A Phenomenology for Homi Bhabha's Postcolonial Metropolitan Subject

Homi Bhabha attends to the figure of the postcolonial metropolitan subject — a racialized subject who is not representative of the first world, yet a symbol of the metropolitan sphere. Bhabha describes their daily lives as inextricably split or doubled. His analysis cannot account for the agonistic moments when one is caught in not knowing, in focusing attention, and in developing understanding. Maurice Merleau‐Ponty's phenomenology with the openness in the horizon of the gestaltian framework better accounts for such splits as moments on the horizon for becoming and grasping something new.     

Trajectory forms as information for visual event recognition: 3-D perspectives on path shape and speed profile

Trajectory forms in events consist of the path shape and the speed profile (Bingham, 1987, 1995). Wickelgren and Bingham (2004) showed that adults can use the speed profile as visual information to recognize events from different perspectives, despite perspective distortions and differences in optical components. We now investigate whether adults can use trajectory forms to recognize events when the forms are viewed from 3-D perspectives and the path shape and speed profile vary. In Experiment 1, we tested recognition of events that differ in path shape (with the speed profile held constant). In Experiment 2, we tested recognition of events in which speed profiles were mapped onto circular paths. In Experiment 3, as a strong test of sensitivity to trajectory forms, we tested simultaneous separate recognition of speed profile and path shape when both varied across events. In all three experiments, events were viewed from multiple 3-D perspectives. The results show that both the shape of the path and the speed profile provide information for visual event recognition. We found that adults exhibit constancy (or view invariance) in being able to use trajectory forms to identify the same events when viewed from different 3-D perspectives.     

The agreeableness asymmetry in first impressions: perceivers' impulse to (mis)judge agreeableness and how it is moderated by power

Prior research shows that perceivers can judge some traits better than others in first impressions of targets. However, questions remain about which traits perceivers naturally do infer. Here, the authors develop an account of the "agreeableness asymmetry": Although perceivers show little ability to accurately gauge target agreeableness in first impressions, they find that agreeableness is generally the most commonly inferred disposition among the Big Five dimensions of personality (agreeableness, extraversion, conscientiousness, openness, and emotional stability). Using open-ended impressions based on photographs, videos, and face-to-face encounters, three studies show agreeableness as the most prevalently judged of the Big Five, although it is also poorly judged in both absolute and relative terms. The authors use interpersonal power to reveal an underlying mechanism. Manipulating the power of perceivers relative to targets substantially shifts impression content, suggesting that habitual interaction and relational concerns may partially explain perceiver's chronic interest in assessing agreeableness despite their limited ability to do so.     

Choosing an Endorser for a Women’s Sporting Event: The Interaction of Attractiveness and Expertise

An experimental study was conducted to determine the impact of expertise and attractiveness on perceived appropriateness of the endorser with a women’s tennis event and, subsequently, attitudes towards the event and intentions to purchase tickets. The sample was comprised of 184 undergraduate students at three U.S. universities. Hypotheses were tested through observed path analysis and results indicated both attractiveness and expertise were significantly related to the endorser’s appropriateness and explained 24% of the variance. However, there was a significant interaction; in the lower expertise condition, the more attractive athlete was rated as a more appropriate endorser. Further, endorser appropriateness led to more positive attitudes and intentions to purchase tickets, and the model explained 13 and 48% of the variance in these variables respectively.     

Children remember early childhood: long‐term recall across the offset of childhood amnesia

Young children's verbal recall for personally experienced events was examined over extended time periods across the traditional boundary of childhood amnesia. Forty children, aged 5½, discussed with an experimenter personal experiences that had taken place when they were as young as 1½. At 5½ children had not yet forgotten at least some events from before age 3½, the average offset of childhood amnesia. There was a qualitative shift in children's recall for events that occurred before age 2; for events that happened before age 2, only around half of children's recall was accurate. For events that occurred after this age, over 75% of children's recall was accurate. Complete forgetting of very early childhood has not yet occurred by age 5½. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Differential activation patterns of occipital and prefrontal cortices during motion processing: Evidence from normal and schizophrenic brains

Visual motion perception is normally mediated by neural processing in the posterior cortex. Focal damage to the middle temporal area (MT), a posterior extrastriate region, induces motion perception impairment. It is unclear, however, how more broadly distributed cortical dysfunction affects this visual behavior and its neural substrates. Schizophrenia manifests itself in a variety of behavioral and perceptual abnormalities that have proved difficult to understand through a dysfunction of any single brain system. One of these perceptual abnormalities involves impaired motion perception. Motion processing provides an opportunity to clarify the roles of multiple cortical networks in both healthy and schizophrenic brains. Using fMRI, we measured cortical activation while participants performed two visual motion tasks (direction discrimination and speed discrimination) and one nonmotion task (contrast discrimination). Normal controls showed robust cortical activation (BOLD signal changes) in MT during the direction and speed discrimination tasks, documenting primary processing of sensory input in this posterior region. In patients with schizophrenia, cortical activation was significantly reduced in MT and significantly increased in the inferior convexity of the prefrontal cortex, an area that is normally involved in higher level cognitive processing. This shift in cortical responses from posterior to prefrontal regions suggests that motion perception in schizophrenia is associated with both deficient sensory processing and compensatory cognitive processing. Furthermore, this result provides evidence that in the context of broadly distributed cortical dysfunction, the usual functional specificity of the cortex becomes modified, even across the domains of sensory and cognitive processing.     

The Sociocultural Attitudes Towards Appearance Questionnaire-3: a confirmatory factor analysis

The Sociocultural Attitudes Towards Appearance Questionnaire-3 measures awareness and endorsement of societal appearance standards. The instrument has been subjected to exploratory factor analyses but to date no studies have reported a priori tests of its hypothesized factor structure using confirmatory factor analysis (CFA). The aim of the present study was to subject the SATAQ-3 to a CFA. Results from a non-clinical convenience sample of 369 women revealed an adequate fit of the model according to conventional criteria. However, detailed residual analysis indicated a significant lack of fit which was explainable by one mis-specified item and shared method variance due to similarities in item content. It was concluded that, with the removal of the mis-specified item, the degree of misfit was tolerable and the intended four-factor solution provides a satisfactory and parsimonious representation of the data.     

American Indian Youth: Who Southwestern Urban and Reservation Youth Turn to for Help with Mental Health or Addictions

We illustrate the addictions and mental health service use of American Indian adolescents. Interviews concerning mental health need and service configurations with 401 Southwestern American Indian (AI) youth used questions from the Diagnostic Interview Schedule (DIS) and the Service Assessment for Children and Adolescents (SACA). Seventy-nine percent had mental health or addiction problems, with half meeting criteria for at least one diagnosis. One in 4 youth met criteria for drug dependence'abuse or conduct disorder, 1 in 5 for depression, and 1 in 8 for alcohol dependence'abuse. Most youth were helped by a combination of providers. Youth meeting more diagnostic criteria were increasingly likely to use service configurations with adults, nonspecialist professionals, and specialists, respectively. Regardless of disorder, youth were least likely to use configurations with traditional healers or specialists and there was little difference in rates of use between the two. The lack of services from specialist providers was potentially offset by use of an extensive range of informal adults, nonspecialist professionals, and peers. Since informal helpers, peers, and nonspecialist providers, but not specialists, are providing the bulk of services they must be given support and skills so they can function effectively.     

Occupational Turnover Intent Among Assistant Coaches of Women's Teams: The Role of Organizational Work Experiences

The purpose of this study was to examine the extent to which organizational work experiences could be used to understand when coaches planned to leave the profession. NCAA Division I assistant coaches (N = 188) were surveyed concerning (a) the age at which they anticipated leaving the coaching profession and (b) the extent to which the 3 work experiences described by S. Inglis, K. E. Danylchuk, and D. Pastore (1996)—Recognition and Collegial Support, Work Balance and Conditions, and Inclusivity—were fulfilled. Chi-square analyses revealed that women intended to leave the profession at an earlier age than did men. A multivariate analysis of covariance indicated that persons who intended to remain in the coaching profession after they turned 55 worked in organizational environments that emphasized Inclusivity. These results are particularly important for female coaches, as women consider an inclusive work environment to be more important than do men (D. L. Pastore, S. Inglish, & K. E. Danylchuck, 1996).