A Dilemma for Non‐Analytic Naturalism

In recent years, an impressive research program has developed around non‐analytic reductions of the normative. Nevertheless, non‐analytic naturalists face a damning dilemma: either they need to give the same reductive analysis for epistemic and practical reasons, or they can give a different analyses by treating epistemic and practical reasons as a species of the larger genus, reasonhood. Since, for example, a desire‐based account of epistemic reasons is implausible, the reductionist must opt for the latter. Yet, if the desire‐based account of practical reasons is merely a species of the larger genus, then, due to a violation of irreflexivity, the reduction fails.     

PIGEONS ARE SENSITIVE TO THE SPATIAL ORGANIZATION OF COMPLEX VISUAL STIMULI

Abstract— Two experiments investigated the role of spatial organisation in the discrimination and generalization of complex visual stimuli by pigeons. In Experiment 1, after pigeons had been trained to discriminate line drawings of four objects, they were tested with novel pictures in which the same component parts of the objects were spatially rearranged. The spatially scrambled pictures led to a dramatic drop in recognition accuracy, hut responding remained above chance. In Experiment 2, pigeons reached a high level of discriminative performance when required to choose among four different spatial arrangements of the same object parts. These results confirm Cerella's (1980) conclusion that pigeons discriminate the component parts of complex visual stimuli, but. unless it is assumed that the scrambling deleted or created emergent features, the results disconfirm his conclusion that spatial organization plays no role in pigeons' picture perception.     

Calibration of a color monitor for visual psychophysics

It has become common for stimuli used in visual psychophysical experiments to be presented on high-resolution color cathode-ray tubes (CRTs) such as the Barco CDCT 6551. These enable a flexibility of color, spatial-frequency content, temporal-frequency content, duration, size, and position that is not provided by most other media. CRTs are, however, not perfect; they suffer from the effects of temporal instability, spatial variability, lack of phosphor constancy, gun interdependence, and gun nonlinearity. This paper describes methods of assessing these aspects of monitor performance with respect to how significant each may be in psychometric terms. Although every application of CRT use in visual psychophysics is different, some general rules can be formulated to help ensure that unwanted effects are kept to a minimum. For the CRT used in this study (Barco CDCT 6551), a warm-up time of 30-45 min is necessary before chromatic and luminous stability ensues. Restriction of individual gun outputs to within 10%-90% of the possible range ensures that the effects of gun interdependence and lack of phosphor constancy are negligible. Calibration methods dealing with the linearization of gun output are also discussed.     

Person-centered theory and the contemporary practice of psychological testing

This paper examines the effects of person-centered theory on contemporary psychological testing. Seven basic ideas or assumptions, which are integral to and guide the testing process, are identified and briefly discussed. Each idea is considered to have been affected either directly or indirectly by person-centered philosophy. Some of the ways in which these ideas are reflected in contemporary testing practice are indicated.     

Organizational stress and stress management programs

There is a growing awareness of how stress adversely affects organizational efficiency. The implementation of stress management programs to counteract this problem has been slow. This study examined such programs in companies who claimed that they were active and successful in stress management for their employees. The successful features of these organizational stress management programs are identified, discussed, and a model for organizations is presented.     

Text-contingent color aftereffects: A reexamination

Five experiments reexamined color aftereffects contingent on the semantic properties of text (Allan, Siegel, Collins, & MacQueen, 1989). The influence of different assessment techniques and the effect of eye movements and overlapping contour information on the induction of color aftereffects by word and nonword letter strings were determined. Experiment 1 showed that no aftereffect was found when a traditional method of assessing color aftereffects was used. Experiments 2 and 4 demonstrated color aftereffects forboth words and nonwords, but only when subjects fixated the same locus during induction and testing and only when assessed with the technique described by Allan et al. (1989). If, however, eye movements were made during induction, no color aftereffect was obtained (Experiment 3). Induction to nontext patterns with properties similar to those of text but with fewer overlapping contours resulted in a strong color aftereffect (Experiment 5). These results suggest that the color aftereffect contingent on text is very weak and is not dependent on semantic factors, but that it is a product of induction to local color and orientation information.     

A postdictive bias associated with déjà vu

Psychonomic Bulletin & Review - Recent research links reports of déjà vu – the feeling of having experienced something before despite knowing otherwise – with an illusory...