Bemerkungen zur frühkindlichen Formwahrnehmung

Ohne Zusammenfassung     

Dreaming without REM sleep

To test whether mental activities collected from non-REM sleep are influenced by REM sleep, we suppressed REM sleep using clomipramine 50mg (an antidepressant) or placebo in the evening, in a double blind cross-over design, in 11 healthy young men. Subjects were awakened every hour and asked about their mental activity. The marked (81%, range 39-98%) REM-sleep suppression induced by clomipramine did not substantially affect any aspects of dream recall (report length, complexity, bizarreness, pleasantness and self-perception of dream or thought-like mentation). Since long, complex and bizarre dreams persist even after suppressing REM sleep either partially or totally, it suggests that the generation of mental activity during sleep is independent of sleep stage.     

Heroic Leaders as White‐Collar Criminals: An Empirical Study

In an empirical study of 179 white‐collar criminals, we identify a subset of 28 who may be called having a ‘heroic’ status, having received official recognition for contributions to society and fame prior to their being exposed and convicted as white‐collar criminals. We argue that these people are close to the classical picture of the white‐collar criminal, which implies that they are more likely not to be suspected of crimes. They are older, richer, and more powerful than the regular criminals. They also commit crimes assuming the roles of leaders in the crime. Most importantly, it seems as if the combination of heroic status and executive positions induces people to commit large‐scale opportunistic crimes late in their lives. The apparent onset of criminal behaviour late in life may be triggered by latent narcissistic traits. Our study contributes to a differentiated view on the profile of white‐collar criminals and derailed leadership. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The failing measurement of attitudes: How semantic determinants of individual survey responses come to replace measures of attitude strength

The traditional understanding of data from Likert scales is that the quantifications involved result from measures of attitude strength. Applying a recently proposed semantic theory of survey response, we claim that survey responses tap two different sources: a mixture of attitudes plus the semantic structure of the survey. Exploring the degree to which individual responses are influenced by semantics, we hypothesized that in many cases, information about attitude strength is actually filtered out as noise in the commonly used correlation matrix. We developed a procedure to separate the semantic influence from attitude strength in individual response patterns, and compared these results to, respectively, the observed sample correlation matrices and the semantic similarity structures arising from text analysis algorithms. This was done with four datasets, comprising a total of 7,787 subjects and 27,461,502 observed item pair responses. As we argued, attitude strength seemed to account for much information about the individual respondents. However, this information did not seem to carry over into the observed sample correlation matrices, which instead converged around the semantic structures offered by the survey items. This is potentially disturbing for the traditional understanding of what survey data represent. We argue that this approach contributes to a better understanding of the cognitive processes involved in survey responses. In turn, this could help us make better use of the data that such methods provide.     

A simple device for producing synchronous and asynchronous binocular flicker

Many studies on binocular integration have compared in-phase and out-of-phase flicker stimulation. A new method of producing such stimulation is described. It differs from previous designs in that a combination of polarizers is used rather than mechanical light choppers or electronic flashers. The arrangement produces sinusoidal luminance pulses that can be presented with any degree of asynchrony between the two eyes.