Text-contingent color aftereffects: A reexamination

Five experiments reexamined color aftereffects contingent on the semantic properties of text (Allan, Siegel, Collins, & MacQueen, 1989). The influence of different assessment techniques and the effect of eye movements and overlapping contour information on the induction of color aftereffects by word and nonword letter strings were determined. Experiment 1 showed that no aftereffect was found when a traditional method of assessing color aftereffects was used. Experiments 2 and 4 demonstrated color aftereffects forboth words and nonwords, but only when subjects fixated the same locus during induction and testing and only when assessed with the technique described by Allan et al. (1989). If, however, eye movements were made during induction, no color aftereffect was obtained (Experiment 3). Induction to nontext patterns with properties similar to those of text but with fewer overlapping contours resulted in a strong color aftereffect (Experiment 5). These results suggest that the color aftereffect contingent on text is very weak and is not dependent on semantic factors, but that it is a product of induction to local color and orientation information.     

A postdictive bias associated with déjà vu

Psychonomic Bulletin & Review - Recent research links reports of déjà vu – the feeling of having experienced something before despite knowing otherwise – with an illusory...     

The influence of chemical complexity on the perception of multicomponent odor mixtures

The present study investigates the hypothesis that complexobject odors (odors that emanate from flowers, foods, sewage, etc.) that consist of dozens of odorants are processed and encoded as discrete entities, as if each was a single chemical odor. To test this hypothesis, the capacity of trained subjects to discriminate and identify the components of stimuli consisting of one to eight object odors was determined. The results indicated that subjects could only identify up to four object odors in a mixture, which is similar to earlier findings with mixtures that contained only single chemical odors. The limited capacity was also reflected in the number of odors selected, regardless of whether the choices were correct or incorrect, in confidence ratings, and in decision times. The identification of a limited number of object odors in every mixture that was presented suggests that both associative (synthetic) and dissociative (analytic) processes are involved in the perceptual analysis of odor mixtures.     

Assessment of delusional beliefs during the modification of delusional verbalizations

This study examined the strength of delusional beliefs during the modification of delusional verbalizations of a 51 year-old chronically mentally ill inpatient. The changing-criterion design was used to document the effectiveness of a behavioral treatment package to alter the rate of delusional responses to personal background questions. The results revealed a stepwise decline in the frequency of delusional responses. Generalization effects to novel interviewers were obtained. No changes were obtained on the subject's ratings of delusional beliefs, with the subject assigning ratings of absolute conviction to his beliefs throughout the duration of the study.     

Managed Care, Catholic Vision, and the Claims of Justice

There are numerous challenges posed to Roman Catholic healthcare institutions by recent developments in health care delivery.Some are practical, involving the acceptable limits of accommodationto and collaboration with secular networks of health care delivery.Others, quite often implicated in the first set, are explicitlytheological. What does it mean to be a distinctively Roman Catholichealth care institution? What are the nature and the scope ofRoman Catholic institutional identity? More broadly, what isthe moral relevance of themes in Roman Catholic social teachingto the provision of health care? This issue of Christian Bioethicsaddresses these questions with a spirited exchange among itsauthors. They offer noticeably different perspectives on thegeneral cogency of Roman Catholic social teaching and differentstrategic recommendations for Roman Catholic institutions tomaintain, or recover, their distinctive presence in health caredelivery.