Linear perspective as a cue in misperceived rotary motion

Pairs of luminous lines of differing length ratios, rotated about an axis perpendicular to the line of sight, resulted in misperceptions of the direction of rotation. The illusions are similiar to the Ames trapezoid illusion. The results help to clarify the role ofdepth cues in visual perception of motion.     

The role of R-S1 expectancy in discrimination and discrimination reversal learning

Four experiments assessed the role of response-reinforcement (R-S¹) expectancy as rats either learned a discrimination or a discrimination reversal. Experiment 1 showed that the higher the percentage of reinforcement during nondiscriminative pretraining the more quickly a subsequent discrimination is learned. Experiment 2 demonstrated that the overlearning reversal effect (ORE) can be obtained even though the overtraining phase consists of responses to a single neutral card. In Experiment 3 subjects were again overtrained on a single neutral stimulus under conditions of varying reinforcement. ORE was apparent under reinforcement of a high percentage of responses but was not apparent under reinforcement of a low percentage. Experiment 4 revealed that the fewer errors a subject makes prior to reversal the better its reversal performance is. Results of these studies were discussed in terms of generalized attention theories and the expectancy notions of Bolles (Psychological Review, 1972, 79(5), 394–409.     

Effects of stimulus ear presentation on the voice reaction time of adult stutterers and nonstutterers

The initial and optimum voice reaction times (VRT) to auditory stimuli presented separately to the left and right ears of ten adult stutterers and ten nonstutterers was investigated. Subjects initiated the neutral vowel sound /Λ/ in response to one hundred 4000 Hz tones of 2.5 sec in duration. The silent intervals between the tones varied randomly. The stimulus cues were divided into five equal response sets of 20 tones each with 10 tones in each set being presented to the right ear and 10 tones to the left ear alternating back and forth. No significant differences were reported between the VRTs for cues presented to the left or right ears for either group. However, the stutterers exhibited voice reaction times which were significantly longer and more variable than those of the nonstutterers. The between- group differences were observed for what appeared to be the “optimum” level of voice initiation for the experimental task. These results lend to the speculative hypothesis that the observed difficulty for adult stutterers to promptly and consistently initiate vocalization may in part be attributable to inherent rather than learned factors.     

Probability,evidence, and the coherence of the whole truth

The coherence of the whole truth is a presupposition of any holistic coherence theory of justification that postulates a positive connection between justification and truth, for unless the whole truth is itself systemically coherent there is no reason to look for systemic coherence when deciding whether one is justified in accepting a given body of beliefs as true. This paper develops a formal model of holistic evidential coherence and uses this model to formalize and defend the claim that the whole truth must be coherent in an evidential sense.     

Cross's Nigrescence Model: From Theory to Scale to Theory

This article describes the theoretical and empirical evolution of the revised Cross nigrescence identity model (W. E. Cross, 1991) in the context of developing a new multidimensional measure, the Cross Racial Identity Scale (Vandiver et al., 2000). The research resulted in an expanded nigrescence model (W. E. Cross & B. J. Vandiver, 2001), and preliminary factor analytic strategies support the existence of 6 subscales. Este artículo describe la evolución teoretica y empirica de el modelo indentidad de nigrescence creado y revisado por W. E. Cross (1991) en el contexto de la creación de una nueva escala miltidimensional, la Escala de Identidad Racial Cross (B. J. Vandiver et al., 2000). La investigación resultó en un modelo de nigrescence extendido (W. E. Cross & B. J. Vandiver, 2001), y las estrategias factor analíticas preliminarias sustentan la existencia de 6 sub‐escalas.     

Nigrescence Theory: Current Status and Challenges for the Future

This article raises a number of critical questions for scale development and theorizing in the field of Black racial identity. In particular, the authors suggest that research on Black racial identity would benefit from longitudinal studies and the examination of the existence of overarching racial identity constructs. Este artículo plantea varias preguntas críticas sobre el desarrollo de escalas y teorías en el campo de la Identidad Racial Negra. En lo particular, los autores sugieren que investigaciones basadas en la Identidad Racial Negra se beneficiarian con estudios longitudinales y la examinación de la existencia de conceptos expansivos sobre la identidad racial.     

Acting in our interests: Relational self-construal and goal motivation across cultures

Relationally-autonomous reasons (RARs) are motives for behavior that take into account one’s close relationships. A cross-cultural model tested the hypotheses that (a) people with a highly relational self-construal will pursue their goals for RARs, and (b) RARs will predict positive goal outcomes after controlling for variance explained by personally-autonomous reasons (PARs) and social support. One hundred seventy Americans and 219 Japanese completed a well-being and self questionnaire then generated and rated seven goals on several attributes. Results showed that relational self-construal was associated with RARs for goals. RARs predicted effort directly and predicted progress and purpose in life indirectly for both groups. In addition, Americans and Japanese differed in the types of goals they pursued and the degree to which social support predicted effort. Implications for self, culture, and motivation research are discussed.

Conditional Excluded Middle

In this essay I renew the case for Conditional Excluded Middle (CXM) in light of recent developments in the semantics of the subjunctive conditional. I argue that Michael Tooley’s recent backward causation counterexample to the Stalnaker-Lewis comparative world similarity semantics undermines the strongest argument against CXM, and I offer a new, principled argument for the validity of CXM that is in no way undermined by Tooley’s counterexample. Finally, I formulate a simple semantics for the subjunctive conditional that is consistent with both CXM and Tooley’s counterexample.

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