The time course of temporal attention effects on nonconscious prime processing

We presented a masked prime at various prime–target intervals (PTIs) before a target that required a speeded motor response and investigated the impact of temporal attention on the nonconscious prime processing. The allocation of temporal attention to the target was manipulated by presenting an accessory tone and comparing that condition with a no-tone condition. The results showed that, independently of the visibility of the prime, temporal attention led to an enhanced effect of prime–target congruency on the reaction times, and that the amount of the enhancement increased with increasing PTIs. This effect pattern is consistent with the assumption of increasing influences of temporal attention and of the increasing PTI on nonconscious prime processing; it argues against the hypothesis that temporal attention narrows the time period in which the prime may affect target processing. An accumulator model is proposed assuming that target-related temporal attention increases the accumulation rate for masked primes and, thus, enhances the impact of the prime on the speed of choice decisions.     

Social practices,culture and children’s ideas. Convergence between anthropology and critical genetic psychology / Prácticas sociales,cultura e ideas infantiles. Una convergencia entre la antropología y la psicología genética crítica

Abstract

This article explores recent studies in anthropology and critical genetic psychology, both of which analyse the relationships between children’s constructions of social knowledge and sociocultural conditions. For this, we have used research studies that have initiated the dialogue between these disciplinary fields as well as to our own empirical approaches. In order to establish shared problems, recent conceptual developments are explored and their methodological implications are analysed. Finally, the compatibility between the two approaches is analysed.     

Why We Did It: An Anscombian Account of Collective Action

Abstract

In this paper, I am concerned with persons’ capacity for joint action. I start by suggesting that approaches which seek to account for that capacity in terms of collective intentionality face a problem: there are actions that clearly seem to qualify as collective even though the involved persons cannot be said to entertain an overarching ‘We’‐intention (however one characterizes this notion). I then go on to develop an alternative account of action that loosely draws on Elizabeth Anscombe’s action theory and show how this alternative account can be applied to joint action. In so doing, I stress the importance of the phenomenal dimension of agency.     

Subjective visibility depends on level of processing

Is visual awareness graded or binary? Experimental work has provided support for both possibilities, leading to two coexisting but contradictory theoretical accounts. Here we propose a promising candidate factor through which to integrate both accounts: the depth of stimulus processing required by the task. We compared color identification (a low-level task) with numerical judgements (a high-level task) performed on the very same colored number stimuli. Psychophysical curves were analyzed for both objective discrimination performance and subjective visibility ratings on a trial-by trial basis. We observed a graded relationship between stimulus duration and visibility in the low-level task, but a more non-linear relationship in the high-level task. Both patterns of results have previously been consistently associated with the graded and the dichotomous account, respectively. Follow-up experiments that manipulate the level of processing can further unify previously inconsistent results, thus integrating two major theories of visual awareness.     

Strategies of model-building in condensed matter physics: trade-offs as a demarcation criterion between physics and biology?

This paper contrasts and compares strategies of model-building in condensed matter physics and biology, with respect to their alleged unequal susceptibility to trade-offs between different theoretical desiderata. It challenges the view, often expressed in the philosophical literature on trade-offs in population biology, that the existence of systematic trade-offs is a feature that is specific to biological models, since unlike physics, biology studies evolved systems that exhibit considerable natural variability. By contrast, I argue that the development of ever more sophisticated experimental, theoretical, and computational methods in physics is beginning to erode this contrast, since condensed matter physics is now in a position to measure, describe, model, and manipulate sample-specific features of individual systems—for example at the mesoscopic level—in a way that accounts for their contingency and heterogeneity. Model-building in certain areas of physics thus turns out to be more akin to modeling in biology than has been supposed and, indeed, has traditionally been the case.     

Forgetting to forget: On the duration of voluntary suppression of neutral and emotional memories

Can we control the content of our memory and forget what we do not want to think about by an act of will? If so, is forgetting temporary or permanent, and is it independent of the nature of what we wish to forget? Using Anderson and Green’s (2001) “think/no-think” paradigm with neutral and emotional nouns, we found in agreement with other studies that memory for neutral words was reduced instantly upon repeated attempts at suppression. However, the effect was temporary and vanished after a period of one week, which strongly suggests that intended memory suppression interferes with immediate retrieval but does not lead to long-term forgetting. Furthermore, the amount of training that clearly reduced immediate recall of neutral items did not at all reduce recall of emotional items. This finding is in accordance with the notion that emotional items have a higher degree of salience and tend to attract more attention than neutral items.     

Ambulante psychosomatische Nachsorge und soziale Ungleichheit

Background

Social inequality is not considered to be an influential factor in studies regarding the effectiveness of psychosomatic rehabilitation. Nevertheless, there is evidence of lower accessibility of patients with psychiatric disorders when they have a lower educational or socio-economic status.

Material and methodology

A total of 214 participants of out-patient aftercare were divided into two groups according to education and socio-economic status and compared with a control group (n=121). Changes in symptom load and the ability to manage daily life 1 year after release from in-patient rehabilitation treatment were examined in a repeated measures design.

Results

The treatment group was able to reduce symptom loads as well as improve their daily life skills. However, mainly participants with a higher education level and higher social-economic status benefited from treatment.

Conclusion

Social inequality in aftercare groups requires more targeted sociomedical consulting and an intensified case management. At the same time management of the group should not take the highest level as a general guideline.     

Optimizing subjective measures of consciousness

Dienes and Seth (2010) conclude that confidence ratings and post-decision wagering are two comparable and recommendable measures of conscious experience. In a recently submitted paper, we have however found that both methods are problematic and seem less suited to measure consciousness than a direct introspective measure.Here, we discuss the methodology and conclusions put forward by Dienes and Seth, and why we think the two experiments end up with so different recommendations.     

Familiarity supports associative recognition memory for face stimuli that can be unitised: Evidence from receiver operating characteristics

According to dual-process models, associative recognition memory mainly relies on recollection without benefiting from familiarity. This study investigates the circumstances under which familiarity may support associative recognition judgements by comparing recognition memory for arbitrarily paired items (i.e., pairs of face stimuli depicting two different persons; interitem associations) with recognition memory for pairs of items that are highly overlapping and can be unitised into a coherent whole (i.e., pairs of physically different but very similar face stimuli depicting the same person; intraitem associations). Estimates of familiarity and recollection were derived from receiver operating characteristics. Consistent with the hypothesis that familiarity is able to support associative recognition memory, but only when the to-be-associated stimuli can be unitised, results from two experiments revealed higher familiarity estimates for intra- compared to interitem associations. By contrast, recollection for recombined pairs was higher for inter- compared to intraitem associations. We propose a hypothetical model on how intraitem associations may benefit from familiarity.