Knowing the intuition and knowing the counterfactual

I criticize Timothy Williamson’s characterization of thought experiments on which the central judgments are judgments of contingent counterfactuals. The fragility of these counterfactuals makes them too easily false, and too difficult to know.

Infants recognize identity in a dynamic facial animation that simultaneously changes its identity and expression

Recognition of facial identity and facial expression have been reported to be correlated. Previous studies using static facial photographs reported that identity recognition was not interfered by task-irrelevant change of facial expression but that expression recognition was interfered by task-irrelevant change of facial identity. In this study, we created dynamic morphing animations that simultaneously changes facial identity and expression to investigate the interaction between identity and expression recognition. We tested 7 –8-month-old infants who were around the age at which the recognition of facial expression develops. Using the familiarization–novelty preference procedure, we examined whether infants could learn identity and facial expression from morphing animation. We found that infants learned identity but not expression from the morphing animation. Our results demonstrate that the interaction between identity and expression occurs differently in infancy than in adults when both the dimension of facial identity and the expression vary simultaneously.     

Dislocation core structures in GaN grown on Si(111) substrate

The Ga-N bond extension and compression at the cores of different types of dislocation in hexagonal GaN films grown on Si(111) substrates have been studied by high-resolution transmission electron microscopy. The relative bond extension and compression are about 6 4 and 7 4% respectively around the cores of mixed dislocations and about 9 6 and 12 7% respectively around the cores of pure edge dislocations. The core structure of a pure edge dislocation is an eightfold atom-column ring.     

Modification of depth and distance perception caused by long-term wearing of left-right reversing spectacles

For 35 to 39 days, four observers wore continuously left-right reversing spectacles which pseudoscopically reverse the order of binocular disparity and direction of convergence. In three tests, we investigated how the visual system copes with the transformation of depth and distance information due to the reversing spectacles. In stereogram observation, after a few days of wearing the spectacles. the observers sometimes perceived a depth order which was opposite to the depth order that they had perceived in the pre-spectacle-wearing period. Monocular depth cues contributed more to depth perception in the spectacle-wearing period than they did in the pre-spectacle-wearing period. While the perceived distance significantly decreased during the spectacle-wearing period, we found no evidence of adaptive change in distance perception. The results indicate that the visual system adapts itself to the transformed situation by not only changing the processing of disparity but also by changing the relative efficiency of each cue in determining apparent depth.     

Emotions Evoked by Viewing Pictures may Affect Temporal Aspects of Visual Processing

We examined how impression (such as safety, pleasantness, and impact), as well as emotional arousal and valence, evoked by viewing a picture affects temporal resolution of visual processing and perceived picture duration. In the first experiment as an index of temporal resolution of visual processing, we measured the noticeable duration of a monochrome picture after presenting a color picture. In the second experiment, we measured the duration of the picture presentation, which was equivalent to the duration of the presentation of a gray rectangle that should not evoke specifically safe or pleasant impressions. We found that the minimum duration in which an observer could notice a monochrome image in viewing a dangerous picture was shorter than that in viewing safe pictures. We also found that observers overestimated the duration of the picture presentation in viewing dangerous pictures. However, there was no significant correlation between the results of the two experiments. These results suggest that the basis for improvement of the temporal resolution in visual processing differs from that for the elongation of the perceived duration.     

Asymptotic distributions of the estimators of communalities in factor analysis

Asymptotic distributions of the estimators of communalities are derived for the maximum likelihood method in factor analysis. It is shown that the common practice of equating the asymptotic standard error of the communality estimate to the unique variance estimate is correct for standardized communality but not correct for unstandardized communality. In a Monte Carlo simulation the accuracy of the normal approximation to the distributions of the estimators are assessed when the sample size is 150 or 300. This study was carried out in part under the ISM Cooperative Research Program (90-ISM-CRP-9).     

Writing errors and anosognosia in amyotrophic lateral sclerosis with dementia

Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) with dementia (ALS-D) is known to exhibit characteristics of frontotemporal dementia. However, in clinical situations, it is often difficult to evaluate their cognitive functions because of impaired voluntary speech and physical disabilities. In order to identify characteristic and diagnostic cognitive symptoms of relatively advanced ALS-D patients, we retrospectively reviewed the clinical features of seven cases of clinically definitive ALS who had dementia, impaired voluntary speech, and physical disability. Their medical records showed that six out of seven patients made writing errors, and all of the patients demonstrated anosognosia. The writing errors consisted of paragraphia such as substitution, omission, or syntactic errors with individual differences in error types. Dissociation between kana and kanji were also observed. Anosognosia was evaluated by a self-rating scale with which the patients and the medical staff evaluated the patient's physical ability; the results indicated a large discrepancy between the evaluation by the patients and the medical staff. We emphasize that aphasic writing errors have been underestimated, particularly in ALS-D patients with impaired voluntary speech. We also reported that anosognosia was the most important and quantifiable symptom in ALS-D. The relationship between writing errors and anosognosia should be investigated further.     

Illusory temporal order for stimuli at different depth positions

We used four experiments to examine how the perceived temporal order of two visual stimuli depends on the depth position of the stimuli specified by a binocular disparity cue. When two stimuli were presented simultaneously at different depth positions in front of or around a fixation point, the observer perceived the more distant stimulus before the nearer stimulus (Experiments 1 and 2). This illusory temporal order was found only for sudden stimulus presentation (Experiment 3). These results suggest that a common processing, which is triggered by sudden luminance change, underlies this illusion. The strength of the illusion increased with the disparity gradient and the disparity size (Experiment 4). We propose that this illusion has a basis in the processing of motion in depth, which would alert the observer to a potential collision with an object that suddenly emerges in front of the observer.     

Thought-experiment intuitions and truth in fiction

What sorts of things are the intuitions generated via thought experiment? Timothy Williamson has responded to naturalistic skeptics by arguing that thought-experiment intuitions are judgments of ordinary counterfactuals. On this view, the intuition is naturalistically innocuous, but it has a contingent content and could be known at best a posteriori. We suggest an alternative to Williamson’s account, according to which we apprehend thought-experiment intuitions through our grasp on truth in fiction. On our view, intuitions like the Gettier intuition are necessarily true and knowable a priori. Our view, like Williamson’s, avoids naturalistic skepticism.     

The movement of internal facial features elicits 7 to 8‐month‐old infants' preference for face patterns

A preference for static face patterns is observed in newborns and disappears around 3 months after birth. A previous study has demonstrated that 5‐month‐old infants prefer schematic faces only when the internal features are moving, suggesting that face‐specific movement enhances infants' preference. The present study investigates the facilitative effect of the movement of internal facial features on infants' preference. To examine infants' preference, we used animated face patterns consisting of a head‐shaped contour and three disk blobs. The inner blobs expanded and contracted to represent the opening and closing of the eyes and mouth, and were constrained to open and close only in a biologically possible vertical direction resembling the facial muscle structure. We compared infants' preferential looking time for this vertically moving (VM) face pattern with their looking time for a horizontally moving (HM) face pattern in which blobs transformed at the same speed in a biologically impossible, horizontal direction. In Experiment 1, 7 to 8‐month‐olds preferred the VM to the HM, but 5 to 6‐month‐olds did not. However, the preference was diminished in both cases when the moving face patterns were presented without contour (Experiment 2). Our results suggest that internal facial features with vertical movements promote face preference in 7 to 8‐month‐olds. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.