Transparent layer constancy

Perceived transparency was studied as a constancy problem. In the episcotister (E-) model of scission, luminances are partitioned into layer and background components; four luminances determine values of two layer parameters that specify constancy of a transparent layer on different backgrounds. The E-model was tested in an experiment in which 12 Ss matched 24 pairs of four-luminance patterns by adjusting two luminances of the comparison pattern. Both the standard and the comparison were perceived as a transparent layer on a checkerboard. The E-model predicts matches when layer values are identical in the two patterns. One parameter was constant, constraining the adjustment along the second dimension. Obtained values corresponded well with E-predictions. Alternative models based on local luminance or average contrast ratios accounted for less variability. Results indicate that transparency models should utilize luminance, not reflectance, as the independent variable.     

Benzodiazepine receptor ligand influences on acquisition: suggestion of an endogenous modulatory mechanism mediated by benzodiazepine receptors

In rats, pretraining ip administration of the central benzodiazepine receptor antagonist, flumazenil (5.0 mg/kg), or of the inverse agonist, n-butyl-beta-carboline-3-carboxylate (BCCB) (0.2 or 0.5 mg/kg), facilitated retention of a step-down inhibitory avoidance task; the central agonists, clonazepam and diazepam (0.4 or 1.0 mg/kg), had an opposite effect, and the peripheral agonist, 4'-chlordiazepam (1.25 or 6.25 mg/kg), was without effect. Pre- but not post-training flumazenil (2.0 mg/kg) blocked the effect of BCCB (0.5 mg/kg), clonazepam (1.0 mg/kg), or diazepam (1.0 mg/kg) given also pretraining. The post-training administration of all of these drugs had no effect on retention of the avoidance task. Flumazenil (5.0 mg/kg) and BCCB (0.5 mg/kg), given before training, enhanced retention test performance of habituation to a buzzer but not of habituation to an open field. In the three tasks studied, none of the drugs used had any appreciable effect on training session parameters. These results suggest that there is an endogenous mechanism mediated by benzodiazepine agonists, sensitive to inverse agonists, that normally down-regulates acquisition of certain behaviors; this mechanism becomes activated only when the tasks involve or occur with a certain degree of stress or anxiety (i.e., inhibitory avoidance or habituation to the buzzer) and not in less stressful or anxiogenic tasks (i.e., habituation to an open field).     

Sex role flexibility and prosocial behavior among preschool children

The relationship between sex role flexibility and prosocial behavior among preschool children was investigated. Subjects included 16 boys and 18 girls, ranging in age from 36 to 60 months, from intact families of the upper middle class. A nonhierarchical multiple regression analysis was undertaken to determine the contributions of the predictor variables of sex, age, IQ, and sex role flexibility, as well as their interactions with prosocial behavior (criterion variable). Results indicated that while the overall regression model was not significant, the variable of Sex × Sex Role Flexibility did contribute significantly to the model. Inspection of the correlation coefficients associated with this variable revealed that while sex role flexibility and prosocial behavior among boys were significantly and positively related, among girls no significant relationship was found.     

Contributions of the care-giving role to women's development

It was hypothesized that older widows (N=309) who had been care givers to their husbands would have undertaken a greater number of household responsibilities than had women who had not been care givers. Findings indicated that, prior to the husband's death, more traditionally male and more traditionally female tasks were performed by the care-giving wives (n=158). This was particularly true in the case of Alzheimer's care givers (n=21). More importantly, widows' present feelings of competence were related to undertaking household responsibilities, with those who had been care givers expressing significantly higher levels of competence.     

The Antinomies of Collective Political Trauma: A Pre-Theory

Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin's assassination has less of a lasting impact on the Israeli public's political values, beliefs and attitudes than might have been anticipated from the magnitude of the event and intensity of the immediate responses. Why did the assassination have such a short-lived effect? This article considers the puzzle as a specific case of the broader phenomenon of collective political trauma and its consequences for values, beliefs and attitudes held by the mass public toward issues that it associates with the traumatic event. The article offers six deductively inferred hypotheses that describe, explain and link affective, cognitive and behavioral aspects of collectively experienced trauma. These hypotheses form a pre-theory explaining the perseverence of core political cognitions, even in the face of a considerable challenge to their validity and relevance.     

Did Georg Cantor Influence Edmund Husserl?

Few have entertained the idea that Georg Cantor, the creator of set theory, might have influenced Edmund Husserl, the founder of the phenomenological movement. Yet an exchange of ideas took place between them when Cantor was at the height of his creative powers and Husserl in the throes of an intellectual struggle during which his ideas were particularly malleable and changed considerably and definitively. Here their writings are examined to show how Husserl's and Cantor's ideas overlapped and crisscrossed in the areas of philosophy and mathematics, arithmetization, abstraction, consciousness and pure logic, psychologism, metaphysical idealism, new numbers, and sets and manifolds.     

Adaptiveness: A moderator of the adverse impact of hassles?

Adaptiveness constitutes coping consistently with Stressors so to reduce distress or, at worst, not aggravate it. Accordingly, it should moderate the adverse impact of hassles. Undergraduate volunteers (N = 200) responded to measures of hassles, adaptiveness, and the criteria of subjective distress, psychiatric symptomatology and minor physical ailments. In all three regression analyses, hassles made a substantial positive contribution and adaptiveness a small negative contribution to adverse outcome. The interaction between hassles and adaptiveness was non-significant in all three cases. Alternative interpretations were identified to guide further research.