A remote keyboard switch for the IBM PC/AT and compatibles

A relatively simple, remote keyboard switch for the IBM PC/AT and compatibles is discussed. It may be used to isolate a subject from an experimenter when the experimenter is controlling an experiment with the PC. The device, based on a 4066 CMOS, when used in conjunction with a monochrome monitor and a color monitor, enables the experimenter to switch, manually or programmatically (TTL), between the local monitor and the local keyboard and a remote monitor and a remote keyboard for presentation of stimuli and for recording of subject’s responses.     

Apparent reversals of a rotating mask: A new demonstration of cognition in perception

A mask of a face rotated about its vertical axis of symmetry can appear to oscillate rather than rotate. Do stimulus features (e.g., shape) or cognitive factors (e.g., differential familiarity with convex and concave views of faces) explain this new illusion? In Experiment 1, differential familiarity was varied across stimuli by using familiar and unfamiliar objects rotating at 4 rpm and within stimuli by showing the objects upright and inverted. True motion was seen more with unfamiliar objects than with familiar objects and more with an inverted mask than with an upright mask. The results of Experiment 2, which was done with static views, suggest that the upright and inverted masks present similar structure to the visual system. In Experiment 3, the objects were shown rotating at 8 rpm; the results are similar to those of Experiment 1. These experiments favor a differential familiarity account of this illusory motion. Cognitive constraints on perceived motion and perceived rigidity are discussed.     

Polite responses to polite requests

Indirect requests vary in politeness; for example, Can you tell me where Jordan Hall is? is more polite than Shouldn't you tell me where Jordan Hall is? By one theory, the more the literal meaning of a request implies personal benefits for the listener, within reason, the more polite is the request. This prediction was confirmed in Experiment 1. Responses to indirect requests also vary in politeness. For Can you tell me where Jordan Hall is?, the response Yes, I can — it's up the street is more polite than It's up the street. By an extension of that theory, the more attentive the responder is to all of the requester's meaning, the more polite is the response. This prediction was confirmed in Experiments 2, 3 and 4. From this evidence, we argued that people ordinarily compute both the literal and the indirect meanings of indirect requests. They must if they are to recognize when the speaker is and isn't being polite, and if they are to respond politely, impolitely, or even neutrally.     

Taste familiarity and apomorphine-induced taste aversions in humans

Human volunteers learned taste aversions to a relatively novel cranberry flavor paired with apomorphine-induced illness. These aversions were significantly reduced by pretreatment familiarization to the flavor unless an unpalatable interfering flavor was introduced just prior to the administration of apomorphine. The outcomes have implications for taste-aversion learning in humans and for the control of flavor preferences in patients undergoing illness-inducing chemotherapy.     

THE DISTINCTIVENESS EFFECT IN SOCIAL CATEGORIZATION:

Abstract— Three studies tested the hypothesis that people assume that the identities of other people are tied more closely to their distinctive than to their nondistinctive traits. In Studies 1 and 3, subjects predicted the preferences of a target person who was a member of both a statistically distinctive and a statistically nondistinctive category (e g, sky diver and tennis player). In Study 2, subjects judged the degree of interpersonal similarity between pairs of people sharing distinctive as opposed to nondistinctive category memberships. Consistent with the hypothesis, subjects linked targets with their more distinctive traits and assumed targets would be more similar to people who shared their distinctive traits than to people who shared their nondistinctive traits. The implications of this distinctiveness effect for an understanding of stereotyping are explored.     

Critical Legal Studies and argumentation theory

Critical Legal Studies poses a direct and expressed challenge to the basic tenets of American legal education and scholarship. Critical Legal Studies postulates that law is not a scientific exercise involving the application of objective principles, but rather a creative process involving the selection of conflicting rules which has the effect of reinforcing the existing political order. In an effort to explain the contribution of Critical Legal Studies to argumentation theory, this essay briefly discusses the role of legal reasoning in the American legal system, describes and critiques Legal Positivism, lays the intellectual foundation for Critical Legal Studies, and considers the implications that this conception of jurisprudence has for argumentation theory.     

From retinotopy to recognition: fMRI in human visual cortex

Recent advances in functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) have furnished increasingly informative and accurate maps of the retinotopy and functional organization in human visual cortex. Here we review how information in those sensory-based maps is topographically related to, and influenced by, more cognitive visuo-spatial dimensions, such as mental imagery, spatial attention, repetition effects and size perception.     

Thresholds for conditioned suppression using X-rays as the pre-aversive stimulus

Four male, 12-week-old Sprague-Dawley rats were used to determine the threshold for behavioral response to X-irradiation using the conditioned suppression technique. They were maintained at 80 per cent body weight and initially trained to stable performance on a VI 1 min schedule with 16 per cent sucrose solution as reinforcement. After a stable baseline was obtained, animals were placed in the instrumental conditioning box beneath the X-ray machine for a half-hour session each day. While subjects were actively pressing the lever for reinforcement, 15-sec X-ray exposures of 0.5 R/sec were administered, followed immediately by electric shock. After all animals had exhibited conditioned suppression, the dose-rate was decreased in subsequent sessions in an effort to establish threshold. The results indicate that X-rays at a dose-rate as low as 0.004 R/sec can be an effective pre-aversive stimulus for the rat.