Visual memory and visual perception: when memory improves visual search

This study examined the relationship between memory and perception in order to identify the influence of a memory dimension in perceptual processing. Our aim was to determine whether the variation of typical size between items (i.e., the size in real life) affects visual search. In two experiments, the congruency between typical size difference and perceptual size difference was manipulated in a visual search task. We observed that congruency between the typical and perceptual size differences decreased reaction times in the visual search (Exp. 1), and noncongruency between these two differences increased reaction times in the visual search (Exp. 2). We argue that these results highlight that memory and perception share some resources and reveal the intervention of typical size difference on the computation of the perceptual size difference.     

« Contexte évaluatif,règles d’équité et d’égalité. Une approche stratégique de la justice distributive. »

This article must be considered within the framework of research on distributive justice in the organisational context (Adams, 1965; Deutsch, 1975; Colquitt and Jackson, 2002). The aim is to propose an analysis from a political point of view of the orientation towards equity and equality rules. We take as a starting point the model of political decision in the organisational context by Murphy and Cleveland (1995). The political approach postulates that one cannot pertinently give an account of the managers’ decision modes without locating them in their daily context of human relations management, and their management strategy. We will examine the links between the context of immediate management and the managers’ choices for equity or equality. The results of two studies will be presented. They tend to legitimate the relevance of this approach.     

Sleep-related improvements in motor learning following mental practice

A wide range of experimental studies have provided evidence that a night of sleep may enhance motor performance following physical practice (PP), but little is known, however, about its effect after motor imagery (MI). Using an explicitly learned pointing task paradigm, thirty participants were assigned to one of three groups that differed in the training method (PP, MI, and control groups). The physical performance was measured before training (pre-test), as well as before (post-test 1) and after a night of sleep (post-test 2). The time taken to complete the pointing tasks, the number of errors and the kinematic trajectories were the dependent variables. As expected, both the PP and the MI groups improved their performance during the post-test 1. The MI group was further found to enhance motor performance after sleep, hence suggesting that sleep-related effects are effective following mental practice. Such findings highlight the reliability of MI in learning process, which is thought consolidated when associated with sleep.     

Pervasiveness of framing effects among physicians and medical students

Researchers have been documenting the influence of framing upon decision making for more than two decades; decisions appear to change in response to superficial changes in the presentation of possible outcomes. Several studies of medical decision making have revealed; for instance, that clinical decisions differ when options are presented as gains (survival rates) rather than losses (mortality rates). However, most studies of framing effects in the medical domain have utilized a very limited number of clinical problems that have not allowed an adequate test of the prevalence of the phenomena. To extend previous studies, we presented three groups of subjects (experienced internists, residents, and third-year medical students) with booklets containing twelve hypothetical medical cases. Half of the subjects received gain versions and half received loss versions of the same cases. Chi-square analyses revealed that framing did not influence any of the decisions of medical students and influenced the decisions of residents and experienced physicians on only two of the clinical problems (the same two problems). It appears that the prevalence of framing effects in the clinical domain may be limited.     

The response of counsellors to apartheid: A reply to Dryden (1990) and De Jager (1992)

This reply to Dryden (1990) and De Jager (1992) explores the role of organised counselling psychology in challenging, maintaining or promoting apartheid. Counsellors have an important role to play in newly racially integrated tertiary institutions. This role should be informed by an acknowledgement of the central involvement of race and politics within counselling psychology so that appropriate politically contextualised organisational interventions can be implemented.     

IDEOLOGY AS BRAIN DISEASE

Abstract. The brain evolved not to think but to act, and ideology is an act of social affiliation which can be compared to kin affiliation, both satisfyingly emotional and expressing a perception about the nature of the real world central to the nature of being human. Males may affiliate to macrosocial ideologies more enthusiastically than females because of their relative lack of certainty of kin relationships. Exogamy was the necessary solution to kin-related strife in prehistory. Perhaps what the world needs is not only a moral equivalent to war but an ideological equivalent to exogamy to resolve social differences on a much larger scale.     

The Effect of Connectives on the Selection of Arguments: Implicit Consequentiality Bias for the Connective “but”

Recent studies about the implicit causality of inter-personal verbs showed a symmetric implicit consequentiality bias for psychological verbs. This symmetry is less clear for action verbs because the verbs assigning the implicit cause to the object argument (e.g. “Peter protected John because he was in danger.”) tend to assign the implicit consequence to the same argument (e.g. “Peter protected John so he was not hurt.”). We replicated this result by comparing continuations of inter-personal events followed by a causal connective “because” or a consequence connective “so”. Moreover, we found similar results when the consequence connective was replaced by a contrastive connective “but”. This result was confirmed in a second experiment where we measured the time required to imagine a consistent continuation for a fragment finishing with “but s/he ...”. The results were consistent with a contrastive connective introducing a denial of a consequence of the previous event. The results were consistent with a model suggesting that thematic roles and connectives can predict preferred co-reference relations.