A balancing act: Physical balance, through arousal, influences size perception

Previous research has demonstrated that manipulating vision influences balance. Here, we question whether manipulating balance can influence vision and how it may influence vision--specifically, the perception of width. In Experiment 1, participants estimated the width of beams while balanced and unbalanced. When unbalanced, participants judged the widths to be smaller. One possible explanation is that unbalanced participants did not view the stimulus as long as when balanced because they were focused on remaining balanced. In Experiment 2, we tested this notion by limiting viewing time. Experiment 2 replicated the findings of Experiment 1, but viewing time had no effect on width judgments. In Experiment 3, participants' level of arousal was manipulated, because the balancing task likely produced arousal. While jogging, participants judged the beams to be smaller. In Experiment 4, participants completed another arousing task (counting backward by sevens) that did not involve movement. Again, participants judged the beams to be smaller when aroused. Experiment 5A raised participants' level of arousal before estimating the board widths (to control for potential dual-task effects) and showed that heightened arousal still influenced perceived width of the boards. Collectively, heightened levels of arousal, caused by multiple manipulations (including balance), influenced perceived width.     

Connecting Data to Action: How the Santa Cruz County Community Assessment Project Contributes to Better Outcomes for Youth

Community indicator projects have the potential to deliver new knowledge about the quality of life in local communities and drive actions to improve them (Phillips 2003; Holden Social Indicators Research 92:429–448, 2009; Memon and Johnstone 2008). However, the connection between the information produced by community indicator projects and the actions taken to improve conditions in communities remains under-researched (Holden Social Indicators Research 92:429–448, 2009; Hezri and Dovers Ecological Economics 60:86–99, 2006). This is because community indicator projects have mainly been conceptualized as producing information for action rather than as part of an action process (Memon and Johnstone 2008). This paper provides a case study of a community indicator project with an explicit plan to move beyond the data and into action. A review of one of the oldest community indicator projects in the United States, the Santa Cruz County Community Assessment Project (CAP) demonstrates how an action oriented community improvement cycle has contributed to measurable improvements for children and youth in one California County. The paper identifies key elements that were important for turning CAP data into local actions and concludes with lessons for community indicator practitioners and questions for future research.     

Langtry on God,the Best and Evil

Bruce Langtry's ‘God, the Best and Evil’ is a fine contribution to the literature. Here, I review the contents of the book, and then provide some critical remarks that, as fas as I know, have not been made elsewhere. In particular, I argue that his criticism of my formulations of logical arguments from evil (in my Arguing about Gods) is unsuccessful.     

Preschoolers’ appreciation of speaker vocal affect as a cue to referential intent

An eye tracking methodology was used to evaluate 3- and 4-year-old children’s sensitivity to speaker affect when resolving referential ambiguity. Children were presented with pictures of three objects on a screen (including two referents of the same kind, e.g., an intact doll and a broken doll, and one distracter item), paired with a prerecorded referentially ambiguous instruction (e.g., “Look at the doll”). The intonation of the instruction varied in terms of the speaker’s vocal affect: positive-sounding, negative-sounding, or neutral. Analyses of eye gaze patterns indicated that 4-year-olds, but not 3-year-olds, were more likely to look to the referent whose state matched the speaker’s vocal affect as the noun was heard (e.g., looked more often to the broken doll referent in the negative affect condition). These findings indicate that 4-year-olds can use speaker affect to help identify referential mappings during on-line comprehension.     

Looking Good Versus Feeling Good: An Investigation of Media Frames of Health Advice and Their Effects on Women’s Body-related Self-perceptions

The present research had two goals: (1) to document how health advice is framed on the covers of women’s health magazines, and (2) to investigate whether exposure to appearance frames (i.e., do something in order to look better) affected women’s body-related self-perceptions compared to health frames (i.e., to do something in order to feel better). Study 1, a content analysis of 426 cover headlines on the five highest-circulating women’s health magazines in the United States, revealed that appearance frames were just as prevalent as health frames. Study 2, an experiment conducted on 103 U.S. undergraduate women, showed that those assigned to appearance frames reported more body shame and appearance-related motivation to exercise than women assigned to health frames.     

Can we Describe Possible Circumstances in which we would have Most Reason to Believe that Time is Two‐dimensional?

How one answers the question whether time could be two‐dimensional depends upon what one takes to be the essential properties of time. I assume that it is essential to time that it has a ‘sense’ or ‘direction’; and, on the basis of this assumption, I argue that no‐one has yet succeeded in giving a clear account of how it could be that time is two‐dimensional. In particular, I argue that no‐one has yet succeeded in describing possible circumstances in which we would have serious reason to entertain the hypothesis that time is two‐dimensional.     

Personal versus interpersonal contributions to depressive symptoms among Hong Kong adolescents

Cross‐cultural theory proposes that an essential distinction between cultures lies in the extent to which individual members see themselves as either independent agents preferentially valuing agency and efficacy, or as embedded within a social context preferentially valuing interpersonal relationships. A nonreferred sample of 605 boys and 503 girls from Hong Kong provided information regarding: (1) perceptions of their personal self‐efficacy or beliefs regarding their own ability to master challenges they face; (2) the degree of harmony in their interpersonal (peer and family) relationships; and (3) depressive symptoms as an assessment of their mood. Cognitive theories of emotions propose that both the individual's assessment of his/her self‐efficacy and of his/her relationships influence mood. Hypotheses, based on cross‐cultural theory, were that in this collective culture, interpersonal evaluations would predict more of the variance in mood than would personal self‐efficacy. Contrary to Western sex‐differences literature, it was predicted that the effect of interpersonal harmony on mood would be equally pronounced for girls and for boys. Structural equation modelling was used to test causal models. Consistent with findings from the West, evaluations of personal self‐efficacy as well as interpersonal relationship harmony were significantly associated with depressed mood. Consistent with cultural theory, interpersonal relationship harmony was more strongly associated with mood than was personal self‐efficacy for the entire sample of adolescents. In contrast to findings of sex differences in the salience of relationships in the West, the prediction of interpersonal relationships to mood was equal for boys and girls in Hong Kong. This preliminary study extends models of cognitive concomitants of mood disruption to a non‐Western culture, and provides a framework to understand relative contnbutors to mood in adolescence. The findings tentatively suggest that treatment for depressive mood in Chinese populations should prioritize enhancement of the perceived quality of interpersonal relationships over increasing a sense of mastery.