Wegner on hallucinations,inconsistency, and the illusion of free will. Some critical remarks

Wegner’s argument on the illusory nature of conscious will, as developed in The Illusion of Conscious Will (2002) and other publications, has had major impact. Based on empirical data, he develops a theory of apparent mental causation in order to explain the occurrence of the illusion of conscious will. Part of the evidence for his argument is derived from a specific interpretation of the phenomenon of auditory verbal hallucinations as they may occur in schizophrenia. The aim of this paper is to evaluate the validity of the evidence on auditory verbal hallucinations as employed by Wegner. I conclude that auditory hallucinations do not provide solid evidence for Wegner’s theory. Moreover, the phenomena in schizophrenia provide, in fact, an argument against part of Wegner’s theory of apparent mental causation.     

The impact of the social context on resistance to persuasion: Effortful versus effortless responses to counter-attitudinal information

Past research has demonstrated that the presence of attitudinal diversity within a person’s social network increases his or her openness to attitude change. The current research explores whether this increased openness to attitude change is the result of relatively thoughtful or nonthoughtful processes. A nationally representative sample of US adults was exposed to a counter-attitudinal persuasive message that contained either strong or weak arguments. Attitudinal diversity within participants’ social networks was associated with greater argument quality differentiation: people embedded in networks that included a variety of views were more likely than those in attitudinally homogenous networks to carefully scrutinize attitude-relevant information, modifying their attitudes in response to strong but not weak arguments.     

A social functional approach to emotions in bargaining: when communicating anger pays and when it backfires

Previous research on the communication of emotions has suggested that bargainers obtain higher outcomes if they communicate anger than if they communicate happiness because anger signals higher limits, which in turn leads opponents to give in. Building on a social functional account of communicated emotions, the authors demonstrate that the behavioral consequences of communicated anger strongly depend on structural characteristics of the bargaining situation. The results of 3 experimental studies on ultimatum bargaining corroborate the notion that communicated anger signals higher limits and that emotion effects are contingent on bargainers' expectation that low offers will be rejected. The data also indicate, however, that communicating anger in bargaining may backfire. The findings suggest that bargainers who communicate anger may obtain lower outcomes (a) when their opponent has a possibility to deceive them during bargaining and (b) when the consequences of rejecting their opponent's offer are low. Taken together, the current article reveals the boundary conditions of successful communication of anger in bargaining.     

The attentional blink with targets in different spatial locations

When two targets (T1 and T2) are displayed in rapid succession, accuracy of T2 identification varies as a function of the temporal lag between the targets (attentional blink, AB). In some studies, performance has been found to be most impaired at Lag 1—namely, when T2 followed T1 directly. In other studies, T2 performance at Lag 1 has been virtually unimpaired (Lag 1 sparing). In the present work, we examined how Lag 1 sparing is affected by attentional switches between targets displayed in the same location or in different locations. We found that Lag 1 sparing does not occur when a spatial shift is required between T1 and T2. This suggests that attention cannot be switched to a new location while the system is busy processing another stimulus. The results are explained by a modified version of an attentional gating model (Chun & Potter, 1995; Shapiro & Raymond, 1994).     

Explicit Fixed Points in Interpretability Logic

The problem of Uniqueness and Explicit Definability of Fixed Points for Interpretability Logic is considered. It turns out that Uniqueness is an immediate corollary of a theorem of Smoryski.     

Robustness of the rule-learning effect in 7-month-old infants: A close,multicenter replication of Marcus et al. (1999)

We conducted a close replication of the seminal work by Marcus and colleagues from 1999, which showed that after a brief auditory exposure phase, 7-month-old infants were able to learn and generalize a rule to novel syllables not previously present in the exposure phase. This work became the foundation for the theoretical framework by which we assume that infants are able to learn abstract representations and generalize linguistic rules. While some extensions on the original work have shown evidence of rule learning, the outcomes are mixed, and an exact replication of Marcus et al.'s study has thus far not been reported. A recent meta-analysis by Rabagliati and colleagues brings to light that the rule-learning effect depends on stimulus type (e.g., meaningfulness, speech vs. nonspeech) and is not as robust as often assumed. In light of the theoretical importance of the issue at stake, it is appropriate and necessary to assess the replicability and robustness of Marcus et al.'s findings. Here we have undertaken a replication across four labs with a large sample of 7-month-old infants (N = 96), using the same exposure patterns (ABA and ABB), methodology (Headturn Preference Paradigm), and original stimuli. As in the original study, we tested the hypothesis that infants are able to learn abstract “algebraic” rules and apply them to novel input. Our results did not replicate the original findings: infants showed no difference in looking time between test patterns consistent or inconsistent with the familiarization pattern they were exposed to.     

Condom use by prostitutes: behavior,factors and considerations

119 female prostitutes were interviewed over the period July 1990-March 1991 about their sex behavior and condom use, their working attitude, and perception of risk in an attempt to combine qualitative and quantitative research methods to gain insight into the determinants of condom use in prostitution by putting high or low risk taking behavior into context. The participants were recruited from different regions of the Netherlands, of mean age 29.8 years, and had been working in the field for an average 6.8 years. Most of the 28% of participants who did not have Dutch nationality were from Germany or Latin America. Health locus of control and attributions concerning an unpleasant proceeding of client contacts were assessed by means of item lists. Prostitutes were identified as either consistent condom users, selective risk takers, or risk takers. Consistent condom users used condoms on all occasions, selective risk takers used condoms for vaginal sex with all but a few selected clients, and risk takers seeing no possibility of consistently getting clients to use a condom for vaginal sex used condoms the least frequently. 78% were consistent users, 11% were selective risk takers, and 11% were risk takers. Protection behavior was found to be linked to working attitude. Condom use is most likely among women with a moderately positive, yet businesslike, working attitude, and least likely among those with a negative working attitude and when there is no positive identification with the professional group. It appears that health locus of control is of no influence on protection style, but risk takers attribute an unpleasant proceeding of client contacts significantly more to powerlessness and helplessness. The authors conclude that the objective situation of women influences condom use at least as strongly as subjective motivations.     

Understanding recovery from object substitution masking

When we look at a scene, we are conscious of only a small fraction of the available visual information at any given point in time. This raises profound questions regarding how information is selected, when awareness occurs, and the nature of the mechanisms underlying these processes. One tool that may be used to probe these issues is object-substitution masking (OSM). In OSM, a sparse, temporally-trailing four dot mask can interfere with target perception, even though the target and mask have different contours and do not spatially overlap (Enns & Di Lollo, 1997). Here, we investigate the mechanisms underlying the recently discovered recovery from OSM observed with prolonged mask exposure (Goodhew, Visser, Lipp, & Dux, 2011). In three experiments, we demonstrate that recovery is unaffected by mask offset, and that prolonged physical exposure of the mask is not necessary for recovery. These findings confirm that recovery is not due to: (a) an offset transient impairing the visibility of other stimuli that are nearby in space and time, or (b) mask adaptation or temporal object-individuation cues resulting from prolonged mask exposure. Instead, our results confirm recovery as a high-level visual-cognitive phenomenon, which is inherently tied to target-processing time. This reveals the prolonged iterative temporal dynamics of conscious object perception.     

Do You Think You're Sexy,Tall, and Thin? The Prediction of Self‐Rated Attractiveness,Height, and Weight

Research suggests that self‐reports of personal attributes, including physical characteristics, are often distorted. The present study examined discrepancies between self‐ and observer or actual reports of attractiveness, height, and weight, and investigated the role of esteem and gender role scales in the prediction of such discrepancies. Results indicated that attractiveness discrepancies were predicted by high esteem and traditional gender roles, height discrepancies were predicted by agency, and weight discrepancies were predicted by personal efficacy. Results also indicated that esteem and gender role characteristics are important in the perception of self‐relevant information.