Narziss und Echo

In dem Buch mit dem gleichnamigen Titel wird ein neues psychobiologisches Modell der Depression vorgestellt, worüber im Folgenden berichtet werden soll. Die Studie besteht aus zwei Teilen. Im ersten Teil werden die allgemeinen Grundlagen dargelegt, im zweiten Teil folgt ein Bericht über die empirischen Ergebnisse und die wesentlichen diagnostischen Konsequenzen.     

Visual-manual commonality in size judgments

Visual-manual commonality was studied in terms of commonality of process and commonality of achievement. Fifty-four Ss madelarge-small categorical judgments about a set of stimuli presented in counterbalanced order through both the visual modality and the haptic, touch, or kinesthetic modality. Using a linear discriminant function model, analyses of the several visual-manual pairings were made on the basis of intra-S absolute differences in the weighting of the physical dimensions (process) and the degree of category separation (achievement). A correlational analysis revealed the independence of these measures, and analyses of variance revealed greater visual-haptic commonality for weighting systems and similar visual-haptic and visual-touch commonality for category separation. The results were interpreted in terms of similarities and differences in information gathering and processing characteristics.     

Phänomenologie in Deutschland: Geschichte und Aktualität

Ohne Zusammenfassung     

Taking a chance on KK

Dorr et al. (Philos Stud 170:277–287, 2014) present a case that poses a challenge for a number of plausible principles about knowledge and objective chance. Implicit in their discussion is an interesting new argument against KK, the principle that anyone who knows p is in a position to know that they know p. We bring out this argument, and investigate possible responses for defenders of KK, establishing new connections between KK and various knowledge-chance principles.     

The costs and benefits of cross-task priming

Two lines of research on cross-task priming yield opposite results. Research on repetition priming observed positive priming, whereas research on the role of priming in task-switching observed negative effects. We combined the two types of design. In the transfer phase of our paradigm, subjects performed task B either as a pure block (BBB) or as a switch block (ABAB). We presented items which were either unprimed or primed by prior presentation during a preceding priming phase performed on task A. Amongst others, the priming effect is determined by two factors: First, the more operation time the system needs during the probe event, the higher the likelihood to obtain priming. Protracting operation time by reducing stimulus quality favors positive priming, whereas providing more operation time by making subjects switch between tasks favors negative priming. Second, the strength of the memory trace of the prime event determines whether that trace can possibly yield negative priming, in that only strong traces can be retrieved together with the associated task/response.     

Feature integration across perception and action: event files affect response choice

Five experiments investigated the spontaneous integration of stimulus and response features. Participants performed simple, prepared responses (R1) to the mere presence of Go signals (S1) before carrying out another, freely chosen response (R2) to another stimulus (S2), the main question being whether the likelihood of repeating a response depends on whether or not the stimulus, or some of its features, are repeated. Indeed, participants were more likely to repeat the previous response if stimulus form or color was repeated than if it was alternated. The same was true for stimulus location, but only if location was made task-relevant, whether by defining the response set in terms of location, by requiring the report of S2 location, or by having S1 to be selected against a distractor. These findings suggest that task-relevant stimulus and response features are spontaneously integrated into independent, local event files, each linking one stimulus to one response feature. Upon reactivation of one member of the binary link activation is spread to the other, thereby increasing the likelihood to repeat a response if one or more stimulus features are repeated. These findings support the idea that both perceptual events and action plans are cognitively represented in terms of their features, and that feature-integration processes cross borders between perception and action.     

Variable preferences for sexual dimorphism in stature (SDS): Further evidence for an adjustment in relation to own height

In contemporary Western populations, some physical characteristics are sexually dimorphic, and it is known that these traits also affect human mate preferences. Height is one such characteristic, and evidence suggests that females prefer taller over shorter males, indeed, taller males have been found to have greater reproductive success. However, relative height is also important with ‘Sexual Dimorphism in Stature’ (SDS) calculated as male height/female height. Pawlowski (2003) showed that people adjust their preferences for SDS in relation to their own height in order to increase their potential pool of partners. The aim of the present study was to replicate Pawlowski’s study on a larger sample of participants, and to investigate the universality of the reported preference adjustment within European societies. We present data of 1102 men and women from three countries (Germany, Austria, and the UK) that confirm Pawlowski’s original data on a Polish sample. Moreover, the mechanism of an adjustment of SDS preferences in relation to own height was found in all three countries, suggesting that height dependent partner preference is a genuine feature in Western societies.