Sympathy as knowledge of the other in need: An investigation into the roles of need for closure and the moral foundations on sympathy toward immigrants

Although sympathy is a powerful other-focused motivation, not all individuals will experience sympathy when it is appropriate. Immigrants, as a disadvantaged out-group, are especially in need of sympathy and, given the tensions of the immigration debate, are at-risk for low sympathy. Indeed, past research has found that sympathy is less likely to be experienced toward disliked out-groups. In the current research, we investigated the role of need for closure (NFC), or the general desire for epistemic certainty, on the experience of sympathy toward immigrants in Italy, a nation where the immigration debate is becoming increasingly fractious. Consistent with past research on the roles of NFC and the binding moral foundations (i.e., a concern for the well-being of groups) on prejudice toward out-groups, we propose that individuals with a high NFC, and who endorsed the binding moral foundations (i.e., a concern for the well-being of groups), would be particularly likely to have decreased sympathy toward immigrants in Italy. In line with past research and our hypotheses, in three studies we found that the binding foundations mediated the NFC effect on decreased sympathy toward immigrants in Italy. Conceptually, these individuals can strongly adopt traditional cultural norms as a way to acquire stable knowledge; this can make sympathy toward immigrants less likely, as they both stand outside “traditional” morality, as well can threaten the stability of natives’ knowledge.     

Illusory 3-D rotation induced by dynamic image shading

Observers' perceptions of the three-dimensional structure of smoothly curved surfaces defined by patterns of image shading were investigated under varying conditions of illumination. In five experiments, observers judged the global orientation and the motion of the simulated surfaces from both static and dynamic patterns of image shading. We found that perceptual performance was more accurate with static than with dynamic displays. Dynamic displays evoked systematic biases in perceptual performance when the surface and the illumination source were simulated as rotating in opposite directions. In these conditions, the surface was incorrectly perceived as rotating in the same direction as the illumination source. Conversely, the orientation of the simulated surfaces was perceived correctly when the frames making up the apparent-motion sequences of the dynamic displays were presented as static images. In Experiment 6, moreover, the results obtained with the computer-generated displays were replicated with solid objects.     

Autopoiesis,Adaptivity, Teleology,Agency

A proposal for the biological grounding of intrinsic teleology and sense-making through the theory of autopoiesis is critically evaluated. Autopoiesis provides a systemic language for speaking about intrinsic teleology but its original formulation needs to be elaborated further in order to explain sense-making. This is done by introducing adaptivity, a many-layered property that allows organisms to regulate themselves with respect to their conditions of viability. Adaptivity leads to more articulated concepts of behaviour, agency, sense-construction, health, and temporality than those given so far by autopoiesis and enaction. These and other implications for understanding the organismic generation of values are explored.     

A six-factor structure of personality-descriptive adjectives: solutions from psycholexical studies in seven languages

Standard psycholexical studies of personality structure have produced a similar 6-factor solution in 7 languages (Dutch, French, German, Hungarian, Italian, Korean, Polish). The authors report the content of these personality dimensions and interpret them as follows: (a) a variant of Extraversion, defined by sociability and liveliness (though not by bravery and toughness); (b) a variant of Agreeableness, defined by gentleness, patience, and agreeableness (but also including anger and ill temper at its negative pole); (c) Conscientiousness (emphasizing organization and discipline rather than moral conscience); (d) Emotionality (containing anxiety, vulnerability, sentimentality, lack of bravery, and lack of toughness, but not anger or ill temper); (e) Honesty-Humility; (f) Intellect/Imagination/Unconventionality. A potential reorganization of the Big Five factor structure is discussed.     

The preattentive emperor has no clothes: a dynamic redressing

Preattentive models of early vision have not been supported by the evidence. Instead, an input filtering system, which is dynamically reconfigured so as to optimize performance on the task at hand, is proposed. As a case in point, the authors examined Sagi and Julesz's (1985a) claim that detection tasks are processed preattentively and efficiently (shallow search slopes), whereas discrimination tasks require focal attention and yield inefficient steep slopes. In 5 visual search experiments, efficiency was found to depend not on the nature of the task but on whether the task is single or dual. The second component of a dual task, whether detection or discrimination, is performed inefficiently if it does not fit the configuration of the input system, which had been set optimally for the first component. But, even the second component is processed efficiently if there is enough time to reconfigure the system after processing the first component.     

Relative blindsight arises from a criterion confound in metacontrast masking: implications for theories of consciousness

Relative blindsight is said to occur when different levels of subjective awareness are obtained at equality of objective performance. Using metacontrast masking, Lau and Passingham (2006) reported relative blindsight in normal observers at the shorter of two stimulus-onset asynchronies (SOAs) between target and mask. Experiment 1 replicated the critical asymmetry in subjective awareness at equality of objective performance. We argue that this asymmetry cannot be regarded as evidence for relative blindsight because the observers' responses were based on different attributes of the stimuli (criterion contents) at the two SOAs. With an invariant criterion content (Experiment 2), there was no asymmetry in subjective awareness across the two SOAs even though objective performance was the same. Experiment 3 examined the effect of criterion level on estimates of relative blindsight. Collectively, the present results question whether metacontrast masking is a suitable paradigm for establishing relative blindsight. Implications for theories of consciousness are discussed.