Postsaccadic processing of the retinal image during picture scanning

Eye movements were monitored while observers inspected photographs of natural scenes. At the end of each saccade (i.e., at the beginning of each period of steady fixation), the stimulus was replaced for a certain period of time by a uniform field (Experiment 1) or a blurred version of the stimulus scene (Experiment 2). Total fixation duration was measured as a function of the duration of the initial uniform field or the blurred image that followed the saccade. It was found that fixation duration increased proportionally with the duration of the initial replacement field, even for durations as short as 25 msec. These results suggest that the visual system uses information on the retina right after each saccade is completed and that the blurred, low-resolution information used in Experiment 2 (cutoff frequency of 0.8 cpd) is not sufficient for the requirements of picture processing in this task.     

Is There Really a Beauty Premium or an Ugliness Penalty on Earnings?

Purpose

Economists have widely documented the “beauty premium” and “ugliness penalty” on earnings. Explanations based on employer and client discrimination would predict a monotonic association between physical attractiveness and earnings; explanations based on occupational self-selection would explain the beauty premium as a function of workers’ occupations; and explanations based on individual differences would predict that the beauty premium would disappear once appropriate individual differences are controlled. In this paper, we empirically tested the three competing hypotheses about the “beauty premium”.

Design/Methodology/Approach

We analyzed a nationally representative and prospectively longitudinal sample from the National Longitudinal Survey of Adolescent Health (Add Health).

Findings

The results contradicted the discrimination and self-selection explanations and strongly supported the individual differences explanation. Very unattractive respondents always earned significantly more than unattractive respondents, sometimes more than average-looking or attractive respondents. Multiple regression analyses showed that there was very weak evidence for the beauty premium, and it disappeared completely once individual differences, such as health, intelligence, and Big Five personality factors, were statistically controlled.

Implications

Past findings of beauty premium and ugliness penalty may possibly be due to the fact that: 1) “very unattractive” and “unattractive” categories are usually collapsed into “below average” category; and 2) health, intelligence (as opposed to education) and Big Five personality factors are not controlled. It appears that more beautiful workers earn more, not because they are beautiful, but because they are healthier, more intelligent, and have better (more Conscientious and Extraverted, and less Neurotic) personality.

Originality/Value

This is the first study to show that: 1) very unattractive workers have extremely high earnings and earn more than physically more attractive workers, suggesting evidence for the potential ugliness premium; and 2) the apparent beauty premium and ugliness penalty may be a function of unmeasured traits correlated with physical attractiveness, such as health, intelligence, and personality.

     

The meaningful life in Japan and the United States: Levels and correlates of meaning in life

Culture supplies people with the provisions to derive meaning from life. However, no research has examined cultural variation in the two principal dimensions of meaning in life, presence of meaning and search for meaning. The present investigation adapted theories of self-concept and cognitive styles to develop a dialectical model of meaning in life, which predicted cultural differences in the tendency to experience search for meaning as opposed to, or harmonious with, presence of meaning. Using data from American (N = 1183) and Japanese (N = 982) young adults, mean levels and correlates of presence of meaning and search for meaning were examined. As predicted, Americans reported greater presence of meaning; Japanese reported greater search for meaning. In accordance with the model, search for meaning was negatively related to presence of meaning and well-being in the United States (opposed) and positively related to these variables in Japan (harmonious). Thus, the search for meaning appears to be influenced by culture, and search for meaning appears to moderate cultural influences on presence of meaning.     

Why night owls are more intelligent

The origin of values and preferences is an unresolved theoretical problem in social and behavioral sciences. The Savanna–IQ Interaction Hypothesis suggests that more intelligent individuals are more likely to acquire and espouse evolutionarily novel values and preferences than less intelligent individuals, but general intelligence has no effect on the acquisition and espousal of evolutionarily familiar values and preferences. Individuals can often choose their values and preferences even in the face of genetic predisposition. One example of such choice within genetic constraint is circadian rhythms. Survey of ethnographies of traditional societies suggests that nocturnal activities were probably rare in the ancestral environment, so the Hypothesis would predict that more intelligent individuals are more likely to be nocturnal than less intelligent individuals. The analysis of the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (Add Health) confirms the prediction.     

Language-specific and universal influences in children's syntactic packaging of Manner and Path: a comparison of English, Japanese, and Turkish

Different languages map semantic elements of spatial relations onto different lexical and syntactic units. These crosslinguistic differences raise important questions for language development in terms of how this variation is learned by children. We investigated how Turkish-, English-, and Japanese-speaking children (mean age 3;8) package the semantic elements of Manner and Path onto syntactic units when both the Manner and the Path of the moving Figure occur simultaneously and are salient in the event depicted. Both universal and language-specific patterns were evident in our data. Children used the semantic-syntactic mappings preferred by adult speakers of their own languages, and even expressed subtle syntactic differences that encode different relations between Manner and Path in the same way as their adult counterparts (i.e., Manner causing vs. incidental to Path). However, not all types of semantics-syntax mappings were easy for children to learn (e.g., expressing Manner and Path elements in two verbal clauses). In such cases, Turkish- and Japanese-speaking children frequently used syntactic patterns that were not typical in the target language but were similar to patterns used by English-speaking children, suggesting some universal influence. Thus, both language-specific and universal tendencies guide the development of complex spatial expressions.     

Tactics to obtain a hidden food item in chimpanzee pairs (Pan troglodytes)

Five dyads of chimpanzees were tested in a competitive situation, as a pilot study to examine chimpanzees' understanding of conspecifics' knowledge. A human experimenter baited one of five containers in an outdoor enclosure. Chimpanzee A (witness) could see where the food was hidden, while chimpanzee B (witness-of-witness) could not see the baited place but could observe the chimpanzee A watching the food being hidden. Then the two were released into the enclosure. This procedure was repeated for a certain number of days along with a control condition in which neither could see the baited location. The witness-of-witness developed tactics to forestall the witness in two pairs. The witness misled the witness-of-witness by taking a route to an empty container in several cases. These episodes might represent examples of deception. Tactics and counter-tactics thus developed through the interaction between the witness and the witness-of-witness, illustrating the high social intelligence of chimpanzees. An examination of the changes in tactics suggests a possibility that the witness-of-witness understands the witness's knowledge of the location of hidden food. Accepted after revision: 22 May 2001 Electronic Publication     

The missing fundamental phenomenon in temporal vision

Subjective flicker rates were measured for compound waveforms consisting of five harmonics without a fundamental component. It was found that observers perceived a rate at the fundamental frequency, although energy at this frequency was not included in the signals. In auditory pitch sensation this is called the missing fundamental phenomenon, and an analogous finding is known to occur in spatial vision. Moreover, observers perceived the flicker rates at the fundamental frequency even in the random-phase conditions, in which the period of the fundamental component is unclear in the real waveforms. The results indicate that the perceived flicker rates are not detected from the temporal waveforms per se. One possible mechanism for extracting such a periodicity in the signal is an autocorrelation function to the real temporal waveforms. Received: 18 October 1999 / Accepted: 28 January 2000     

Running-wheel avoidance learning in rats (Rattus norvegicus): effects of contingencies and comparisons of different strains

In Experiment 1, we showed that active- and passive-avoidance responding in a running wheel was learned because of the avoidance contingency. In Experiment 2, strain differences among four commercially bred rats were assessed in an active-avoidance paradigm. Wistar, Donryu, and Fischer rats learned faster than Sprague-Dawleys. In Experiment 3, learning in a multiple active/passive avoidance schedule was examined, and both components of this task were learned. This multiple schedule was used to investigate strain differences in selectively bred rats in Experiments 4 and 5. Tsukuba low-emotional (TLE) rats responded more than Tsukuba high-emotional (THE) rats in both components. However, discrimination of passive components was better in THE than in TLE rats. Syracuse high-avoidance rats were superior in the active component, whereas Syracuse low-avoidance rats showed superior performance in the passive component.     

Does Overgeneralized Autobiographical Memory Facilitate or Inhibit Intrusive Images? Its Relation to Depressive Symptoms

People with high levels of depressive symptoms experience overgeneralized autobiographical memory (OGM) in voluntary recall and intrusive images in involuntary recall. The present study examined the relationship between OGM and intrusive images and the influence of depressive symptoms on this relationship over 1 week. Fifty‐three students completed self‐report questionnaires, autobiographical memory test, and the trauma film paradigm. Subsequently, they reported intrusive images from the trauma film in a diary for 1 week. Hierarchical multiple regression showed that individuals with higher levels of depressive symptoms experienced more intrusive images than did individuals with low depressive symptoms. An interaction effect between negative memory specificity and depressive symptoms revealed that number of intrusive images was related to high negative memory specificity (i.e. low OGM) in individuals with higher levels of depressive symptoms. These results support the functional avoidance strategy of OGM in analogue trauma stimuli, especially in individuals with higher depressive symptoms.Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Tool use as a way to assess cognition: how do captive chimpanzees handle the weight of the hammer when cracking a nut?

Tool use in apes has been considered a landmark in cognition. However, while most studies concentrate on mental operations, there are very few studies of apes’ cognition as expressed in manual skills. This paper proposes theoretical and methodological considerations on movement analysis as a way of assessing primate cognition. We argue that a privileged way of appraising the characteristics of the cognitive abilities involved in tool use lies at the functional level. This implies that we focus on how the action proceeds, and more precisely, on how the functional characteristics of the task are generated. To support our view, we present the results of an experiment with five captive chimpanzees investigating the way how chimpanzees adapt to hammers of various weights while cracking nuts. The movement performed in the hammering task is analyzed in terms of energy production. Results show that chimpanzees mobilise passive as well as active forces to perform the compliant movement, that is, they modulate the dynamics of the arm/tool system. A comparison between chimpanzees suggests that experience contributes to this skill. The results suggest that in tool use, movements are not key per se, but only in as much as they express underlying cognitive processes. Electronic supplementary material  The online version of this article (doi:) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.