Perceiving circular heading in noncanonical flow fields

Five experiments examined circular heading perception with optical flows that departed from the canonical form. Noncanonicity was achieved through nonrigidity of the environment (Experiments 1 and 2), oscillations of the point of observation (Experiment 3), and the bending of light (Experiments 4 and 5). In Experiments 1 and 2, perception was impaired more by nonrigidity of the ground plane than by nonrigidity of the medium. In Experiment 3, perception was unimpaired by noncanonical flows induced by the bounce and sway of observer locomotion. In Experiments 4 and 5, perception was not impaired when light paths were distorted by a spherical projection, but perception was impaired when they were distorted by a sine function. Results are discussed in relation to the hypothesis that the information for perceiving heading is the ordinal pattern of optical flow.     

The clergyman's use of mental health resources

Pastoral Psychology -     

The course of depressive symptoms in men from early adolescence to young adulthood: identifying latent trajectories and early predictors

Heterogeneity in the longitudinal course of depressive symptoms was studied through the use of general growth mixture modeling for young men in the Oregon Youth Study (N=206), who ranged in age from 15 to 24 years. Four trajectory classes were identified: the very-low, the moderate-decreasing, the high-decreasing, and the high-persistent classes. The 3 lowest classes differed primarily quantitatively with the initial level or mean level across time being the major determinant of class differences, whereas the high-persistent class appeared qualitatively different in terms of long-term developmental trends and variation. Findings from univariate and multivariate analyses revealed specific effects of childhood, parental, contextual, and individual risk factors on the class membership as well as on the growth within each trajectory class.     

Choosing the path to bargaining power: an empirical comparison of BATNAs and contributions in negotiation

Although the negotiations literature identifies a variety of approaches for improving one's power position, the relative benefits of these approaches remain largely unexplored. The empirical study presented in this article begins to address this issue by examining how the size of the bargaining zone affects the relative benefit of an advantage in one's BATNA (i.e., having a better alternative than one's counterpart) versus contribution (i.e., contributing more to the relationship than one's counterpart) for negotiator performance. Results indicate that whereas BATNAs exerted a stronger effect on resource allocations than contributions when the bargaining zone was small, an advantage in contributions exerted a stronger effect on resource allocations than BATNAs when the bargaining zone was large. These findings provide needed insight and supporting evidence for how to alter one's power relationship in negotiation.     

The structure of goal contents across 15 cultures

The authors investigated the structure of goal contents in a group of 1,854 undergraduates from 15 cultures around the world. Results suggested that the 11 types of goals the authors assessed were consistently organized in a circumplex fashion across the 15 cultures. The circumplex was well described by positioning 2 primary dimensions underlying the goals: intrinsic (e.g., self-acceptance, affiliation) versus extrinsic (e.g., financial success, image) and self-transcendent (e.g., spirituality) versus physical (e.g., hedonism). The circumplex model of goal contents was also quite similar in both wealthier and poorer nations, although there were some slight cross-cultural variations. The relevance of these results for several theories of motivation and personality are discussed.     

Price sensitivity and innovativeness for fashion among Korean consumers

Price sensitivity is how consumers react to price levels and to price changes. Consumer innovativeness is a tendency to welcome and to adopt new products. Researchers (e.g., R. E. Goldsmith & S. J. Newell, 1997) consider innovative consumers relatively more price insensitive than other consumers, so there should be a negative correlation between measures of these constructs. The results of the present study supported the psychometric soundness of a self-report measure of price sensitivity among 860 Korean consumers and replicated earlier findings of the negative correlation between the 2 constructs.     

An illustration of multilevel factor analysis

The factor analysis of repeated measures psychiatric data presents interesting challenges for researchers in terms of identifying the latent structure of an assessment instrument. Specifically, repeated measures contain both within and between individual sources of variance. Although a number of techniques exist for separating out these 2 sources of variance, all are problematic. Recently, researchers have proposed that exploratory multilevel factor analysis (MFA) be used to appropriately analyze the latent structure of repeated measures data. The chief objective of this report is to provide a didactic step-by-step guide on how MFA may be applied to psychiatric data. In the discussion, we describe difficulties associated with MFA and consider challenges in factor analyzing life event appraisals in psychiatric samples.     

Comparing performance by parents and offspring on a rapid tapping task

The purpose of this study was to identify the relationships between 42 parents' and their offsprings' performance on a rapid tapping task. It was expected that genetic predispositions would gradually limit children's performance on a tapping task as they matured chronologically. Four different age groups of children and their parents performed the tapping task on different sizes of boards. Repeated-measures analysis of variance indicated that, while parents' mean performance was generally higher than that of their children (F = 32.89, p < .001), the difference was affected by the children's age, which hand was used, and the board size. Spearman rank correlation scores between parents' and children's overall performances gradually increased across age groups (p = -.29, -.10, .47, and .40, respectively, from younger to older age groups). This finding suggests that the potential of youngsters' future performance may be predicted with greater certainty by observing their parents' present performance. This may improve the predictive power of planned programs.     

The Real Puzzle From Radford

In this paper, I will argue that Radfords real question is not the conceptual one, as it is usually taken, but the causal one, and show that Waltons account, which treats Radfords puzzle as the conceptual question, is not a satisfactory solution to it. I will also argue that contrary to what Walton claims, the causal question is not only important, but also closely related to the conceptual and normative questions. What matters is not that Walton has not solved Radfords puzzle per se, but that he has not recognized the importance of this puzzle. While doing this, I will suggest a revision to the cognitive theory of emotion.     

Does L/M cone opponency disappear in human periphery?

We have assessed the optimal cone contrast sensitivity across eccentricity in human vision of the two cone-opponent mechanisms [L/M or red-green, and S/(L + M) or blue-yellow] and the luminance mechanism. We have used a novel stimulus, termed a 'sinring', that is a radially modulated sine-wave arc, Gaussian enveloped in both angular and radial directions. This stimulus overcomes the problem inherent in Gabor stimuli of confounding stimulus spatial frequency, size, and eccentricity and so allows contrast sensitivity to be tracked accurately into the periphery. Our results show that L/M cone opponency declines steeply across the human periphery and becomes behaviourally absent by 25-30 deg (in the nasal field). This result suggests that any L/M cone-opponent neurons found in primate peripheral retina beyond this limit are unlikely to be significant for colour contrast detection measured behaviourally.