The universality of a contempt expression: A replication

Two experiments replicated Ekman and Friesen's finding of an expression that signals contempt across cultures. The subjects, from West Sumatra, Indonesia, were members of a culture that differs in a number of ways from Western cultures. In one experiment the subjects judged photographs of Japanese and American faces, both males and females, which showed many different emotions. There was very high agreement about which expressions signaled contempt in preference to anger, disgust, happiness, sadness, fear, or surprise. In a second experiment the Indonesian subjects judged expressions shown by members of their own culture, and again there was very high agreement about which expression signals contempt.This study was supported by a grant from the National Institute of Mental Health (MH 41100). Paul Ekman's work is also supported by a Research Scientist Award from the National Institute of Mental Health (MH 06092). Karl G. Heider's work was supported by a grant from the National Institute of Mental Health (MH 38221). We are grateful to Maureen O'Sullivan for her many helpful comments on this report.     

Comprehension of sentence structure in anomic and conduction aphasia

Picture-pointing auditory and reading comprehension tests were administered to anomic and conduction aphasics. Subjects responded to active sentences of the present progressive form. The possible errors which a subject could make on these experimental tasks included failure to correctly interpret noun order, number, or lexical meaning. Both groups made significantly more correct responses than error responses. Of their error responses, noun-order errors significantly exceeded number and lexical errors for which no differences were observed. When compared with results previously obtained for agrammatic Broca's aphasics, no differences in the pattern of errors were identified. These results are discussed relative to current theories of syntactic processing and for the mechanisms which account for these syntactic comprehension deficits following aphasia.     

Developmental dyslexia and word retrieval deficits

Developmental dyslexics, selected on the basis of very slow naming rates on the Rapid Automatic Naming Tasks (RAN), were compared to normal readers on oral language, picture categorization, and reading tasks. Findings indicated that the dyslexics' word retrieval deficits were one symptom of a more generalized, however subtle, oral language deficit which involved both receptive and expressive oral language functioning. The dyslexics' word retrieval problem also seemed chiefly related to language processing and not to deficits in semantic memory as there were no significant differences between dyslexics and controls on a nonverbal semantic memory task (picture categorization). In naming and identifying printed words, the dyslexics appeared to rely considerably upon the "indirect" or "assembly-of-phonology" route; they were slower in naming irregularly spelled words compared to regularly spelled words and on a lexical decision task, the dyslexics were slower in making negative decisions for "pseudohomophones" (e.g., "braik") than for other matched nonwords. Results are discussed in terms of the logogen model with some consideration of a developmental model as well.     

The foundations of epistemological probability

Epistemological probability is the kind of probability relative to a body of evidence. Many philosophers, including Henry Kyburg and Roderick Chisholm, hold that all epistemological probabilities reflect a relation between an evidential body of propositions and other propositions. But this article argues that some epistemological probabilities for empirical propositions must be relative to non-propositional evidence, specifically the contents of non-propositional perceptual states. In doing so, the article distinguishes between internalism and externalism regarding epistemological probability, and argues for a version of awareness internalism. The article draws three main concluding lessons. First, epistemological probability is not to be identified with the sort of objective, experience-independent probability that is familiar from statistical and propensity interpretations of probability. Second, it is doubtful that epistemological probability is measurable, in any useful way, by real numbers, even if it admits of comparative assessments. Third, contrary to the familiar claim of C. I. Lewis, epistemological probability should not be viewed as requiring a basis of certainty.     

Memory and awareness in a patient with multiple personality disorder

We studied an individual with multiple personality disorder in whom each of several personalities claimed to have no direct awareness of the others and to be unable to consciously remember the experiences of other personalities. A broad selection of implicit and explicit memory tests was used to determine the extent to which one personality had access to knowledge acquired by another and the circumstances in which that knowledge would be expressed. The implicit assessment of memory was a necessary but not sufficient condition for demonstrating interpersonality access. The degree of compartmentalization of knowledge in this patient depended largely on whether the interpretation of presented information was likely to differ across personalities.     

Knowledge and beliefs regarding the consequences of cigarette smoking and their relationships to smoking status in a biracial sample

The purpose of this investigation was to evaluate carefully smoking-related knowledge and beliefs and their relationships to smoking status in a large, heterogeneous sample of smokers and nonsmokers in two settings: (a) a large, biracial southern city and (b) a small midwestern community. Participants were 611 (198 male, 413 female) adult respondents to a random-dialing telephone survey in Fargo, North Dakota (n = 200), and Memphis, Tennessee (n = 411). Each participant was given the Smoking Attitudes Survey, which assesses generalized health beliefs as well as health-related problems associated with smoking. Participants' knowledge of smoking-associated diseases (e.g., lung cancer) and of diseases not associated with smoking (e.g., kidney stones) was assessed. Stepwise regression analysis of composite knowledge scores revealed four independent predictors of the health consequences of smoking: education, race, smoking status, and income. Smokers, compared to nonsmokers, reported less knowledge related to the health consequences of smoking, were more likely to be male, were less concerned with the health consequences of smoking, and were more concerned about the health consequences of cholesterol. The best predictor of smokers who had never attempted cessation was their greater concern over weight control when compared to smokers with a history of smoking cessation attempts. The results are discussed in terms of smoking prevention and intervention efforts.