The chronometry of affective startle modulation in unipolar depression

Affective startle eyeblink modulation by unipolar depressed and nondepressed participants was assessed during the anticipation and viewing of emotional pictures. Anticipatory startle probes were presented at 2,000 ms and 750 ms before picture onset. Startle probes during picture viewing were presented at 300 ms and 3,500-4,500 ms after picture onset. Although nondepressed participants demonstrated the predicted quadratic and linear patterns of responding in the 2,000-ms anticipatory and 3,500-4,500-ms viewing conditions, respectively, depressed participants were not significantly responsive to differences among picture valence categories at these probe conditions. There were no between-groups differences in startle modulation at the other two probe intervals, in picture ratings, or in behavioral responses to pictures. There was also little evidence of hyperresponsivity to negatively valenced stimuli in the depressed group. These results indicate that depression-related affective hyporesponsivity extended to startle modulation but that the nature and magnitude of the differences between depressed and nondepressed individuals were conditional on the specific cognitive and motivational processes recruited at different points in time.     

Effects of extinction in multiple contexts on the renewal of associative tolerance to ethanol

The Pavlovian analysis of drug tolerance describes how the contexts of drug administration participate in the elicitation of compensatory conditioned responses that are, at least partly, responsible for tolerance. Findings indicate that if an association is acquired in one context and extinguished in another one, when exposing the subjects to the acquisition context, renewal of the conditioned response will take place. Ambiguous evidence exists about whether or not this effect diminishes when extinguishing the association in multiple contexts. This investigation evaluates the existence of the phenomenon of renewal of tolerance to ethanol, and whether it diminishes by the extinction in multiple contexts. Evidence of renewal of tolerance to ethanol in rats was found, but no diminution was observed when extinguishing in multiple contexts.     

The Meaning of “Existence” and the Contingency of Sense

In this paper I argue first for a revisionary ontology, that is, for an understanding of “existence” as the property of a field not to be empty. In this context, I distinguish between “metaphysics” (the theory of totality or of fundamental reality) and “ontology” (the systematic investigation into the meaning of “existence”). In the second part, I provide a sketch for a corresponding revisionary theory of the modalities in light of the new ontology proposed.     

Note taking, review, memory, and comprehension

In previous work assessing memory at various levels of representation, namely the surface form, textbase, and situation model levels, participants read texts but were otherwise not actively engaged with the texts. The current study tested the influence of active engagement with the material via note taking, along with the opportunity to review such notes, and the modality of presentation (text vs. spoken). The influence of these manipulations was assessed both immediately and 1 week later. In Experiment 1 participants read a text, whereas in Experiment 2 participants watched a video recording of the material being read as a lecture. For each experiment the opportunity to take notes was manipulated within participants, and the opportunity to review these notes before the test was manipulated between participants. Note taking improved performance at the situation model level in both experiments, although there was also some suggestion of benefit for the surface form. Thus, active engagement with material, such as note taking, appears to have the greatest benefit at the deeper levels of understanding.     

Speech vs. reading comprehension: an explorative study of gender representations in Norwegian

As research on the construction of a mental representation of referent gender in speech comprehension is scarce, this study examined whether factors identified in reading comprehension exert similar influence in speech comprehension. Conceptually replicating previous research, a sentence continuation evaluation task was set up in two modalities, as a listening task and as a time-confined reading task (i.e. to correspond to the time constraint when listening). In line with previous findings from self-paced reading paradigms we found gender representations in language comprehension to be grounded in the interaction between textual (grammatical) and background (stereotypical) information. Extending previous research, the effect of stereotypical information was however modulated by presentation modality. In all, although speech and reading comprehension share higher-level processes of comprehension, this study provides first evidence that differences in comprehension might occur due to differences such as orthographic access or attention allocation.     

Exploring the role of national culture on knowledge practices: a comparison between Spain and the UK

In the context of a competitive knowledge-based economy, the knowledge provided by a firm's founders is one of the most important measures of success. This paper aims to identify the role of national culture on a founder's knowledge practices in a modern organisation. Using data collected from 258 Small to Medium sized Enterprises (SME(S)) in the Spanish and UK telecommunication industries (130 from Spain and 128 from the UK), we propose three knowledge management practices to be analysed; namely transfer, transformation and open-mindedness. This paper provides evidence that while Spanish SME(S) are more positively associated with higher levels of transfer and transformation of knowledge, UK SME(S) are more positively associated with higher levels of open-mindedness. Hence, this study serves as an important contribution to the small amount of literature currently available in this field by examining different practices that can be explained by the cultural characteristics of both countries.     

Who deserves to be sick? An exploration of the relationships between belief in a just world, illness causal attributions and their fairness judgements

This research explored relationships between beliefs about justice, illness causal attributions and fairness judgements of those causes. Participants (n?=?200) completed questionnaires assessing their belief in a just world (BJW) and measuring causal attributions and fairness judgements for 42 illness causes classified into behavioural, environmental and hidden (genetic, mystic, psychosocial) categories. As predicted, BJW was correlated positively with all fairness judgements, but with none of the illness causal attributions. Behavioural causes of illness were judged to be fairer than environmental causes, which were judged fairer than hidden causes. Finally, for environmental and hidden causes (uncontrollable illness attributions), positive correlations between causal attributions and their corresponding fairness judgements were found only among participants with high BJW. Implications of these findings for decision makers and health professionals are discussed, with emphasis on the need to consider the combined effect of causal attributions and BJW on illness fairness judgements.     

Conceptual mastery and the knowledge argument

According to Frank Jackson’s famous knowledge argument, Mary, a brilliant neuroscientist raised in a black and white room and bestowed with complete physical knowledge, cannot know certain truths about phenomenal experience. This claim about knowledge, in turn, implies that physicalism is false. I argue that the knowledge argument founders on a dilemma. Either (i) Mary cannot know the relevant experiential truths because of trivial obstacles that have no bearing on the truth of physicalism or (ii) once the obstacles have been removed, Mary can know the relevant truths. If we give Mary the epistemological capabilities necessary to draw metaphysical conclusions about physicalism, she will, while trapped in the black and white room, be able to know every truth about phenomenal experience.