Amodal completion in infants: Straight continuity versus symmetry1

A visual pattern's orientation influences how adults amodally complete that pattern. We examined whether this is also the case with infants using Markovich's pattern, consisting of a black polygon partially occluded by a gray disc, which is completed as either a vertically symmetrical hexagon or as a pentagon, depending on the pattern's orientation. Our experiment consisted of two prefamiliarization test trials, six familiarization trials, and two postfamiliarization test trials. In the familiarization trials, two identical Markovich patterns, upright or slanted, were presented to 7–8‐month‐old infants (N = 28) side by side on a CRT monitor. In the pre‐ and postfamiliarization test trials, a pentagon and a hexagon were presented side by side. Infants looked longer at the hexagon than at the pentagon in the postfamiliarization test trials. This suggests that infants completed the pattern as a pentagon regardless of the pattern's orientation. This lack of an orientation effect suggests that infants do not use the figure's symmetry as a guiding principle for amodal completion.     

Cytokines and memory across the mature life span of women

Increasing evidence suggests a role of the immune system in modulation of cognition, but details on affected memory systems are largely lacking. We therefore aimed to study the relation between selected cytokines and subsets of memory, and the impact of age in these relations. From a random population-based sample (the Betula Prospective Cohort Study), 298 women (age 45-90) were studied in terms of episodic recall and recognition, semantic fluency and knowledge, and prospective memory. Circulating cytokines of relevance for cognition and aging were measured with ELISA. Levels of interleukin (IL)-6 and sIL-2R were significantly and negatively associated with most cognitive variables, while the opposite was true for IL-1β. Age shared substantial variance with both cytokines and memory, and turned most correlations non-significant when controlled for together with education, BMI and presence of disease. Interactions between age and cytokines were further analyzed in multiple regressions. For IL-6, significant negative interactions with age were found for semantic fluency (p<0.05) and prospective memory (p<0.01), and for sIL-2R in predicting semantic knowledge (p<0.05), indicating an increased negative impact of these cytokines on memory with increasing age. In conclusion, the study indicates a relation between cytokines and memory that appears to be largely mediated by age, and supports the suggestion that cytokine dysregulation with higher age may interact with cognitive aging.     

Democracy and the Church of Sweden

The Church of Sweden was democratized in the 1930s when party politics was introduced into church elections. Since then, party politics have more and more been part of the governing style of the Church of Sweden. In 2000 the church was disestablished and a new election system was introduced with direct elections to the General Synod. The system of political parties remained. This article questions the democracy of the church using criteria for democratic structures. It also focuses on the role of the ordained ministry in the governance of the church, as the bishops have not been full members of the Synod since 1982. The conclusions are that the Church of Sweden is not fully democratic since participation in elections is at about 10% and the electorate has few chances to understand what the elections are about. The bishops’ weak formal position in the Synod is not in accordance with the teachings of the church on episcopacy. The conflict between democratic principles, inherited from the Swedish constitution, and church teaching on the ordained ministry and its role has not been fully resolved so far.     

Infants' perception of human body orientation and the effect of a surrounding square

We examined two hypotheses about infants' perception of orientation. The first is that infants develop an expectation that the human body is normally vertical. To examine this hypothesis, we compared the preferential looking to vertical and oblique versions of a silhouette of a human body, to an inverted body, and to a grating. Our second hypothesis is that presenting a figure inside a frame affects the perception of orientation. To examine the second hypothesis, we placed the figure inside a surrounding square that was oriented normally or at an oblique angle. Four‐ to seven‐month‐old infants (N = 78) participated. The results showed that 6–7‐month‐old infants preferred the oblique human body presented upright; no such preference was observed for the inverted body or the grating. For all types of displays, the surrounding square influenced preferences. Our results suggest that (a) 6–7‐month‐old infants have specific expectations about the orientation of the human body, and (b) surrounding displays with a square could influence the perception of the orientation of the human body, as well as that of a grating.     

Perception of the Ebbinghaus illusion in 5- to 8-month-old infants

The Ebbinghaus illusion is a geometric illusion based on a size-contrast between a central circle and surrounding circles. A central circle surrounded by small inducing circles is perceived as being larger than a central circle surrounded by large inducing circles. In the present study we investigated 5- to 8-month-old infants' perception of the Ebbinghaus illusion using a preferential-looking paradigm. We measured the preference between a central circle surrounded by small inducing circles (overestimated figure) and a central circle surrounded by large inducing circles (underestimated figure). Infants showed a significant preference for the overestimated figure when the central circle was flashing, but not when it was static. Furthermore, there was no preference between the two figures when the central circles were removed. These results suggest that infants' preference reflects their perception of the size illusion of the central circle. There is a possibility that 5- to 8-month-old infants perceive the Ebbinghaus illusion.     

Young infants’ sensitivity to shading stimuli with radial motion1

Abstract: The purpose of this study was to examine 5‐month‐old infant's sensitivity to a shading cue with radial motion. Our stimuli were radially expanding or contracting circles with vertical or horizontal shadings. We tested infants’ preference for vertical (top‐ and bottom‐lit) and horizontal (left‐ and right‐lit) shadings. The results indicate that infants tested with the vertical shading showed significant preference for the top‐lit shading, whereas infants tested with the horizontal shading did not show any significant preference. The fact that the significant preference was observed only in the vertical shading condition suggests that 5‐month‐old infants might use shading information on the basis of the “light‐from‐above assumption.” We revealed that even 5‐month‐old infants are sensitive to shading information when they are exposed to shading stimuli with radial motion.     

Ideal Worlds — Wishful Thinking in Deontic Logic

The ideal world semantics of standard deontic logic identifies our obligations with how we would act in an ideal world. However, to act as if one lived in an ideal world is bad moral advice, associated with wishful thinking rather than well-considered moral deliberation. Ideal world semantics gives rise to implausible logical principles, and the metaphysical arguments that have been put forward in its favour turn out to be based on a too limited view of truth-functional representation. It is argued that ideal world semantics should be given up in favour of other, more plausible uses of possible worlds for modelling normative subject-matter.     

Category-specified Value Statements

A value statement such as “she is a good teacher” is categoryspecified, i.e., the criteria of evaluation are specified as those that are applicable to a given category, in this case the category of teachers. In this study of categoryspecified value statements, certain categories are identified that cannot be used to specify value aspects. Special attention is paid to categories that are constituted by functional characteristics. The logical properties of value statements that refer to such categories are shown to differ significantly from the corresponding properties in social choice theory.     

Why the social sciences are irreducible

Synthese - It is often claimed that the social sciences cannot be reduced to a lower-level individualistic science. The standard argument for this position (usually labelled explanatoryholism) is...