How Societal Changes Have Influenced German Children’s Gender Representations as Expressed in Human Figure Drawings in 1977 and 2015

Sex Roles - We investigated German first graders’ gender representations in human figure drawings done in 1977 and 2015. We hypothesized that increasing gender-status equality in society as...     

Spatial updating in virtual reality: the sufficiency of visual information

Robust and effortless spatial orientation critically relies on "automatic and obligatory spatial updating", a largely automatized and reflex-like process that transforms our mental egocentric representation of the immediate surroundings during ego-motions. A rapid pointing paradigm was used to assess automatic/obligatory spatial updating after visually displayed upright rotations with or without concomitant physical rotations using a motion platform. Visual stimuli displaying a natural, subject-known scene proved sufficient for enabling automatic and obligatory spatial updating, irrespective of concurrent physical motions. This challenges the prevailing notion that visual cues alone are insufficient for enabling such spatial updating of rotations, and that vestibular/proprioceptive cues are both required and sufficient. Displaying optic flow devoid of landmarks during the motion and pointing phase was insufficient for enabling automatic spatial updating, but could not be entirely ignored either. Interestingly, additional physical motion cues hardly improved performance, and were insufficient for affording automatic spatial updating. The results are discussed in the context of the mental transformation hypothesis and the sensorimotor interference hypothesis, which associates difficulties in imagined perspective switches to interference between the sensorimotor and cognitive (to-be-imagined) perspective.     

Interactions between view changes and shape changes in picture-picture matching

Four experiments are reported in which pictures of different morphs of novel, complex, 3-D objects, similar to objects which we must identify in the real world, were presented. We investigated how changes of viewpoint influence our ability to discriminate between morphs. View changes had a powerful effect on performance in picture-picture matching tasks when similarly shaped morphs had to be discriminated. Shape changes were detected faster and more accurately when morphs were depicted from the same rather than different views. In contrast, view change had no effect when dissimilarly shaped morphs had to be discriminated. This interaction between the effects of view change and shape change was found both for simultaneous stimulus presentation and for sequential presentation with interstimulus intervals up to 3600 ms. The interaction was found after repeated presentations of the stimuli before the matching task and after practice at the matching task as well as after no such pre-exposure to the stimuli or to the task. The results demonstrate the difficulty in activating abstract, view-insensitive representations to help to achieve object constancy, even when matching over long interstimulus intervals or after stimuli have already been seen many times.     

Some Useful 16-Valued Logics: How a Computer Network Should Think

In Belnaps useful 4-valued logic, the set 2={T,F} of classical truth values is generalized to the set 4=(2)={,{T},{F},{T,F}}. In the present paper, we argue in favor of extending this process to the set 16=(4) (and beyond). It turns out that this generalization is well-motivated and leads from the bilattice FOUR₂ with an information and a truth-and-falsity ordering to another algebraic structure, namely the trilattice SIXTEEN₃ with an information ordering together with a truth ordering and a (distinct) falsity ordering. Interestingly, the logics generated separately by the algebraic operations under the truth order and under the falsity order in SIXTEEN₃ coincide with the logic of FOUR₂, namely first degree entailment. This observation may be taken as a further indication of the significance of first degree entailment. In the present setting, however, it becomes rather natural to consider also logical systems in the language obtained by combining the vocabulary of the logic of the truth order and the falsity order. We semantically define the logics of the two orderings in the extended language and in both cases axiomatize a certain fragment comprising three unary operations: a negation, an involution, and their combination. We also suggest two other definitions of logics in the full language, including a bi-consequence system. In other words, in addition to presenting first degree entailment as a useful 16-valued logic, we define further useful 16-valued logics for reasoning about truth and (non-)falsity. We expect these logics to be an interesting and useful instrument in information processing, especially when we deal with a net of hierarchically interconnected computers. We also briefly discuss Arielis and Avrons notion of a logical bilattice and state a number of open problems for future research.Dedicated to Nuel D. Belnap on the occasion of his 75th Birthday     

Response conflict determines sequential effects in serial response time tasks with short response-stimulus intervals

In serial choice reaction time (RT) tasks, performance in each trial critically depends on the sequence of preceding events. In this study, the authors specifically examined the mechanism underlying RT sequence effects at short response-stimulus intervals (RSIs), in which performance is impaired in the current trial N if events alternate rather than repeat from trial N-2 to trial N-1. Different accounts of this RT pattern in terms of perceptual noise, response-selection monitoring, and response conflict were tested in 4 experiments. Second-order RT costs were caused by the response sequence rather than the stimulus sequence. Manipulation of stimulus contrast, stimulus classification difficulty, and set-level compatibility did not modulate the response-related second-order RT effect, whereas this effect increased when spatially incompatible responses were demanded. These findings support a response conflict account of higher order sequential effects in short-RSI situations.     

Categorical perception of familiar objects

We report three experiments where the categorical perception of familiar, three-dimensional objects was investigated. A continuum of shape change between 15 pairs of objects was created and the images along the continuum were used as stimuli. In Experiment 1 participants were first required to discriminate pairs of images of objects that lay along the shape continuum. Then participants were asked to classify each morph-image into one of two pre-specified classes. We found evidence for categorical perception in some but not all of our object pairs. In Experiment 2 we varied the viewpoint of the objects in the discrimination task and found that effects of categorical perception generalized across changes in view. In Experiment 3 similarity ratings for each object pair were collected. These similarity scores correlated with the degree of perceptual categorization found for the object pairs. Our findings suggest that some familiar objects are perceived categorically and that categorical perception is closely tied to inter-object perceptual similarity.     

On the internal structure of Guinier-Preston zones in Al-3 at.% Ag

High-angle annular dark-field scanning transmission electron microscopy has been employed to study partially decomposed Al-3 at.% Ag. After solutionizing at 550°C and quenching to room temperature, samples of an Al-3 at.% Ag single crystal were aged for short times at 105, 140 and 180°C. Independent of the ageing temperature for these early stages, Guinier-Preston zones with a diameter of about 3 nm are found. Most of these zones consist of a silver-depleted core surrounded by a silver-rich shell. The shell structure is not uniformly pronounced. Irregularly shaped Guinier-Preston zones are common, but the shell structure dominates. No indication of different structures of the Guinier-Preston zones in Al-3 at.% Ag was found after short ageing at the three different temperatures. The shell model for Guinier-Preston zones in aluminium-rich Al-Ag alloys, which was previously proposed on the basis of X-ray and neutron scattering experiments, is thus appropriate to describe the structure of the Guinier-Preston zones in the early stages of the decomposition.     

Ecosystems and society: Implications for sustainable development

Human systems are interacting with, and dependent on, the global ecosystem. These complex interconnected systems have to obey natural laws and system laws in order to remain viable in the long‐term. “Sustainable development” therefore has to adhere to certain principles and constraints which derive partially from physical conditions, partially from principles of (evolving) ecosystems, partially from principles applying to human systems with conscious actors and normative standards. Although “sustainable development” constrains the spectrum of permissible processes, it does not define a final steady state. The development process must be guided by reference to an ethical principle and to the balanced satisfaction of the basic orientors resulting from a system's interaction with its environment. The systems perspective required encompasses a wide range of scientific disciplines, for which a comprehensive bibliography is provided.     

Use of Vacuum Tube Amplification in Establishing Differential Motor Reactions

1. The electromyographic potentials arising from masticatory movements were picked up by electrodes chronically implanted in the brains of eight rats. The rats had been trained in a Skinner box to press a lever for food reinforcement on a 100 per cent schedule. Lever and food cup were separated by 180[ddot] in a cylindrical metal box one foot in diameter.

2. The problem was to determine whether thoroughly trained animals would show AGRs as determined by the presence of electromyographic potentials when, in the course of pressing, food was suddenly withheld. Only two of the eight animals gave an AGR during the extinction process, and in one of these the phenomenon was minimal.

3. In the discussion it is pointed out that the absence of AGRs in the animals was possibly related to the short time interval intervening between depression of the lever and securing the food-pellet reward.     

An Auto-Multi-Stimulation Reaction Board for Use with Sub-Human Primates

Subjects (N = 164) were divided into four groups on the basis of their driving records: no accidents or moving violations, two or more violations, one or more accidents, and no accidents. They were compared on various personality, attitudinal, drug usage, and biographical variables. The less safe drivers scored significantly higher on a sensation-seeking scale; were more likely to have experimented with such drugs as marijuana, hashish, amphetamines, LSD, etc.; attended religious services less often; and were less likely to own their residences. There were also differences in political attitudes and life-style preferences among the groups.