological climate at work: A model of reciprocal relationships in dependence of age and organization change

ABSTRACT

Integrating an interactionist model of personality development, the cumulative continuity model of personality development, and selection–evocation–manipulation theory, the present study analysed reciprocal relations of the Dark Triad common core and its sub-traits of narcissism, psychopathy, and Machiavellianism with competitive psychological climate. Moreover, within a large (N = 1,185) and longitudinal sample of employees from Germany, latent cross-lagged panel analyses were applied to analyse the moderating roles of age and organization change (i.e., organizational turnover). Overall, results revealed positive reciprocal relations between the Dark Triad common core, its sub-traits, and competitive psychological climate. The Dark Triad common core and Machiavellianism were more stable within the older (50–59 years) compared to the younger (25–34 years) age group. However, we found no age differences for the relation between competitive psychological climate and change in the Dark Triad common core or its sub-traits. Among employees who changed organizations, the Dark Triad common core, narcissism, and psychopathy were more strongly positively related to the change in competitive psychological climate than in the non-change group. This suggests stronger selection compared to evocation–manipulation effects for individuals with high values in the Dark Triad common core, narcissism, and psychopathy, but not for Machiavellianism.     

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.