Confirmation of the three-factor model of the Assessing Emotions Scale (AES): Verification of the theoretical starting point

Several measures have been developed for the quantification of emotional intelligence. One widely applied method is the Assessing Emotions Scale, whose factor structure has attracted much scientific attention. The objective of the present study was to identify which of the previously suggested models are the most appropriate. By applying confirmatory factor analysis, we have tested the original one-, three-, four-, and six-factor solutions. Results confirmed the three-factor structure to be the most suitable solution. We suggest that the factors in this structure are better described by the labels “appraisal of emotions,” “optimism and regulation of emotions,” and “intrapersonal and interpersonal utilization of emotions.” Supplemental materials for this article may be downloaded from http://brm.psychonomic-journals.org/content/supplemental.     

Moral Philosophy and the Ontology of Relations

The essay undertakes to explore the possibilities of mutually fruitful dialogue between moral philosophy and ontology, in particular, the ontology of relations. The latter copes with the question of how relations relate, whereas moral philosophy often ignores the ontological implications of such crucial relations as love and interpersonality. The paper proceeds as follows. First, the ontology of relations is discussed. Second, various examples are analysed. From this, a conception of relation instantiation emerges, according to which to determine which relation actually obtains, one has to take into account (a) the context, (b) the specific content or meaning of the relation, and (c) some action or decision or mode of existence of the relata. This conception suggests that relation instantiation cannot be explained by a single formula. By the help of this conception, Hume's thesis of the identity of killing relations between human and nonhuman beings is questioned. Then, the relation of love is analysed. It is shown that love as a moral relation is perfectly explicable in terms of ontology. Moreover, its essence is best captured by the interrelation of the particulars, the relation of love as a universal, and by the relating action of the particulars. Finally, the alleged relation of universal fraternity (interpersonality as such), linking up each human being to all other human beings, is discussed.     

Lax monitoring versus logical intuition: The determinants of confidence in conjunction fallacy

The general assumption that people fail to notice discrepancy between their answer and the normative answer in the conjunction fallacy task has been challenged by the theory of Logical Intuition. This theory suggests that people can detect the conflict between the heuristic and normative answers even if they do not always manage to inhibit their intuitive choice. This theory gained support from the finding that people report lower levels of confidence in their choice after they commit the conjunction fallacy compared to when their answer is not in conflict with logic. In four experiments we asked the participants to give probability estimations to the options of the conflict and no-conflict versions of the tasks in the original set-up of the experiment or in a three-option design. We found that participants perceive probabilities for the options of the conflict version less similar than for the no-conflict version. As people are less confident when choosing between more similar options, this similarity difference is proposed to serve as a mediator in the task in a way that the conflict and no-conflict conditions have their effects on confidence ratings through manipulating the similarity of the answer options.     

Recurrent fluent aphasia associated with a seizure focus

The relationship between dominant hemisphere seizure activity and aphasia is unclear. Although speech arrest, expressive speech problems, and comprehension difficulties have often been associated with temporal lobe seizure activity, neologistic, paraphasic speech is rare. We report a patient with seizures following encephalitis who had recurrent episodes of fluent, severely aphasic speech with impaired comprehension which correlated with continuous, high voltage spike and slow wave activity in the left temporal region. During a several-day period of intermittent electrographic seizure activity, he had fluctuating receptive aphasia, and he developed transient paranoid psychosis following treatment. We discuss the behavioral manifestations of his left temporal seizures and correlate the changing nature of his behavior with therapeutic interventions. This case, as well as a review of others, suggests that paroxysmal fluent aphasia results from a partially treated electrographic seizure focus in the dominant temporal lobe.     

On surrender, death, and the sociology of knowledge

Surrender-and-catch is a protest against [... our time] and an attempt at remembrance of what a human being can be. The sociology of knowledge is a protest against its hypocrisy and against unexamined social influences. Like surrender, the sociology of knowledge does not fear but passionately seeks what is true and thus, like surrender, is a remembrance, proclamation, and celebration of the spirit. Both ideas, that of the sociology of knowledge and that of surrender, are critical, polemical, radical [...]; so is the sociology of knowledge also in its practice, while in its practice surrender is cognitive live. Using a [...] distinction developed by Mannheim, we may also say that the sociology of knowledge is an extrinsic interpretation of its time, our time; surrender, an intrinsic one: the former is, advocates, and practices such an extrinsic (sociological) interpretation but needs the latter to overcome the relativism it encounters in its practice by its remembrance, rediscovery, reinvention, the catch, of what is common to all human beings, what is universally human (Wolff, 1982., pp. 265–266).     

Attention-based texture segregation

Luminance- or color-defined +/- 45 degrees-oriented bars were arranged to yield single-feature or double-conjunction texture pairs. In the former, the global edge between two regions is formed by differences in one attribute (orientation, or color, or luminance). In the color/orientation double-conjunction pair, one region has +45 degrees red and -45 degrees green textels, the other -45 degrees red and +45 degrees green textels (the luminance/orientation double-conjunction pair is similar); such a pair contains a single-feature orientation edge in the subset of red (or green) textels, and a color edge in the subset of +45 degrees (or -45 degrees) textels. We studied whether edge detection improved when observers were instructed to attend to such subsets. Two groups of observers participated: in the test group, the stimulus construction was explained to observers, and they were cued to attend to one subset. The control group ran through the same total number of sessions without explanations/cues. The effect of cuing was week but statistically significant. Feature cuing was more effective for color/orientation than for luminance/orientation conjunctions. Within each stimulus category, performance was nearly the same no matter which subset was attended to. On average, a global performance improvement occurred over time even without cuing, but some observers did not improve with either cuing or practice. We discuss these results in the context of one-versus two-stage segregation theories, as well as by reference to signal enhancement versus noise suppression. We conclude that texture segregation can be improved by attentional strategies aimed to isolate specific stimulus features.