Pattern alternation: Effects of spatial frequency and orientation

Campbell and Howell (1972) reported an effect called “monocular pattern alternation.” They found that a pattern composed of two orthogonal sinusoidal gratings, one horizontal and the other vertical, underwent rivalry when viewed monocularly for a period of time. In the present study, it has been shown that monocular pattern alternation depends upon the orientation of the pattern and the spatial frequency of its components. Fewer reversals were found for an obliquely oriented pattern than for a pattern with components in the horizontal and vertical meridians. Alternation rate was higher when the gratings were similar in frequency but differed in orientation than when the components of the pattern differed in both dimensions. It was concluded that pattern alternation reflects an antagonistic interaction between interdependent channels in the human visual system that respond to orientation and spatial frequency.     

SUPERORDINATE IDENTIFICATION, SUBGROUP IDENTIFICATION, AND JUSTICE CONCERNS:

Abstract— The diversity of American society raises concerns about whether authorities can maintain social cohesion amid competing interests and values The group-value model of justice suggests that authorities function more effectively when they are perceived as fair (e g, benevolent, neutral, and respectful) However, such relational evaluations may be effective only if authorities represent a group with which people identify In a diverse society, subgroup memberships may assume special importance People who identify predominantly with a subgroup may focus on instrumental issues when evaluating a superordinate-group authority, and conflicts with that authority may escalate if those people do not receive favorable outcomes Results indicate that subgroup identification creates problems for authorities only when people have strong subgroup subgroup identification and weak superordinate-group identification As long as people identify strongly with the superordinate group, even if they also identify strongly with their subgroup, relational issues will dominate reactions to authorities     

Ethnocentrism in dating preferences for an American sample: The ingroup bias in social context

Heterosexual dating partner preferences were examined in a multi-ethnic context. Four groups at UCLA were studied: Asian Americans, African Americans, Latino Americans, and Euro Americans. Participants completed surveys asking them to rate a ‘typical/hypothetical’ opposite-sex member for each of the four ethnic groups on physical attractiveness, similarity, social network approval, status, and desirability as a dating/marriage partner; social identification with the ethnic ingroup was also assessed. Members of all four ethnic groups demonstrated some degree of ethnocentrism on most measures (especially partner preferences) by rating opposite-sex members of their own group higher than outgroup members rated them; however, Asians and Latinos rated opposite-sex Whites as more physically attractive than typical members of their own group, and Latinos and Blacks rated Whites and Asians as higher status. Overall, Whites received more favourable ratings than any of the three minority groups. Regression analyses indicated that social network approval (by far), similarity, and physical attractiveness were (in that order) the most powerful predictors of ethnocentrism in partner preferences. Avenues of integration and interpretation between theories of inter-personal attraction and intergroup relations were considered, including the dimensionality of ingroup favouritism, and the need for stronger consideration of social influence in theories of intergroup relations.     

A comparison of the classification capabilities of the 1-dimensional kohonen neural network with two pratitioning and three hierarchical cluster analysis algorithms

Neural Network models are commonly used for cluster analysis in engineering, computational neuroscience, and the biological sciences, although they are rarely used in the social sciences. In this study we compare the classification capabilities of the 1-dimensional Kohonen neural network with two partitioning (Hartigan and Späthk-means) and three hierarchical (Ward's, complete linkage, and average linkage) cluster methods in 2,580 data sets with known cluster structure. Overall, the performance of the Kohonen networks was similar to, or better than, the performance of the other methods.     

The Practice of Counselling HIV/AIDS Clients

AIDS/HIV has been described as one of the most pressing medical and social problems of this century. A review of the psychosocial and counselling literature relating to it indicates that the predominant psychotherapeutic approach with clients is symptom-focused and presents psychological problems as being inevitable in the course of illness. A systems approach is considered to have a good fit' with HIV-related problems because of issues relating to unpredictability, relationships, interaction, complexity and secrecy which arise in the course of the illness and its management. Some of the counselling tasks of an AIDS counsellor are set out. Consideration of these can help the system (client, family, health care team, counsellor) both to define problems and to find solutions to them without resorting to prior assumptions about either.     

The marriage of perception and memory: Creating two-way illusions with words and voices

By most theories of lexical access, idiosyncratic aspects of speech (such as voice details) are considered noise and are filtered in perception. However, episodic theories suggest that perceptual details are stored in memory and mediate later perception. By this view, perception and memory are intimately linked. The present investigation tested this hypothesis by creating symmetric illusions, using words and voices. In two experiments, listeners gave reduced noise estimates to previously heard words, but only when the original voices were preserved. Conversely, in two recognition memory experiments, listeners gave increased old responses to words (or voices) presented in relatively soft background noise. The data suggest that memory can be mistaken for perceptual fluency, and perceptual fluency can be mistaken for memory. The data also underscore the role of detailed episodes in lexical access.