BOLD activation varies parametrically with corner angle throughout human retinotopic cortex

The Alternating Brightness Star (ABS) is an illusion that provides insight into the relationship between brightness perception and corner angle. Recent psychophysical studies of this illusion have shown that corner salience varies parametrically with corner angle, with sharp angles leading to strong illusory percepts and shallow angles leading to weak percepts. It is hypothesized that the illusory effects arise because of an interaction between surface corners and the shape of visual receptive fields: sharp surface corners may create hotspots of high local contrast due to processing by center-surround and other early receptive fields. If this hypothesis is correct, early visual neurons should respond powerfully to sharp corners and curved portions of surface edges. Indeed, the primary role of early visual neurons may be to localize the discontinuities along the edges of surfaces. If so, all early visual areas should show greater BOLD responses to sharp corners than to shallow corners. On the other hand, if corner processing is exclusively constrained to certain areas of the brain, only those specific areas will show greater responses to sharp vs shallow corners. To address this we explored the BOLD correlates of the ABS illusion in the human visual cortex using fMRI. We found that BOLD signal varies parametrically with corner angle throughout the visual cortex, offering the first neurophysiological correlates of the ABS illusion. This finding provides a neurophysiological basis for the previously reported psychophysical data that showed that corner salience varied parametrically with corner angle. We propose that all early visual areas localize discontinuities along the edges of surfaces, and that specific cortical corner-processing circuits further establish the specific nature of those discontinuities, such as their orientation.     

Attentional enhancement opposite a peripheral flash revealed using change blindness

We describe a new method for mapping spatial attentionthat reveals a pooling of attention in the hemifield opposite a peripheralflash. Our method exploits the fact that a brief full-field blank caninterfere with the detection of changes in a scene that occur during theblank. Attending to the location of a change, however, can overcome thischange blindness, so that changes are detected. The likelihood of detecting anew element in a scene therefore provides a measure of the occurrence ofattention at that element's location. Using this measure, we mappedhow attention changes in response to a task-irrelevant peripheral cue. Underconditions of visual fixation, change detection was above chance across theentire visual area tested. In addition, a "hot spot" ofattention (corresponding to near-perfect change detection) elongated alongthe cue-fixation axis, such that performance improved not only at the cuedlocation but also in the opposite hemifield.     

Processing of disyllabic compound words in Chinese aphasia: evidence for the processing limitations account

The current study addresses the debate between so-called 'structural' and 'processing limitation' accounts of aphasia, i.e., whether language impairments reflect the 'loss' of linguistic knowledge or its representations, or instead reflect a limitation in processing resources. Confrontation-naming task and category-judgment tasks were used to examine and compare the performance of non-fluent and fluent aphasics on different compound types of nouns and verbs. We demonstrate that aphasic patients' performance is modulated by the canonicity of the particular compound type, a result that holds true even for the category in which patients show a 'selective category deficit.' These findings weigh against the 'loss' of linguistic representations as the underlying cause of noun-verb deficits, instead supporting a 'processing limitations' approach.     

Flow Experiences Across Adulthood: Preliminary Findings on the Continuity Hypothesis

Flow experience is a psychological state characterized by simultaneous absorption, concentration, and enjoyment. Examining the change and continuity of the flow experience––an optimal state that contributes to well-being––is critical to the understanding of the lifelong trajectory of human flourishing. Nevertheless, to date there has been no systematic investigation of the relationship between age and flow experiences across adulthood. Developmental models of flow experiences suggest the continuity hypothesis that people are motivated to sustain a high level of flow experiences as long as conditions permit. We conducted two studies to investigate flow experiences among adults of different ages. Study 1 (N?=?1,162; age range 30–80) used longitudinal data from the Midlife in the United States (MIDUS) project, investigating the changes in flow experiences at work over a 10-year span. Study 2 (N?=?393; age range 20–82) was an online survey that examined age-related differences in flow experiences. Both studies revealed minimal relationships between age and flow experiences. Post-hoc analyses revealed no significant moderating effect of common demographics including gender, race, and education on the age–flow relationship. Taken together, these studies elucidate the “flow profile” in adulthood that is consistent with the continuity hypothesis. We discuss relations of the findings to the literature on flow experiences and well-being.

     

The effect of semantic relatedness on immediate serial recall and serial recognition

The present study examined the effects of semantic relatedness on immediate serial recall and serial recognition. Each participant received either blocked or randomly intermixed serial recall or serial recognition trials. Replicating the findings of previous studies (e.g., Saint-Aubin, Ouellette, & Poirier, 2005), semantic relatedness boosted percentage serial recall but also increased order errors, after taking into account the proportion of correctly recalled items, regardless of their orders, in serial recall trials. In serial recognition trials, participants' responses were slower and less accurate for related lists than for unrelated lists. There were intraindividual correlations among order memory measures in serial recall versus serial recognition trials. The implications of these findings for item redintegration theories are discussed.     

Citation rates for experimental psychology articles published between 1950 and 2004: Top-cited articles in behavioral cognitive psychology

From citation rates for over 85,000 articles published between 1950 and 2004 in 56 psychology journals, we identified a total of 500 behavioral cognitive psychology articles that ranked in the top 0.6?% in each half-decade, in terms of their mean citations per year using the Web of Science. Thirty nine of these articles were produced by 78 authors who authored three or more of them, and more than half were published by only five journals. The mean number of cites per year and the total number of citations necessary for an article to achieve various percentile rankings are reported for each journal. The mean number of citations necessary for an article published within each half-decade to rank at any given percentile has steadily increased from 1950 to 2004. Of the articles that we surveyed, 11?% had zero total citations, and 35?% received fewer than four total citations. Citations for post-1994 articles ranking in the 50th-75th and 90th-95th percentiles have generally continued to grow across each of their 3-year postpublication bins. For pre-1995 articles ranking in the 50th-75th and 90th-95th percentiles, citations peaked in the 4- to 6- or 7- to 9-year postpublication bins and decreased linearly thereafter, until asymptoting. In contrast, for the top-500 articles, (a) for pre-1980 articles, citations grew and peaked 10-18-year postpublication bins, and after a slight decrease began to linearly increase again; (b) for post-1979 articles, citations have continually increased across years in a nearly linear fashion. We also report changes in topics covered by the top-cited articles over the decades.     

Biblical stories removed,Christian beliefs retained: religious elements in the life education curriculum of Hong Kong’s Methodist Church primary schools

ABSTRACT

The Methodist Church of Hong Kong has promoted a life education programme since 2004, and has progressively applied it in all affiliated schools. This article analyses the characteristics of the latest primary school life education curriculum compiled by this Christian school sponsoring body. There are three significant findings: 1) religious elements remain rich in the four strands of life education the Universe, oneself, other people, and environment; 2) biblical stories have been removed, but Christian beliefs are integrated into the curriculum materials and summaries in terms of Christian role models and the Holy Scriptures, in order to develop students’ relevant values, good character and positive attitudes towards life; and 3) the importance of prayer as a religious practise for action. The intended curriculum demonstrates how religious elements like Christian beliefs can be applied in secular education to build students’ sense of meaning and purpose in life.     

Mapping visual attention with change blindness: new directions for a new method

Change blindness provides a new technique for mapping visual attention with unprecedented spatial and temporal resolution. Change blindness can occur when a brief full-field blank interferes with the detection of changes in a scene that occur during the blank. This interference can be overcome by attending to the location of a change. Because changes are detected at attended locations, but not at unattended locations, detection accuracy provides an indirect measure of the distribution of visual attention. The likelihood of detecting a new element in a scene provides a measure of the occurrence of attention at that element’s location. Potential new directions, advantages, and problems with this method are considered.     

An illustration of the Operation of Social Legitimation for ‘Winners’ and ‘Losers’: A Comparison of Accounts of University and Community–College Students in Hong Kong

The theory of self-evaluation suggests that self-evaluation plays a part in social legitimation. This paper seeks to provide a contextualized illustration by comparing accounts of university and community–college students in Hong Kong on their self-evaluation, attribution, and perceived fairness. As the theory suggests, university and community–college students evaluate themselves according to their respective winner and loser positions. But, against what the theory predicts, instead of making a purely internal attribution for their educational success/failure, both university and community–college students seem equally analytical offering a structural analysis of their success/failure. This illustration suggests that social legitimation could actually be mediated through critical, albeit ambivalent, evaluations of the self and the social system and a pragmatic acceptance of the status quo. This leads us to view self-evaluation as a process of social legitimation that deprives individuals of power for imaging a fair system or bringing changes to the existing one.