Priming the mental time-line: effects of modality and processing mode

The notion of a mental time-line (i.e., past corresponds to left and future corresponds to right) supports the conceptual metaphor view assuming that abstract concepts like “time” are grounded in cognitively more accessible concepts like “space.” In five experiments, we further investigated the relationship between temporal and spatial representations and examined whether or not the spatial correspondents of time are unintentionally activated. We employed a priming paradigm, in which visual or auditory prime words (i.e., temporal adverbs such as yesterday, tomorrow) preceded a colored square. In all experiments, participants discriminated the color of this square by responding with the left or the right hand. Although the temporal reference of the priming adverb was task irrelevant in Experiment 1, visually presented primes facilitated responses to the square in correspondence with the direction of the mental time-line. This priming effect was absent in Experiments 2, 3, and 5, in which the primes were presented auditorily and the temporal reference of the words could be ignored. The effect, however, emerged when attention was oriented to the temporal content of the auditory prime words in Experiment 4. The results suggest that task demands differentially modulate the activation of the mental time-line within the visual and auditory modality and support a flexible association between conceptual codes.     

Reception of experimental pedagogy and psychology in Chile. Analysis of the intellectual influences of Wilhelm Mann, 1904–1915

This article provides a detailed analysis of the intellectual research project of Wilhelm Mann, one of the pioneers of experimental and educational psychology in Chile. Mann's work has been the object of so little analysis that his intellectual influences and networks are not clearly known. We analyzed 338 intratext citations from 22 works by Wilhelm Mann published during the period 1904–1915. As a result, we obtained a mapping of his cooperation networks and used a quantitative approach to study the authors who most influenced his career, among whom were William Stern, Herbert Spencer, Wilhelm Wundt, Alfred Binet, and Ernst Meumann. Mann was closely connected to the international and contemporary advances and discussions of his time, despite the lack of infrastructure and difficulties in communication. Mann was the first psychologist to develop a long-term project in Chile that aimed to measure the individualities of Chilean students and their intellectual development.     

The Scientometric Bubble Considered Harmful

This article deals with a modern disease of academic science that consists of an enormous increase in the number of scientific publications without a corresponding advance of knowledge. Findings are sliced as thin as salami and submitted to different journals to produce more papers. If we consider academic papers as a kind of scientific ‘currency’ that is backed by gold bullion in the central bank of ‘true’ science, then we are witnessing an article-inflation phenomenon, a scientometric bubble that is most harmful for science and promotes an unethical and antiscientific culture among researchers. The main problem behind the scenes is that the impact factor is used as a proxy for quality. Therefore, not only for convenience, but also based on ethical principles of scientific research, we adhere to the San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment when it emphasizes “the need to eliminate the use of journal-based metrics in funding, appointment and promotion considerations; and the need to assess research on its own merits rather on the journal in which the research is published”. Our message is mainly addressed to the funding agencies and universities that award tenures or grants and manage research programmes, especially in developing countries. The message is also addressed to well-established scientists who have the power to change things when they participate in committees for grants and jobs.     

The Problem Is Not Professional Publishing,But the Publish-or-Perish Culture

Science and Engineering Ethics - The publication of scientific papers has become increasingly problematic in the last decades. Even if we agree that a renewed model is needed for peer-reviewed...     

Emotional eating as a mediator between anxiety and cholesterol in population with overweight and hypertension

Although the relationship between cholesterol and mood states (especially anxiety) has been well studied, few researches have included the role of eating styles in this relationship. This study explored the associations among eating styles, negative emotional symptoms, and levels of cholesterol (and other medical variables) in a population with hypertension and overweight or obesity, analyzing the possible mediation mechanisms involved. A cross-sectional study was conducted in 68 adults with hypertension and overweight/obesity, and stepwise multiple regression analysis and mediation analyses were carried out to test the hypothesis that eating styles mediate the relationship between negative emotional symptoms and cholesterol. Several significant correlations among age, anthropometric, medical, and psychological variables (eating styles and negative emotional symptoms) were found. There was a significant indirect effect of anxiety on total cholesterol and LDL cholesterol through emotional eating. Results suggest that emotional eating has a relevant role in the rise in total and LDL cholesterol, acting as a mediator in the relationship between anxiety and cholesterol. This finding could have important implications, since it introduces a new variable in the relationship between emotions and cholesterol and, therefore, changes the way of understanding this relationship, and of treating high cholesterol in a hypertensive sample.     

Indiscernible universals

Universals have traditionally thought to obey the identity of indiscernibles, that is, it has traditionally been thought that there can be no perfectly similar universals. But at least in the conception of universals as immanent, there is nothing that rules out there being indiscernible universals. In this paper, I shall argue that there is useful work indiscernible universals can do, and so there might be reason to postulate indiscernible universals. In particular, I shall argue that postulating indiscernible universals can allow a theory of universals to identify particulars with bundles of universals, and that postulating indiscernible universals can allow a theory of universals to develop an account of the resemblance of quantitative universals that avoids the objections that Armstrong’s account faces. Finally, I shall respond to some objections and I shall undermine the criterion of distinction between particulars and universals that says that the distinction between particulars and universals lies in that while there can be indiscernible particulars, there cannot be indiscernible universals.     

Adjusting Venus: The Use of Maximum Elongations in the Almagest and Ptolemy’s Theory of Knowledge

There has been much debate surrounding the way in which Ptolemy handled the observations that are behind his planetary models. This article aims at presenting an interesting case of manipulation of observational data within the epistemological frame of what we may call Ptolemy’s philosophy of knowledge. It deals with an interesting case from the Almagest, that of the determination of the longitudes of the apogee and perigee of Venus’s deferent, and shows that the selections and adjustments Ptolemy carried out in order to obtain the needed results are nothing but an analogous application of the epistemological doctrines expressed in his On the Kriterion and in his Harmonics.     

Factor structure of the Spanish adaptation of Tarrant's Group Identification Scale

In this study, the factor structure of the Spanish version of Tarrant's Group Identification Scale is analyzed. This scale is based on the social identity theory and measures cognitive, evaluative, and affective aspects of group identification. Although this scale has been considered unidimensionally with adolescents, it is based on previous group identification scales considered multidimensionally. From confirmatory analysis, some factor models were tested in two independent samples of adolescents: Spanish (N= 1,795) and Mexican (N= 1,494). The three-factor model (self-categorization, group evaluation, and commitment to the group) produced the best fit in both samples. Results are compatible with the multidimensional structure hypothesis of group identification.