Subjective experience and the attentional lapse: task engagement and disengagement during sustained attention

Three experiments investigated the relationship between subjective experience and attentional lapses during sustained attention. These experiments employed two measures of subjective experience (thought probes and questionnaires) to examine how differences in awareness correspond to variations in both task performance (reaction time and errors) and psycho-physiological measures (heart rate and galvanic skin response). This series of experiments examine these phenomena during the Sustained Attention to Response Task (SART, Robertson, Manly, Adrade, Baddeley, & Yiend, 1997). The results suggest we can dissociate between two components of subjective experience during sustained attention: (A) task unrelated thought which corresponds to an absent minded disengagement from the task and (B) a pre-occupation with one's task performance that seems to be best conceptualised as a strategic attempt to deploy attentional resources in response to a perception of environmental demands which exceed ones ability to perform the task. The implications of these findings for our understanding of how awareness is maintained on task relevant material during periods of sustained attention are discussed.     

The effects of practice on object-based, location-based, and static-display inhibition of return

We report two experiments that examine the effects of practice on object-based, location-based, and static-display inhibition of return (IOR). The results are clean All three effects get smaller with practice. These findings are at odds with the results of Müller and von Mühlenen (1996), who failed to observe object-based IOR and detected no effect of practice on static-display IOR. However, their subjects were more practiced than ours prior to data collection. We suggest, therefore, that the reducing effect of practice on IOR might have occurred in their unrecorded practice sessions. We also discuss a two-process model in which IOR is seen as the net effect of underlying inhibitory and excitatory processes. In such models (e.g., Solomon & Corbit,1974), practice often results in a reduction of the net effect of the two processes.     

The heart of consequentialism

Conclusion My goal in this paper was to argue that consequentialism should be construed as the view that the better a state of affairs the better the action that produces it and the more moral reason there is to perform that action. I call this view BETTER. I tried to show that treating this rather than a claim about the right as crucial to consequentialism had significant advantages. Finally, I demonstrated the relevance of my account to the issue of whether consequentialism is correct. It doesn't provide a conclusive answer to that question (we should be suspicious if it did) but allows us to see it in a new light and hopefully, suggests new and fruitful ways to tackle it.I am grateful to Daniel Howard-Snyder for help with this paper and to David McNaughton and Piers Rawling for correspondence regarding some of their views. Thanks also to an anonymous referee atPhilosophical Studies for comments.     

Capacity demands of automatic processes in semantic priming

Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Beer Sheva, Israel In three experiments, we examined the effects of prime-target stimulus onset asynchrony (SOA) and the proportion of related primes and targets (relatedness proportion, or RP) on semantic priming when the prime was either named or was searched for a specific letter. In Experiment 1, with an RP of. 50, priming occurred at SOAs of 240 and 840 msec when the prime was named, but no priming was found at either SOA when the prime was searched for a letter. In Experiment 2 the RP was either. 20 or. 80, and the SOA was set at 1, 700 msec; priming again was found in both conditions when the prime was named, but only in the RP.80 condition when a letter search task was performed on the prime. In Experiment 3, both the proportion of related trials and SOA were varied; as in the previous experiments, no priming effects were found with the letter search task for either SOA in the RP.20 condition, but the priming effect was reinstated in the RP.80 condition. These results are discussed with respect to how limited capacity resources are allocated and how they influence semantic priming effects.     

The relation between the generalized matching law and signal-detection theory

The generalized matching law can be applied to a signal-detection matrix to give two equations. The first relates responding in the presence of the stimulus to the reinforcements for the responses, and the second relates responding in the absence of the stimulus to the reinforcements for the responses. Evidence for stimulus discrimination is given by biases that are opposite in sign in the two equations. As the logarithmic ratio and z proportion transformations are similar, the combination of the absolute values of the two logarithmic biases gives a measure equivalent to the signal-detection measures d′ and η. The two equations can also be combined to eliminate the biases caused by the signalling stimuli and to produce a generalized matching-law statement relating overall performance to the obtained reinforcements.     

A psychometric evaluation of the Rorschach comprehensive system's perceptual thinking index

In this study, we investigated evidence for reliability and validity of the Perceptual Thinking Index (PTI; Exner, 2000a, 2000b) among an adult inpatient population. We conducted reliability and validity analyses on 107 patients who met the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (4th ed., text revision; American Psychiatric Association, 2000) criteria for a schizophrenia-spectrum disorder (SSD) or mood disorder with no psychotic features (MD). Results provided support for interrater reliability as well as internal consistency of the PTI. Furthermore, the PTI was an effective index in differentiating SSD patients from patients diagnosed with an MD. Finally, the PTI demonstrated adequate diagnostic statistics that can be useful in the classification of patients diagnosed with SSD and MD. We discuss methodological issues, implications for assessment practice, and directions for future research.     

Association of pathological gambling with depression in Scotland

Is most research concerning gambling and depression has been conducted on clinical populations, the present study examined the relationship between gambling and depression across a large sample in Scotland in higher education and the community. A questionnaire-based cluster design involved the distribution of the South Oaks Gambling Screen and the Centre for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale mainly to students and staff of higher educational establishments, with small community and gambling samples also included. Thirty-seven colleges and universities across Scotland participated in the research, with a sample of 2259 people aged sixteen years of age or over (M = 28.9 yr., SD = 13.4) being obtained. It was found that past-year probable pathological gamblers had significantly higher depression than problem gamblers, nonproblem gamblers, and nongamblers. However, when probable pathological gamblers who had sought treatment were omitted from the analysis, the nontreatment-seeking probable pathological gambling group no longer had significantly higher depression than the problem gambling group. Female problem and probable pathological gamblers had particularly high depressive symptomatology, suggesting co-morbid depression may be a prominent feature of problematic female gambling.