Temporal generalization under time pressure in humans

In two experiments, participants performed a temporal generalization task in which they were asked to decide whether or not the durations of comparison stimuli were different from those of standard stimuli (750 ms, 1,000 ms, or 1,250 ms). One half of the participants was instructed to respond as quickly as possible, while the other half received no instruction concerning the speed of response. The relationship between stimulus duration and the time of response and the effect of time pressure on duration discrimination were examined. Response time increased as a linear function of the duration of the to-be-judged stimuli until a certain instant, which was defined as T₂ = s/(1 - b), where s refers to the internal representation of the standard duration and b to the decision threshold. Moreover, the participants systematically overestimated the presented intervals if they were asked to respond as fast as possible when the standard duration was either 1,000 ms or 1,250 ms, but not when the standard duration was 750 ms.     

Ecological Behavior's Dependency on Different Forms of Knowledge

Cet article présente trois raisons pour lesquelles l'influence de la connaissance sur le comportement écologique est systématiquement sous-estimé. Tout d'abord, ce n'est pas la simple masse de connaissances disponibles que détermine le comportement: différentes formes de connaissances doivent converger pour favoriser le comportement écologique. Ensuite, l'impact de la connaissance n'est pas détecté parce que certaines procédures statistiques ne contrôlent pas les erreurs de mesure ni ne révèlent avec précision les influences interférentes. Enfin, les facteurs psychologiques tels que la connaissance ont apparemment une influence limitée sur le comportement écologique en présence de fortes pressions relevant de la situation. Mais quand une évaluation du comportement écologique fait systématiquement appel aux contraintes des situations (application d'un test), on peut s'apercevoir que la connaissance a un impact significatif sur le comportement écologique.
The present paper argues for three reasons why knowledge's influence on ecological behavior is underestimated systematically. First, it is not the mere amount of knowledge available that determines behavior. Different forms of knowledge must work together in a convergent manner if they are to foster ecological behavior. Second, knowledge's effect remains undetected also, because some statistical procedures neither correct for measurement error attenuation nor uncover mediated influences accurately. Third, psychological factors such as knowledge apparently have a limited influence on ecological behavior when strong situational constraints are effective. When an ecological behavior measure makes—as a performance test—systematic use of situational influences though, knowledge can be revealed as affecting ecological behavior significantly.     

Development and validation of the predrinking motives questionnaire

Elaborating on instruments for U.S. university students, we developed and validated the predrinking (drinking before going out) motives questionnaire (PMQ) for general populations of young adults. In popular nightlife areas in Switzerland, 316 predrinkers aged 16–25 (48% women) were recruited. Focus group interviews and exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses yielded a three‐factor measure, with a structure that was invariant across linguistic regions, gender, age, and student status. “Fun/intoxication” motives were associated with predrinking but “conviviality” and “facilitation” motives were not. Men scored higher on “facilitation” than women and those from the French‐speaking region scored higher on “conviviality” than German‐speaking participants. Although yet to be replicated in other countries, the PMQ appears to be an appropriate general measure of predrinking motives.     

Balancing Effort and Information Transmission During Language Acquisition: Evidence From Word Order and Case Marking

Across languages of the world, some grammatical patterns have been argued to be more common than expected by chance. These are sometimes referred to as (statistical) language universals. One such universal is the correlation between constituent order freedom and the presence of a case system in a language. Here, we explore whether this correlation can be explained by a bias to balance production effort and informativity of cues to grammatical function. Two groups of learners were presented with miniature artificial languages containing optional case marking and either flexible or fixed constituent order. Learners of the flexible order language used case marking significantly more often. This result parallels the typological correlation between constituent order flexibility and the presence of case marking in a language and provides a possible explanation for the historical development of Old English to Modern English, from flexible constituent order with case marking to relatively fixed order without case marking. In addition, learners of the flexible order language conditioned case marking on constituent order, using more case marking with the cross‐linguistically less frequent order, again mirroring typological data. These results suggest that some cross‐linguistic generalizations originate in functionally motivated biases operating during language learning.     

What Happened to the Trolley Problem?

Journal of Indian Council of Philosophical Research - In this paper, I provide a general introduction to the trolley problem. I describe its birth as a philosophical thought experiment, then its...     

Intentional action and the frame-of-mind argument: new experimental challenges to Hindriks

Based on a puzzling pattern in our judgements about intentional action, Knobe [(2003). “Intentional Action and Side-Effects in Ordinary Language.” Analysis 63: 190–194] has claimed that these judgements are shaped by our moral judgements and evaluations. However, this claim goes directly against a key conceptual intuition about intentional action – the “frame-of-mind condition”, according to which judgements about intentional action are about the agent’s frame-of-mind and not about the moral value of his action. To preserve this intuition Hindriks [(2008). “Intentional Action and the Praise-Blame Asymmetry.” The Philosophical Quarterly 58: 630–641; (2014). “Normativity in Action: How to Explain the Knobe Effect and its Relatives.” Mind & Language 29: 51–72] has proposed an alternate account of the Knobe Effect. According to his “Normative Reason account of Intentional Action”, a side-effect counts as intentional only when the agent thought it constituted a normative reason not to act but did not care. In this paper, I put Hindriks’ account to test through two new studies, the results of which suggest that Hindriks’ account should be rejected. However, I argue that the key conceptual insight behind Hindriks’ account can still be saved and integrated in future accounts of Knobe’s results.     

Post-training intrahippocampal inhibition of class I histone deacetylases enhances long-term object-location memory

Long-term memory formation involves covalent modification of the histone proteins that package DNA. Reducing histone acetylation by mutating histone acetyltransferases impairs long-term memory, and enhancing histone acetylation by inhibiting histone deacetylases (HDACs) improves long-term memory. Previous studies using HDAC inhibitors to enhance long-term memory have focused on the fear-conditioning task using broad-spectrum HDAC inhibitors. We have found that post-training intrahippocampal administration of the broad-spectrum HDAC inhibitor trichostatin A (TSA) or the class I HDAC-selective inhibitor MS275 enhances long-term object-location memory, supporting a role for class I HDACs in the enhancement of hippocampus-dependent memory induced by HDAC inhibition.     

Systematic influence of gaze position on pupil size measurement: analysis and correction

Cognitive effort is reflected in pupil dilation, but the assessment of pupil size is potentially susceptible to changes in gaze position. This study exemplarily used sentence reading as a stand-in for paradigms that assess pupil size in tasks during which changes in gaze position are unavoidable. The influence of gaze position on pupil size was first investigated by an artificial eye model with a fixed pupil size. Despite its fixed pupil size, the systematic measurements of the artificial eye model revealed substantial gaze-position-dependent changes in the measured pupil size. We evaluated two functions and showed that they can accurately capture and correct the gaze-dependent measurement error of pupil size recorded during a sentence-reading and an effortless z-string-scanning task. Implications for previous studies are discussed, and recommendations for future studies are provided.     

The Giessen virtual environment laboratory: human wayfinding and landmark salience

In our virtual environment laboratory, we focus on different topics in human spatial cognition with projects on landmark salience, route knowledge, and survey knowledge. Within this laboratory note, we provide an overview of previous, current, and future work with our virtual environment Squareland.