Apparent size as a function of vertical gaze direction: new tests of an old hypothesis

The hypothesis was tested that the decline of apparent size with elevated gaze results from a latent tendency of the eyes to diverge and thus increased vergence effort. Through the use of a method of category estimation, the decline of apparent size on elevation or depression of gaze was found not to be different between subjects with larger or smaller changes of dark vergence and thus vergence effort. In a 2nd experiment, vergence effort was varied by varying gaze elevation and the angle of convergence. With vergence effort constant, apparent size was dependent on the angle of convergence rather than being constant. It is concluded that apparent size does not depend on vergence effort and that the effect of gaze elevation on apparent size cannot be attributed to its concomitant effect on dark vergence.     

A numerical approach to the approximate and the exact minimum rank of a covariance matrix

A concept of approximate minimum rank for a covariance matrix is defined, which contains the (exact) minimum rank as a special case. A computational procedure to evaluate the approximate minimum rank is offered. The procedure yields those proper communalities for which the unexplained common variance, ignored in low-rank factor analysis, is minimized. The procedure also permits a numerical determination of the exact minimum rank of a covariance matrix, within limits of computational accuracy. A set of 180 covariance matrices with known or bounded minimum rank was analyzed. The procedure was successful throughout in recovering the desired rank.The authors are obliged to Paul Bekker for stimulating and helpful comments.     

The Icarus flight of speculation: Philosophers' vices as perceived by nineteenth-century historians and physicists

Why did nineteenth-century German historians and physicists habitually warn against vices that they believed philosophers in particular embodied: speculation, absence of common sense, and excessive systematizing? Drawing on a rich array of sources, this article interprets this vice-charging as a rhetorical practice aimed at delineating empirical research from Naturphilosophie and Geschichtsphilosophie as practiced in the heyday of German Idealism. The strawman of “the philosopher” as invoked by historians and physicists served as a negative model for strongly empiricist scholars committed to virtues like precision, thoroughness, and conscientiousness. In their historical narratives, historians and physicists consistently depicted philosophy either as a relic from the past or as a phase that they had virtuously left behind. This boundary work was central to the self-positioning of both history and physics, which makes clear that the persona of the philosopher mattered not only to philosophers but also to scholars in adjacent disciplines.     

The typical rank of tall three-way arrays

The rank of a three-way array refers to the smallest number of rank-one arrays (outer products of three vectors) that generate the array as their sum. It is also the number of components required for a full decomposition of a three-way array by CANDECOMP/PARAFAC. The typical rank of a three-way array refers to the rank a three-way array has almost surely. The present paper deals with typical rank, and generalizes existing results on the typical rank ofI × J × K arrays withK = 2 to a particular class of arrays withK ≥ 2. It is shown that the typical rank isI when the array is tall in the sense thatJK − J < I < JK. In addition, typical rank results are given for the case whereI equalsJK − J. The author is obliged to Henk Kiers, Tom Snijders, and Philip Thijsse for helpful comments.     

Individual variable pay for performance,controlling effects,and intrinsic motivation

Motivation and Emotion - A core question in research on compensation and motivation is whether individual variable pay for performance (IVPFP) can undermine intrinsic motivation in the workplace....     

The connection between social cohesion and personality: A multilevel study in the Kyrgyz Republic

As the discourse around societal cohesion grows and policy makers increasingly turn their attention towards improving cohesion, understanding its role for the lives of individuals becomes ever more important. Our study examines whether the social cohesion of the immediate living context is related to the strength of Big Five personality traits among individuals. Using data from a community survey of 6252 adults living in 30 rural sub-districts in the Kyrgyz Republic, where social cohesion is a sizable policy concern, we conduct a multilevel analysis of the relationship between sub-district cohesion and individual personality. Results indicate that higher levels of cohesion are significantly related to higher individual levels of agreeableness, conscientiousness and openness. However, no relationship is found with extraversion or neuroticism. Thus, where a social entity has higher cohesion, this entity will also have inhabitants with a greater prosocial and communal orientation towards others, greater conscientiousness and more openness to experience. These findings imply that social cohesion may be one geographical social indicator related to variation in personality traits. Moreover, the findings suggest that understanding social cohesion requires both macro- and micro-perspectives and that its connection to these particular personality traits should be taken into consideration.     

Empathy and viewing the other as a subject

Empathy and viewing another person as a subject rather than an object are often associated in theoretical contexts, but empirical research of the relation is scarce. The purpose of the present research was to investigate the relationship between subject/object view and empathy. In Study 1, participants watched film clips and indicated their empathy for specific characters in the clips, as well as the extent to which they saw these persons as subjects and objects. The subject/object view explained some, but not all, of the differences in empathy, which raised the question of what else accounts for differences in empathy. A second study was conducted to investigate whether the difficulty of the other's situation also contributes. In Study 2, another group watched the film clips and rated the difficulty of the film character's situations in addition to empathy and subject/object view. The results of Study 2 revealed that subject view/object and perceived difficulty together explain a substantial part of differences in empathy. It was concluded that empathy is evoked primarily when a person in difficulty is viewed as a subject.     

Right-sided human prefrontal brain activation during acquisition of conditioned fear

This H2(15)O positron emission tomography (PET) study reports on relative regional cerebral blood flow (rCBF) alterations during fear conditioning in humans. In the PET scanner, subjects viewed a TV screen with either visual white noise or snake videotapes displayed alone, then with electric shocks, followed by final presentations of white noise and snakes. Autonomic nervous system responses confirmed fear conditioning only to snakes. To reveal neural activation during acquisition, while equating sensory stimulation, scans during snakes with shocks and white noise alone were contrasted against white noise with shocks and snakes alone. During acquisition, rCBF increased in the right medial frontal gyrus, supporting a role for the prefrontal cortex in fear conditioning to unmasked evolutionary fear-relevant stimuli.     

Effects of mand-tact versus tact-only training on the acquisition of tacts

We sought to replicate and extend Carroll and Hesse's (1987) study of the acquisition of tacts by including participants with and without developmental disabilities. As in Carroll and Hesse, the present results showed that mand-tact training, rather than tact-only training, led to more rapid acquisition of tacts. Tacting on follow-up tests did not differ. In addition, our results show that mand-tact training established both verbal operants involved about as rapidly as tact-only training established only one verbal operant. DESCRIPTORS: verbal behavior, tact acquisition, mand-tact training, tact-only training, follow-up     

Psychological characteristics of elderly insomniacs

Sixty insomniacs, aged 60 years or over, fulfilling the DSM-IV criteria for primary insomnia, completed a set of questionnaires measuring psychological distress. These included the Sleep Impairment Index (SIM), the Symptom Check List 90-Revised (SCL-90-R), the Penn State Worry Questionnaire (PSWQ), the Toronto Alexithymia Scale-20 (TAS-20) and the Elders Life Stress Inventory (ELSI). The insomniacs were compared on these measures with two contrast groups, one of elderly good sleepers and one an elderly community sample. As norms were developed for the SCL-90-R and PSWQ, insomniacs were also contrasted with the norm groups on these measures. In general, the results indicated a higher level of psychological distress among insomniacs than among the good sleepers, while there were negligible differences between insomniacs and the community sample on most measures. Overall, elderly insomniacs scored higher on measures of worry compared with the other groups, followed by measures of somatization, obsessive-compulsion and depression. It is concluded that excessive worrying was the most characteristic feature of elderly insomniacs.