The effects of temporal modulation and spatial location on the perceived spatial frequency of visual patterns

The perceived spatial frequency of a visual pattern can increase when a pattern drifts or is presented at a peripheral visual field location, as compared with a foveally viewed, stationary pattern. We confirmed previously reported effects of motion on foveally viewed patterns and of location on stationary patterns and extended this analysis to the effect of motion on peripherally viewed patterns and the effect of location on drifting patterns. Most central to our investigation was the combined effect of temporal modulation and spatial location on perceived spatial frequency. The group data, as well as the individual sets of data for most observers, are consistent with the mathematical concept of separability for the effects of temporal modulation and spatial location on perceived spatial frequency. Two qualitative psychophysical models suggest explanations for the effects. Both models assume that the receptive-field sizes of a set of underlying psychophysical mechanisms monotonically change as a function of temporal modulation or visual field location, whereas the perceptual labels attached to a set of channels remain invariant. These models predict that drifting or peripheral viewing of a pattern will cause a shift in the perceived spatial frequency of the pattern to a higher apparent spatial frequency.     

Effects of a forced institutional relocation on the mortality and morbidity of nursing home residents

Residents of a county nursing home underwent a forced, mass relocation. Gerontologists advised on preparation of staff and residents. No increase in residents' mortality or morbidity was found after the relocation. The highest death rate was in the anticipatory period, the year prior to the move.     

Men as success objects and women as sex objects: A study of personal advertisements

A study was made of 328 personal advertisements sampled from a major daily Canadian newspaper. It was found that gender differences for desired companion attributes were consistent with traditional sex role stereotypes. Relative to the opposite sex, women emphasized employment, financial, and intellectual status, as well as commitment, while men emphasized physical characteristics. Physical characteristics were the most desired, regardless of sex. Secondary findings were that, for this sample, considerably more men than women placed ads, and that the mean age for both sexes was relatively high. The main findings were similar to those from earlier studies.The author was formerly a psychiatric social worker employed by the Greater Vancouver Mental Health Service in Vancouver, B.C., Canada. He is presently a doctoral candidate at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver. The author would like to thank Dr. Ted Palys for his comments.     

Preference for familiar humans by rats

Many “higher” animals are commonly assumed to distinguish between individual humans. This belief is based largely on anecdotal reports; in reality, there is little empirical evidence to support human recognition in nonhuman species. We report that laboratory rats consistently chose a familiar human over an unfamiliar human following fourteen and five 10-min exposures and even following a single 10-min exposure. Furthermore, this preference was retained in the absence of additional contact for at least 5 months. These results confirm that laboratory rats can tell individual humans apart, a prerequisite for associating them with hedonic events. Such human-based conditioning, described by Pavlov and by Gantt, Newton, Royer, and Stephens (1966), may have important implications for animal research in a variety of settings.     

Toward the Formation of a “Cultural Mosaic”: A Case Study

This study describes an intervention designed to promote integration between Ethiopian and Israeli students (N = 93) in Grades 2 to 5 and adaptation of these immigrants to school norms of behavior and to discipline. The metaphor of cultural mosaic was used for describing the goal state. To achieve a comprehensive school reform, the curriculum was enacted on four levels: individual student, school and classroom, staff, and community (parents and local council). The intervention effects were evaluated in three domains via questionnaires, interviews, and observations – the domains being the academic, behavioral, and personal-social realms. Four stages were identified in the process: an opening stage, the euphoria stage, the setback stage, and the final stage of a new equilibrium. Results suggest that both the natives' and the immigrants' needs and difficulties have to be attended to in each of the stages. The social domain was found to be the most salient in the integration process, although integration within it may take less time and be more feasible than academic accommodation.     

SPREADING OF VISUAL ATTENTION TO MODALLY VERSUS AMODALLY COMPLETED REGIONS

Abstract— Regions of objects that are partially obscured at the current retinal image are often perceptually filled in by the visual system (Kanizsa, 1979). In some cases (modal completion), this causes the filled-in region to appear tinged with the color and brightness of unobscured parts of that object, but m other cases (amodal completion), it does not (Michotte & Burke, 1951). It has recently been argued that modal and amodal completion both arise in preattentive vision, and may operate equivalently at that level (Davis & Driver, 1994, He & Nakayama, 1992, Shipley & Kellman, 1992). In this article, we show that they have different effects on attentive vision, with attention tending to spread to (and from) modally completed regions and their visible inducers, but not to (or from) comparable amodally completed regions and their inducers. This finding is consistent with visual attention operating on surfaces (e g, He & Nakayama, 1995) in a viewer-centered representation of the scene, after the operation of filling-in processes.     

EFFECTS OF HIGH-PROBABILITY REQUESTS ON THE SOCIAL INTERACTIONS OF YOUNG CHILDREN WITH SEVERE DISABILITIES

High-probability requests were used to increase social interactions in 3 young boys with severe disabilities who had been identified as severely socially withdrawn. A multiple baseline design across participants was used to evaluate the effects of high-probability request intervention on (a) social initiations, (b) social responses, (c) continued interactions, and (d) performance of high- and low-probability requests. The students were observed in a second setting to examine generalization effects across peers who did not participate in the training sequence and settings. The results demonstrated that the high-probability requests increased the students' responsiveness to low-probability requests to initiate social behavior. Increases were also found in (a) unprompted initiations and extended interactions to the training peers, (b) unprompted initiations and extended interactions to peers who were not involved in the training procedure, and (c) generalized unprompted initiations and interactions in a second nontraining setting. The students maintained increased levels of initiations and interactions after all prompts were removed from both the training and nontraining settings.     

The Heritability of Characteristics Associated with Dispositional Empathy

ABSTRACT This investigation used data from Loehlin and Nichols's (1976) study of over 800 sets of twins to examine evidence for the heritability of three facets of empathy: empathic concern, personal distress, and perspective taking. Expert judges first identified sets of adjectives, included within Loehlin and Nichols's original data, which reflected each empathy construct; these items were then validated in an independent sample. Comparisons of the responses given to these items by identical and fraternal twins in the Loehlin and Nichols investigation revealed evidence of significant heritability for characteristics associated with the two affective facets of empathy—empathic concern and personal distress—but not for the nonaffective construct of perspective taking. This pattern is consistent with the view that temperamental emotionality may underlie the heritability of affective empathy.