The visual perception of lines on the road

The present work demonstrates that observers grossly underestimate the length of lines parallel to their line of sight. In Experiment 1, observers, working from memory, estimated the length of a dashed line on the road to be 0.61 m. This result is consistent with observers' using an average visual angle converted to the physical length of visible lines on the road to estimate their length. In Experiment 2, observers gave verbal and matching estimates that significantly underestimated the length of a 3.05-m line on the ground that was parallel to their line of sight. In Experiment 3, observers significantly underestimated the length of dashed lines on the road while in a moving car. The results of Experiments 1 and 3 are described well by Euclidean geometry, whereas the tangle model that utilizes an increasing function of the visual angle to describe perceived extent best describes the results of Experiment 2.     

Agrarian Philosophy and Ecological Ethics

Mainstream environmental ethics grew out of an approach to value that was rooted in a particular conception of rationality and rational choice. As weaknesses in this approach have become more evident, environmental philosophers have experimented with both virtue ethics and with pragmatism as alternative starting points for developing a more truly ecological orientation to environmental philosophy. However, it is possible to see both virtue ethics and pragmatism as emerging from older philosophical traditions that are here characterized as “agrarian.” Agrarian philosophy stresses the role of nature, soil and climate in the formation of moral character as well as social and political institutions. As such, reaching back to the agrarian tradition may provide a way to move forward with both virtue oriented themes as well as pragmatist themes in developing ecological ethics.     

Parents' emotion‐related beliefs and behaviours in relation to children's coping with the 11 September 2001 terrorist attacks

To assess relationships between parental socialization of emotion and children's coping following an intensely emotional event, parents' beliefs and behaviours regarding emotion and children's coping strategies were investigated after a set of terrorist attacks. Parents (n=51) filled out the Parents' Beliefs about Negative Emotions questionnaire and were interviewed within two weeks of the attacks. Their elementary and middle school‐aged children were interviewed eight weeks later. First, parents' beliefs were related to two kinds of parental behaviours. Parents' beliefs about both the value of and the danger of children's emotions were positively related to their discussion with their children. Parents' belief about children's emotions as dangerous was also negatively related to parents' expressiveness with their children. Second, parents' beliefs were related to five kinds of coping strategies reported by their children. Parents' belief about children's emotions as valuable predicted children's problem‐solving, emotion‐oriented, and support‐seeking coping following the terrorist attacks. Parents' belief about children's emotions as dangerous predicted children's avoidance and distraction coping following the attacks. Parents' beliefs about the importance of children's emotions may foster a family atmosphere that facilitates children's coping with intensely emotional events. Results support differentiated, multi‐faceted analysis of the broader construct of parental beliefs. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A new mode of fear expression: perceptual bias in height fear

Emotion and psychopathology researchers have described the fear response as consisting of four main components--subjective affect, physiology, cognition, and behavior. The current study provides evidence for an additional component in the domain of height fear (perception) and shows that it is distinct from measures of cognitive processing. Individuals High (N = 35) and Low (N = 36) in acrophobic symptoms looked over a two-story balcony ledge and estimated its vertical extent using a direct height estimation task (visual matching), and an indirect task (size estimation); the latter task seems to exhibit little influence from cognitive factors. In addition, implicit and explicit measures of cognitive processing were obtained. Results indicated that, as expected, the High Fear group showed greater relative, implicit height fear associations and explicit threat cognitions. Of primary interest, the High (compared to Low) Fear group estimated the vertical extent to be higher, and judged target sizes to be greater, even when controlling for the cognitive bias measures. These results suggest that emotional factors such as fear are related to perception.     

Social Support and the Perception of Geographical Slant

The visual perception of geographical slant is influenced by physiological resources, such as physical fitness, age, and being physically refreshed. In two studies we tested whether a psychosocial resource, social support, can also affect the visual perception of slants. Participants accompanied by a friend estimated a hill to be less steep when compared to participants who were alone (Study 1). Similarly, participants who thought of a supportive friend during an imagery task saw a hill as less steep than participants who either thought of a neutral person or a disliked person (Study 2). In both studies, the effects of social relationships on visual perception appear to be mediated by relationship quality (i.e., relationship duration, interpersonal closeness, warmth). Artifacts such as mood, social desirability, and social facilitation did not account for these effects. This research demonstrates that an interpersonal phenomenon, social support, can influence visual perception.     

A measure of agreement: an exploration of the relationship of D. W. Winnicott and Phyllis Greenacre

The British psychoanalyst D. W. Winnicott and the American psychoanalyst Phyllis Greenacre were both deeply absorbed by the vicissitudes of the infant's and young child's psychic development. Their clinical observations and theoretical ideas display striking convergences and reciprocal influences. Winnicott was deeply influenced by Greenacre's account of maturational processes, an important stimulus to his thinking that originated outside of the British Psychoanalytical Society. Greenacre's writings on early ego development and creativity were influenced by Winnicott's concept of transitional phenomena. The fact that these relationships have remained unexplored until now indicates the need for less insular accounts of the development of psychoanalytic thought on the two sides of the Atlantic.     

Implicit learning

Implicit learning appears to be a fundamental and ubiquitous process in cognition. Although defining and operationalizingimplicit learning remains a central theoretical challenge, scientists' understanding of implicit learning has progressed significantly. Beyond establishing the existence of "learning without awareness," current research seeks to identify the cognitive processes that support implicit learning and addresses the relationship between learning and awareness of what was learned. The emerging view of implicit learning emphasizes the role of associative learning mechanisms that exploit statistical dependencies in the environment in order to generate highly specific knowledge representations.     

Issues and Insights: Philosophy,Moral Philosophy,and Counseling Ethics: Not an Abstraction

Despite the counseling profession's relatively nascent status, a complex history of dialogue and debate surrounds the content of counselor preparation curricula and the educational process. Many practitioners and educators acknowledge the important role ethics plays in the helping professions; over the past several decades, increased attention has been given to ethics in the preparation of counselors and psychologists. With that increase comes a small, but growing, number of voices calling for exposure to and integration of not only moral philosophy but other areas of philosophy to enhance understanding and provide a foundation for counseling practice among practitioners and students. The authors review and echo these calls.     

Dyadic processes of disclosure and reciprocity in bargaining with communication

We offer a study revealing the mechanisms through which communication helps actual bargaining behavior outperform economic predictions. The possibility of individually strategic behavior in the presence of private information leads to game‐theoretic predictions of less than full efficiency. We present a one‐stage, simultaneous offers bargaining game in which buyers and sellers have independent, privately held valuations for the item being sold (i.e. a bilateral auction with two‐sided private information). In three communication treatments, parties are: (a) allowed face‐to‐face communication prior to submitting offers; (b) allowed written communication prior to submitting offers; or (c) allowed no‐communication prior to submitting offers. When parties are allowed pre‐play communication, we find nearly full efficiency (98%). We examine two systematically predictable aspects of dyadic interaction—disclosure and reciprocity—to explain how negotiators achieve this efficiency. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.